GM Hourly Workers To Receive $3,000 Profit-Sharing Bonus

All too often in America today we read so many stories about US companies cutting jobs and shipping them overseas or companies not paying workers living wages. So it was a great change of pace to read  about General Motors providing their hourly workers with at least $3,000 each in profit-sharing bonuses this year.

As I surfed online for more information on this news, I noticed that the anti-union/ anti-worker crowds are already out in force  repeating corporate anti-worker talking points ad nauseum. One commenter ridiculously urging others "not to buy from GM" or another commenter seemingly hoping that GM fails. I don't understand this insanity?

Do these individuals not realize it was companies like GM that basically built states like Michigan and the strong middle class life that is continuously reminisced about from the 50's and 60's? Do they not realize that without these type of jobs, you would not have a middle class that afforded so many households to have Moms waiting at home when their children returned from school? Do they not realize that these jobs, with their good wages and benefits, allowed so many Americans to send their children to college, often times for the first time in that families' history? 

This hatred of workers and unions is something that I truly do not understand? The union is there to represent the workers at the table when companies make important decisions about pay rates, benefits or whether or not to  add or cut jobs. Without jobs with good pay, there are no consumers to buy products or services. Without them where would any company be?

Here is a link to a video news report from a local Michigan television station about the GM worker bonus.

http://www.wnem.com/news/26791998/detail.html 

Anti-Union Spin on New York Snow Storm In Doubt?

After the first major snow storm in New York, the story that emanated in the corporate media, was the union may be to blame for the slow snow removal. The story goes that five union workers were involved in staging a work "slowdown" that kept the city literally paralyzed. Two workers were from the transportation department and three were from the sanitation department. The workers purported to had mentioned to one city council member about the "slowdown". The two transportation workers have denied this claim and the three sanitation workers were never named by the council member.

Unfortunately, several people were reported to have died due to the delayed time it took emergency vehicles to reach residents in the bad road conditions. I was watching Morning Joe  and heard Wille Geist repeat the media narrative on air. But is it really true?

The city has recently made budget cuts to transportation and sanitation workers.  The good news is there was a federal investigation that was initiated after this disaster. But the bad news is that the investigation centered around the allegation of the union workers, but did not also include investigating recent worker layoffs as a possible problem for the slow removal of the snow. 

Councilman Daniel Halloran was the council member who started the story about the unions, but when he was questioned on specifics, his story changed and he would not provide the names of the sanitation workers who were supposedly involved. Halloran is a republican from Queens who has Tea Party support.

This anti-union narrative has become popular in the mainstream media as an excuse to blame organized government workers for everthing wrong in the country fiscally. How many times have you recently heard the meme that state workers should be cut in various states across the country to balance state budgets? 

While the investigation has not been completed, the media seemed eager to report, without verification, that the unions are to blame. The question is why does there seem to be an anti-union bias in our media? 

Watch this issue being discussed by Grittv's Laura Flanders.

US Chamber Wants A Low Wage Nation?

On CPAN's Washington Journal this morning the US Chamber of Commerce executive vice president, David Chavern, appeared on a viewer call-in segment. Like all others from anti-union and anti-worker organizations, Chavern voiced his opposition to the minimum wage when asked about it by a caller. A minimum wage is is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly wage that employers may legally pay to employees or workers.

The minimum wage concept was first introduced as way to control the proliferation of sweat shops in manufacturing industries.  A sweat shop was a working environment considered to be dangerous or difficult especially by developed countries with high standards of living like the United States. The sweat shops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered to be substandard wages. The sweat shop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their workers, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay "fairly." The minimum wage was first introduced nationally in the United States in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

 The current minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Do you know anywhere an individual can live today in the United States today off of $7.25 per hour? And yet you have the vice president of the largest organization in the United States representing businesses saying that minimum wages are "counter productive".

Watch the US Chamber of Commerce Vice President talk about the minimum wage.