Comments by JoeHill
Page 1 of 6 | Next
3 of 3 people thought this was a good comment.
Posted on November 1 at 10:11 p.m.
Sewanee, you are wrong to say that unionization is not in the best interests of readers. Reporters, copy editors, photographers and other newsroom staff who are confident that they will not be trifled with, threatened or fired for fictional and illegal reasons (as has happened with no fewer than nine pro-union reporters in the last three years), and don't have to worry about the politics of the editorial page while doing their jobs, are more likely to conscientiously produce a quality product. The News-Press management has repeatedly made public statements about how important it is that the owner and co-publishers stay the heck away from the news-gathering and writing, only to come down with a heavy and arbitrary hand whenever the mood strikes them. Woe unto any reporter who seems to Wendy to favor City government over business, immigrants, traffic-calming strategies, or measures to protect babies from coyotes in Hope Ranch. If the journalists at the News-Press had basic union contractual protection as is enjoyed by most major newsrooms in this country (e.g., WaPo, Baltimore Sun, NYT, etc. etc. etc.), the readers as well as the reporters would benefit.
7 of 7 people thought this was a good comment.
Posted on October 31 at 5:59 p.m.
Armstrong may have been passionate, but he was factually and analytically challenged, and not a particularly good writer. Poison pen tirades are a lot more persuasive and worthwhile if they are delivered with eloquence, wit and originality. Trav was oh for three. If he were the least bit fair-minded, he would have had to at least raise questions about the benefactor Randall von Wolfswinkel's largesse lavished upon the conservative candidates in the City race, and he took a pass. He was a conspiracy theorist of the worst sort, and two NLRB administrative law judges found him to be a liar under oath. He will not be missed.
1 of 1 people thought this was a good comment.
Posted on May 3 at 9:59 a.m.
I echo what was said above. In this case, the layoffs were primarily not in the newsroom. While the newsroom employees have some protection for the very reason they voted in a union, there are other undeserving victims of McCaw mismanagement and callousness not in the newsroom who are no less entitled to support and respect. This must be a moment of solidarity and sympathy, not division.
Posted on January 21 at 8:56 a.m.
AShaw, so now "thugs" use word barrages? In fact, labor law and its tie to the constitution are designed to avoid just such thuggery, whether engaged in by management (e.g., Pinkerton club wielders) or labor. I guess in your view Travis Armstrong, Wendy McCaw, right-wing columnists and Fox blowhards are potentially "great union thugs", too.
Posted on January 18 at 9:48 a.m.
jrbiiicpa, you have a pathetically inaccurate and one-sided view of what unions and workers' rights movements are about. Most small businesses probably will never face a union campaign, and I hope that those businesses do what you say they do. Unions are successful, or at least needed, in places where that is not the case -- places like the News-Press, hotels, meatpacking plants, car washes, etc. Business people -- apparently like you -- don't stop at chafing at the possibility of unions. They don't like worker safety regulation, minimum wage and overtime laws, or anti-discrimination laws. Those workplace fundamentals had to be won in the legislatures, because employers didn't see fit to voluntarily adhere to them.
Is Wendy McCaw really a "doer"? Please. And more importantly, all those capitalist "risk-takers" who don't get bailed out by the government still benefit from the government largesse of public schools, courts, parks, transportation systems, police and fire protection, government services (including the safety net, such as it is), and the ability to limit liability through the corporate form. The government doesn't have to let that happen, but it can and should exact a measure of corporate responsibility in return. And business success is often not about ingenuity or even risk-taking, but about having productive workers -- who can be unionized and still be enthusiastic -- and being in the right place at the right time. Look at Southwest Airlines, very heavily unionized, but with forward-thinking management it has succeeded.
The trouble with some entrepreneurs is that they are narcissistic, self-absorbed, and demand obsequious loyalty, not productivity. And that means they think everything they do is gilded and what comes to them is their -- and only their -- just reward. That leads some of them to excess, whether in the form of consumption or corruption. Again, if entrepreneurs truly lived up to the ideal you refer to, then unions would not enjoy even the meager success they have today. The EFCA is not designed to take away anything to which employers are entitled; rather it is designed to return to workers their right to obtain union representation, which is a basic human right that was confirmed by Congress over 70 years ago. I'm sure you'd prefer unions to be outlawed, but that places you in a tyrannical, short-sighted minority, a walled-in city where there are only feudal lords and serfs, because the middle class would eventually disappear. Sounds extreme, but if employees are continually denied the opportunity to organize, that will be the long-run result.
