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A SICKING TALE OF THE UNION MENTALITY AT WORK
Neil Boortz Website ^ | today | Neil Boortz

Posted on 06/06/2002 5:39:12 AM PDT by Rodney King

A SICKING TALE OF THE UNION MENTALITY AT WORK

Matthew Barrick was eight years old when he died this past February. It was a brain aneurysm. Apparently Matthew was quite popular at the Roadoan Elementary School in Brooklyn. The funeral services were private, so an idea was hatched to plant a tree at the school in honor of Matthew.

The idea grew. Two local landscapers offered their help. Some local businesses like Home Depot got into the act. Soon about $3,000 in materials were obtained and the students gathered to plan the tree and do a little landscaping. They sang songs and wrote letters to Matthew.

Uh oh. It seems that some of the custodians at the school are upset. UNION custodians. You see, their duties include landscaping. They are not pleased that these students came over to the school to plant that tree in honor of a dead student. They want to be paid.

Yes --- you heard me right. The custodians want to be paid for the landscaping work. Never mind that they didn’t lift a finger. Never mind that the work didn’t cost them one single work hour at work. Goonion members Mark Hennings and Doug Scott want to be paid for the work. What’s more, they want to be paid at the time-and-a-half rate of $37 an hour because, after all, the volunteers did the work on a weekend!

The matter came up at a school board meeting in May. The union dopes insisted that the volunteer work violated their union contract. Other union members stood and applauded.

Now you see why I love unions so much?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: lazy; plumberscrack; unions
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To: Rodney King
Does it not bother anyone that the time and a half for these lunkheads is $37/hour? That works out to $24.67/hour regular time. Never should have gone to college and gotten a degree if I'd known I could join a uselession and make $5.00 an hour more than I make now on regular pay. Accounting doesn't seem to pay anymore. Unless you worked for Enron or AA.
21 posted on 06/06/2002 6:28:44 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS
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To: perotista
Okay, it's time for you to fess up.

When you were registering here, you REALLY wanted to call yourself "naderista", didn't you?

22 posted on 06/06/2002 6:31:17 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: perotista
You're gonna get roasted on this thread.
No one supporting a family works for minimum wage. Entry level people (kids) work for minimum wage. The market should determine all wages.
The only thing that minimum wage laws do is raise the amount that the goonian thugs can extract for doing a minimum amount of mediocre work.
Union scale is x amount above minimum wage. Unions push to get that minimum wage increased.
23 posted on 06/06/2002 6:31:41 AM PDT by MrB
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To: Rodney King; E Rocc; FreedomPoster
FReeper FreedomPoster sent this to Neil Boortz this morning from this thread:

Volunteer landscaping prompts union protest - Post #8

Good job FreedomPoster!

24 posted on 06/06/2002 6:33:40 AM PDT by KS Flyover
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To: Rodney King
Perhaps the problem is that in the 50's, despite high marginal tax rates, the government actually took very little of this average guys income. Now, it takes half. Maybe if the government didn't take half of everybody's money, things would return to the way they were.

Don't forget state and local income taxes, and property taxes, and sales or use taxes, and gasoline taxes and...

Is it me, or did Western Civilization reach its zenith in roughly 1957, and has been going downhill since then?

25 posted on 06/06/2002 6:38:20 AM PDT by Chemist_Geek
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: Rodney King
I bet that in the 50's, your father wasn't paying a monthly fee for cable tv, internet access, cell phones, pagers, $1.55/gal for gas, satellite radio access, a car for his wife to drive to work, a car for each of his kids, etc., either.
27 posted on 06/06/2002 6:44:32 AM PDT by stuartcr
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To: FreeTally;Rodney King;biblewonk;perotista
Perotista was on a thread the other day talking about how he(she) was a recovering liberal. Sounds like he's not quite fully recovered yet. ;^)
28 posted on 06/06/2002 6:49:08 AM PDT by Frank Grimes
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To: perotista
If someone chooses not to work

If job X adds $5.00 of value to my company per hour, and it is mandated that I MUST pay $7.00/hr, guess what's going to happen to that job? Someone will "choose" not to work, that's what. If I was allowed to hire someone at $4.50/hr, I could add to someones household income, but that would be evil of me, I suppose.

29 posted on 06/06/2002 6:49:08 AM PDT by m1911
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To: perotista
But the union movement has failed. This is one place where I believe in central government regulations. I do believe we need to regulate a minimum wage that is a living wage.
if you did that it wouldn't be one for long. Prices of so many things would go up enough that the "new" minimum wage would have about the same purchasing power as the old one.

So then there'd be a push for a new "living wage" (or worse, to automatically tie the minimum wage to the cost of living). Then you'd have a nice inflationary engine that would wipe out savings and send interest rates screaming upwards. It's a recipe for disaster if I've ever heard one.

