Unions Are Full of Donkey Poop

 

My wife started her new job at a local grocery store. She will not be a cashier, but rather will be working in the pharmacy since she has 28 years of experience there. She also will be starting far above the minimum wage.

None of that is the point.

We will call her store Weber's Fine Foods to protect the identity of both my wife, and the store she works for.

The fact is that Weber's Fine Foods is a union store. And as such of course she will be required to join the union to work there. So with that there is also a union orientation, which is really code word for "presentation and propaganda spewing."

"Do not shop the non-union stores like Aldi, Walmart, Sam's Club, or Whole Foods." They go on to say that "every dollar spent in a union store is a dollar spent toward ensuring the future stability of every union employee and employer."

Ahem. Waders please. And it is beginning to stink in here a bit.

How much does Weber's Fine Food's pay their cashiers? $8.00 an hour. How about another local discount grocer in the same union local? $7.25.

Average starting wage of a Walmart or Sam's Club employee? Around $11.75. How much is the average starting wage for a cashier at Aldi? $12.00. How much is the average starting wage of a Whole Foods associate? Around $10-$12.

So tell me again how the union is ensuring the future stability of every union employee and employer when every union employer is below the radar when it comes to employee wages—which by the way are further reduced by union dues?

Your union if full of donkey poop quite frankly and every indication is that working for a non-union store pays better, from the start and to the finish. But unions don't like to spout off numbers. Rhetoric is so much easier to spout off. And so long as they have captive audiences? All the better.

Biden Visits The Detroit Wasteland

It's a trap. That is, the unions. But Vice President Biden won't tell you that. Neither will Obama, or the entire democratic party. Because they don't want people to catch on. The truth is that Detroit us a wasteland in part due to unions who sought to siphon every penny they possibly could out of companies from wages, to benefits, to pensions and beyond.

Did anyone care to look at a balance sheet? Of course not. That would tell the real story about how much money a company could afford to pay its workers. And it would not fit the narrative that the unions wanted the workers to hear.

Companies are bad. CEOs are evil. Workers need protection from bad and evil and the unions will come to their rescue.

But they didn't, and that's the point. And one that so many workers missed then, and continue to miss today. When they think about the jobs they had that went away, they don't put the blame on the unions who essentially took those jobs away by making unreasonable and unfounded demands for more money that simply wasn't there to give. They blame it on the companies and the executives who had to make tough decisions according to what was best for the company to keep their doors open at some level.

That means shuttering some doors, and letting workers go. It is simple business. And it was the unions who caused this, and even the workers themselves. But again, that's not the story anyone will hear nor pay attention to.

So Biden made a trip to Detroit this past Labor Day to speak with workers in the wasteland, and what did he tell them? You deserve more. Forget the wasteland around you, toppled by insane demands and union work rules that made it nearly impossible for the companies to operate. Forget that in right to work states people have jobs, get paid well, and are doing well. No, workers deserve more.

But the proof that simply demanding more doesn't work doesn't matter anymore than the proof that higher taxes do not increase government revenues. They will go on and beating the dead horse until there is nothing left but dependents who will need the democrats to feed them, clothe them, and now take care of all of their medical needs.

Wake up America. Wake up workers. Let's figure out what "fair" really means instead of trying to make up a hogwash definition of it on our own.

Image is mine from my private collection © 2014

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