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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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13 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Unions have had their day. We now have so many gov't admins. that handle many of the jobs unions took care of. The UMW is one of the few I believe is still relevant because it's role is one of safety, and protection of miners. Teachers unions, gov't workers union are complete, and utter BS.

I'm sure someone can make an argument for other unions are things they do that help workers, but by and large they're outdated, and simply protectionist rackets.

In their current construction and format, I agree, they have many flaws. I disagree with outdated. I believe labor is smart enough and needs to be smart enough to reconstruct and reimagine how they champion for worker's rights. However, the property/owner/management class is not going to sit idly by either.

Here's an interesting thing for you: the UPS (a private company) contract is the biggest one the Teamsters have. The USPS (its union is the Postal Service Union) despite all the CRAP that DeJoy has foisted upon them, despite performing the last mile (for the private shipping companies), despite the pandemic has not gone on strike. Their last strike was in 1970 I believe. If the USPS (which I support as a PUBLIC SERVICE) and the UPS workers ever unite; if Amazon can be thwarted in its efforts to stymie unions, shit is going to get real. Will the drones win? The workers? I'm rooting for the workers. America was built on their labor.

Edited by Mrs Whiggins
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2 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Don't like 'em either.  Happy now ?

I wouldn't say happy. Surprised would be a better descriptor. 

I also think Unions in the forms theyve existed before are fucking outdated as fuck. The restrictions and requirement and regulations are fucking absurd. That being said, ironically as someone who has been anti-union my entire life, can actually see that some form of that needs to be required for people to preserve their rapidly eroding rights and benefits that keep getting sucked away by our shitty government. Ideally, the answer would be responsible governance would make them unnecessary. But I've gone from thinking "Unions are a trash heap for graft and needless regulations" to some form of "man, people just keep getting fucked over in _______________ profession." But there's a better answer than the unions we all grew up with and are familiar with now. 

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Just now, SydneyCarton said:

I wouldn't say happy. Surprised would be a better descriptor. 

I also think Unions in the forms theyve existed before are fucking outdated as fuck. The restrictions and requirement and regulations are fucking absurd. That being said, ironically as someone who has been anti-union my entire life, can actually see that some form of that needs to be required for people to preserve their rapidly eroding rights and benefits that keep getting sucked away by our shitty government. Ideally, the answer would be responsible governance would make them unnecessary. But I've gone from thinking "Unions are a trash heap for graft and needless regulations" to some form of "man, people just keep getting fucked over in _______________ profession." But there's a better answer than the unions we all grew up with and are familiar with now. 

Why would you be surprised ?

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Just now, SydneyCarton said:

I wouldn't say happy. Surprised would be a better descriptor. 

I also think Unions in the forms theyve existed before are fucking outdated as fuck. The restrictions and requirement and regulations are fucking absurd. That being said, ironically as someone who has been anti-union my entire life, can actually see that some form of that needs to be required for people to preserve their rapidly eroding rights and benefits that keep getting sucked away by our shitty government. Ideally, the answer would be responsible governance would make them unnecessary. But I've gone from thinking "Unions are a trash heap for graft and needless regulations" to some form of "man, people just keep getting fucked over in _______________ profession." But there's a better answer than the unions we all grew up with and are familiar with now. 

I have no argument with that. If we the people would've been active participants in democracy, perhaps responsible governance would indeed have made them redundant.

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1 minute ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Why would you be surprised ?

My perception and memory of your general posting style on these types of topics. But perhaps I'm mistaking you with another poster and/or my memory is flawed. After all, I do drink quite a bit. But that was what my initial reaction was, if that makes sense. 

 

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12 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

My perception and memory of your general posting style on these types of topics. But perhaps I'm mistaking you with another poster and/or my memory is flawed. After all, I do drink quite a bit. But that was what my initial reaction was, if that makes sense. 

 

No worries, just curious. I've posted my negative feelings on unions in the past. I'm conservative on many issues, usually fiscally, military, sovereign related. When it comes to privacy, people, and social issues I tend to lean more left.

Edited by Onboard 2.0
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I have no concerns with private sector unions. With a private business, management and the union have the ability to negotiate and enter into an agreement which should be acceptable for both sides. Most of the complaints I see regarding private sector union contracts relate to management making poor decisions. From my perspective, caveat emptor. If you get taken advantage of, don't come running for support.

Public sector unions are something else entirely. The politicians who are supposedly negotiating on behalf of the public are receiving campaign contributions at the same time from the union who sits across the other side of the table. That is a ridiculous conflict of interest. In my mind, public sector unions should be required to give up its ability to engage in political activity to keep its right to collectively bargain. Under the current rules, the unions essentially are paying the other side of the negotiating table.

