Unions are Good! Or Bad!

Re: Omni Hotel @ BCEC | Summer St | Seaport

You have no idea how a strike or protest work do you. If you're not loud or not creating a disturbance, how do you get notice? :rollseyes:

I know - seriously.

I am sure they want to make it an obnoxious environment for the hotel guests also...a few angry phone calls from guests (e.g., customers) to Marriott management is exactly what gets attention.
 
Union Pensions insolvency does not undercut or validate Unions any more than people's underfunded IRA/401ks undercut or validate non-Union employment.

Both--and the sorry state of State Employee plans-- are all three tied to the fact that the US is not a nation of savers, have made overly-rosy assumptions about investment returns and healthcare costs, and have all over-relied on Social Security and Medicare as backstops.


The decline in unions (and shift to a service economy) has coincided with stagnation in worker wages, and workers getting a declining share of the wealth they create (instead execs and shareholders took more).

The rank-and-file worker needs *something* (some collective power or action) to assert a claim for making higher pay as their productivity rises. That probably can and should be either unions, or Sen Warren's Codetermination plan, or a New New Deal around things like minimum wage, paid family leave, and greater access to job training.

if not trade schools or university, somebody needs to help workers invest in their own productivity, rather than employers just saying "BA Required" but not paying wages that actually pay back the cost of a BA.
 
Re: Omni Hotel @ BCEC | Summer St | Seaport

Are you going to answer the question...what has the drum banging accomplished? Why not go to the table and civilly negotiate. What are the residents at Flats on D going to do about their issue? They have to listen to that 12 hours per day.

And NFL fans complain that kneeling colored people are offensive, disrespectful, and unsightly.

Making the comfortable uncomfortable is exactly how protests work.

By the way, call somebody comfortable and complain about the ongoing Boston Gas lockout of the people who are actually trained to work with dangerous Gas utilities. The steelworkers on Boston Gas are *exactly* the kind of people that unions need and need unions.

https://www.usw.org/act/campaigns/l...rces/facts-about-the-lockout-at-national-grid
 
I'd like to thank AB Local 306 for getting automatic toxic thread containment included in the latest board health plan. It was a hard-won fight.
 
The protesters start at 7 am. They stop at 5 pm. Then they all get in their cars and drive back to whichever suburb they actually live in.
 
The protesters start at 7 am. They stop at 5 pm. Then they all get in their cars and drive back to whichever suburb they actually live in.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, though I surmise it's loaded in one way or another.
 
Actually, many hotel workers commute on buses to Chelsea, Lowell, Haverhill, Brockton and Worcester back to the burbs, because they can't afford to live in the city.
 
What I can't figure out is how USA today comes out with news like this
401-k-millionaires-hits-new-record
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...01-k-millionaires-hits-new-record/1000228002/

Then articles like this:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/414871-growing-pension-black-holes-are-pulling-us-all-in

Meanwhile Pensions can't pay their pensioners.

Something is seriously wrong in my opinion.

It is called economic inequality. A small number of people are getting very rich (driving 401k-millionaire counts) and a large number of people have flat pay and worse benefits. Worse, the vast majority of people can't accurately picture just how rich the .1% are and so think such accumulation of wealth is normal, healthy and that if only they'd worked harder, they could have achieved it too.
 
I don't really have a problem with private unions. I have a big problem with public sector unions.

That said... The Marriott thing needs to stop. My roommate and I are getting tired of being woken up at sometimes earlier than 7AM so a group of five people can bang drums in front of the W until 7pm.

Also, I think there strike message is way off... they want to make enough for one job. That's not Marriot's problem. I guess it's implied they want more money, but the way they're framing it is all wrong in my mind. Their demand is potentially unmeetable... so Marriot pays them more money and they still need two jobs? Whose fault is it... Marriot? Or them not being more thrifty? Or for their other job not paying more?
 
It is called economic inequality. A small number of people are getting very rich (driving 401k-millionaire counts) and a large number of people have flat pay and worse benefits. Worse, the vast majority of people can't accurately picture just how rich the .1% are and so think such accumulation of wealth is normal, healthy and that if only they'd worked harder, they could have achieved it too.

My point is how are these pensions insolvent when the stock market been in a 10year bull market run. What happens if there is a bear market?
 
Maybe it was in the other thread but someone wrote that the protesters started yelling at 6 am and I wanted to correct them.

Also, having to travel to Everett or Quincy after your shift is actually closer than having to travel to West Roxbury or Roslindale, so what difference does it make that they can't afford to live here?

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, though I surmise it's loaded in one way or another.
 
My point is how are these pensions insolvent when the stock market been in a 10year bull market run. What happens if there is a bear market?

I believe the other problem is a declining membership base (too many beneficiaries vs contributors)
 
I don't really have a problem with private unions. I have a big problem with public sector unions.

This is my stance as well. Without going too far into detail, what happens with public sector unions for a particular transportation authority is far worse than the stereotypes they already have. Even with all these future improvements, expansions, and management, the system truly won't work until the unions are sorted out. They've gone too far IMO.
 
Maybe it was in the other thread but someone wrote that the protesters started yelling at 6 am and I wanted to correct them.

Also, having to travel to Everett or Quincy after your shift is actually closer than having to travel to West Roxbury or Roslindale, so what difference does it make that they can't afford to live here?

Thanks for clarifying.
 
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/09/residents-sue-over-racket-ritz/RCg6LRPL4HQds71cEnOaxL/story.html

The elephant in the room, of course, is: why would the City's Corporation Counsel have permitted such a ludicrously unenforceable (because flagrantly unconstitutional) anti-noise ordinance to have been passed? If the City Council passed it, can't the Corporation Counsel veto it on grounds of flagrant unconstitutionality? Curious.

I'm sympathetic to all parties here and profoundly torn--except for the fact that clearly, in this case, the law is an ass.
 
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/09/residents-sue-over-racket-ritz/RCg6LRPL4HQds71cEnOaxL/story.html

The elephant in the room, of course, is: why would the City's Corporation Counsel have permitted such a ludicrously unenforceable (because flagrantly unconstitutional) anti-noise ordinance to have been passed? If the City Council passed it, can't the Corporation Counsel veto it on grounds of flagrant unconstitutionality? Curious.

I'm sympathetic to all parties here and profoundly torn--except for the fact that clearly, in this case, the law is an ass.

I'm no legal scholar, but my understanding is that courts have found noise ordinances to be constitutional and enforceable as long as they are sufficiently clearly defined and not vague. The Boston law specifies a specific decibel level, so that sounds anything but vague to me. As long as noise ordinances clearly regulate the volume of all speech equally and don't regulate any specific type of speech, I don't see how that's unconstitutional.

Proselytism is certainly covered by the first amendment, but it is nobody's first amendment right to, for example, broadcast sermons at full blast at all hours of the night.
 
i support the right of people to earn a good wage.

Some public unions are corrupt.....
 
It's weird to me people hear about some union officials engaged in illegal activities and then all unions are bad and we should badmouth them every chance we get. Then on the other hand businesses engage in illegal activity all the time like Google, Wells Fargo, Upper Crust or any other of the countless companies that do it and their ok, they were just trying to get a leg up on the competition

If your a business owner yourself I get it you dont like unions but for the rest of us you might want to take a look around and see what side your on.

I have a bad history with unions myself and have a lot of reasons to dislike them and I did for a long time.... but when you look at what corporations and politicians are doing constantly to undermine workers rights and wages in the current climate you should figure out which is the lesser of the evils.
 

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