jetmonkey
New Member
Why aren't these union bosses starting their own businesses? Then they can treat all the workers fairly
Hey, lets hear it for the unions....
- Thread starter dave1959
- Start date
Why aren't these union bosses starting their own businesses? Then they can treat all the workers fairly
mAlice
professional daydreamer
It's too easy to look up a copy-cat recipe to try and save 50 cases for eternity.
Trumka's Denial Of Budget Realities Suggests Ugly Plans
Read More At IBD: Trumka's Denial Of Deficit Realities Is A Call For Greece-Like Unrest - Investors.com
Union Gangsters: Richard Trumka
[Editor's note: The following is the second installment of FrontPage's new series, "Union Gangsters." In this profile, award-winning investigative reporter Matthew Vadum unmasks Big Labor kingpin Richard Trumka, whose dirty agitation tactics have earned him the moniker "thug-in-chief." To read about union consigliere Craig Becker, click here.]
Richard Trumka is a thug’s thug, and a crafty one at that.
The AFL-CIO boss believes the end justifies the means. Breaking the law is acceptable if it advances the cause. Unions should “forget about the law; this is about more than that,” he said at the “Future of Unions” roundtable in Detroit on April 7.
Like many union leaders, occasionally the slippery Trumka pretends to like capitalism. He supports vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, not because he actually believes in them, but because his members work in industries that depend on their enforcement. Turning a blind eye to the manufacture of counterfeit machine parts could put union members out of work.
But unlike most high-profile leftists, Trumka doesn’t even make an effort to conceal his radicalism. “Being called a socialist is a step up for me,” he told Bloomberg News in June. In 1994, Trumka proudly accepted the Eugene Debs Award named after the five-time presidential candidate and labor organizer who founded the Socialist Party of America.
As an AFL-CIO executive, Trumka helped to create “Union Summer,” a program for training young people as organizers and political activists. Participants were made to recite a pledge called “Working Class Commitment” that included the Marxist idea “that we [union workers] produce the world’s wealth … [and] will end all oppression.”
Trumka, a mine worker-cum-lawyer, admits he got involved in “the labor movement not because I wanted to negotiate wages,” but “because I saw it as a vehicle to do massive social change to include lots of people.” As he’s climbed the ranks of AFL-CIO leadership, Trumka has moved away from his modest roots. His 2011 compensation package at AFL-CIO totaled $293,750, according to LM-2 disclosure forms on file with the U.S. Department of Labor. Trumka apparently lives in a four-bathroom house assessed at $747,650 in Rockville, MD, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
He helped to turn the AFL-CIO away from boosting wages and improving working conditions. Now, the labor federation focuses on recruiting government workers who benefit from higher tax rates and bigger government, a growing constituency within the Democratic Party. The federation also blackmails employers by generating adverse publicity, harassing investors, and linking arms with the media and radical activists.
Lurk
Happy Creepy Ass Cracka
Let's see now, 13 stores generated 100 employees who walked out. And the MSM considers this a spreading threat to Wal-Mart's bottom line? Just 100 more empty slots to fill with part-time employees looks like an improvement in Wal-Mart's margin for 2012.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Pretends? Sounds like he is ABSOLUTELY a capitalist to me. The purest kind.
MarieB
New Member
You can't blame it all on the union. 2 Bankruptcies in 3 years is also a sign of poor management/business plan. Here is a good summary....
FORTUNE -- Those Twinkies on your cupboard shelf may last forever. But the company that makes them may not.
Hostess Brands -- the owner of such iconic lunchbox snacks as Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, Suzy Q's, Dolly Madison Zingers, and Drake's Ring Dings, as well as Wonder Bread and the "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling," the 150-calorie food-science marvel called the Twinkie that drove Woody Harrelson mad in Zombieland -- is in federal bankruptcy court. Again. It's the second time in a decade -- which is why bankruptcy wags say the company is in "Chapter 22" rather than merely Chapter 11. Loaded down, astonishingly, with nearly $1 billion in debt, privately held Hostess faces oblivion if its creditors, owners, and unions can't agree on how to restructure.
Hostess is bankrupt … again - Fortune Management
FORTUNE -- Those Twinkies on your cupboard shelf may last forever. But the company that makes them may not.
Hostess Brands -- the owner of such iconic lunchbox snacks as Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, Suzy Q's, Dolly Madison Zingers, and Drake's Ring Dings, as well as Wonder Bread and the "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling," the 150-calorie food-science marvel called the Twinkie that drove Woody Harrelson mad in Zombieland -- is in federal bankruptcy court. Again. It's the second time in a decade -- which is why bankruptcy wags say the company is in "Chapter 22" rather than merely Chapter 11. Loaded down, astonishingly, with nearly $1 billion in debt, privately held Hostess faces oblivion if its creditors, owners, and unions can't agree on how to restructure.