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Public sector unions are something else entirely. The politicians who are supposedly negotiating on behalf of the public are receiving campaign contributions at the same time from the union who sits across the other side of the table. That is a ridiculous conflict of interest. In my mind, public sector unions should be required to give up its ability to engage in political activity to keep its right to collectively bargain. Under the current rules, the unions essentially are paying the other side of the negotiating table.

Also, the person across the table is often a member of the same union.

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9 minutes ago, hornmpa96 said:

I have no concerns with private sector unions. With a private business, management and the union have the ability to negotiate and enter into an agreement which should be acceptable for both sides. Most of the complaints I see regarding private sector union contracts relate to management making poor decisions. From my perspective, caveat emptor. If you get taken advantage of, don't come running for support.

Public sector unions are something else entirely. The politicians who are supposedly negotiating on behalf of the public are receiving campaign contributions at the same time from the union who sits across the other side of the table. That is a ridiculous conflict of interest. In my mind, public sector unions should be required to give up its ability to engage in political activity to keep its right to collectively bargain. Under the current rules, the unions essentially are paying the other side of the negotiating table.

That's a fair point on private sector unions.

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12 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Unions have had their day. We now have so many gov't admins. that handle many of the jobs unions took care of. The UMW is one of the few I believe is still relevant because it's role is one of safety, and protection of miners. Teachers unions, gov't workers union are complete, and utter BS.

I'm sure someone can make an argument for other unions are things they do that help workers, but by and large they're outdated, and simply protectionist rackets.

 

7 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Now tell us how you feel about Police Unions.

i used to think this way about unions, including police unions.

but recently, my thinking has changed. many years ago, i had a training by an irascible bully of an englishman. he was very pro-business, successful, probably centrist by american standards, probably conservative by british standards. however, it was extremely illuminating. he came at things from a manufacturing level, as at the time we were primarily an industry focused company. anyways, while he's teaching us the value of getting more for less, and selling less for more, he laid this one on us during a labor negotiation exercise. "anytime labor feels the need to unionize or strike, that's a failure of management." honestly, this was the last guy i would have thought to have had such a worldview, but he was fervent about it. he contended that if you took care of your people, honestly took care of them, then they would run through walls for you.

and it has taken some time to come to seed in my brain, but i'm fully there. corporations exist to take advantage of labor. you get what you ask for, but at every turn management is looking to get an edge on you, pretty much all in the name of shareholder value. anecdotally, i left the corporate life in 2005, when i was mid-20s and massively disillusioned after joining a tumultuous workforce after graduating from texas in 2000. that's when my wife and i went ahead and fucked off to japan to teach english. came back to the us, got into escrow in 2007. awesome timing. got to experience corporate cutbacks again. so i left, and ended up at a relatively small, privately owned company. it was ideal. they really took care of their people. free healthcare. fair payrises. british owned, so kind of british rules in a us environment, meaning we got more benefits than the average us employee at the time. now, because of various acquisitions and whatnot, i'm back in shareholder value world, and i'm facing another layoff. except, i will say, that the company seems to be going about it in a relatively stand up manner. nevertheless, no real worker protection from our government for workers in jobs affected by an unprecedented pandemic.

now, honestly, as the economy improved over the past decade, including the leading from the front of tech giants like google and apple, benefits for us-based employees have really come of age. when my sons were born, i think i had like 3-4 days of paternity leave. that would be ridiculous today, and it was at the time. because my sons were both premature, unexpected at the time births, i had to substantially dig into my vacation time (which was also massively inadequate in hindsight) in order to care for my family. for my first son, i had to take the family medical care leave. which meant i was taking care of my wife and son while not getting really paid anything. sure, my job was protected, but the housing market crashed through the fucking floor, and it was clear when i returned to work that i wasn't welcome. they couldn't really lay me off, but it was clear they wanted (and maybe needed) to do so.

so my work history has been relatively checkered by layoffs due to downturns, but even so, i think employee benefits have been increased because labor (in the tech sector, at least) feels empowered to go down the street if their company doesn't take care of them. in the end, it comes back to basic employee care. if your employee has options, you are required to take care of them. 

but what if they don't? that's where unions come in, both historically and now. i don't like police unions, but police is a career. it's not really a job. tech workers can bounce around from one company to another and mostly be alright. cops, i guess, can bounce around from city to city, and that does happen, but mostly, they stay in their job for their 20 and get their pensions. now, i think cop unions have too much influence. but the other side of that coin is the teacher union. you fucking kidding me? that has no teeth whatsoever. teachers are largely unprotected as a labor pool, despite that actually should having been a career. we don't take care of teachers (like we do firefighters, police, other public sector employees), so it's a churn heavy career, which is largely against the public trust. and a lot of that is because teachers (at least here in texas) have no collective bargaining power, because the union is toothless. management (the state of texas) has failed teachers, especially during this time of covid, but there really is no recourse.

tl;dr: kind of incomplete post, but i have a conference call. unions are a result of bad management. 

