My Take

accounting panel ready with bomb

face it

the i like ike
union contracted 
 golden fringe world 
is  headed straight to over-ville 

 no matter what u
       bozos thought
   health  bills after 
 your  happy job days are  done 
are yours and uncle's 



==============================
   

" The board that writes accounting rules
 for American business
 is proposing a new method of reporting
 health and pension obligations
 that is likely to show 
that many companies have a lot more debt
                   than was obvious before"
" old industrial companies
 like automakers,
are likely to see their net worth wiped out"




" The new method 
proposed by the accounting board 
would require companies 
to take certain odligations 
 they now report deep 
in the footnotes of their financial statements
 and move the information onto their balance sheets
 — where all their assets and liabilities are reflected"
 

 

" Using information in the footnotes 
of Ford's 2005 financial statements
 if the new rule were already in effect
 Ford's balance sheet 
would reflect about $20 billion 
more in obligations 
full recognition of health care 
promised to Ford's retirees accounts
 for most of the difference
 Ford now reports a net worth of $14 billion"

 
"Applying the same method to General Motors'
 balance sheet suggests 
that if the accounting rule had been in effect 
at the end of 2005, 
there would be a swing of about $37 billion
 At the end of 2005, 
the company reported a net worth 
of $14.6 billion.
 

 

out take numbers from the job system

  laid off
  before u recycle
add to your skill set 

do u wonder 
hows that likely to pay off  for ya ????


well
here's a few scattered numbers 

that show 
skill sets may  be too upped  
already

so added to yours 
may not be the high wage
                     door  key 

as in 

"the interview  line 
         starts  way back there bub "



===============================

why ??

cause


" Rather than having a shortage of skills,
 millions of American workers 
have more skills than their jobs require."

" That is particularly true of college-educated people,
 who make up 30 percent 
of the population today,
 up from 10 percent in the 1960's."

" They often find themselves 
working in sales or as office administrators,
 or taking jobs in hotels and restaurants,
 or becoming carpenters, 
flight attendants and word processors"

"The number of jobs 
that require a bachelor's degree 
has indeed been growing, 
but more slowly 
than the number of graduates,
 according to the Labor Department,"

" and that trend 
is likely to continue through this decade"

 "The average college graduate
 is doing very well
But on the margin, 
college graduates appear to be
 more vulnerable than in the past."

The Labor Department's 
Bureau of Labor Statistics 
offers a rough estimate of the imbalance
 in the demand for jobs
 as opposed to the supply."

" Each month since December 2000
, it has surveyed the number 
of job vacancies across the country 
and compared it with the number 
of unemployed job seekers"

" On average, 
there were 2.6 job seekers 
for every job opening 
over the first 41 months 
of the survey"

" That ratio would have been even higher
 if the calculation had included 
the millions of people
 who stopped looking for work 
because they did not believe
 that they could get decent jobs"

"So the demand for jobs 
is considerably greater
 than the supply, 
and the supply is not
 what the reigning theory says it is"

" Most of the unfilled jobs 
pay low wages and require relatively little skill
 often less than the jobholder has"

" From the spring of 2003 
to the spring of 2004, 
 more than 55 percent 
of the hiring 
was at wages of $13.25 an hour or less:
 hotel and restaurant workers,
 health care employees,
 temporary replacements and the like" 

"That trend is likely to continue."

" Seven of the 10 occupations 
expected to grow the fastest 
from 2002 through 2012, 
now  pay less than $13.25 an hour
 on average: retail salesclerks, 
customer service representatives,
 food service workers,
 cashiers, janitors, 
nurse's aides and hospital orderlies"

The $13.25 threshold is important.
 More than 45 percent of the nation's workers,
 whatever their skills,
 earned less than $13.25 an hour in 2004,
 or $27,600 a year for a full-time worker.

