Far-left, Anti-Austerity Party Triumphs in Greek Election.

[piscator]

@Seth... Point b)... Why do you hate free speech?!!

I don't. But unions use member money to lobby politically for things that the union member may or may not support. Therefore, to protect the free speech rights of union members (many of whom are there under compulsion), unions must be forbidden from misusing individual member funds to lobby for things not specifically approved by the individual union member.

Now, if members want to have a check-off list of political objectives for union lobbying and the unions ensure that member dues are used only for those approved political lobbying purposes, I'm fine with that.

But you cannot force me to contribute to a union fund and then legitimately use my money to expound union political positions that I do not agree with. That's a violation of my civil rights.

Direct political contributions from labor unions are voluntary. No one has $$ taken from his check against his will for political contributions, as that's been against the law since 1943. So no one took any of "your money" for any political contributions which you did not specifically authorize.

The rest of your preferences with regard to labor unions are similarly specious. So again, it's evident your "Union experience" is pure bullshit of low quality.

srsly.jpg (41.69 KiB) Viewed 1630 times

[Seth]

@Seth... Point b)... Why do you hate free speech?!!

I don't. But unions use member money to lobby politically for things that the union member may or may not support. Therefore, to protect the free speech rights of union members (many of whom are there under compulsion), unions must be forbidden from misusing individual member funds to lobby for things not specifically approved by the individual union member.

Now, if members want to have a check-off list of political objectives for union lobbying and the unions ensure that member dues are used only for those approved political lobbying purposes, I'm fine with that.

But you cannot force me to contribute to a union fund and then legitimately use my money to expound union political positions that I do not agree with. That's a violation of my civil rights.

Direct political contributions from labor unions are voluntary. No one has $$ taken from his check against his will for political contributions, as that's been against the law since 1943. So no one took any of "your money" for any political contributions which you did not specifically authorize.

The rest of your preferences with regard to labor unions are similarly specious. So again, it's evident your "Union experience" is pure bullshit of low quality.

srsly.jpg

Horseshit. Unions use member money for political lobbying all the time. I didn't say "direct political contributions" which are illegal, I said "political lobbying" which includes organized political activities by the unions, TV and print ad purchases, hiring lobbyists, bussing union members (SEIU) to political events to either protest or support candidates and causes and numerous other things that a particular union member may not be in political agreement with.

And it got much worse after the Citizen's United case, and the unions, despite arguing against allowing corporate spending on political issues (except for labor unions of course) wasted no time at all taking advantage of Citizens United, which is their right, but not with the dues of members who have not explicitly agreed that their dues may be used for such political activity.

[piscator]

@Seth... Point b)... Why do you hate free speech?!!

I don't. But unions use member money to lobby politically for things that the union member may or may not support. Therefore, to protect the free speech rights of union members (many of whom are there under compulsion), unions must be forbidden from misusing individual member funds to lobby for things not specifically approved by the individual union member.

Now, if members want to have a check-off list of political objectives for union lobbying and the unions ensure that member dues are used only for those approved political lobbying purposes, I'm fine with that.

But you cannot force me to contribute to a union fund and then legitimately use my money to expound union political positions that I do not agree with. That's a violation of my civil rights.

Direct political contributions from labor unions are voluntary. No one has $$ taken from his check against his will for political contributions, as that's been against the law since 1943. So no one took any of "your money" for any political contributions which you did not specifically authorize.

The rest of your preferences with regard to labor unions are similarly specious. So again, it's evident your "Union experience" is pure bullshit of low quality.

srsly.jpg

Horseshit. Unions use member money for political lobbying all the time. I didn't say "direct political contributions" which are illegal, I said "political lobbying" which includes organized political activities by the unions, TV and print ad purchases, hiring lobbyists, bussing union members (SEIU) to political events to either protest or support candidates and causes and numerous other things that a particular union member may not be in political agreement with.

And it got much worse after the Citizen's United case, and the unions, despite arguing against allowing corporate spending on political issues (except for labor unions of course) wasted no time at all taking advantage of Citizens United, which is their right, but not with the dues of members who have not explicitly agreed that their dues may be used for such political activity.

You have to specifically check off every year for any of "your $$" to be used for any political purpose, since before Taft-Hartley. SCOTUS reaffirmed that in Communications Workers of America v. Beck.