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26 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I wouldn't say happy. Surprised would be a better descriptor. 

I also think Unions in the forms theyve existed before are fucking outdated as fuck. The restrictions and requirement and regulations are fucking absurd. That being said, ironically as someone who has been anti-union my entire life, can actually see that some form of that needs to be required for people to preserve their rapidly eroding rights and benefits that keep getting sucked away by our shitty government. Ideally, the answer would be responsible governance would make them unnecessary. But I've gone from thinking "Unions are a trash heap for graft and needless regulations" to some form of "man, people just keep getting fucked over in _______________ profession." But there's a better answer than the unions we all grew up with and are familiar with now. 

goddamn it. that was a much more concise version of my post.

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57 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I wouldn't say happy. Surprised would be a better descriptor. 

I also think Unions in the forms theyve existed before are fucking outdated as fuck. The restrictions and requirement and regulations are fucking absurd. That being said, ironically as someone who has been anti-union my entire life, can actually see that some form of that needs to be required for people to preserve their rapidly eroding rights and benefits that keep getting sucked away by our shitty government. Ideally, the answer would be responsible governance would make them unnecessary. But I've gone from thinking "Unions are a trash heap for graft and needless regulations" to some form of "man, people just keep getting fucked over in _______________ profession." But there's a better answer than the unions we all grew up with and are familiar with now. 

Indeed. Unions are an important countermeasure to a specific problem, but often get in the way of progress. I was just listening to a really good episode of This American Life from 2010 about the closing of GM's NUMMI plant in Californa that goes into pretty good detail of how unions got in the way of modernization. (I believe this is the one: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015)

Basically, if you want any kind of enterprise to operate at a peak level, you cannot have the kind of adversarial relationship between management and labor that unions essentially depend on permanently for their survival. Instead, you need management and labor to find a way to cooperate, and for everyone to win, so that everyone is motivated to stay fully engaged in the work (I'm oversimplifying, but it's a difficult thing to summarize).

That particular episode of TAL brings a lot of insight into the overall decline of American manufacturing. Americans are too individualistic and thus suck at teamwork and trust, which puts a hard constraint on the extent that we can be competitive against countries who are better at it. A crazy point in that episode is when one of the interviewees talks about how American managers at one plant threatened to quit over having their preferred parking spot taken away.

The Greatest Generation did a fantastic job of working together to win WW2. After that, we've been a bunch of spoiled, selfish brats. Baby boomers especially.

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35 minutes ago, ndawg said:

Indeed. Unions are an important countermeasure to a specific problem, but often get in the way of progress. I was just listening to a really good episode of This American Life from 2010 about the closing of GM's NUMMI plant in Californa that goes into pretty good detail of how unions got in the way of modernization. (I believe this is the one: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015)

Basically, if you want any kind of enterprise to operate at a peak level, you cannot have the kind of adversarial relationship between management and labor that unions essentially depend on permanently for their survival. Instead, you need management and labor to find a way to cooperate, and for everyone to win, so that everyone is motivated to stay fully engaged in the work (I'm oversimplifying, but it's a difficult thing to summarize).

That particular episode of TAL brings a lot of insight into the overall decline of American manufacturing. Americans are too individualistic and thus suck at teamwork and trust, which puts a hard constraint on the extent that we can be competitive against countries who are better at it. A crazy point in that episode is when one of the interviewees talks about how American managers at one plant threatened to quit over having their preferred parking spot taken away.

The Greatest Generation did a fantastic job of working together to win WW2. After that, we've been a bunch of spoiled, selfish brats. Baby boomers especially.

yeah, that goes to the crux of my earlier post. the guy giving the seminar was very plain that if there is a breakdown between management and labor, it's management's fault, because they are in charge of all the things.

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1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

yeah, that goes to the crux of my earlier post. the guy giving the seminar was very plain that if there is a breakdown between management and labor, it's management's fault, because they are in charge of all the things.

Yep. You need a motivated workforce to compete against another motivated workforce, i.e. you need every employee to be the kind of person that takes the trash out when they notice it's full, rather than wait for somebody else to do it. Globalization pitted our companies against competition they weren't prepared to face. GM never caught up, and went belly up.

