How Much Are You Worth?

[tim]

You are worth what the market will pay.

Well sir. You better get a second job then, considering what they feel your group is worth with all they have stolen only to be coming for more...WOW, look in the mirror Capt.

 

[diogenes]

Well said, 'orphan.

 

[traderjake]

The problem is that the real world is much more dynamic and complex than this simplistic "You are worth what someone is willing to pay for you..."

As for the following comment by Traderjake: "All the resolve and solidarity in the world is not going to change that. We are either going to change or become extinct."

Here is what I have to say. Restructuring of corporations is a constant fact of capitalist society. This much is true. However, the shape of the restructuring is ALWAYS governed by the level of solidarity and organization working people can muster. If they can muster very little, than a steamroller tramples many lives (until it provokes enough people to organize and tear down that steamroller). If they can must a great deal of solidarity and organization, than the restructuring can be redirected towards a more humane form.

Clearly traderjake either favors the trampling of working people or has decided the market is an inexorable force of nature (it is not, it is a social arrangement, amongst people).

I, like many others on this board, side with humanity. Remember that all of the rights (political, economic or otherwise) were won at times while the Traderjakes of the time were couselling the surrender of humanity and justice.

Are you a fundamentalist follower of the free market religion or do you stand with your fellow human being?

In solidarity,
Airlineorphan

Spoken like a true socialist. "Workers of the world unite..."

There are two problem with your utopian scenario.

In it's current form, this company is not a viable business and no one, not RSA or the government is going to throw good money after bad. We can tell management no forever, like the Eastern IAM did, and it won't change that fact.

Our union brothers at Delta and American would like nothing better than to see us go out of business. Their motivation to have us "draw a line in the sand" is suspect. Everyone acts in their own best interest in the real world.

 

[AAviator]

Everyone acts in their own best interest in the real world.

I know an Eastern scab that said those exact words to me.

 

[diogenes]

Whatever crosses a picket line and performs the covered work

 

[ktflyhome]

Actually Piney Bob, if you go back into the archives of recent posts, someone, and I don't remember now who it was posted just what a Scab was. I might try to find it. That is the one probleme about this forum from my stand point, I can read something but can seem to go back and retrieve it.

Bythe way....I thought you got your feelings hurt earlier today and exited.

 

[diogenes]

Spoken like a true socialist. "Workers of the world unite..."

Help me out - I don't see how workers organizing equates with socialism.

The founding document of this country grants citizens the right of peaceful assembly. We can assemble as the Rotary, the Republican party, or, gasp!, unions. Moreover, we can join the Rotary, Republican party, or union.

Capitalists assemble via corporations, mergers, partnerships, buyouts, etc.

Capital assembles around the globe at the speed of light in LBO's, currency plays, shorts, puts, and on and on.

Why the heartache when labor assembles? At the end of the day, the CEO and the mechanic are citizens, with all of the rights and privileges that entails.

 

[traderjake]

Spoken like a true socialist. "Workers of the world unite..."

Help me out - I don't see how workers organizing equates with socialism.

Socialism is when the government own the means of production and distribution of goods, and the allocation of services. That means the government owns the factories, trucks, and hospitals, etc. as was the case in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Bolsheviks (the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party) convinced the population that if in the name of social justice they tranfered ownership of the factories, etc. to a government run by them, they would create a workers' paradise. "Workers of the world unite" was a rallying cry the Soviets used to convince the people other countries to overthrow their governments and join the empire.

In reality socialism is not a program to share the wealth. That is a welfare state. Socialism is a program to consoladate and control the wealth. Fascism (which is where this country is headed) is when the government does not own but controls the factories, trucks, etc. They are basically the same thing, totalitarian government, and both belong at the left end of the political spectrum. At the right end of the spectrum is no government, i.e. anarchy. Communism is when the government owns all property. This country was supposed to be a constitutionally limited republic, about 20% to the left of no government.

The truth is that a union is a government sanctioned labor monopoly. It attempts to control the supply of labor in order to raise to price. This is not a bad thing until the government forces me to support the union with dues money in order to get a job.

I'm against business, government, and labor monopolies, even though up until now, I've have benifited from being a member of a union.