And your use of, "My money" when a nontrivial component of your pretax income [one of the reasons you supposedly took the job in the first place!] was there solely due to a collective bargaining agreement: You would not have been able to ask your State Legislature for a raise on your own without incurring significant legal fees. So, any way you cut it, it was a "cost" of doing business that you would have "paid" to someone else, had you acted individually [what stopped you?].


And no, your individual magnificence is not all of what produced "your" gross pay field on your alleged cop paycheck. If it did, you'd be making it now and wouldn't be bitching about your retirement plans and there wouldn't be another swinging dick doing that "union job" right now. So it's dishonest to only talk about deductions from your gross pay without allowing for the higher gross pay and other bennies that came about due to collective bargaining by your allegedly Authoritarian/Marxist and not-made-up police officer's union.

Moreover, show me a free enterprise business that has no deductions from its gross revenues (Gross=Net). There's always a cost to do business.

[Seth]

You have to specifically check off every year for any of "your $$" to be used for any political purpose, since before Taft-Hartley. SCOTUS reaffirmed that in Communications Workers of America v. Beck.

Then SEIU is violating the law wholesale, along with every other union in this country.

And your use of, "My money" when a nontrivial component of your pretax income [one of the reasons you supposedly took the job in the first place!] was there solely due to a collective bargaining agreement:

Bullshit. Without the union the department still has to pay employees. I didn't ask the union to negotiate on my behalf, nor did I agree to be bound by union rules with respect to bargaining for compensation packages.

You would not have been able to ask your State Legislature for a raise on your own without incurring significant legal fees.

That's my business, not the union's. I'm very good at speaking before the state legislature, I've done it many times, so you're wrong. Any state employee can go before a government compensation committee and have his or her say, unless they are in a union that forbids them from speaking on their own behalf and requires them to toe the party line by deferring to the union representatives. People have been prevented from speaking on their own behalf because they are union members, even if they don't want to be members of the union.

So, any way you cut it, it was a "cost" of doing business that you would have "paid" to someone else, had you acted individually [what stopped you?].

That's my business. It's not up to anybody else to decide for me how to spend my money negotiating a labor contract.

And no, your individual magnificence is not all of what produced "your" gross pay field on your alleged cop paycheck. If it did, you'd be making it now and wouldn't be bitching about your retirement plans and there wouldn't be another swinging dick doing that "union job" right now. So it's dishonest to only talk about deductions from your gross pay without allowing for the higher gross pay and other bennies that came about due to collective bargaining by your allegedly Authoritarian/Marxist and not-made-up police officer's union.

Of course I can bitch about it because without the union I might have been able to negotiate a better deal for myself. Or I might have gotten together with other members of the department to negotiate together. The key is that if I wanted to be in a union, I'd have joined the union voluntarily. I didn't want to be in a union, but in order to work I was forced to pay union dues anyway, even though the union never did a single thing to benefit me at my request.

So long as union membership is voluntary, unions are fine...except for public employee unions which need to be flatly outlawed altogether.

Moreover, show me a free enterprise business that has no deductions from its gross revenues (Gross=Net). There's always a cost to do business.

[/quote]

Which has nothing whatever to do with anything. The issue here is, as usual in a dispute between Marxist Progressives and Socialists and Libertarians, voluntariness and consent. I neither volunteered nor consented to have the union take money from my check, and I objected to it every chance I got, but the alternative was not to have a job, and I could not allow the union to deny me a career by refusing to work even as union dues were being extorted from me with the cooperation and support of the NLRB and the federal government.

[pErvinalia]

@Seth... Point b)... Why do you hate free speech?!!

I don't. But unions use member money to lobby politically for things that the union member may or may not support. Therefore, to protect the free speech rights of union members (many of whom are there under compulsion), unions must be forbidden from misusing individual member funds to lobby for things not specifically approved by the individual union member.

Now, if members want to have a check-off list of political objectives for union lobbying and the unions ensure that member dues are used only for those approved political lobbying purposes, I'm fine with that.

But you cannot force me to contribute to a union fund and then legitimately use my money to expound union political positions that I do not agree with. That's a violation of my civil rights.

Union membership is entirely voluntary here. So there is no difference between unions or corporations donating to political parties.

[piscator]

You have to specifically check off every year for any of "your $$" to be used for any political purpose, since before Taft-Hartley. SCOTUS reaffirmed that in Communications Workers of America v. Beck.

Then SEIU is violating the law wholesale, along with every other union in this country.