Hostess is bankrupt … again - Fortune Management
Lurk
Happy Creepy Ass Cracka
doh!
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Why aren't these union bosses starting their own businesses? Then they can treat all the workers fairly
Why start your own business when you can sit on your butt and make 300K annually not including any bribes and kickbacks.
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Says it all.
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Agree, bad management that let the union have their way in the past.
MarieB
New Member
Hence 2 billion in unfunded pension benefits. That is just crazy
If you are forced to pay someone 35 dollars an hour plus lavish benefits to do a job that has an actual economic value of 12 dollars an hour with few benefits....no "management plan" or "business plan" can ever fix that.
L
letmetellyou
Guest
So are we to blame all of this on the union when the ceo and nine other top executives took massive pay raises this year? The ceo's pay was trippled.
jetmonkey
New Member
No it wasn't.
MarieB
New Member
Creditors of Hostess Brands Inc. said in court papers the company may have "manipulated" its executives' salaries higher in the months leading up to its Chapter 11 filing, in what the creditors called a possible effort by Hostess to "sidestep" Bankruptcy Code compensation provisions.
The committee representing Hostess's unsecured creditors alleges that information it has gathered suggests "the possibility" that the company converted a chunk of its top executives' pay from performance-based bonuses to salary, "at least in part to sidestep" rules designed to ensure that companies in bankruptcy aren't enticing their employees to stay on board with the promise of cash, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y.
Creditors Question Pay Raises at Hostess Ahead of Bankruptcy Filing - WSJ.com
MarieB
New Member
I haven't seen what they were making (I would be curious to know), and of course there are other decisions to be made besides what you'll accept during labor negotiations. Of course it doesn't help to ask your labor force to take even more cuts when you are increasing executive pay.
Also, I'm sure the contracts were renegotiated during the last bankruptcy.
blazinlow89
Big Poppa
So this statement is still false?
Anyone who is naive enough to not blame some or most of the problems on the union is an idiot. We have seen first hand the damage unions do to companies. Its OK Obama will bail them out and Michelle will take over and make them turn healthy.
JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Hostess is bankrupt … again - Fortune Management
Ripplewood is run by Tim Collins, 55, who's been at the center of other famed PE transactions. Known as a brilliant capitalist-philanthropist-networker, he's an eclectic character: a Democrat in an industry of Republicans; an Adirondack enthusiast dreaded by pheasant and fish; a board member at the Yale divinity and business schools; and someone who took a year at 31 to work at a refugee camp in the Sudan. Ripplewood orchestrated the $1.1 billion turnaround in 2000 of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, which marked the first time that foreign interests controlled a Japanese bank. (Collins made the cover of Fortune Asia for it.) The bank was renamed Shinsei, and in 2004 it had a lucrative initial public stock offering. Far less fortunately, in 2007 Ripplewood acquired Reader's Digest -- and saw its $275 million investment vanish in Reader's Digest's bankruptcy filing in 2009. (Collins reportedly had visions of merging Reader's Digest with the magazine division of Time Warner (TWX), which owns Fortune.)
Tim Collins, CEO of Ripplewood Holdings
Tim Collins, CEO of Ripplewood Holdings
Ripplewood's foray into Hostess was partly enabled by Collins's connections in the Democratic Party. He wanted to explore deals with union-involved companies and sought the help of former congressman Gephardt, who in 2005 founded the Gephardt Group, an Atlanta consulting firm that provides "labor advisory services." In his 2004 presidential bid, Gephardt -- whose father was a Teamsters milk truck driver -- was endorsed by 21 of the largest U.S. labor unions; in 2003, Collins was one of 19 "founding members" of Gephardt's New York State leadership committee. (Today, Ripplewood and Hostess are listed online as major clients of Gephardt's consulting group, which is also an equity owner of Hostess.) Back when Hostess was coming out of the first bankruptcy, Gephardt's credibility with both Ripplewood and the Teamsters gave them each a little more room to break bread.
Gees, looks like Democratic Management style is in play here. Hostess first, the US second. This is what he have to look forward to. We are really F%^*!
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JoeRider
Federalist Live Forever
Unfunded pensions - yes, serious problem that the current administration is not addressing. From Article you posted:
Hostess is bankrupt … again - Fortune Management
Trouble with MEPPs is, if some employers go out of business, the remaining companies have to pick up the shortfall in funding benefits. When there are too few employers left standing, the fund is in trouble. According to a March research report by Credit Suisse, MEPPs are now underfunded by $369 billion. A third of the 40 MEPPs to which Hostess contributes are among the most underfunded plans in the country.
Union is behind all these underfunded pensions that we as tax payers will be bailing out. Problem is, we will not be getting pensions, but we will be paying for our neighbors who was over paid because the Union agreements.
