Reasonable government set pay rates as a safety net? No way! It’s MUCH better to make the staff argue with their boss for fair and equitable wages.
Vive le capitalism!
Vive le working poor!!
Looks like it’s One-on-One now, instead of One vs. a Committee.
Everyone sing along…♫♪ You can’t always what you want, but I’ll try sometimes…
to get what I need. ♫♪
As I recall, the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire just took place this week. It remains a symbol of why employees need a strong voice - employers are in it for their own profit (and that of their shareholders), and for the most part don’t care a whit about employees.
If employee unions are so great, they should buy the company (or start a competitive one) and see if they can afford all the payroll, benefits, pensions, etc..
Oh yes, plus pay the dues to support the hierarchy of the union itself and the millions in donations to their democratic congressional co-conspiring anti-capitalists.
In 21st Century America, any time there is a dispute between management and labor, it is very safe to assume that management is lying, cheating and stealing.
Never understood collective bargaining. I get paid for what I do. Do a good job and you have nothing to worry about. All collective bargaining does is hold back the best and prop up the ones that don’t deserve anything.
When I get a raise it is because of what I did not what those around me did.
First, I agree with cdward. I’m a cashier at a supermarket and we’re not allowed to have a bottle of water to sip - even though we work at “aerobics class” speed for 3, even 4 hours straight before, possibly, getting a break.
Second, to BloomCo - That being said, I work far harder and faster than many of my co-workers yet I get paid the same. I DON’T get merit pay. It’s base, just-above-minimum wage. And, the hours are kept at a minimum so as to possibly argue that we didn’t average 20 hours a week to “earn” a vacation. Get it? Who’s kidding whom?
I left a job making $15 an for sitting on my tush doing nothing for a CEO for two reasons - I was BORED to death and, I felt EXTREMELY guilty because I knew there were tellers making $8 an hour and being the most important people in the bank. THEY meet the customers and do the work to bring in the money, etc. Upper management (and how do they get there anyway) are clueless…
Democracy! Union! Everybody gets a vote! Oh, the boss’s vote is bigger than all yours. Why? He hires you, he can fire you. Is there a law that he can’t move out of state? Country? Business? Look up “Boss” in your Funk & Wagnalls. Any other questions? You have the right to quit.
Granting that this is an unrealistic situation exploited for humor — like one of Wiley’s earlier classics, a slave galley with only one man left on the oars — everyone is still seeing this the wrong way around.
So there’s only one worker left, and he’s doing all the work? That puts him in a position of uniquely strong bargaining power. Without him, there’s no work accomplished at all, no executive mega-bonuses…eventually, no company.
Unions exist to allow workers to bargain with management collectively, as if they were one person dealing directly with management. So if there really is only one worker left, he is the union, with the absolute backing of the entire “workforce”. Talk about solidarity…. He could still be threatened with termination, but then, again, there goes the company down the pipe…so who’s really in charge here?
The greatest weakness of a system dependent on slave labor is that it’s utterly, helplessly dependent on its slaves for its very existence. Once both sides realize that, the fun begins.
I am all for unions. The ONLY fly I see in that ointment, SCAATY_423 is that most people need an income, pittance though it may be. There are reasons to be employed. Lewreader, would I quit this job if I could? In a minute! Do I want to adjust my meager “lifestyle” (compared to other unfortunates) to accommodate that? Not now at this stage of my life: nearing retirement with no pension except my husband’s (if it still exists by that time) and whatever small contributions I have made to Social Security in 43 years when none of my jobs have ever exceeded about $12,000 a year. “Brother, can you spare a dime?”
There are companies owned by the workers. ESOP is not a misspelling of the name of the guy who wrote fables.
And if the one worker quit “the suit” will be screaming about HIS need for a bailout.
I think that all the union haters really want to repeal the Thirteenth Amendment and reinstitute slavery where workers, regardless of race, color, creed or place of origin, are owned by managers with no more rights than the chains that bind them.
I’m trying to swear off blasting the right-wing nutters with rational refutations. WTF seems the best way to do this in a simple abbreviated way. It’s really hard though.
