Man, I love costco. it pimps.
Go shoppin and get a free lunch on weekends with all the samples they are giving out

It will forever be Price Club in my heart.

Green Bay Packer begin training camp this week

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I'll agree that Costco spanks Walmart's ass in terms of price, quality & selection. Costco stores I've been in are much cleaner than Walmart stores, and their people are friendlier.

However, I give not a scrap of monkey shit about how many union employees either one employs. Unions are an outdated concept, as evidenced by their ever-dwindling membership. Back in the day, unions were an important protection for the working man; back when motherfukers were getting jackhandled by bosses for minor infractions, or when they were subjected to working in front of a 2000 degree blastfurnace 60 hours a week with little heat protection for slave wages. Shit just isn't like that now; mostly due to the fact that the unions were, at one time, useful.

Today, the mentality of the leadership and the members has shifted. Union leadership seems only to be interested in lining it's pockets with the hard-earned cash of it's membership; buying multimillion dollar homes; leasing luxury vehicles for their friends/family; donating heavily to political candidates; and using union dues to fund a myriad of illegal financial schemes. Ask anyone in a union what they get for strike pay...it's fuking joke.

The membership has used the modicum of protection that being unionized affords them as an excuse to shirk their duties, bully management, and generally fuk off at work. They don't want anyone else performing a duty that is part of their job description, but just try and get one to perform one of those duties themselves. Somewhere along the line, the union became nothing more than permanence for these guys...they aren't worried about the union making sure their work environment is safe. They just want to know that it damn near takes an act of Congress to fire them. Most of the people I've ever worked with who where protected under a collective bargaining agreement seem to believe that companies exist for the sole purpose of providing employment to them and their lazy-ass brethren. In their eyes, the company OWES them a job. The thing they fail to realize is that the men who created those companies did so to advance their own agendas...make money, leave a legacy for their families, contribute a useful product or service to mankind, whatever. They didn't start their company because they thought that the fuking welfare system just wasn't doing enough to help the disadvantaged, the lazy, the directionless, or the uninspired.

The unionized employees of today have played the part of minority to the union's democrat flawlessly...buying into the same hollow promises year after year, without seeing any improvement, yet staunchly defending the very institution that subjugates them. Fuking pitiful.

Hallelujah!! Holy shit...where's the Tylenol?

P.S. No actual union members were harmed during the typing of this rant.

Fuck Yeah!! Go Clavis and make this ran tinto a full fledged forum post, we may even get a response from Loki on it. I tend to agree with you here, unions are outdated as are many of teh old institutions. The split is only a good thing as it will draw greater attention to them. Do you live in a state or municipality that has binding arbitration and wonder why your taxes are so high? More than likely it's because of union threats, whatever happened to promoting each based on his own abilities (the only simile you can make between Communism and Capitilism)? No, these fuckers, like my brother in law, a state employee, get payed and promoted on seniority regardless of work performance. Son of a bitch gets $20/hr+ to do noting, he plays golf 5 of 7 days during the season.

Nice rant, clavis. I feel like I need to read a couple books on labor history before I can really argue about this, but I'll try anyway. Here's what I think: Maybe union leaders are corrupt and terrible etc, I haven't seen anything to make me beleive it, but maybe its true. Their multi million dollar homes are but a pittance compared to the huge(and by huge I mean monolithic) rise in executive salaries since the mid 90's-uncorrelated with performance. So if the salaries raises are completely uncorrelated with performance the whole 'rewarding on merit' thing isn't true for unions or the corporate sector, not at the top levels-and this is ignoring all the enron stuff/ market manipulation and speculation. And while you're talking about the state of american labor, you can't really forget about the lack of enforcement of the laws that protect unions since Reagan took over and since.

The inequality index has been rising since the 70's and wages haven't basically flatlined, falling slightly. It is true that unions were instrumental in raising the living standards of the country and getting rid of the worst abuses-but many still exist. The reason we don't hear about them is that while unions are still in their throes, the labor press is long since dead. There are immigrants that are being treated pretty piss poor, and if worse is going on nobody's looking for it. Admittedly, none of this is really comparable to the third world, where things still look worse than the US ever did.

There is a lot of money in the US, and it ends up in the pockets of good and corrupt people of every sector-labor, business, government etc. Why does labor look so unusally corrupt to everyone with the stats as they are in the corporate world? Isn't the whole situation much more dire in that area than in these pitifully dying unions? Does it have something to do with the huge PR caimpaign and lobbying efforts against Unions from the 80's til now?

I've not really made up my mind about the subject, but I am sure about this: Collective bargaining and labor were instrumental in getting the US out of the position it was in and raising the living standard to where Union leaders could afford to get corrupt without their angry mobs killing them with pickaxes and shovels. The way WTO trade works now countries are REQUIRED to give up unions and other measures in order to trade with the 1st world block. In other words, the very measures that the US used to get out of its situation are banned out of principle in today's trade law for third world countries, they are kept in their place by law- II could go on about this but you'd get bored.

Unions have been instrumental in getting 10% of the world population out of poverty to posperity. The real labor battles haven't been fought yet. The spirit of John Galt lives on. I GUESS

Collective bargaining and labor were instrumental in getting the US out of the position it was in and raising the living standard


i thought it was the WPA...whatever

From what (very) little I understand of labor unions, they seem beneficial to the unionized employee, and harmful to consumers.

To that extent, I say fuk em.

heh, ask a californian Ralphs employee how much they like their union.

Then again, my brother in law earns $75k a year without any work experience, or previous education. wtf

Unions still protect the little guy
WHole Foods union workers get health insurance
Hollywood set builders get the same and better

They are important now for different reasons
The collective barganing power of a union can allow for a relatively unskilled unschooled laboreres ro get health insurance
The US healthcare industry is way out of controll and that is the last defence of the unions
Without that you don't need em

Hollywood is one of the most blatant examples of unions sucking. The only thing about your comment, SFW that I didn't hate was your avatar, which is spectacular.

PS -- Your governor is austrian.

^LaL

'they seem beneficial to the unionized employee, and harmful to consumers'

If you are thinking of the price margin as far as consumers, the same mentality goes for safety standards, pension plans, and paying your employees. Those things all *harm* the consumer in terms of pricing.

But, as mentioned before, this is much less an issue in the US anymore, except for immigrants. In the third world this is certainly the reality, and unions are one possible solution. Neoliberalism isn't.