[One]

Hobo has it right, when business is soft you must re-evaluate your business model/find new markets/an edge over competitors and invest in that, cutting workers pay is counterproductive and will just speed up your race to the bottom. Besides payroll is not that big an expense, but pissed off workers reduce productivity and loyalty. And how will u make a better product than your competitor when you lost the loyalty of your workers??

Conservatives always look at the workers when cutting costs cuz of ideology, not business sense- because they think there should not be a middle class, there should only be 2 classes:
1. The ruling class of the rich taking on a form of monarchs or oligarchs, all powerful and non accountable to wrong doing through a parallel legal system
2. The working poor with no rights, no influence, no extra time to get educated, badly informed by corporate media and no prospect on making the jump to the ruling class

This is why they want tort reform, so the people cannot have accountability through large judgements from class action suits wich is the only way to punish a corporation for wrong doing atm. This is why they do not like unions because it is a form of democracy in the work place and gives the workers rights and power. This is why they do not like the masses to be educated beyond what's needed to be a good worker- note the cost of college. This is why there is no labor section in your newspaper anymore, but there is a business section. This is why they argue that corporations are people and should have civil rights, but not get punished like real people for wrong doing. there used to be a corporate death penalty! This is why anything that is financed by the people for the people is attacked and demonized as communism and privatization suggested wether or not it makes financial sense.
Whenever a middle class is strong, the people start demanding things like work place safety, 40 hour work week, benefits, equality under the law, civil rights, human rights, clean water to drink an air to breathe. The 1960's were a scary time for conservatives because their power structure was challenged by a strong and educated middle class.

[One]

Originally Posted by GMAN

Big business is not the only segment that has corrupted this country. Don't forget other special interests such as big labor unions. And don't underestimate the power of a determined mother. MADD doesn't lobby for safer roads, but more restrictive legislation. They just try to sell their ideas as safety. It is difficult to argue against safety. After all, who would vote against safety?! The ATA does have their hands in a lot of trucking legislation. Unfortunately, what is good for the ATA is not necessarily in the best interest of the rest of us. One other thing. Why do you thing that a plumber is not as smart as a lawyer. A law degree, or any degree for that matter, is not necessarily an indication of having more intelligence than anyone who is non degreed. It only means that they had the ability to stick with their studies until they got a degree. In only shows that they have the ability to learn, not that they have more intelligence. A degree only demonstrates that someone is learned. There is a difference between education and intelligence. On the same note, just because someone is degreed doesn't necessarily mean that they have common sense. By the way, I had a friend that I grew up with that was a nuclear physicist. He quit physics and went back to the family business. That business was plumbing. He was very happy being a plumber. I would never assume that someone lacked intelligence because of what they did for a living or their income.

yesyes the evil unions! Suuure, we can't have workers organizing, they may demand stuff!! Union power has been deminished to where unionization is down to less than 10% from around 50% pre-Ragan. At the same time lobbyists have swamped Capitol Hill. so who has consolidated power i ask.
like you said whats good for the ATA is not always good for the rest of us, ur absolutely right, they are a group of LARGE trucking companies that can afford to spend the small ones out of business and thats exactly what they do, and the O/O is at the forefront of their agenda.

Im willing to bet the company making eobrs has interlocking boards of directors with many big trucking companies theyrule.net so should we be surprised?? So we shouldnt blame MA for lobbying for whatever she thinks makes our roads safer but the fact that we allow corporate monopolies and cartels and corporate campaign contributions to sway the influence on our politicians away from WE THE PEOPLE to WE THE CORPORATION. And with our pro business Supreme Court legislating from the bench the power is taken away from us and given to the guys that profit from his bs legislation. these are the same people that pay demagogues to point fingers at MADD in our media you like to listen to and regurgitate here without fact- checking first. MADD didnt invent the eobr, they wouldnt financially profit. To find out who really is to blame, follow the money.

[golfhobo]

Originally Posted by One

Conservatives always look at the workers when cutting costs cuz of ideology, not business sense- because they think there should not be a middle class, there should only be 2 classes:

1. The ruling class of the rich taking on a form of monarchs or oligarchs, all powerful and non accountable to wrong doing through a parallel legal system
2. The working poor with no rights, no influence, no extra time to get educated, badly informed by corporate media and no prospect on making the jump to the ruling class

This is why they do not like unions because it is a form of democracy in the work place and gives the workers rights and power. This is why they do not like the masses to be educated beyond what's needed to be a good worker- note the cost of college. This is why there is no labor section in your newspaper anymore, but there is a business section.

House Republicans Remove "Civil Rights" and "Labor" From Committee Names

Wednesday, 12 January 2011 14:58
by: Nadia Prupis

House Republicans have renamed several Congressional committees by changing or removing certain hot-button words such as "civil rights" and "labor" from their titles.

The Education and Labor Committee became the Education and Workforce Committee, while the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties is set to be renamed the Constitution Subcommittee.

This is not the first time that the Education and Labor Committee has been renamed. A Republican-run House led by Newt Gingrich first changed the committee name to Education and the Workforce in 1994 to demonstrate anti-union policies; when Democrats regained control of the House in 2006, they changed the name back to Education and Labor.

Some labor leaders feel that the most recent switch represents a message similar to that of the Gingrich-era House.

Bill Samuel, director of government affairs at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), told The Hill that Gingrich's House used the Education and Workforce Committee to "undermine the rights of the workers who want to bargain for a better standard of living." The newest committee name change "really does mean something. More than the rhetoric, they have a different agenda."