-Eric

30 posted on 06/06/2002 6:51:00 AM PDT by E Rocc
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To: perotista
We are a Christian nation, we are not going to watch people starve to death on the streets.

Interesting perspective -- I would say that most peoples' definition of a "living wage" these days would be far more than what is required to keep them from starving on the street.

In fact, I would say that the whole debate about a "living wage," the necessity of two incomes to support a family, etc., is pretty meaningless in an era when people expect the government to regulate the price of something as extraneous as cable television.

31 posted on 06/06/2002 7:00:20 AM PDT by Alberta's Child
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To: Chemist_Geek
I would push it back 3 years to 1960, when Kennedy beat Nixon. It's been downhill since that year.
32 posted on 06/06/2002 7:01:23 AM PDT by TomT in NJ
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To: Chemist_Geek
You know, I've been thinking the same thing. I look at my mother who is 79, originally from Minnesota, and think that she has seen the depression, WWII, the 1950s (the Ozzie and Harriet and Lucy years) then then it gradually started to fall apart - Kennedy being shot, Vietnam, drugs, sexual revolution with women demanding that they have the "right" to kill their babies so then can have careers, the rise of the cynical society dictated by lawyers and the media, and now this. The world is exploding. Its impossible to imagine that we will ever get back to the good years. I heard that Australia is like the US was in the 50s. Maybe its time to check it out.
33 posted on 06/06/2002 7:06:35 AM PDT by Aria
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To: perotista
You say that many people are not worth a "living wage" -- but they still have to live. If you don't pay them a "living wage", then you're going to be supporting them in other ways with your tax dollars. We are a Christian nation, we are not going to watch people starve to death on the streets.

On a thread yesterday, you said something to the effect of being a recent escapee from liberal thought. Another poster replied to one of your left-leaning statements that maybe you weren't all the way off the reservation yet.

After following you on that thread and now here, I think it's safe to say that not only are you still on the reservation, you don't even have your bags packed yet.

However, since you don't resort to attacks and name-calling when disagreed with, you must be at least thinking about your positions, so there is hope for you yet.

34 posted on 06/06/2002 7:10:55 AM PDT by Cable225
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To: WhyisaTexasgirlinPA
This story though, is worse than sad, it is pathetic.......

It certainly is. And like the title says, it is the mentality of these idiots that causes things like this to happen. They are so conditioned to that mentality.

I was in Philadelphia for a trade show and two of us were setting up our booth. Booths have been simplified in recent years and it only took us about 20 minutes. The last thing to do was place a light bar on the top of the booth and no sooner did we have the light in our hands, a "union" electrician came by and said it is required in his contract that a union electrician set the light up and plug it in. When we left the show we got the bill for the space rental and there was a $50 dollar electricians fee attached. That was the last time I went to that trade show.

35 posted on 06/06/2002 7:11:47 AM PDT by Cagey
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To: perotista
A minimum living wage for any American working a 40 hour week, period.

Do you really believe every 16 year old with a summer job at McDonald's should be paid as if he were the sole support for a family of four? That's exactly what the "fair wage" crowd is demanding, although for obvious reasons they don't use this example.

Another problem. You can pass any fair wage law you like. Before you answer, let me drive you by a couple of our local parking lots where crowds of Mexican men have gathered by 7 a.m. for day labor. We already have a very substantial underground economy. Jacking up the minimum wage merely exacerbates the problem.

36 posted on 06/06/2002 7:12:03 AM PDT by sphinx
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To: perotista
So isn't the simplest solution, least paperwork and bureaucracy, least use of tax dollars, to just regulate a living wage for a 40 hour work week?

It is a simple fact that employers will simply not employ people who cost more than they are worth. End of story.

If we are going to have to support them, we might as well not distort the employment market in the process.

37 posted on 06/06/2002 7:12:05 AM PDT by Rodney King
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To: perotista
So isn't the simplest solution, least paperwork and bureaucracy, least use of tax dollars, to just regulate a living wage for a 40 hour work week?

I don't think so. The solution is fraught with unintended consequences. Employers who want/need to dodge the high wage you impose have poeple work 39.5 hours per week. Does a single person get the same "living wage" as a the breadwinner in a family of four? Is the wage pro-rated based on how many "mouths" are being supported? Want a raise, have another baby. What happens if two or more single wage earners share expenses? Are wages reduced accordingly? What is a living wage for someone who also enjoys income from a trust fund?

The factors in deciding this "living wage" are nearly infinite. The market allows individuals to sort the marginal utility of each option creating much better solutions the government. Government merely politicizes the entire process and rewards those that maximize their power.

38 posted on 06/06/2002 7:14:03 AM PDT by laredo44
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Comment #39 Removed by Moderator

To: Cagey
Just another, in a long line of reasons, to stay out of Philadelphia........lol
40 posted on 06/06/2002 7:19:01 AM PDT by WhyisaTexasgirlinPA
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