La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz for April 05, 2011

I only boycotted unbottled grapes.

^That would be the middle class - the higher classes have so many loopholes and are paying a lower percentage each year.

Remaned to: Holding Cell #3

Republican-led state governments across the nation seek to save money and cut taxes by incarcerating more and more people. If you’re in jail, you can’t vote - for the GOP it’s win-win!

Cesar Chavez was the best thing ever to happen to the California wine industry.

Table grapes are picked by hand so they stay pretty for the consumer, which makes harvesting very labor-intensive. Wine grapes, on the other hand, can be picked by machine much more cheaply.

The result of Chavez’s table-grape boycott was that many table-grape growers switched to wine-making with mechanized harvesting, thus losing thousands of jobs but also leading to the flowering of the California wine industry.

That, BTW, is how unions can give the impression that they help the workers. They point with pride to the workers who get higher wages but ignore the ones who lose their jobs or who never get hired in the first place. In economics it’s called the Invisible Man error.

(This is NOT, by the way, an attack on unions. I am in favor of unions, but only under a free-market, meaning there should be no laws either for or against unions. But that concept scares most union leaders, because without the power of law behind them, they’d have to find honest ways to earn their keep.)

^ I agree with your point that unions sometimes work against the long term good of their members in favor of short term gains or protecting jobs that simply aren’t productive.

We do need laws protecting the right of workers to organize. If employers can fire ‘agitators’, it becomes nearly impossible to unionize.

There are some decent comments and some shameful comments. But in the end, I like x_Tech’s room name the best. It’s actually funny. :)

Johnlofton: Yes, workers DO have the right to unionize. What they don’t have is the right to use governmental power to force anyone to deal with them.

There are many things a union can do that benefit both workers and employers: training, simplified negotiations, transportable pensions, job qualification, improved safety, etc. Then many if not most employers would be happy to turn these functions over to unions.

But most unions today rely on their ability (depending on the state) to force union membership, force dues payment, and force contract negotiations. I oppose this as much as I oppose any laws AGAINST unionizing.

It’s called freedom.

^ I’m not as positive about the positive effects a union could have in today’s society (whether public or private), but as a whole I agree with your points. Freedom first.

^ But Night-Gaunt49, its all just so we can bring all those low paying, dangerous, manual labor assembly line jobs back to the US at a rate that makes the products affordable. To the growing Chinese market demand!!!!! Soon we’ll be making all their clothes and state monitored electronic devices. We’ll probably even grow their food for $.01 an hour.

That’s what the Republicans are bringing to us. That’s the Real Tea-party agenda, I’m sure of it… ;)