Posted on 11/17/2012 9:53:00 AM PST by chessplayer
BIDDEFORD, Maine — Labor leaders in Maine say the resilience of the Hostess workers on the picket line at the company’s Biddeford plant, which is in the process of being shut down after the company on Friday said it would liquidate the business, gives them inspiration in the face of what they believe have been ongoing efforts — by politicians, including Gov. Paul LePage, and corporate investors — to reduce union influence.
(Excerpt) Read more at bangordailynews.com ...
None of the union leaders are loosing thier jobs or being reduced in pay or pension.
Nope. The goons will still have their 3 SUV’s, vacation homes, swimming pools, boats, and large screen plasma tv’s in every room.
Actually, they’re all on state unemployment now. No more 99 week extensions, that ends on Dec 31 and hasn’t been renewed.
They’re about to get a nasty surprise.
The Hostess workers that I have seen in the pictures all look Hispanic. Do illegals get unemployment benefits?
Solidarity ,,,,, I hope these greedy b@$+@rd$ lose everything and more .
,,,,, hillbilly Martian ???
“The inspire us with their display of strength of character and personal determination, to commit suicide. We must follow in their footsteps.”
“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”
In a free market, income is based on the need for what you do, how competent you are at what you do, and how easily you can be replaced. Unions violate this free market rule.
That, my friend, is real collateral damage.
Twinkies could have survived a nuclear war, but did not survive unions.
A union strike is more destructive than a nuclear strike!
Not to mention jobs that will be lost in places like gas stations, restaurants, hardware stores, etc in towns where Hostess was a major employer.
How stupid can someone possibly be?? Guys, you lost your jobs and the company is liquidating!
Sad thing is they can probably go on the government dole and make as much money if not more. USA’s death spiral continues marching on....
I haven’t had a raise in years. In fact I have lost hours so we wouldn’t have to lay off a full timer. I still have my job, thank the Good Lord! It’s been a rough few years but I manage..... Except when the whore of Babylon sandy hit. My landlords were gracious enough to lend me 200 bucks from the rent I just paid...everything was cash only. Paid that back with last paycheck. My wonderful big sister insisted on giving me 100 bucks to make it through next payday......then my landlords gave me back 100 from rent just because. Sorry long paragraphs. It I’m typing on the new I phone my sister forced me to get and I still have no idea what the he k I am doing! I do believe He is gathering His sheep together now. We’ re in for one heck of a ride!
More WINNING!!!
(Defeated) Proposal 2 Power Grab Demands Review of Government Unionism
FORWARD!
Let them EAT “union resolve”.
Union leaders see their primary responsibility — far above jobs, benefits, worker health & safety ... everything else — as the preservation of the union. Few union members see the harsh reality of this fact until it’s too late.
Unions are like viruses, the stronger they get, the weaker the host gets till the virus kills the host and declares victory.
Then the virus tries to find another host.
The stockholders earn their return by investing money into the enterprise. The employees earn their return by investing their time, effort, and expertise to generate the income for the enterprise. One way to limit labor cost in the back room is to do exactly the same thing you do with salesmen: lower fixed pay with the ability to earn more by performing well.
The salesman is on commission, so that's his incentive to produce more. The CEO and certain top management have stock options, which directly ties part of compensation to performance. So don't forget the rest of the crew: put the back-room people in the "bonus plan" so that when the company does well, the people who make it happen directly benefit from their hard work.
There are already companies (mostly small ones) that do something like this. I worked for a larger company that pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy by encouraging every single employee to come up with cost-cutting measures that wouldn't affect quality or customer service...and shared 1/2 of the savings for a year with that employee for the idea. (One guy came up with a real winner proposal, and earned more than five million dollars with his idea.)
Hard to be called a "fat cat" when you share the success with everyone. It also causes some peer pressure on the "Wallys" to actually start producing something, and not drink coffee all day.
So the answer is to have the "he said, she said" arguments before someone dies. Use the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) policies and procedures to identify one or more medical bodies as "standards providers". Those organization will then take their Best Practices and get all the stakeholders together -- consumer groups, employers (perhaps through the Chamber of Commerce), hospitals, doctors, nurses, specialists, insurance companies, and lawyers to polish the Best Practices as Medical Standards. Congress would then give the force of law to those Medical Standards. In order to sue a doctor, hospital, specialist, or other health practitioner, you would have to show that the respondent violated Best Practice. That means everyone knows the rules going in -- no more after-the-fact Monday morning quarterbacking.
Another big benefit is that the quality of patient care would go up. Again, people know the rules going in, so the chances of someone dying at the hands of a quack are less. And, the quacks are quickly exposed because they would be sued, successfully, because the lines are clearly drawn -- no shady opinions needed, you can use element identification to prove the case.
Malpractice insurance costs go down. Doctors don't have to pass on massive insurance costs to patients. Ditto hospital administrators. Insurance companies would receive smaller bills, so there would be less claims denied. Smaller claims (and perhaps fewer?) and premiums would go down.
(The only people who lose are the professional witnesses and the lawyers who hire them. Cry me a river.)
And then there is the matter of patients consenting to the costs incurred. Out of a $67,000 bill, my insurance company denied $35,000 of it, which I'm still paying off to this day. Why? "Those procedures were unnecessary to patient care." And the hospital administrator agreed: the only reason all those tests were performed were to guard against the malpractice lawsuits that would have been brought by my next of kin, supported by precedent. By performing unnecessary tests, they were building up their defenses. (Unnecessarily in my case, but they had no way not to know that.)
If I had to agree to the procedures, and were truthfully told the potential medical benefits for those procedures, I would have said "no." For example, I was put through an MRI procedure for something completely unrelated to my heart attack, or any other identified medical condition. It was a fishing expedition, and it added around $3K to my bill for very little return.
Let's not talk about the cost of drugs in a hospital. The less said, the better.
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