Produce some evidence, and you have basis for a law suit, which you shouldn't comment on. If you can't, then just accept the fact that you are mistaken and quit commenting for two weeks before giving it up altogether.

And your use of, "My money" when a nontrivial component of your pretax income [one of the reasons you supposedly took the job in the first place!] was there solely due to a collective bargaining agreement:

Bullshit. Without the union the department still has to pay employees. I didn't ask the union to negotiate on my behalf, nor did I agree to be bound by union rules with respect to bargaining for compensation packages.

Your coming aboard constitutes your willingness to take what the union and your alleged fellow officers worked for before you ever applied. It's a bit twofaced of you to badmouth the good work of your fellow officers now when it was purportedly good enough for you then.

You would not have been able to ask your State Legislature for a raise on your own without incurring significant legal fees.

That's my business, not the union's. I'm very good at speaking before the state legislature, I've done it many times, so you're wrong. Any state employee can go before a government compensation committee and have his or her say, unless they are in a union that forbids them from speaking on their own behalf and requires them to toe the party line by deferring to the union representatives. People have been prevented from speaking on their own behalf because they are union members, even if they don't want to be members of the union.

The subtlety you miss is that you took the job knowing full well you were covered by a CBA, signed contracts to that effect, and then took the pay. So it emphatically was the union's goddamn business.

So, any way you cut it, it was a "cost" of doing business that you would have "paid" to someone else, had you acted individually [what stopped you?].

That's my business. It's not up to anybody else to decide for me how to spend my money negotiating a labor contract.

Well, what stopped you then, hot rod? Couldn't find a flaw in the contract you voluntarily entered into and received the agreed consideration for?

And no, your individual magnificence is not all of what produced "your" gross pay field on your alleged cop paycheck. If it did, you'd be making it now and wouldn't be bitching about your retirement plans and there wouldn't be another swinging dick doing that "union job" right now. So it's dishonest to only talk about deductions from your gross pay without allowing for the higher gross pay and other bennies that came about due to collective bargaining by your allegedly Authoritarian/Marxist and not-made-up police officer's union.

Of course I can bitch about it because without the union I might have been able to negotiate a better deal for myself. Or I might have gotten together with other members of the department to negotiate together. The key is that if I wanted to be in a union, I'd have joined the union voluntarily. I didn't want to be in a union, but in order to work I was forced to pay union dues anyway, even though the union never did a single thing to benefit me at my request.

Yes they did, son. They (allegedly) provided a rate of pay and bennies you couldn't get for yourself. The fact that you didn't negotiate your own dynamic entrepreneurial free market contract for your own studly and majestic self and instead took the CBA is prima facie evidence that you freely chose the Marxism over Liberty, BTW, in the exact same way the nonunion Somali chicken plant worker freely chooses to live with 31 other people in a 3 bedroom ranch style for his piece of America.

So long as union membership is voluntary, unions are fine...except for public employee unions which need to be flatly outlawed altogether.

It already got decided that public employees have 1st Amendment rights, so I don't know what to tell ya, little buddy.

Moreover, show me a free enterprise business that has no deductions from its gross revenues (Gross=Net). There's always a cost to do business.

Which has nothing whatever to do with anything.

Sure it does. People don't work for a joke, Seth, they work for $$. AS such, it's a business proposition, as you yourself imply when you (ineffectually) declare your right to negotiate your own terms before a joint session of your State Legislature.
Work is a business exchange of your product for OPM. Neither party is doing a favor for the other, merely trading as free men. Your dad didn't tell you this before you got your first job working for another man's $$?

[JimC]

The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyr'd dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high,
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.

[piscator]

[JimC]

The International

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

Refrain:
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E’er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.

[JimC]

Bob nailed it...

Well, I was feelin' sad and kind of blue
I didn't know what I was gonna do
The Communists were comin' around
They was in the air, they were on the ground
They were all over

So I ran down most hurriedly
And joined the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
Went back to my backyard
And started looking on the sidewalk
'Neath the rose bush

Well, I was lookin' everywhere for them gold darned Reds
I got up in the mornin' and looked under my bed
Looked behind the kitchen, behind the door
Even tore loose the kitchen floor, couldn't find any

I looked beneath the sofa, beneath the chair
Looking for them Reds everywhere
I looked way up my chimney hole
Even looked deep inside my toilet bowl
They got away

I heard some footsteps by the front porch door
So I grabbed my shotgun from the floor
I snuck around the house with a huff and hiss and
"Hands up, you Communist" it was a mail man
He punched me out