Unions establish a baseline minimum that guarantees employees get to keep their jobs so long as they do the bare minimum. That kind of company is helpless against competition staffed with people going all out and relentlessly doing the maximum.

I'm a fan of AOC and Bernie style progressives, but I have to hold my nose at a lot of the commentary about labor unions. I think our progressive left has a blind spot around unions, because they hearken back to a time when workers seemed more empowered. A lot more sustainable progress will be made if we address the rampant individualism endemic to American workforces and management structures.

When Trump rattles of stats that make him look good, and blames everyone else for stats that make him look bad, he's doing exactly what American managers do routinely. He really is our deepest flaws, personified.

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17 minutes ago, elfenix said:

Workers get stiffed $8 billion a year because they're not paid even the minimum, and every tech company in the US abuses the fuck out of contract labor, but workers organizing is the real problem.

Well in the US if you're getting screwed we allegedly have several federal agencies we pay lots of tax dollars to support every year to handle that exact kind of issue...Wow, how coincidental....

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34 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Well in the US if you're getting screwed we allegedly have several federal agencies we pay lots of tax dollars to support every year to handle that exact kind of issue...Wow, how coincidental....

which are clearly well-funded and doing a terrific job

Edited by elfenix
not to even mention the catch involved
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2 minutes ago, elfenix said:

which are clearly well-funded and doing a terrific job

So the need for unions becomes even less important especially in the public sector.  I imagine your tech reference was to offshore shenanigans, and I'd agree.  We can't really control that issue though can we ?

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/ceos-see-pay-grow-1000percent-and-now-make-278-times-the-average-worker.html

Quote

Top corporate executives have seen their pay grow by more than 1,000% over the past 40 years, nearly 100 times the rate of average workers, according to a study released this week.

With wealth disparity continuing to accelerate, particularly since the financial crisis, the Economic Policy Institute reports that the gap between CEOs at the top 350 U.S. firms and the rank and file remains wide.

In terms of pay, benefits and the value of stock options when they are exercised, total CEO compensation growth was 1,007.5% from 1978 to 2018. That compares with a wage increase of just 11.9% for what the liberal-leaning institute terms “average workers.” Using another measure of compensation, which takes into account the realized value of the options when they were granted, the CEO comp growth still stood at 940.3%.

might want to do something about this if you don't want workers to organize. it's not just ceos either, it's the entire c-suite and upper management compensation generally.

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6 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/ceos-see-pay-grow-1000percent-and-now-make-278-times-the-average-worker.html

might want to do something about this if you don't want workers to organize and start lopping heads off with guillotines. it's not just ceos either, it's the entire c-suite and upper management compensation generally.

Fify

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corporations started paying execs in ownership with the stated bullshit business purpose of aligning the exec's interest with shareholders.  which is total bullshit because (non-founder, at least) shareholders are diversified.  that exec who has a fuck ton of wealth now tied to the company's stock isn't.  so that exec is even less likely to take the risks that shareholders might want.  hired guns don't grow businesses the way founders do yet are paid like founders.  it doesn't work but since all the hired guns sit on each others boards none of them are going to kill the goose laying their golden parachutes. 

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1 hour ago, elfenix said:

Workers get stiffed $8 billion a year because they're not paid even the minimum, and every tech company in the US abuses the fuck out of contract labor, but workers organizing is the real problem.

I don't think you understand the point you're criticizing. Unions aren't inherently necessary for management and labor to get along; many corporations have provided far better working conditions for their labor force without them. But they are made necessary by bad management. When management and labor don't get along, you have a dysfunctional company, and any competitor that doesn't also suffer from that dysfunction will eat your lunch. Which brings me to my next point...

26 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/ceos-see-pay-grow-1000percent-and-now-make-278-times-the-average-worker.html

might want to do something about this if you don't want workers to organize. it's not just ceos either, it's the entire c-suite and upper management compensation generally.

... we have pervasive dysfunction. The invisible hand isn't correcting our companies fast enough (GM took 60 years to fail). Our management types are sociopathic short term thinkers who put their own enrichment above the company as a whole. They aren't looking to grow a long lasting enterprise that creates public value profitably. They are mercenaries.

We have certainly been regressing back to the kind of exploitative conditions where labor unions were originally made necessary; wealth inequality seems like a clear indicator of that. But we live in a different world now, where our economy has to compete in a global one. Our systems of management have to get up to speed quickly, or else we'll be left with the blue collar and white collar castes fighting over slices of a pie that's ever-decreasing.

