Tag Archives: union

Hostess blames a union for bankruptcy — after the CEO / executives looted the company

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Hostess blames a union for its bankruptcy, after they TRIPLED the CEO’s pay. Oh, and they also froze their workers’ pay.

….The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union pointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:

BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.

Certainly, the company agreed to an out-sized pension debt, but the decision to pay executives more while scorning employee contracts during a bankruptcy reflects a lack of good managerial judgement.

It also follows a trend of rising CEO pay in times of economic difficulty. At the manufacturing company Caterpillar, for example, they froze workers’ pay while boosting their CEO’s pay to $17 million. And at Citigroup, CEO Vikram Pandit received $6.7 million for crashing his company, walking off with $260 million after the business lost 88 percent of its value.

justinspoliticalcorner: The REAL facts about why Hostess shut down.

The average American worker isn’t underpaid because of union wages…

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The average American worker is underpaid because your company won’t share its profits with you — even if you helped increase the productivity / profits.

via: wisconsinforward

If a rising tide lifts all boats, the tide must be a socialist

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“A generation ago, non-union workers often welcomed news of improved wages and benefits for unionized employees, recognizing that a rising tide lifts all boats. But … at a time of sacrifice and insecurity, many would prefer to sink their neighbor’s slightly bigger boat while wistfully hoping for a glance at a yacht in a gated marina.” — Mark Erlich

Meanwhile in Madison, Wisconsin (2/27/11)

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Wisconsin Police Union Announces Solidarity with Occupation of State House — Video:

Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!  Read more…

angiepants: Madison, February 27th

angiepants: This is what democracy looks like.

angiepants: Madison, February 27th

Oh, and by the way: The Wisconsin / Walker Lie (emphasis mine)

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

Do you suppose that little fact will be running on Fox News, for their Teaparty “patriot” audience? Or will Walker publicly acknowledge his lies?

Yeah, I don’t think so either.

Wonkette: “Please consider donating to our friends at the Wisconsin-Madison Teaching Assistants’ Association, so that demonstrators can continue to ‘eat food’ and enjoy other communist entitlements.” (via)

Teabagging Agent Provocateurs (or How to plant ‘troublemakers’ in a crowd of peaceful protesters, Walker-style)

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“I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members. I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers.” — Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said Thursday that he was disturbed that, during a prank phone call, Walker said he thought about planting troublemakers among peaceful protesters.

And yesterday, as if on cue, Michelle Malkin posts a video of a union “thug” in Rhode Island, saying ridiculously terrible things to a cameraman, which becomes a BIG HIT with the teabaggers on Twitter, is reposted on Breitbart’s Big Government, and will probably be replayed endlessly on Fox News.

I think we all know this person was one of those “troublemaker-plants.” An anti-union agent provocateur. Because this is how they operate.

Note: I’m not linking to Malkin or Big Gov. You can go find it yourself, if you want.


Rush Limbaugh: firefighters, cops and teachers are now “parasites”

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motherjones:

Aired Thursday morning: “All the parasites of government are now coming out of the woodwork — and that’s exactly what they are, parasites.”

Average Wisconsin public schoolteacher’s salary: $47,602.

Rush Limbaugh’s minimum annual salary: $38,000,000, plus a $100,000,000 bonus.

Parasites, indeed.

And the Dittoheads, sitting in their trucks listening to Rush, with their 1,000 yard glassy-eyed stares, nod slowly.

For Rush’s ever-loyal audience, the meaning of patriotism shifts again — the “Us” and the “Them” — because unionized workers, like firefighters, cops and teachers are now “parasites.”

Wisconsin State Capital Rotunda, Thursday, February 18, 2011:

Wisconsin State Capitol: THUNDERDOME.

Photo: brentgohde

Sarah Palin has a Twitter-Tantrum at AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

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Palin is USUALLY having a tantrum on Twitter:

Trumka went to Anchorage, Alaska — Palin’s political backyard — to deliver a speech in which he is expected to criticize Palin’s language, which he says could incite violence from her supporters.

“And down in Tyler, Texas, she’s talking about — and I quote — ‘union thugs.’ What? Her husband’s a union man. Is she calling him a thug? Sarah Palin ought to know what union men and women are,” Trumka will say. “That’s poisonous. There’s history behind that rhetoric. That’s how bosses and politicians in decades past justified the terrorizing of workers, the murdering of organizers.”

Palin responded on her widely-followed Twitter account, saying:

Know our hardworking union friends (esp from my days as an IBEW sister, Todd IBEW & USW brother) aren’t sheep, they’ll ask: Trumka’s motive?
 
Think Trumka’s frustrations r w/Obama, not me (high unemplymnt, deals w/Obama&his subsequent broken promises)so understandable Rich’s ticked

AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale quickly fired back, saying that she undermined her message by resigning as governor last year.

“Basically, she’s having a temper tantrum, putting her hands over her ears and yelling ‘la la la la la, I can’t hear you,’ ” Vale said. “Because if she had actually read the speech the motivation and message are crystal clear. She left working families in Alaska behind when she tried to trade up to Fox News and the Tea Party. We understand that she wants to keep up her faux populism and image as caring about ordinary people but her actions, policies and candidates she supports speak way louder than her tweets.”

IBEW “sister” my ass.