Well, I quit my job so I could work alone
I got a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they was red stripes on the American flag
Did you know about Betsy Ross

Well, I was sittin' home alone and I started to sweat
I figured they was in my television set
I peeked behind the picture frame
And got a shock from my feet that hit my brain
Them Reds did it, no one's on the hootin' nanny

Well, I finally started thinkin' straight
When I run outta things to investigate
I couldn't imagine doin' anything else
So now I'm at home investigatin' myself
Hope, I don't find out too much, good God

[Seth]

And your use of, "My money" when a nontrivial component of your pretax income [one of the reasons you supposedly took the job in the first place!] was there solely due to a collective bargaining agreement:

Bullshit. Without the union the department still has to pay employees. I didn't ask the union to negotiate on my behalf, nor did I agree to be bound by union rules with respect to bargaining for compensation packages.

Your coming aboard constitutes your willingness to take what the union and your alleged fellow officers worked for before you ever applied.

So what? That doesn't mean I owe the union anything.

It's a bit twofaced of you to badmouth the good work of your fellow officers now when it was purportedly good enough for you then.

The union didn't negotiate anything for me, it came to an agreement for union members at the time the union contract was signed. I did not agree to pay the union for negotiating something for somebody else. I went to work based on a salary offer from the police department, not the union. Fuck the union.

The subtlety you miss is that you took the job knowing full well you were covered by a CBA, signed contracts to that effect, and then took the pay. So it emphatically was the union's goddamn business.

Signed under duress, and therefore invalid.

So, any way you cut it, it was a "cost" of doing business that you would have "paid" to someone else, had you acted individually [what stopped you?].

That's my business. It's not up to anybody else to decide for me how to spend my money negotiating a labor contract.

Well, what stopped you then, hot rod? Couldn't find a flaw in the contract you voluntarily entered into and received the agreed consideration for?

What stopped me from what? I didn't enter a contract voluntarily, I was coerced into signing it.

Yes they did, son. They (allegedly) provided a rate of pay and bennies you couldn't get for yourself.

No they didn't. I accepted the package that the police department offered me, not the fucking union, it offered me nothing at all and took part of my pay for doing nothing for me at all.

The fact that you didn't negotiate your own dynamic entrepreneurial free market contract for your own studly and majestic self and instead took the CBA is prima facie evidence that you freely chose the Marxism over Liberty, BTW, in the exact same way the nonunion Somali chicken plant worker freely chooses to live with 31 other people in a 3 bedroom ranch style for his piece of America.

And that's why I'm objecting to it and why I think the law needs to be changed so unions cannot have "closed shops" at all.

So long as union membership is voluntary, unions are fine...except for public employee unions which need to be flatly outlawed altogether.

It already got decided that public employees have 1st Amendment rights, so I don't know what to tell ya, little buddy.

Sure they do, but they don't have the right (or shouldn't have) to form a labor union. Public employees work at the pleasure of the People, who are their employer, and the corrupt relationship between a government employee union negotiating with a government employee negotiator is the essence of the fox guarding the hen house. The negotiator for the agency has a vested interest in keeping the union happy and nothing to prevent him from agreeing to a lucrative contract for the union because there is no profit margin incentive for the agency negotiator to be tough with the union and try to keep wages and benefits down. The agency negotiator has the deep pockets of the public to raid.

That's why waste and fraud is rampant in, for example, NYPD and the NYC school system.

Moreover, show me a free enterprise business that has no deductions from its gross revenues (Gross=Net). There's always a cost to do business.

Which has nothing whatever to do with anything.

Sure it does. People don't work for a joke, Seth, they work for $$. AS such, it's a business proposition, as you yourself imply when you (ineffectually) declare your right to negotiate your own terms before a joint session of your State Legislature.
Work is a business exchange of your product for OPM. Neither party is doing a favor for the other, merely trading as free men. Your dad didn't tell you this before you got your first job working for another man's $$?

Public employees are not part of a free-enterprise system, which is why they can't be treated as such.

[piscator]

[JimC]

Employees are employees, they need protection from their employer, government or free enterprise, so they need a union.

There may need to be some restrictions on the industrial action they can take, but otherwise, Seth, you are pissing against the wind as always...

[pErvinalia]

Won't somebody think of the poor wealth creators??!

[Svartalf]

be we're thinking of them... we're preparing confiscatory laws just for them...