Now that we've been at war with the world for some time, it appears we've branched out, moved on to war with ourselves, cut our own throats for a while.
Seems to be all the rage, refusing to be on our own side. How else to explain all the hurry-scurry to dismantle and strike down anything worker-and-union? The panic at HQ when the "U" word is uttered -- well, it triggers arrhythmia, gets hearts all a-flutter.
If your answer to this warfare of us-upon-self is anything but Greed and/or Fear, please send up a flare. After all, unions are a working barrier between everyday people and executive bulldozing; this is all quite inconvenient to Greed, plus, unions only produce Fear, way up, at the top.
Unions have only provided the 40-hour week, time-and-a-half, the weekend, fair wages, income equality, ended child labor -- that's only to start.
"Work to live," it used to be said; now, it's more common to hear "live to work," if you're lucky enough to actually have a job, that is.
Of course, with the Job Creators not creating jobs, there are more of us out here, further depressing the wage. And here you thought they just liked siting on their piles of cash? Well, they do at that, too -- record heaps of cash, in the neighborhood of a trillion and a half, just sitting, just waiting. They may be hanging around, in vulture's dinner-wear and garb, ready to grab up anything that moves in any big fire sale?
Yes, there's a very big rush to put unions in a crush. If not greed and fear, maybe it's simply signs of an old Empire, souring fast, eating its own shoes. If this is karmic payback slipping up onto shore, see you in the bomb shelter -- you should jump into a root cellar. With all we've hurled at the world, we're in for some hurl-back, a real white-knuckled ride.
Any way that you slice it, that knife's getting closer as it works, trimming fat off these bones, larding it right back onto the Bosses, in great, greasy gobs -- in great rashers of cash.
The latest installment of poisonous nonsense comes from the CAT people, from Caterpillar: record profits, all right, but not enough to keep from locking out workers unhappy about pay. CAT wants to cut worker pay almost in half, tossing out battle-axes at paychecks, splitting them right down the middle.
Middle-what, did you say -- oh, middle class? Don't be absurd. You know us better than that.
If you tried to do the Caterpillar math on the back of an envelope, you'd see post-tax profit up a third, revenues up four percent, a CEO who made more than ten million, and workers locked out, unable to agree to their being trimmed, given bad haircuts, on hourly rates, from $32 to $16.50. Your pay, of course, would be perfectly OK being cut in half, wouldn't it?
If you snapped your pencil at that, you are not standing alone. Of course, that's what makes unions dangerous -- they harness the power of the people, the strength of numbers, the only thing on their side.
People are liabilities these days, as has been kenned in high towers, removed from the traffic of ants far below -- this is the time when canned speeches come out, when workers are canned, when people are let go.
Thing is, people are usually let go only when corporations position them directly over cliff edges, over deep fissures.
Peculiar, is it not, how CEO pay is rarely in focus and never the cause of any ills anywhere. CEOs have historically earned from 30 to 40 times the pay of an average worker. In 1960, it was about 40 to 1. Today, in the rest of the world, the number's from 11 to 50 or so to 1. On our own shores, try 300 or 400 to 1 -- some estimates go as high as 531 to 1 during a peak time of scalping.
Sky's the limit. Ride the rocket. Gimme that match, let me loose on that fuse!
Of course, the sky's a big place, and beyond, outer space: might be enough room there, for CEO egos, room enough to even sate greed.
Meanwhile, here on Earth, back at ground level with the ants, we pick and choose names for the carnage, for the union-busting that goes on. "Bankruptcy" is the latest way to frame the discussion, the latest way to fly. It just sounds so -- well, hapless, they hope -- like it was nobody's fault, that stuff happens, and well, you just shrug and move on.
Stick the pensions with taxpayers, shrug all our obligations onto them. Everyone knows it's Capitalism on the up side, raking in profits -- but all Socialism on the down-slope, just stick the bill to the peasants.
It's good, being in control of the board, the game, and the structures within. Move some numbers from this page to that, and, whew! What a day!
Here's your ten million -- all in a very hard day's work, a good day's work, all in a day's pay.
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Previews of Coming Distractions:
In a routine move, spokesdroids for Global Domination Industries, a subsidiary of BehemothCo, a division of the Poxy-Lout Group, announced late today, that, effective immediately, People had priced themselves out of market, were now castoffs, cast-outs and castaways on the free market system.
According to details revealed, People were a legacy model, lacked efficiencies, hosted programming bugs of all types, and required an expensive, laboriously intensive regimen and ongoing maintenance requirement, such as food and shelter.
"People will no longer be supported," concluded the message in a lushly produced, but curt, company presentation.
There was no immediate word regarding next of kin.
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* For your reading, if you like:
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/paydisparityratio.cfm
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/05/148930/top-five-things-unions/
http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/union101.cfm
*There are numerous satirical films available portraying the value of unions.
Search key: "What have unions ever done for us?"