Social Distortion - When The Angels Sing

“Labor wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful - to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister”
Thorstein Veblen

The Weekend...Time to get some chores done!

Left Alone - "Every Night" Hellcat Records

Lawrence Textile Strike

George Carlin on "The American Dream"

”

"Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .

Gomper Stomper

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures,”
Samuel Gompers

Finally!.........

With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.

CLARENCE DARROW, The Railroad Trainman, Nov. 1909

Less is More!!!

Speak Out!

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

Cheers! Its Friday!

As Verizon Demands Huge Cuts to Worker Benefits, Its Profits Soar and Its CEO Gets $18 Million in Compensation


This week, 45,000 Verizon employees, represented by the Communications Workers of America, went on strike following the breakdown of negotiations between union representatives and management on Saturday. The workers are battling a long list of concessions that the company is demanding of them, ranging from asking employees to contribute more to their health care plans to halting pension accruals this year.

Cutting workers benefits as a cost-saving measure is a natural part of a market economy when times are bad, but what is particularly outrageous about Verizon's demands is that the company's fiscal health is actually rapidly improving and its profits soaring. The company's quarterly report released in January found that their profits nearly doubled from the same point last year. Then in April, Bloomberg reported that the company's profits "more than tripled" after the company began offering services on Apple's popular iPhone, with net income approaching $1.44 billion:

Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), the second-largest US phone company, reported earnings that more than tripled as taxes decreased and the carrier attracted new customers after introducing Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone. Net income rose to $1.44 billion, or 51 cents a share, New York-based Verizon said today in a statement.

Their 2010 annual report shows that their stock returns are actually outperforming the wider market, easily overcoming the S&P 500 index.

"They are outperforming the overall industry," said financial analyst Michael Nelson of their Spring 2011 returns. Meanwhile, one person at Verizon who is not being asked to take any cuts is Ivan Seidenberg, the company’s CEO. His compensation actually rose four percent in 2010 to $18.1 million. The Communications Workers of America note that the "top five executives [at the company] received compensation of $258 million over the past four years." This year, Verizon received a federal tax rebate of $1.3 billion. That's after a $1.5 billion federal bailout in 2008.

Yet despite its high profits and lavish executive salaries, Verizon is proposing nothing but concessions for workers. As an August 6 CWA statement explained, "Even at the 11th hour, as contracts were set to expire, Verizon continued to seek to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle-class workers and their families. Following the game plan of Wisconsin, Verizon is trying to destroy the collective bargaining process by refusing to engage seriously on the issues."

It appears that Verizon's stockholders and executives are being treated well by the company while it demands sacrifice from its workers. "We are regular folk like most other folk out here trying to pay our mortgages, pay our bills and survive and we don't think that is a lot to ask when the company is making billions of dollars in profits," said one striking worker.

"It's not just about us," said Chris Germershausen, a member of CWA Local 1101 who was on the picket line at Verizon's headquarters in downtown Manhattan. "If they get us to give in, they'll go after construction workers next, iron workers, everybody. Corporations will run everything. We can't let that happen."

"We don't want to give up what we fought for over the years," said Lila, who works for Verizon as a technician in Syracuse, N.Y., "We have to organize to make our lives better. Corporate America doesn't give a fuck about us."

Verizon workers are facing a tough fight. But this assault is also taking place in the midst of growing bitterness and anger at the demands of the business and political establishment that working people--from teachers and public-sector workers to the labor movement in private industry--bear the brunt of the economic crisis.

If union members at Verizon succeed in challenging the attack on their living standards, it would be an important step toward reversing the trend of corporations using the recession to force concessions and a major victory for those who hope to rebuild the labor movement. CWA and IBEW members walking the picket line today deserve all the support we can give them.

Start HERE.
(lifted from Bastard Robs blog)

Work Week Is Done People!!

Bill Maher-Tea Party. The Founding Fathers would have hated your guts, T...

Fight The Power!

The Lordz feat. Tim Armstrong - Outlaw

Lets get dirty!

