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We've talked a lot about mens and womens rights, religions rights, racial rights, etc. I think the most oppression that goes on in the modern world is in the workplace. The ancient world had a pretty good system that protected and allowed people to protect their land, the way they made a living. I personally don't think modern society has caught up to developing a good system to protect a person's job, which is now just as important as a persons land once was. The fact that a worker can be fired for the simple reason that the boss doesn't like him seems quite unethical to me. Yet that is the law.

I used to think that most people were unemployed because they were lazy. I don't believe this anymore. Most people who I talk to hate their jobs and it's not because the job itself is so rotten. It's because of the garbage and abuse that they have to put up with from their corporate bosses. It's a shame we can't find a system to regain inner peace that once existed in the independence of an agricultural living.

So my poll question is to get an idea of where you think the pendulum needs to swing, in favor of the workers, or in favor of the corporate giants?

I voted that the system is as good as it's going to get. The reason for this is that market forces and workplace circumstances decide who controls what. It also depends on what industry you work in. Where there's a lack of workers employers have to bend the knee, where there's "too many Indians" (workers) the chiefs can call the shots. Where I previously worked there was a surplus of workers, therefore the employer had more power to create the circumstances they want. Abolish permanent employees and put all on contract, with less rights. But in the industry I'm currently employed in we, the workers, call the shots because there's a serious shortage of employees. One thing we do understand is that while we can call the shots there has to be give and take. If your employer does not make money, you don't either, simple as that. Creativity and profit come from joint efforts, not workers "taking back rights" at the expense of employer profits. If workers demand too much the resulting effect could be eventual liquidation of business, and all lose. The reason I say it's as good as it gets is because you can't change human nature, and by nature people want what they think is "the best" for themselves, employer or employee, and in the case of the employer we often see abuse in the form of lavish lurks and perks and big payouts even in the cases of CEO failure. This is manipulation of the workers for individual profit, and leads to lower worker performance and morale. So many CEOs don't seem to realise this.

Then, modern technology demands progress, and redundancies are a fact of life; you have to upgrade your skills to remain beneficially employed, or find another industry. This is why so many go into IT, because that's where the future is, but someone still has to collect the garbage and sweep the floors. We cannot survive without each other, and until we grasp this and work in unison there will be problems. So I don't see a blanket "taking back rights" as the solution, because it implies control being in one sector, and where one sector has complete control, that cannot be a good thing.

As good as it's going to get. In fact you could argue that the labor movements has done so well in America that they're losing their jobs because the unions have led to bloated benefits. And the business owners are greedy. :)

Good points Ray and Bond, and thanks for the response. Obviously the name of the game in a market economy is to find where the demand is. That's easier said than done. School guidance counselors seem to really poison young people by telling them to do what they love. I don't care how much you love something, if the demand is low you're going to run into poor treatment and enough problems that something you thought you didn't like before will look a lot better.

I'm not advocating that the workers take over. That's just trading one regime for another. It seems to me that the current system isn't much different from the old feudal system. Student loans look a lot like indentured servitude or even worse from an economic standpoint. At least the indentured servant had a gurantee of something after his years of work. The student can only hope. I never heard of someone failing out of indentured servitude and being left with a bill.

I'm in optometry school but I'm scared to death right now. I've got a professor coming up that's been responsible for about 5 people failing out each time. It doesn't seem very fair that schools can charge students tuition when the student fails. Who really failed to get the job done, the student or the teacher? It always amazed me when I taught high school. Whenever a student failed, the only question that got any attention from administration was, "What did the teacher do wrong?" Factors such as student effort and accountablility of the student were not even considered. Neither extreme seems very fair to me.

Too often I see people who make it to the top of the mountaing take on the attitude of, "Now it's my turn to be the asshole." What disturbs me even more is that they feel justified in doing so, as if they've earned the right to mistreat others somehow? I like programs that retrain and help relocate laid off workers. It at least gives people some chance out of bad situations. If they really are just lazy or the problem really is just with the worker, they won't do the work to get a different career.

I'm in the sheet metal union here in vegas. We do really well, but I would say that its perfectly fairt what we get paid and the benefits we get. These Casino owners have more money than they know what to do with, theyre shareing profits with the men and women who build their casinos should not be a problem.

What is a problem is the inflo of illegal immigrants who want to work for nothing, since nothing is better than what they get back in their third world country. Because they don't have the courage to set things right back home, they come here to abuse the rights our forefathers struggled and fought to build and maintain. Why this is allowed (and it is allowed) to continue is beyond me. I have nothing againt mexicans whatsoever. I work with many every day, they work hard, love their families, etc... Its the unwillingness to learn the language and adapt to the existing culture I have a problem with. And part of that is the lowering of standards when it comes to pay and benefits in the job arena.

Gazelam wrote:I'm in the sheet metal union here in vegas. We do really well, but I would say that its perfectly fairt what we get paid and the benefits we get. These Casino owners have more money than they know what to do with, theyre shareing profits with the men and women who build their casinos should not be a problem.

What is a problem is the inflo of illegal immigrants who want to work for nothing, since nothing is better than what they get back in their third world country. Because they don't have the courage to set things right back home, they come here to abuse the rights our forefathers struggled and fought to build and maintain. Why this is allowed (and it is allowed) to continue is beyond me. I have nothing againt mexicans whatsoever. I work with many every day, they work hard, love their families, etc... Its the unwillingness to learn the language and adapt to the existing culture I have a problem with. And part of that is the lowering of standards when it comes to pay and benefits in the job arena.

My thoughts exactly on the illegal immigration thing Gaz. People in your type of business are going to take the worst hits. I still feel betrayed by the American government that they have allowed and even promoted this illegal immigration at times. Yet I also feel betrayed by the Church for instituting a don't ask, don't tell policy on the issue and refusing to take a stand against it. The reason they do this is clearly political. It has nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with where the new members are coming from. I can't think of anything that makes me more angry than illegal immigration, and the Latin American peoples refusal to curb their birth rate and their insistence that we pick up the tab by importing their poverty into our country.

But it brings up a good point in that with massive immigration and outsourcing the cost of labor and working conditions are going into the toilet and the number of positons that one can train for that would make a human being worth much at all in the world are becoming fewer and fewer by the second. Soon even skills will mean very little compared to capital and wealth. If you don't have those things, you will live in 3rd world conditions. Kind of like Latin america is now. See they're making our country more and more like their country every day. I'm not sure I like it. Matter of fact, I'm not sure anyone Gringo or Latino liked the living conditions they'd created in Latin America. I can't say I want to see that happen here in America, but it is and it's picking up pace.