 

[PITbull]

So Trader,

According to your theory and applying that thought to U....


Bronner who must be a socialist from what you described has ownership in U and obviously is controling the wealth and definitely there is a consolidation. And for sure it is not labor controling any wealth. Hell, we can't even hold on to our shirts.

Uh, and our government must be a fascist system that doesn't own U, but definitely controls U through its convenants. Yea, I think they be both "leftists" alright!

Hmmm and what did you say that damn labor socialistic unions control...wages????? Benefits??? Workrule???? LOL.... when? Unions control the supply of labor??? Is that when we ONCE HAD "NO FURLOUGH" LANGUAGE???

Hmmm, who and what threat took that away? Unions are socialistic and control what? You make me laugh

 

[airlineorphan]

Hmmmm.... because I advocate solidarity amongst working people, believe that human beings are more than market factors to be plugged into a big neoclassical economics model, I am therefore a utopian and a socialist. If standing on the side of humanity and not accepting the free market as my deity makes me a socialist, whatever!

I was amused by the history lesson about the Russian revolution and how swiftly a critique of free market fundamentalism got me accused of some historical association with a different kind of religion, stalinism (by the way, silly, government ownership of businesses is not really the same thing as socialism--democratic control would be more correct--and that precludes that control being mediated through a dictatorship, sorry thanks for playing, come again.....). But I guess if you've got the religion it is hard to see how any other belief wouldn't be a religion.....

Sorry to disappoint you traderjake, but there are more ways of understanding the world than fascism, stalinism and fielty to the almighty market. If I am a socialist, than I am a "socialist from below" or "libertarian socialist" (Piney is your head spinning?) meaning that I don't trust top down approaches, whether from a fascist or stalinist dictatorship, nor do from the impersonal tyranny of the marketplace.

But utopian is really what I would have to call any approach that places its hopes and future in the hands of the marketplace.

C'mon, a system of cyclical crises that concentrates wealth (and therefore social and political power) in the hands of a few, pits everyone against everyone, redefines everything as a commodity or a thing, and is driven by a greed/profit imperative?

Is that the basket we want to put all of our eggs in? It is so strange that those who bow down before their market god denounce those who fight for a better life as utopian. In the face of 150 years of depradations and degradations of humanity and our planet by the workings of the marketplace, the belief in the magical powers of the invisible hand of the marketplace to make everything just work out seems far more utopian to me, much a-kin to magical thinking--do you also believe in fairies?

I don't want utopia. I want a little justice. If folks like me are utopian, than those who fought for women's right to vote, for the 8 hour day and for an end to slavery and child labor are utopian. Nope. Sorry. Those folks stood for something very practical and achievable: Human dignity. They, in their day were sneered at as utopian, wild-eyed destroyers of civilization and all that crapola.

Right now, there is a generalized drive by corporations to roll back all the things we've gained over the last 150 years, and in fact to convice many of us to aid in the flushing of our rights by scaring us into cowering before the Great And Powerful MarketGod. Woe unto all of us if they succeed.

I do not accept the litturgy of the free market fundamentalists who tell us to simply bow down before the ones we serve. Sorry, but I have more faith in solidarity and hope in the possibility of justice.

In solidarity with those who want dignity and justice,
-Airlineorphan

 

[mweiss]

Why the heartache when labor assembles? At the end of the day, the CEO and the mechanic are citizens, with all of the rights and privileges that entails.

For me the heartache comes from turning one company into two. How in the world can you set your sights as a company on, say, WN in PHL if the very people you need in order to succeed are also your mortal enemies?

There's nothing wrong with collective bargaining until it distracts from the business at hand.

 

[airlineorphan]

mweiss writes:

(diogenes @ Feb 25 2004, 01:04 AM)
Why the heartache when labor assembles? At the end of the day, the CEO and the mechanic are citizens, with all of the rights and privileges that entails.

For me the heartache comes from turning one company into two. How in the world can you set your sights as a company on, say, WN in PHL if the very people you need in order to succeed are also your mortal enemies?

There's nothing wrong with collective bargaining until it distracts from the business at hand.