 




" the oversupply of skilled workers 
is driving people into jobs
 beneath their skills 
and driving down the pay of jobs
 equal to their skills"

"the glum alternatives"

"Two years after a layoff, 
two-thirds of the victims say 
they are working again,
 Of those two-thirds, 
only 40 percent, on average,
 make as much as they had in their old jobs"

i promise

 okay so i took a few belts 

so what 

let me the fuck out of here 

   

=======================

  doc edison shoudn't have a cabinet 
in his office
   for wet hosting

 come on
once i knew
what resided behind those two
matching
crotch mahogany doors
  shit  
 who can resist
 a challenge and reward like that

so they find me
a few hours into the process 
 ... lyin there
in the shaft of hall light 
whistlin swanee river 

tighter
 then  elivis's  stage pants

ah nothin like 
the old booze wrench 

---------------

 but  mark my words
set back or no set back 
i'm bustin out 
of 
this  brass buckle farm  
                      by easter sunday 

  

=============================

gindin

CONCESSIONS: FIRST TIME DEFEAT, SECOND REVIVAL?
by Sam Gindin, Packer Chair in Social Justice at York University.

In the early 80s, the implications of neoliberalism were quickly revealed as the auto majors reversed four decades of steady growth in wages by successfully forcing concessions on the once powerful UAW. That working class defeat had not just continental, but global ramifications. When, a little over two decades later (2004) Delphi - the largest parts manufacturer in North America - declared that it would reduce workers’ wages by over 60%, it seemed that another even more dramatic round of concessions was about to begin. But this time, a remarkable resistance emerged from below which, combined with worker scepticism of union-negotiated concessions at GM and Ford (with Daimler-Chrysler workers expected to be even more critical) raised a new possibility. Rather than another defeat, could the push for concessions open the door today to a revival of the American labour movement?

Without struggles and mobilization from below nothing is possible. Yet in itself, this is not enough. As we’ve seen over the past decades, localized struggles come and go and may in the end not add up to much – no matter how heroic and impressive they are – if they are not able to extend their reach. My comments are about what ‘extending their reach’ might mean.

1. Putting National Health Care on the Agenda
Let me start first with the situation in the US. The crisis in the US auto industry has many elements but both GM and Delphi have highlighted one particular dimension that auto workers must take on board: the contradictions in the privatization of the welfare state, particularly in health care (with pensions not far behind)[1]. In the US, unlike every other developed country, no national health care plan emerged, but organized workers were able to negotiate private protection through collective bargaining. As long as the economy was growing and competitors were marginal, things went relatively smoothly for these particular workers. But as competitors emerged, the Big Three downsized and its smaller workforce was carrying not just its own rising health care costs, but those of the retirees. As these costs and other factors led to a fall in the Big Three’s share of the market, there was an increase in the ratio of retirees to actives and the burden of health care costs got even worse (incentives to retire early as a way of limiting layoffs further exacerbated the problem). 

Trying to solve this problem by demanding worker concessions is not only unfair but it just sidesteps the larger issue of the absence of a national health care program. Workers should be declaring, loudly and clearly: ‘Don’t talk to us about concessions, talk about National Health Care’. And if the companies are screaming ‘Crisis!’ and putting a national focus on auto and other organized workers, workers shouting out ‘No to concessions, yes to national health care’, will be heard. They’ll especially touch a nerve when:

47 million Americans don’t have health care (even though half the total health care expenditures in the world occur in the US); 
all organized workers are increasingly feeling they may soon join the other 28 million Americans who now have to buy their own health care (i.e. are not part of company plans of some sort); 
when health care is the number one American concern in national polls, ranking even ahead of the war in Iraq; and 
when even American business is now looking to some form of government intervention to bail them out of what they feel that their companies - and the country as a whole - can no longer afford (the US spends almost 16% of its GDP on health care; if it spent the same proportion that Canada spends, the savings would exceed the total US Defence and Homeland security Budgets!) 
The point is that if Delphi, GM and other autoworkers are able by saying no to concessions and are therefore able to place this on the national agenda, the union leadership – which is itself sympathetic to the issue but has to date not been ready or able to commit to it – will be forced to support the issue. And if this spreads to other unions with matching concerns there is a chance that the labour movement might once again, as it did in the 1930s, be the social movement that really matters. And in leading such a fight, who knows – the American labour movement might finally have a focus that addresses the riddle to how to revive and renew itself that decades-long sleep that has affected workers everywhere. 

Canadian workers are of course extremely interested in this. Not only are Canadian autoworkers, negatively affected by the American health care costs because of their integration into US auto production; and not only would a fight for national medicare in the US reinforce our fight in Canada against the erosion of health care; but an American labour movement in motion would, as in the 1930s, create the crucial space for us to intensify our own struggles. 

