Best Buy to indies: drop dead

[;ivlunsdystf]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/nation ... 50209.html

[Professor]

Canadian Press quoted one employee at the store, which is 250 kilometres north of Quebec City, as saying many workers burst into tears when managers told them about the closing.
The store, which has about 190 employees, will close in May.

Weird.
They don't like the conditions, they don't like the wages, they form a union, WalMart comes to the bargaining table looking to make a deal, the union demands a different situation, they don't want to compromise with the company, and so they successfully drive out the tyrant from their midst.
That seems like a victory, but doesn't explain the tears.
Sort of like a Helsinki syndrome of attachment to the captors.

But I did find this part interesting:

A Wal-Mart store in Windsor, Ontario won union certification in 1997 after an Ontario labour board ruled that the company was guilty of unfair labour practices during the organizating drive. But three years later, the certification was lost when the local collapsed.

So that WalMart didn't close down after that union was installed. It sounds like it's still there, and co-existed with the union for 3 years until the union eventually disbanded.

-Jeremy

[Brian]

I've seen union busting firsthand. There's nothing good about it. When it's done, all they corp shows is how evil it is and that it will stop at nothing, including death threats and sometimes murder to get it's way.

[Professor]

Good thing unions are never so illicit in their means of retaining members and chasing away scabs.

[Brian]

That ain't even close to what a hospital or multinational corporation will do to get their way. Though I do get the dig

[chris harris]

I definitely have no 'love' for unions (I'm sure you're all surprised) but I don't have only hate. I guess I'd say I have a respect/hate thing going on there.
In some cases unions are a fantastic thing - at least when they first form. The workers feel opressed or simply undervalued by their employers and so they join together to prove and threaten to stop working if the company doesn't meet their demands. Unfortunately, the methods are not always particularly savory, and the unions usually continue indefinitely after serving their purpose, and at that point they simply turn into more bloated bureaucracies.
I mean, a union of autoworkers or meet packers or truckers organizing themselves in order to better their situations is a fine thing. When those demands are met, and the union starts taking dues payments from employees, requiring all employees to join the union, and diverting the union dues into political campaigns, well that's when I see the union turning into the management they once fought against.

please spare us the "I support the ideal" b.s.
corporations oppose unions because unions give a voice to the people who make the wheels spin round. corporations would prefer that the actual employees have as little power as possible. unions help to level the playing field. capitalism depends on grossly uneven power distribution.

you don't have to yank our chain, prof. it's obvious that you oppose unions (despite the good that they do) because they support liberal Democrat politicians. Period.

Obviously, unions aren't perfect. Bureaucracies indeed. But, if I have to choose between bureaucracies, I'll take the one that's working for me, not against me.

So, you believe that after the Union has won their first contract, that their usefulness is finished?!? You oppose them collecting dues from members that they negotiate on behalf of?!?! Just because they give a portion of their money to Democrats, right? Is it shocking that Unions would contribute to Dems over Republicans? I mean, it seems logical that they would support the party that opposes the party that wants to see them eradicated, right? It only makes sense that they'd support the party that opposes the party who would like to see employees powerless.

So, if the Union has outlived its usefulness after the first contract is signed, then what happens when that first contract expires? Just count on the company continuing to negotiate in good faith with the workers? Or, just count on poor people deciding to "vote with their wallet" and pressure the company to treat employees better?

[Brian]

Don't be fooled by political grandstanding, the dems oppose unions too. The unions know this. Though poplitical party donations are heralded as going one way, they often go both ways with one larger contribution being 'unheralded".
My ex-father-in-law, a very wealthy business man and a VERY staunch Republican has a totally union factory and wouldn't use non union people if he could even though he has had strikes and actions against him during negotiations. He has one of the countries largest and only union shops left in Massatchusettes.
Republicans aren't against unions per se, just the unions that are prone to running amok with no recourse and no containment BY the rank and file.
You see, when salaries get above the cost of living to an absurd point, even for rank and file, the tendency is to act greedy to keep it that way when the economy takes a downturn because of the corporate predisposition to make it difficult to bring things back when the economy improvesd.
If both sides would use appropriateness and make sense at the bargaining table this would be circumvented,,,,and uninteresting,,,and people love to make drama where there is none to fill the empty whole in their lives where something like humanitarian contribution would fit nicely

[;ivlunsdystf]

So, what if campaign contributions were required to be kept anonymous? A candidate for office would only know the amount of each contribution, not anything about the donor.

Discuss.

[chris harris]

So, what if campaign contributions were required to be kept anonymous? A candidate for office would only know the amount of each contribution, not anything about the donor.

Discuss.

that's pretty interesting... I just can't imagine that it would ever be kept completely anonymous.

I'd prefer public financing of elections.

[;ivlunsdystf]

To even contemplate it we would have to assume that it COULD be kept totally anonymous. I think it would be really nifty.

[Brian]

Think about this:
HOW MANY POLITICIANS THAT PERTAIN ONLY TO YOUR PERSONAL AREA GOT CONTRIBUTIONS THAT CAN SHOW A DIRECT RELATIONSHIP TO SWINGING LEGISLATION AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE'S WILL, AS IT WOULD MAKE ANY SENSE, CAN YOU NAME?
WHICH PIECES OF LEGISLATION?
HOW MUCH MONEY?
In Tennessee, the dead just got caught voting, how come you never saw that on national television?
It's been going on for a lonmg time. I remember as a kid being asked to go collect names off headstones to bring to a candidate's manager, so, they could subvert the will of the voters, this man became president of the united states. It wasn't George W. Bush either.
The candidate that got caught doing that in TN was a democrat, the party of economic slavery.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Well, my personal area being the US, I note that MBNA (a company that profits from loose credit laws and from laws that make it very difficult to file personal bankruptcy) gives 90% of its politically designated dollars to the GOP candidates which makes sense don't it.

Brian - which campaign did you, um, volunteer for? That's quite a story. Yow.

[Brian]

That's just what you see. If you look deeper, which the "slave owner's" know you don't have the time or resources to do, you'll see a very sordid story. Your vote does NOT count. Period. They have a way of making sure that their will is done and their guy gets in, countering an extremely flaawed system through manipulation of polls and countering with the votes of felons and the dead tilll the numbers work out in their favor. If they get caught, judges who were appointed after being politically affiliateed through other gov jobs, like Renquist, will overturn, halt actions, and stymie the process of overturning a bad election.
Ophelia Ford is doing this in TN and the president was Bubbuh.
As for all the folks that think he was the greatest president we ever had:
He didn't carry his own state where he was "elected" to 11 terms. How do you think that happened?
and what exactly did he do that was great, not what did he NOT do?
Lincoln, a republican, signed the emancipation proclimation, not a democrat.

[chris harris]

Clinton/Gore carried Arkansas in 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.

[chris harris]

for the record, I DON'T think that Bill Clinton was the best president ever. No doubt, the best of my lifetime. But, not the best ever.

During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country's history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare rolls. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget surplus. As part of a plan to celebrate the millennium in 2000, Clinton called for a great national initiative to end racial discrimination.

that's not from some liberal revisionist-history website. That's from Clinton's bio at http://www.whitehouse.gov