Posted on January 18 at 6:38 a.m.
azuresees, what you label "coercion" and "forc(ing)" is usually referred to as the exercise of First Amendment rights. Apparently no one was actually directly "coercing" employees at all, but the union was (according to you) appealing to the public to shop elsewhere, an activity that goes on regularly for various causes, and is constitutionally protected. The reality is that such activity, if it was truly "picketing" to demand recognition, is regulated quite severely by the NLRB, and would be stopped by that agency if the union did not stop voluntarily within a short period of time. My point here is actually similar to jrbiiicpa's: you can't generalize from one anecdote. And the difference between the unions' position and that of its enemies (e.g., Chambers of Commerce, the Wendy McCaws of the world, the misnamed Right to Work committee) is that the employer abuses that warrant labor law reform are by now well-documented. That doesn't mean they happen in every case, but they do happen in a sufficient number, and the incentives to commit the abuses are clearly present and will be until the law changes.
Posted on January 17 at 10:07 p.m.
jrbiiicpa, It's probably true that if employers were not abusive to their employees, there would be no need for unions. You want examples of abusive employers? Look no further than Wendy McCaw. Or countless growers in this state and elsewhere. Car wash businesses in Los Angeles. Unsafe practices abound in the meatpacking industry. Abuses are rampant in the hotel industry, where workers have harsh quotas they must fulfill, and where they are forced to work off the clock. Nurses are often overburdened, which explains in part why unionization in their line of work has proven successful. Wal-Mart is a fine example of how to treat workers like crap and revel in it.
jrbiiicpa, while you tell the readers what I would have people believe, you don't actually deny any of it. Claiming that I believe something is "always" the case is a straw man. There are abuses sufficient to warrant major labor law reform.
No politician can directly threaten the livelihood of workers in order to get elected, as employers regularly do. Your attempt to make a point on this subject just reveals your ignorance about how NLRB elections (don't) work. Sure, pols can threaten that the other candidate is going to send us all to hell, but we are not going to work for that politician. When an employer fires union supporters, that sends a message to any worker in a way that no politician can match. When an employer threatens to close his plant if a union comes in, that is a threat with no parallel in a political election. This is speech with consequences. The NLRB electoral process is broken: not because there are no rules against such threats and promises, but because those rules are not stringent enough to stop employers with economic incentive to do so from violating the law.
My reference to exec overcompensation was pointing to those who did not earn their exorbitant rewards, as should have been obvious to anyone not simply reciting a series of silly non-responses. Too many Wall Streeters keep getting paid when their companies don't do well.
jrbiiicpa apparently harbors the view that all is fair and delightful in the workplace, because all employers are fair and enlightened, probably by virtue of their accumulation of capital. That view belies history.
If unions are so bad, workers will decide they don't want them. The point is that too many employers resent workers having any voice in the workplace, and are demonstrably too often willing to violate the law to keep unions out, because the cost of that violation is less than the anticipated cost of a union contract. Why should everyone with a stake in a business be able to help guide it, but not the workers who do add value and are often the public "face" of the business? Unions can be a constructive voice at work, can help both employers and employees -- on this I agree with azuresees. But I also have a feeling we'd disagree about where the line of "aggression" is.
Posted on January 17 at 9:13 a.m.
Azuresees, there may be more to this than meets the eye, and it's not clear what your tale proves. Most employees would prefer to be represented by a union, for the very reasons employers vehemently and sometimes irrationally oppose them: they often persuade employers to spend more money on workers' needs and protections than they would without the union's presence. So, employers purport to act as the workers' "protector" to keep the union out, with a combination of threats and promises that will be fulfilled if the union comes in (threats) and/or if the union is defeated (promises). And that is the basic difference between a democratic election and an NLRB election: the employer has the ability to engage in coercive tactics that are not available to politicians.
Where your little story goes awry, however, is that picketing is hardly a tool that can coerce the employees to join a union. The pickets weren't telling the employees not to go to work, and while they can try to persuade the employees to sign up, they can't force them to in the way an employer can and does force them to refrain from doing what they'd like to do, on pain of losing their jobs and/or any hope of advancement. In a backhanded way, you've proved the Chambers of Commerce people wrong: unions don't have the coercive power to "make" employees sign cards, and do eventually have to go away if they can't convince a majority to seek representation. That means that the anti-union employers who are so concerned about workers' rights to privacy and a secret ballot (as long as it's cast against the union after being pummeled for the election campaign period) are wrong about the potential for union coercion. It's just not significant or relevant, but it is a hell of a great red herring, especially coming from the likes of employers who hire the very "persuaders" whose job it is to lie, threaten and promise their way to "secret ballot" election defeat of unions.
Posted on January 16 at 10:15 p.m.
OK, Stossel (if you are the "real" Stossel), take your right wing ideology and peddle it elsewhere. I'm sure you believe that the middle class was bolstered by the private sector, that unions had nothing to do with any worker protections or advancement, and that the market's invisible hand can do no wrong (despite the many cookie jars that hand has been caught in the last 8 years or so). People who read this blog, however, aren't buying your propaganda.
Page 1 of 6 | Next
Previous Month
Posted on November 6 at 5:22 a.m.
binky, salsnog is still a minority in this town if he/she/it is a Wendy sock puppet. But despite all the undue delay, Wendy better get used to the idea that she will one day have to offer them reinstatement.
On Justice Crawls, Fired Reporters Wait