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No More Free Ice Cream, Or Lunch
Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 3:21 am
by Jccarlton
Because ultimately, no matter who you are, TANSTAAFL(there aint no such thing as a free lunch):
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomasso ... nion_myths
Re: No More Free Ice Cream, Or Lunch
Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:43 pm
by JLawson
My father in law worked for a steel mill after WW2. The bennies were pretty good - and they got better with time. He had a 2 month sabbatical one year, with a bonus - bought a motor home and took the family out West - my wife still talks about it. It was supposed to be a one-time good deal sort of thing, but two years later he got it again.
Shortly after that, he retired. Shortly after THAT, the mill closed because it was unprofitable. Fortunately, he'd put his retirement money into something other than the mill plan. A lot of his coworkers hadn't.
The union guys? They moved on, didn't miss a paycheck, looking for some other host to leech off. But while they lasted, the bennies the union got the worker were sweet indeed.
Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 6:48 pm
by ladajo
At the expense of the Mill and its viability.
Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:01 pm
by JLawson
ladajo wrote:At the expense of the Mill and its viability.
Yes. But the thing was, the mill was making money... and the union guys had things figured out so that the workers got what they considered a fair share, and the owners of the mill could make enough profit to keep the mill open.
Then steel prices dropped due to imports. The mill couldn't compete. And there wasn't enough of a cushion to keep the mill open, and the unions wouldn't renegotiate.
The lunch is free, as long as you aren't the last guy out who gets stuck with the bill.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 4:28 pm
by choff
Speaking as a person of conservative extraction, I only have one complaint about the critique of unions. Why don't the elected representatives go after Wall Street and the large banks with the same determination used in dealing with unions. In some cases the deficits in towns and states are the result of placing tax money in triple A investments while the brokers and ratings agencies were short selling same. It's a simple case of misplaced priorities.