2. Free Trade
For both Canadian and American workers, there is no one thing that will solve all our problems. But it is clear enough that rejecting free trade is a condition for moving ahead and sustaining any future progress. Free trade is essentially about the freedom of corporations and that freedom comes at the expense of the freedom of the rest of us. It not only allows corporations to unilaterally make decisions that may harm us, but increases the power of corporations to pressure workers and governments to conform to their needs. Rejecting the logic of free trade raises the larger question of power in society and whether we can really have a democratic society if the most important decisions affecting our lives and communities are made by a small minority and not those affected. That is, there is a contradiction between saying our society is democratic because we have the right to vote and leaving corporations with the economic power to limit what we can vote for.

In this context, it is important to be focussed on who the enemy is. We must not be diverted into blaming Chinese workers for our problems. Like us, they are trying to address their needs and the level of struggle amongst Chinese workers has been escalating against both state companies and against the multinationals. In the case of Delphi, for example, investments in China to meet the growing Chinese market are one thing, but moving production from plants in North America and then expecting to export the products back here is quite another. Delphi can’t be allowed to sacrifices worker’s livelihoods and standards in the name of ‘free-trade freedom’.

3. Regulation Competition and Excess Capacity
As important as it is to challenge free trade, it is not enough. Honda, for example, now assembles more vehicles here than it does in Japan – the Japanese companies are not just shipping vehicles here but producing them here. The problem with this is that every new plant creates excess capacity and leads to the closure of an existing plant. Consider the recently announced investment by Toyota in Ontario. They received a $250 million subsidy from the two levels of government but at the end of the day, there will be no new jobs as Toyota sales replace other sales (in fact, because Toyota’s content is lower than existing plants there will be fewer plants); there will not be any new tax revenue (in fact, because of the subsidy, there will be less money available for other social programs); and the industry will be less unionized and democratic (as unionized plants are replaced by non-union ones). Exactly how is this investment a plus? 

Of course, if the plant was going into a depressed area or where a previous plant had just closed, that might be another matter. But that’s the point. There must be some democratic input into such decisions and they cannot be left to the market. Raising such issues sounds pretty radical because it questions the right of private investors to do as they please as opposed to a principle of democratic planning about the level and direction of investment. And it is radical; we shouldn’t underestimate the kind of opposition we’ll get once we challenge property rights in any way. But there are some precedents to build on:

In the early 70s, A Liberal minority government introduced the ‘Foreign Investment Review Agency’ (FIRA) with the common-sense notion that before being approved it had to be shown that the foreign investment was ‘in the national interest’. 
In the 80s, European governments looking to limit the Japanese penetration of their market learned from the North American experience that trade limits could be circumvented by entering the market directly and so Japanese direct investment was included as part of the overall limit on their market share. 
In the US, foreign investment has often been limited in the name of national security. Why can’t worker security also be given such national status? 
[A further example is the successful mobilization against Wal-Mart coming into some local communities. Though not quite comparable to auto plants (where communities have fought to get plants even though there may be no net advantage from an industry-wide perspective), this does point to the possibility of blocking a-social investments through both legal and political means.] 
4. Work time
Reduced work-time is one way to share jobs in industries with relatively decent-paying jobs. Overtime is particularly harmful to class solidarity when it occurs while others are laid off or young workers are looking for a job but see opportunities limited by the unequal distribution of work. One way of doing this is to limit the use of overtime after a layoff until everyone is called back (especially since such layoffs are often a mechanism for downsizing by not brining everyone back even when the market returns). The current policy of the CAW at Ford, and currently affecting Ford Engine workers of work-sharing - some weeks on and some off for the whole workforce as opposed to a few losing their jobs - has been controversial. But its part of building the union; its something the younger workers will remember and appreciate as opposed to the argument that seniority layoffs cost them their jobs. In the early days of the union at Ford, when the survival of the new union was so tentative and solidarity so crucial, the workweek was contractually lowered to 32 hours before any layoffs occurred. 