@junco49: I’ve also long ago given up trying to be rational with right-wingers in 21st century America. You get a more rational discussion from a bag of hammers.
@Junco My sympathies Junco. I commented once before that I thought you had been initially extremely polite & respectful to Fishstix, but he seemed to revel in provoking you.
He is provoking you & being a troll because he knows his self-righteous stance infuriates you. I suspect his trolling & belligerence stems from poor education & from sniffing too many lawn-mower fumes for the last 20 years. And probably his poor employees felt too browbeaten to talk back to him which just encouraged him. Also he is retired now so he can be as bloody-minded as he likes.
Fishstix delights in provoking you, & with so many lame low brow ranters like this around, encouraged by Tea Party rhetoric, etc, it seems you are facing an anti-intellectual onslaught in your country.
We very much admire America & its people, but I am deeply saddened by the divisions in your country, whipped up by political opportunism & the likes of morons like Beck, aided & abetted by Fox News (which I’m sure Fishie would be delighted by).
Despite our bonds with the US, one our favourite tv entertainments here (OZ) is showing film clips of US citizens in street polls who are so befuddled they cannot tell the difference between France & Iran on a map, & similar idiocies. We know that these are fringe elements because most US people we meet are well educated & usually very coherent. However your media-driven politics seem on a par with the Witch-hunts of 17th century New England. It’s a dispiriting sight, watching a once powerful, intelligent wonderful friend deteriorating, becoming an embittered, vacuous shadow of their former self.
Fishstix WTF?
The only place I was required to work under union was one of my first drafting jobs. I resented that I had to stop work in the middle of whatever I was doing when the whistle sounded, because I would rather finish. I was told that others would resent it. In my many years of (nonunion) work, I have seen many lazy coworkers and many managers who were only trying to build a dynasty, but for some crazy reason, as soon as I started to get SSA, employers have decided that I’m “non-grata”, so I can only free-lance and since my field is construction design, it has dried up. Thank heavens that I have sufficient earnings in my SSA! (and generous kids)
Didn’t United Airlines become a ‘worker-owned’ company (United Technologies)?
How’d that work out, anyway?
If you work only forty hours a week, thank a union organizer.
If you get overtime, ditto.
If you get paid vacation, again.
If you get sick time, some more.
All that said, the power balance has to be somewhat balanced for all that to work. And it’s unstable.
Sorta like “Too Big To Fail” banks, which have now merged into even “Too Bigger To Fail”, so when they do (and they will), they’ll bring down the scenery with them. At that point, I hope your Victory Garden is doing fine!
[Edit]; ^vldazzle, my SSA pittance (and a little retirement annuity) gives me the freedom to refuse work from empire-builders, and pick my projects on my own terms. They hate that.
@ FishStix Well, I must be the only “quintessential lefty” working in stock market investments these days.
Something of a rarity .. but if the fantasy of ‘lefty’ makes you happy, so be it.
I’ve seen your types of comments before & I’ve seen your personal attacks on others in these columns before, probably due to your reluctance or inability to discuss in a civil fashion anything that differs from your preconceived notions.
Which, amusingly, is why you look here for validation of your ‘ideas’ from online strangers who, ironically, enjoy reading a ‘lefty’ cartoonist/satirist.
Ranting that you’re “Right” is not an debate topic, it is a plea for help.
By the way, yes, your Govt has a $14 trillion federal debt .. & it was nearly $11 trillion at the end of President Bush’s administration. I guess that first $11 trillion was just a lefty, commie conspiracy.
Loved this comic! The is what’s happening in Wisconsin right now. A governor and GOP legislators have illegally taken long-standing collective bargaining rights away from ALL public employees. These folks won’t obey a judge’s order to stop the illegally passed law’s implementation. Without question, state workers and others sickened by the behavior of Gov. Scott Walker enjoyed the humor of this strip and appreciated it being published. Keep up the good work!
@jasx: 1) I wouldn’t call this comic leftist. I’ve been a long time reader and from what I’ve seen, I’d say that W. Miller is neither left nor right, but tries to get the viewer to step back from their preconceived notions and look at the issue in a rational way.