Unions won't somehow give us better managers (and they won't give us better workers, in the long run). And better management is the only way our position in the world economy can remain secure.

I think we are far better off leveraging regulation to incentivize long term profitability and sustainability over short term gains, and to build a safety net around workers so that management can set higher standards for their labor force.

Edited by ndawg
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6 minutes ago, elfenix said:

corporations started paying execs in ownership with the stated bullshit business purpose of aligning the exec's interest with shareholders.  which is total bullshit because (non-founder, at least) shareholders are diversified.  that exec who has a fuck ton of wealth now tied to the company's stock isn't.  so that exec is even less likely to take the risks that shareholders might want.  hired guns don't grow businesses the way founders do yet are paid like founders.  it doesn't work but since all the hired guns sit on each others boards none of them are going to kill the goose laying their golden parachutes. 

Well, and the executives receive exorbitant salaries in addition to their stock compensation.  And are able to manipulate the stock value to insure receipt of that stock compensation without regard to the long-term health of the corporation or its stakeholders other than shareholders.

Collective bargaining for labor is a sound basic idea.  It can and was corrupted in infinite ways by big labor over the last 50 years and is probably as responsible as management or any other party for the "offshoring" of American jobs.  Offshoring was inevitable, but it could have been slowed or paced a bit (see Germany for example).

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1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, and the executives receive exorbitant salaries in addition to their stock compensation.  And are able to manipulate the stock value to insure receipt of that stock compensation without regard to the long-term health of the corporation or its stakeholders other than shareholders.

Collective bargaining for labor is a sound basic idea.  It can and was corrupted in infinite ways by big labor over the last 50 years and is probably as responsible as management or any other party for the "offshoring" of American jobs.  Offshoring was inevitable, but it could have been slowed or paced a bit (see Germany for example).

Tying everything in the world to stock price was a huge, huge mistake.  Because stock price is a transitory creature, and is often at odds with good long-term planning.  Exec compensation should by tied to COMPLETE corporate performance, short and long term.  As should labor's compensation.

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13 minutes ago, ndawg said:

I don't think you understand the point you're criticizing. Unions aren't inherently necessary for management and labor to get along; many corporations have provided far better working conditions for their labor force without them. But they are made necessary by bad management. When management and labor don't get along, you have a dysfunctional company, and any competitor that doesn't also suffer from that dysfunction will eat your lunch. Which brings me to my next point...

... we have pervasive dysfunction. The invisible hand isn't correcting our companies fast enough (GM took 60 years to fail). Our management types are sociopathic short term thinkers who put their own enrichment above the company as a whole. They aren't looking to grow a long lasting enterprise that creates public value profitably. They are mercenaries.

We have certainly been regressing back to the kind of exploitative conditions where labor unions were originally made necessary; wealth inequality seems like a clear indicator of that. But we live in a different world now, where our economy has to compete in a global one. Our systems of management have to get up to speed quickly, or else we'll be left with the blue collar and white collar castes fighting over slices of a pie that's ever-decreasing.

Unions won't somehow give us better managers (and they won't give us better workers, in the long run). And better management is the only way our position in the world economy can remain secure.

I think we are far better off leveraging regulation to incentivize long term profitability and sustainability over short term gains, and to build a safety net around workers so that management can set higher standards for their workers.

Soild post.

I might point out additionally, that often big labor and management got too cozy at giving each other (note this does not include either the corporation or the rank-and-file worker) what they wanted without regard for the future of the corporation or of labor beyond the current contract.

So they created a "do-loop" of self-dealing and short-term benefit.  Particularly true in the auto industry.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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38 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

So the need for unions becomes even less important especially in the public sector.  I imagine your tech reference was to offshore shenanigans, and I'd agree.  We can't really control that issue though can we ?

Actually, Biden has a plan to handle that, for the record. He discussed it at a town hall not too long ago, I believe. Outsource to foreign contractors, big tax hit. 

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37 minutes ago, elfenix said:

Was not familiar with that term or its meaning.  Interesting.

I suppose we all know that upon reunification and the fall of the iron curtain, German automotive and other manufacturing industries were sorely tempted to send all their mfg. to "the east."  Labor, represented on corporate boards, compromised with management on wages, how many jobs and what type would be sent to "the east," and focused some effort on retraining domestic workers for jobs that would be retained in Germany.  They obtained a much better outcome than we have and slowed the "hit" of globalization.

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I was ground floor on a startup that went public ~ 2000 and hung on before a competitor takeover ~ 2016.  Never really profitable, always on the cusp.

My favorite annual report was the one which showed that the company WOULD have been profitable had it not been for C-level bonuses that year.

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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