Time Again - "The Stories Are True"

"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts." Molly Ivins

Enjoy!

Which Side Are You On - Dropkick Murphys

Fight Disease!

Official Warning: This celebrated adaptation of a NZ Department of Health warning sticker against "Industrial Disease" was distributed by the Waterside Workers Union and their allies during the 1951 Waterfront Dispute.

SHIRTS !!!!

Get em while we got em!!
These limited edition shirts are hot off the press!
Go to the Dues Paid Clothing link or CLICK HERE!

Tattooed Girls Kick Ass!

Johnny Cash - Oney

Working Class Hero!

Mike Rowe’s Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee On Commerce, Science and Transportation

May 11, 2011

Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Hutchison and members of this committee, my name is Mike Rowe, and I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I’m here today because of my grandfather.
His name was Carl Knobel, and he made his living in Baltimore as a master electrician. He was also a plumber, a mechanic, a mason, and a carpenter. Everyone knew him as a jack-of-all-trades. I knew him as a magician.
For most of his life, my grandfather woke up clean and came home dirty. In between, he accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous. Some days he might re-shingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. Or maybe run electricity out to our barn. He helped build the church I went to as a kid, and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in. He could fix or build anything, but to my knowledge he never once read the directions. He just knew how stuff worked.
I remember one Saturday morning when I was 12. I flushed the toilet in the same way I always had. The toilet however, responded in a way that was completely out of character. There was a rumbling sound, followed by a distant gurgle. Then, everything that had gone down reappeared in a rather violent and spectacular fashion.
Naturally, my grandfather was called in to investigate, and within the hour I was invited to join he and my dad in the front yard with picks and shovels.
By lunch, the lawn was littered with fragments of old pipe and mounds of dirt. There was welding and pipe-fitting, blisters and laughter, and maybe some questionable language. By sunset we were completely filthy. But a new pipe was installed, the dirt was back in the hole, and our toilet was back on its best behavior. It was one of my favorite days ever.
Thirty years later in San Francisco when my toilet blew up again. This time, I didn’t participate in the repair process. I just called my landlord, left a check on the kitchen counter, and went to work. When I got home, the mess was cleaned up and the problem was solved. As for the actual plumber who did the work, I never even met him.
It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes. There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought.
At this point my grandfather was well into his 80s, and after a long visit with him one weekend, I decided to do a TV show in his honor. Today, Dirty Jobs is still on the air, and I am here before this committee, hoping to say something useful. So, here it is.
I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. A big one. Something that addresses the widening skills gap head on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce.
Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it’s getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They’re retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them.
Alabama’s not alone. A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn’t a lack of funds. It wasn’t a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.
In general, we’re surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn’t be. We’ve pretty much guaranteed it.
In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of “higher education” to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled “alternative.” Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as “vocational consolation prizes,” best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of “shovel ready” jobs for a society that doesn’t encourage people to pick up a shovel.
In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a “good job” into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber, if you can find one, is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.
I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they’re in short supply because we don’t acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.
My written testimony includes the details of several initiatives designed to close the skills gap, all of which I’ve had the privilege to participate in. Go Build Alabama, I Make America, and my own modest efforts through Dirty Jobs and mikeroweWORKS. I’m especially proud to announce “Discover Your Skills,” a broad-based initiative from Discovery Communications that I believe can change perceptions in a meaningful way.
I encourage you to support these efforts, because closing the skills gap doesn’t just benefit future tradesmen and the companies desperate to hire them. It benefits people like me, and anyone else who shares my addiction to paved roads, reliable bridges, heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing. The skills gap is a reflection of what we value. To close the gap, we need to change the way the country feels about work.

Time To Relax!

Lars Frederiksen And The Bastards - "To Have And Have Not"

Required Reading

T.G.I.F.

Have a happy and safe long weekend.

Amen Brother......

I have a dream....

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped. —Speaking on right-to-work laws in 1961. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dues Paid Hottie of the Week!

Fuck Scott Walker!

Stand together!