But there is another dimension of work time that must be revived. In the early days of the union limiting the hours of work was so crucial because workers saw it as being about regaining control over their own time. It was a matter of preserving their dignity, having time to develop as a human being, and having the time to participate as an active member of the community. Without this latter dimension of work time – its link to having the time to learn and be active - its hard to believe that we will ever be able to really change our lives. 

Conclusion
It’s easy to identify barriers to improving our lives. The issue is how we develop the collective capacity to overcome those barriers. This involves making links across plants and across unions, and across the labour movement and other social movements. It means educating ourselves so we fully understand what we are up against and where the openings for resistance might be. It means learning from every struggle – defeats carry lessons and partial victories must be consolidated and developing a sense of strategy. And it means developing a vision that keeps us going and provides some direction as we manoeuvre between immediate and longer-term goals. At any point in time, the choices seem limited. Expanding those options is what we must also focus on. 

It’s this kind of capacity-building that, in forming the Socialist Project, some of us hoped to build. Our ultimate goals is to replace capitalism – based on competitiveness and some controlling the lives and potentials of others – with a society based on the full and mutual development of each of our potentials and where democracy is seen as a form of society, not just a mechanism for choosing who will administer the system. We see forums such as this one as part of the process, but it will take much more to establish the kind of presence that can really start affecting things. We urge you to check out our publications and WEB-site, find out about the activities of the SP in your community, and join us in addressing and debating how we can concretely build the kind of movement we so desperately need.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes

1. While corporations place monies into pension trusts to set aside monies for future pensions, health care – even for retirees – is paid for out of general revenue.

^ Back to Top ^ 

short money ???

looks like short money to me guys

the gm fold in looks like a rope a dope 

delphi alone

well there's
 the bankruptcy hammer 

but now gm ????


=============================

 i agree with gale seize the plants as collateral 

cash up front

from the sale of gmac 

my belly sez

my elves tell me
 u  need a 18  billion dollar package offer 
to even consider it all

but warning once the credit op
 is gone
             you be double fucked 

 seize em now now now 

the strugle bone in my back is screaming

     trash compactor ahead 

  move now grab your collateral 
be in possession 

mob unions as stuffed shirt metaphor

  the teamsters are the paradigm



shit   old jimmy

the key ....


=============================================

  but what is a mob union

 well its a rough house 

prissy pants decent 

white collar vigilantes loathe and fear 


to "the membership"

 they're a  top down
        law and order outfit


 " we make the laws  round here ....seeeee

and you  boyzzzee  u take the orders "

sounds dreadful
 if you where a tie and jacket 
to the job site


eh????

the rarely mentioned 
 quid pro quo  

rankers  "believe" they  get bigger wage packets 

because these gun-zillas can 
                       extract em from el bosso 
                        
so the rough stuff
and the cream rake
 is strictly
"  okay with the boyzzzzzzzzzzz"

 proof

R&Fers loved their 
  naily little
          cork screw jimmy H


------------------------------


sectarian question:

 whats the diff

here 
betwixt a commie or mob  run union ???

both claim to over deliver 

both will use

  "the means necessary"

  both  are
        " outlaw set ups "

the diff

 mob gimmicks 
remain  strictly bidness 

the reds have  a bigger social agenda 

now that cuts both ways from a ranker perspective 

my best shot vs my classes best shot


you choose comboy

-----------------------------------

where are we staggering to here?
is reform burgewr rule style

meaning ful ???

if all it means is clean management

and a prez we can be proud of 

its  hot  air ...

 nothing  "structural"
 makes a hoffa union
worse then 
   a Walted milk  one 


ONLY COMPETITION

A WALK AWAY ALTERNATIVE
   GETS ANYTHING OUT OF EITHER SET UP 

 walt's uaw was top down too

   and at the end of the day

which cadre fought harder 
         for higher wage rates 

neither 

i give hoff the nod
cause his team took constant hammer shots
from sanctimonious gubmint actors

so what would make a commie union better still...
 
  mission 

even the most enlightened parasite 
the one that sees wage max as siphon max too 
the type that won't take a dive for the bosses

cause its the ticket to poolukaville for them too 

even these pericles of mob unionism 
obviously for the very reason they perform 
can't  build the bigger wave 
there's no solomon moment
  in em

no  "well boss man 
we could just bring this all down 
on top of uz"

the kind of
final desperation
  threat only a klass struggle outfit
 can bring to the table 


the kind of threat

the flubs at the uaw can't
 bring across agin
delphi 

as in 

"sorry guys  this paper here ain't enough
 we'll take your buy out

but till its  all in our accounts in cash 

 we're seizing and holding  your plants as collateral 

the ana : 2 million un - orged nurses need to associate

 whats wrong with the ANA ???


  nurses like teachers 
  need to feel ....professional 

so  u give em 
 an association first
and 
a collective contract second......

 but why no morph like the  nea ???? 