This ain't collective bargaining. It's extortion, plain and simple. Employees have not turned one company into two. Check your reality:

Summer 2002 News Item #1: Management demands $900million in concessions from employees or else will file Ch. 11

Summer 2002 News Item #2: Employees give the concessions, management files Ch. 11 anyway. Management promises they won't come back for more.

Thanksgiving 2002 News Item: Management lays off another 2500 f/a's and announces demand for another $400million from employees. Under public liquidation threats from savior Dr. David Bronner, employees acceed to concessions (though more narrowly in general this time than the last).

Spring and Summer of 2003: Management repeatedly and agressively violates the contracts it forced upon employees (f/a sick policy, airbus check outsourcing, etc....).

January/February 2004 News Item: Business Plan torn up. Management drives revenue down by repeated public dire warnings and threats to sell assets. Management declares need for another $1.5 billion/year employee sacrifice. Or else.


Seems to me that the class war is coming from above, not below. Do you counsel a Stockholm Syndrome response to management's abusive attempts to balance its own mistakes and incompetence upon the backs of employees?

Enough is enough!
-Airlineorphan

 

[diogenes]

For me the heartache comes from turning one company into two. How in the world can you set your sights as a company on, say, WN in PHL if the very people you need in order to succeed are also your mortal enemies?

There's nothing wrong with collective bargaining until it distracts from the business at hand.

Seems to me the problem at U hasn't been labor failing to honor contracts negotiated in good faith, but rather, management's lack of honor.

 

[diogenes]

You fail to see how it equates because IT DOESN'T EQUATE!

What is a union really?

It is a group of people with similar interests joining together to promote the common good of it's members. Nothing more. One could argue that under that definition the Founding Fathers themselves were a form of "Union".

After all the President of the Untited States does make a "State of the Union" address does he not?

As for the socialism part of the post. In the early 20th century trade unions were made up in the beginning by large numbers of "Socialists & Communists" of the day. By todays political standards those same people would barely be considered "Liberal". Some were outright anarchists, the Libertarian of today. The glue that bound them together was the idea that when you work for someone you ought to be able to at least feed your family and be paid in US Currency. So they banded together to promote that notion. A notion that ultimately created the middle class.

Socialist to me at least means you advocate taking wealth and redistributing it from haves to have nots. No union I know of has done that ever. Bargain Collectively, Strike, Lobby? YES!

Piney Bob, true enough, and I'd like to add to your history lesson.

It is true enough that American socialists, anarchists and communists were active in the social upheaval of the 20's and 30's. I have three reactions to that.

1. I believe an American can adopt any ideology or religion he chooses. I have absolute faith our democracy will overcome and outlast any 'ism - communism, socialism or facism. Indeed, we are doing so. Why burn a communist at the stake, when, if given the opportunity to experience America, he will convert? It happens every day, and the commies didn't build walls to keep us out. They built them to keep their people in.


2. Prior to WWII, the plutocracy had a hammerlock on production and politics. Those who fought for justice took aid and comfort from where they could find it. And, as you say, that era's socialist views about equates out to today's liberal.

3. The right wing just loves to hold the labels of that past against unions. OK, here is tit for tat. There is controversial, but compelling evidence that a consortium of business interests planned to present FDR, who's New Deal was a threat to their power, with a fait accompli - step down as President, or have a 500,000 man army march on Washington. These interests were impressed with how citizens of the facist states of Germany and Italy were harnessed to meet the needs of the state, and wanted to import that ability. Isn't it just as fair to hang the label 'facist' on corporations?


http://www.beachonline.com/hoover.htm

 

[diogenes]

traderjake,

So, how does "workers of the world, unite' equate our unions with socialism or the Soviet Union?

Being against monopolies and oligopolies is fine in theory, but my friend, we are dealing with them everyday.

The Federal Reserve has a potent monopoly on the money supply.

Your local power company has a monopoly on your electrical service.

The Congress and regulatory agencies determine who will have entree in many markets. For instance, they will decide which airlines will be awarded what overseas routes.

They, in great part, determine your working conditions - wages, safety, benefits. Their reach goes beyond that - they also have a major voice in how your employer treats you as well.

A corporation has the funds and access to influence the politicians for regulations favorable to them, and less favorable to you.

Against that power, an individual laborer generally gets ran over.

"In unity, there is strength."