Labor Pains In Colorado

How much less do you think it is, Jon? Do you think it's half?

That's amazing Buz.Union workers are not middle class?

What social contract? What obligation? Who says that's fair? Because rent is too high? You need to show that your statistics are reasonably relevant. That means showing that you considered the appropriate variables when crunching the numbers.Jon

Why should your employer care that you want to live in a two-bedroom apartment instead of a one-bedroom?

Companies are more important than people, right? Americans shouldn't expect a living wage so long as they get a wage. Forgive me if I think America is a first world country.

Of course. Of course. Of course.

They are indeed middle class, Jar. However, they not only oppose right to work and prevent competitive bidding on behalf of middle class taxpayers but shoot themselves in the foot by causing companies to move their operations abroad, etc.

So you admit that they are middle class.Are you saying that Americans should not have the right to band together to negotiate wages and working conditions?

Oh, you mean they prevent companies from being able to pay American workers shit wages.....as if that is a bad thing?Why do you hate American workers so much? Why do you love your corporate overlords more than your fellow man?

Like I said before, I try and see how all sides think on these issues. A business quite naturally seeks competitive bids on labor costs...which is why many businesses relocated overseas, where labor costs are less. I don't like seeing labor reduced to simply a line item expense, with no loyalty (for US workers) favoritism, or preference factored in. The cold reality of global competition is one of the major downsides to a free market system.As a group, we safeway workers have learned more skills about other jobs in the store, worked harder and harder each year, and agreed to wage increases lower than what we wanted.We believe that our skills are competitive...indeed, the company has been unsuccessful at attracting many new workers who want to stay around very long.What worries me is the fact that the corporation may simply decide to pull out of the Colorado market, sell off the stores, and relocate to God knows where. Corporations have no conscience except to their own...and their own are usually upper management as opposed to lower labor.

Buz, a Chinese auto worker makes roughly $120 a month and works a 12-hour shift.Unions or not, what American could possibly work for that? Even wages at the non-union auto plants in right-to-work states aren't anywhere close to that low. Who would spend 12 hours a day at a job that wouldn't even cover rent? A fifth of the rent? That's like paying money to work.I mean, I'll meet you halfway - I think many unions have entrenched their power at the expense of the workers they represent; I think they've crafted rules that made sense at the time, but now leave union shops unable to adapt to changing circumstances. I think unions do too much to shelter the incompetent and extract rents. But come on, you can't lay offshoring at the feet of unions. There are just no circumstances under which an American could underbid the Chinese wage schedule because the GDP and cost of living between the two nations is just so different. And you may not be aware but all Chinese workers are unionized.

Do you actually believe that the rich folk would gladly make life easier for the rest if they yust have enough money and the evil workers who dont want to work 16 hrs a day are the ones holding worker standards back.Before there where unions workers worked 16 hour days 7 days a weak, children where prefered workers because their wages where even lower then those of women.But one day workers had enough they went on strike even wrecked the machines of those days and thus forced the ritch to give the workers a larger share of the pie, no children working, equal pay for women ....Nowdays the ritch had a new idea the workers in industrialised countries cost too much and dont want to work 16 hours a day but if we move to africa or china they will be glad to do so.The only way those factories that have moved to cheaper areas would stay is if your labure force would be willing to work 16 hour days 7 days a weak for 1$ a weak. And if there where no unions you would already be working like that for that kind of pay.

How about a 1 bedroom? why does one worker need two bedrooms? if you are suggesting it is for a family then, you should take into account that there will be two people working, and if both are working at minimum wage then you need to divide the hours on your graph by two, and then well use can see that two people working at the minimum wage can get by in most if not all the states.

Or if consumers would stop buying products from companies that out source their labor. Though in reality it would probably be easier to get companies to hire Americans then it would be to get Americans to stop shopping Wal-Mart.

Single parents aren't a family?
A spouse that is unable to work, for whatever reason, suddenly makes them not a family? Assuming both get 40 hours, they may be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment. Of course, that assumes they don't eat food, don't buy any toys or clothes for themselves or their kid(s), have free transportation to everywhere they need to go, don't need electricity, water, heat, or a phone...