Take my life...please!
(Sorry, Henny.)
Stumbled across this while researching something else. Some interesting facts jumped out to me (my emphasis):
"While Boeing has been leading the drive to overhaul [Washington] state's costly unemployment system, the company is also heavily involved in changes to a law that would clamp down on workers'-compensation benefits.
Four weeks ago, business and labor negotiators appeared deadlocked over workers' compensation, but that was before Boeing started swinging a new political sledgehammer: giving other states as well as Washington the chance to build its next-generation 7E7 jetliner."
In this new business environment, the entire spectrum of cause-and-effect responsibility laws are to be wiped off the books. Simply because business has always hated them and finally has friends in high places. So, happily, corporate responsibility can finally be tabled as a concept. So, if something bad happens to you from our product or from working for us, too bad. Stop whining and go away; we've got a business to run here.
If it is good for the Corporation; it is good for you. Remember that.
The unemployment system. Workers'-compensation benefits. Environmental regulations. Anti-trust laws. The question arises: If all costs of doing business and all regulations limiting the flaunting of concerns for humanity or nature are eventually to be wiped out, rolled back or curtailed under a Bush administration, why not just go for it and let businesses be fully and completely unfettered? Why not...say..., just totally eliminate wages, salaries and compensation of all types and have done with it? The largest single drag on any company's bottom line, then, would just go, "poof!"
I mean, isn't it enough being grateful for having somewhere to go and having something to do with your day? Isn't the point, if you're not an owner or investor, to feel needed? Isn't expecting payment on top of all of that being, well, rather greedy and self-absorbed? Yes, shame can be healthy in this climate.
And to show the world this is truly America, everyone would pitch in, right? Everyone from the overnight cleaning staff to the corporate officers can help out their favorite corporation by foregoing their needless and wildly expensive paychecks. With no costs incurred, companies can focus fully on soon-to-be soaring stock prices, which in turn would stoke demand for more unpaid help, and provide higher dividends to those lucky (we say, savvy-by-birth) enough to be of the owner class. Who then would no longer have to pay those tacky taxes on dividend income.
"The hearing-loss change is high stakes for all businesses. The state, which handles insurance for 160,000 businesses in Washington, figures the two-year time limit can save more than $200 million that's stashed in reserves for future hearing-loss claims. The state also figures it would save $14 million a year in the future."
Of course, that's YOUR money they're talking about taking away if you get hurt making their product. Not monopoly money. It's $200 miillion now, and $14 million a year, saved by NOT giving it to YOU. Don't forget to say, "Thank you."
"That cut means a worker who goes completely deaf because of a job-related accident would receive a $53,682 settlement instead of $71,576 set by current law, according to the state Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), which runs the workers'-compensation system.
A worker with complete hearing loss in one ear would receive $8,947 by law instead of $11,929. Workers with partial hearing loss would also get 25 percent smaller settlements, but their hearing aids and batteries would still be paid for."
Gee, thank you. You didn't need that $20,000, did you? Besides, you can't hear anything anymore anyway after 20 years in their factory, so what would you spend it on? Music? Now, really...
####
Extortion.
Now, we get to the crux of the issue.
"...a new political sledgehammer: giving other states as well as Washington the chance to build its next-generation 7E7 jetliner...
...Business and labor lobbyists have not yet cut a deal but say they are working with a sense of urgency to agree by June 20, when the state's bid for Boeing's next-generation plane is due.
'This is our statement to Boeing that we want them here, and we're willing to take this loss as an act of good faith,' said Robby Stern, special assistant to the president of the Washington State Labor Council."
Corporate thinking goes:
- The economy stinks for all of us;
- We're hurting very badly, but we've been passing the hurt on to you in small chunks;
- You're now acclimated to having it passed on to you, and are used to accepting it;
- Since you're now pliable, we can increase the chunks we're giving you;
- You're still not complaining, although you have gotten very depressed and are feeling powerless;
- Happily, we can implement all the things we never could before, since you're now so desperate that you'll accept anything;
- This is good. Now we can negotiate. You want to make our plane or widget? What's it worth to you? Behave, or we'll move the work to some factory/office in (fill in the blank). We'll let THOSE people pay THEIR bills and send THEIR kids to school. You know you're chattel. Now, act like it and we'll toss you some work. Lost a leg when that cheap saw we gave you broke? Quit your bitchin' and get back to work. You've got a job, so shut up.
As you can see, it's basic Stockholm Syndrome at its finest. The SLA did no better with Patty Hearst. Nor did the North Koreans and Chinese in POW camps during the Korean War.
And the very people you have chosen to represent and protect you: government officials and union leaders (if you're one of the few members left), have panicked and deserted you. As you can see above, they've basically gone so far as to join the other side in the negotiations. It's now, "Here are our demands! And may I hold your coat for you while you have your assistant leaf through them?"
As Sessue Hayakawa states in welcoming new prisoners to his forced work camp in The Bridge On the River Kwai, "You will be happy in your work!"
Get Angry! Have your say. Write your elected officials now!
posted by Gotham 11:56 AM