2) Clinton set up the events that lead to that high debt. Our country has a nasty habbit of crediting the previous president’s work to the guy that’s in office when the results happen. Hoover was blamed for the Great Depression. Bush Sr. got bleeep for Reaganomics, Clinton got credit for Bush Sr.’s economic boost. Bush was blamed for 9/11 (even though they caught one of Clinton’s cabinet members w/ the intel documents that could have prevented it, in his home having torched 1/2 of them). Bush also got blamed for Clinton’s forced digital conversion, Obama got credit for the few good thing W. Bush was able to set up before the end of his 2nd term, etc.
comicgos about 13 years ago
With what’s left….
reynard61 about 13 years ago
Easy enough once you’ve gotten rid of the “Collective”…
pouncingtiger about 13 years ago
The ideal comic strip for the Republican Governors in the midwestern states and New Jersey.
EarlWash about 13 years ago
Ahh, progress at last!
mirthiful about 13 years ago
Very timely! I love how chipper he looks.
GROG Premium Member about 13 years ago
In view of the suit against Walmart, very timely.
weasel_monkey about 13 years ago
Reasonable government set pay rates as a safety net? No way! It’s MUCH better to make the staff argue with their boss for fair and equitable wages. Vive le capitalism! Vive le working poor!!
thirdguy about 13 years ago
….turn out the lights, the party’s over…
x_Tech about 13 years ago
Looks like it’s One-on-One now, instead of One vs. a Committee. Everyone sing along…♫♪ You can’t always what you want, but I’ll try sometimes… to get what I need. ♫♪
Colt9033 about 13 years ago
A Union of One.
wmbrainiac about 13 years ago
Yes, American principles, like collective bargaining to stand up against the tyranny of the Corporate Collective.
I re-post because it was said so well.
Brockie about 13 years ago
Yes you did….corporations always know what is be$t for us.
Yukoneric about 13 years ago
Kill the boss and take over……………..
Potrzebie about 13 years ago
So if he calls in sick , is it considered a strike?
cdward about 13 years ago
As I recall, the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire just took place this week. It remains a symbol of why employees need a strong voice - employers are in it for their own profit (and that of their shareholders), and for the most part don’t care a whit about employees.
Manhunter808 about 13 years ago
If employee unions are so great, they should buy the company (or start a competitive one) and see if they can afford all the payroll, benefits, pensions, etc..
Oh yes, plus pay the dues to support the hierarchy of the union itself and the millions in donations to their democratic congressional co-conspiring anti-capitalists.
:)
WaitingMan about 13 years ago
In 21st Century America, any time there is a dispute between management and labor, it is very safe to assume that management is lying, cheating and stealing.
Sandfan about 13 years ago
^ It is also very safe to assume that unions are doing the exact same things.
BloomCo about 13 years ago
Never understood collective bargaining. I get paid for what I do. Do a good job and you have nothing to worry about. All collective bargaining does is hold back the best and prop up the ones that don’t deserve anything. When I get a raise it is because of what I did not what those around me did.
Barbaratoo about 13 years ago
First, I agree with cdward. I’m a cashier at a supermarket and we’re not allowed to have a bottle of water to sip - even though we work at “aerobics class” speed for 3, even 4 hours straight before, possibly, getting a break.
Second, to BloomCo - That being said, I work far harder and faster than many of my co-workers yet I get paid the same. I DON’T get merit pay. It’s base, just-above-minimum wage. And, the hours are kept at a minimum so as to possibly argue that we didn’t average 20 hours a week to “earn” a vacation. Get it? Who’s kidding whom?
I left a job making $15 an for sitting on my tush doing nothing for a CEO for two reasons - I was BORED to death and, I felt EXTREMELY guilty because I knew there were tellers making $8 an hour and being the most important people in the bank. THEY meet the customers and do the work to bring in the money, etc. Upper management (and how do they get there anyway) are clueless…
TheDOCTOR about 13 years ago
Can't Sleep about 13 years ago
…And the boss expects that one employee to do the work of all his laid-off (former) co-workers.