=========================================

  the various micro unions out there 
trying to cadge members
  oughta fold themselves 
into  the ana
  dissolve themselves
 into the  giant association

join up with 
 all  that profession pandering

 its already built kids

why counter  build ??

what am i missing here ???


 the  public school teachers of  suburbia
  got into one big  association 
years and years ago 

they morphed into if not in name
in reality

a trade union


 sure its a gimmick ...what the fuck isn't

 go inside and bore 

endangered junk job champion

the amerikan society 
for the preservation
                  of junk jobs 

that's the latest corporate  cut out  
               run up the flag pole 
  by that man 
          of a thousand farces 
 
richard 
  'the lyin' hearted '
                      berman

  



====================================

 he's championed 

the tower of big macs 

tried to save 
 the  endless river of  pre teen booze 

and if he could get paid for it

he'd fight 

to put 
smoking into  amerika's public klasss rooms


now he's on to the next hot ticket


to preserving  junk jobs
millions of em 

jobs that right now
  are  getting shipped
  over seas  thanx to

             " the union movement "

as in 

     Union facts.com 

   "Union officials have abused
 the trust of their members.
 They've misspent member dues
 and harmed the very same people
 they promise to protect.

In 2005 alone, 
federal racketeering investigations 
resulted in 196 convictions
 against union officials and employees 
and $187 million in fines. 
nion tactics -- including deception and intimidation 
during organizing campaigns,
 strikes that hurt members more than they help,
 spending mandatory union dues 
on radical political agendas,
 and the use of anti-democratic voting practices 
-- are long overdue for exposure. 

Just call us at
202-463-7106. 

 


The Center for Union Facts has gathered a wealth of information about the size, scope, political activities, and criminal activity of the labor movement in the United States of America. Welcome to UnionFacts.com. 



he already had one outfit on the junk job protection beat

The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) 
The EPI is opposed to raising the minimum wage,
 particularly in the labor-intensive restaurant industry.
 It promotes the specious concept
 that an increased minimum wage
 would drive the poor and uneducated
 out of the job market. 



=====================================

ber's other hobby's

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF)
 The CCF attacks anyone who criticizes smoking,
 fast­food, or alcohol‹
from People for the Ethical 
Treatment of Animals (PETA)
 to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
 to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).


The American Beverage Institute (ABI)
 The ABI fights laws designed 
to curb drunk driving‹in part by claiming
 that even a blood alcohol level of 0.08 
is within the realms of responsible,
 social drinking.





 

digital dynamite

   not true...
simply not true

  herb's  struggle vixens
   do not operate 
    an ultra secret
          corporate IT 
       vaporization unit
        out of our east coast hq 
                on west 18th street 

==========================

 far from it chief

far fuckin from it 


we hardly have internet capability 

 try  blatant mis spelling
 and will-full ignorance 

     when combating 
      the local morons 
       down town from here 
   we have to rely on coarse acts 
         and hairful arm pits
    

nothing less
     can hope to   jar 
   their oscar wilde 
                   satin slipper aeeeestheticism 

   captain's of  finance
keep careful records ????
  of what ????

   nope the contemporary batch 
 are not
a bit like
    what tom carlisle told  us we'd find 


hell buttercup 
  they're  fuckin toe dancers 

          gonna take a shit load 
   more then 12 sable maned sluts
     with deep set eyes 
         to ten pin these soul free  fuckers 
     

signing off

now gale's up
        to snuff 

i'm off 

  planning 
a long meditation 
in the wilderness 

so
while my heads up  my navel..

                   struggle hardy mates

===============================

	Posted by herb jr. jr. at 09:46 AM