Of course, the boss HAD to cut all those others, so he’d be sure to get his mega-bonus.
lewisbower about 13 years ago
Democracy! Union! Everybody gets a vote! Oh, the boss’s vote is bigger than all yours. Why? He hires you, he can fire you. Is there a law that he can’t move out of state? Country? Business? Look up “Boss” in your Funk & Wagnalls. Any other questions? You have the right to quit.
peter0423 about 13 years ago
Granting that this is an unrealistic situation exploited for humor — like one of Wiley’s earlier classics, a slave galley with only one man left on the oars — everyone is still seeing this the wrong way around.
So there’s only one worker left, and he’s doing all the work? That puts him in a position of uniquely strong bargaining power. Without him, there’s no work accomplished at all, no executive mega-bonuses…eventually, no company.
Unions exist to allow workers to bargain with management collectively, as if they were one person dealing directly with management. So if there really is only one worker left, he is the union, with the absolute backing of the entire “workforce”. Talk about solidarity…. He could still be threatened with termination, but then, again, there goes the company down the pipe…so who’s really in charge here?
The greatest weakness of a system dependent on slave labor is that it’s utterly, helplessly dependent on its slaves for its very existence. Once both sides realize that, the fun begins.
Barbaratoo about 13 years ago
I am all for unions. The ONLY fly I see in that ointment, SCAATY_423 is that most people need an income, pittance though it may be. There are reasons to be employed. Lewreader, would I quit this job if I could? In a minute! Do I want to adjust my meager “lifestyle” (compared to other unfortunates) to accommodate that? Not now at this stage of my life: nearing retirement with no pension except my husband’s (if it still exists by that time) and whatever small contributions I have made to Social Security in 43 years when none of my jobs have ever exceeded about $12,000 a year. “Brother, can you spare a dime?”
roctor about 13 years ago
Congradulations BloomCo. on your upward mobility! Advancing from greeter to cart buster. You go girl!
KEA about 13 years ago
We wouldn’t need unions if employers played fair. But they almost never have. Too much pressure to maximize profit.
treered about 13 years ago
if it all works with one guy, who needs the guy in the suit?
galanti about 13 years ago
There are companies owned by the workers. ESOP is not a misspelling of the name of the guy who wrote fables.
And if the one worker quit “the suit” will be screaming about HIS need for a bailout.
I think that all the union haters really want to repeal the Thirteenth Amendment and reinstitute slavery where workers, regardless of race, color, creed or place of origin, are owned by managers with no more rights than the chains that bind them.
junco49 about 13 years ago
FishStix and others of your ilk, but especially FishStix
WTF
WTF WTF WTF WTFjunco49 about 13 years ago
Night-Gaunt49:
I’m trying to swear off blasting the right-wing nutters with rational refutations. WTF seems the best way to do this in a simple abbreviated way. It’s really hard though.
hereforthehumor115 about 13 years ago
“How do you deal with mice in the Kremlin? Put up a sign saying ‘collective farm.’ Then half the mice will starve, and the other half will run away.”
-Soviet-Era Joke, From Ben Lewis, Hammer and TickleWaitingMan about 13 years ago
@junco49: I’ve also long ago given up trying to be rational with right-wingers in 21st century America. You get a more rational discussion from a bag of hammers.
Varnes about 13 years ago
Looks to me like someone looted the place, took a couple of desks and at least one computer tower…
junco49 about 13 years ago
WTF
jasx about 13 years ago
@Junco My sympathies Junco. I commented once before that I thought you had been initially extremely polite & respectful to Fishstix, but he seemed to revel in provoking you. He is provoking you & being a troll because he knows his self-righteous stance infuriates you. I suspect his trolling & belligerence stems from poor education & from sniffing too many lawn-mower fumes for the last 20 years. And probably his poor employees felt too browbeaten to talk back to him which just encouraged him. Also he is retired now so he can be as bloody-minded as he likes. Fishstix delights in provoking you, & with so many lame low brow ranters like this around, encouraged by Tea Party rhetoric, etc, it seems you are facing an anti-intellectual onslaught in your country. We very much admire America & its people, but I am deeply saddened by the divisions in your country, whipped up by political opportunism & the likes of morons like Beck, aided & abetted by Fox News (which I’m sure Fishie would be delighted by). Despite our bonds with the US, one our favourite tv entertainments here (OZ) is showing film clips of US citizens in street polls who are so befuddled they cannot tell the difference between France & Iran on a map, & similar idiocies. We know that these are fringe elements because most US people we meet are well educated & usually very coherent. However your media-driven politics seem on a par with the Witch-hunts of 17th century New England. It’s a dispiriting sight, watching a once powerful, intelligent wonderful friend deteriorating, becoming an embittered, vacuous shadow of their former self. Fishstix WTF?
dfowensby about 13 years ago
member of local 11 77. not gonna happen. collapse before performance.
Blueeyes1952 about 13 years ago
This is what happens when human intermarry with Borg.
vldazzle about 13 years ago
The only place I was required to work under union was one of my first drafting jobs. I resented that I had to stop work in the middle of whatever I was doing when the whistle sounded, because I would rather finish. I was told that others would resent it. In my many years of (nonunion) work, I have seen many lazy coworkers and many managers who were only trying to build a dynasty, but for some crazy reason, as soon as I started to get SSA, employers have decided that I’m “non-grata”, so I can only free-lance and since my field is construction design, it has dried up. Thank heavens that I have sufficient earnings in my SSA! (and generous kids)
artybee about 13 years ago
There he is… the last employed American.
pbarnrob about 13 years ago
Didn’t United Airlines become a ‘worker-owned’ company (United Technologies)?
How’d that work out, anyway?
If you work only forty hours a week, thank a union organizer.
If you get overtime, ditto.
If you get paid vacation, again.
If you get sick time, some more.
All that said, the power balance has to be somewhat balanced for all that to work. And it’s unstable.
Sorta like “Too Big To Fail” banks, which have now merged into even “Too Bigger To Fail”, so when they do (and they will), they’ll bring down the scenery with them. At that point, I hope your Victory Garden is doing fine!
[Edit]; ^vldazzle, my SSA pittance (and a little retirement annuity) gives me the freedom to refuse work from empire-builders, and pick my projects on my own terms. They hate that.
jasx about 13 years ago
@ FishStix Well, I must be the only “quintessential lefty” working in stock market investments these days. Something of a rarity .. but if the fantasy of ‘lefty’ makes you happy, so be it. I’ve seen your types of comments before & I’ve seen your personal attacks on others in these columns before, probably due to your reluctance or inability to discuss in a civil fashion anything that differs from your preconceived notions.
Which, amusingly, is why you look here for validation of your ‘ideas’ from online strangers who, ironically, enjoy reading a ‘lefty’ cartoonist/satirist.
Ranting that you’re “Right” is not an debate topic, it is a plea for help.
By the way, yes, your Govt has a $14 trillion federal debt .. & it was nearly $11 trillion at the end of President Bush’s administration. I guess that first $11 trillion was just a lefty, commie conspiracy.
BadgerBabe about 13 years ago
Loved this comic! The is what’s happening in Wisconsin right now. A governor and GOP legislators have illegally taken long-standing collective bargaining rights away from ALL public employees. These folks won’t obey a judge’s order to stop the illegally passed law’s implementation. Without question, state workers and others sickened by the behavior of Gov. Scott Walker enjoyed the humor of this strip and appreciated it being published. Keep up the good work!
Gyrrakavian about 13 years ago
@jasx: 1) I wouldn’t call this comic leftist. I’ve been a long time reader and from what I’ve seen, I’d say that W. Miller is neither left nor right, but tries to get the viewer to step back from their preconceived notions and look at the issue in a rational way. 2) Clinton set up the events that lead to that high debt. Our country has a nasty habbit of crediting the previous president’s work to the guy that’s in office when the results happen. Hoover was blamed for the Great Depression. Bush Sr. got bleeep for Reaganomics, Clinton got credit for Bush Sr.’s economic boost. Bush was blamed for 9/11 (even though they caught one of Clinton’s cabinet members w/ the intel documents that could have prevented it, in his home having torched 1/2 of them). Bush also got blamed for Clinton’s forced digital conversion, Obama got credit for the few good thing W. Bush was able to set up before the end of his 2nd term, etc.
bcamaiani almost 3 years ago
Another right wing fantasy