Fox Business Channel Celebrates Labor Day by Attacking Unions
I thought Fox News was bad until I had the unfortunate circumstance of turning on the Fox Business Channel this Labor Day weekend and catching some of Eric Bolling's Money Rocks show on that network. Apparently the highly trained investigative reporters working for his show managed to find three union workers sleeping on the job working for the New York MTA and they're really not happy that some of them made too much overtime for the year.
I would argue that maybe if some of them weren't working that much overtime, and they hired enough workers to fill those positions and cover all the shifts, maybe those evil union workers would not be falling asleep on the job since they would not be dead tired. Given the numbers they laid out here, I'm surprised it is only three of them they found falling asleep.
And since when is it the worker's fault that they are under staffed and they have the need to be paying that much overtime in the first place? Yeah, it's the evil union worker's fault for accepting the overtime, not the fault of the department that is offering it in the first place. Look at all the money they're making! The horror! Give me a break. I wonder if any of these people have ever worked a job where there was overtime required in their life and understand what kind of toll that takes on your health and your family life. Those workers are putting a whole lot of hours for a whole lot of days during the year to be making that much in overtime. Do these "pundits", and that's about the nicest thing I can think of to call most of them think they should be working all of those extra hours for straight time, or volunteering their lives away out of the goodness of their hearts?
I don't know about anyone else but this show reminded me of a cross between an NFL Sunday show and an episode of the Sopranos with bad actors replacing the regulars.
.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
pointing out three workers on break-time to avoid rocking the boat with management.
It's wonderful how FOX is able to say those things which the GOP believes, but which it would not be politically expedient for the Party to state directly.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Is one of the two things that Fox News is really good at.The other is kissing Conservative a$$.
The thing that strikes me the most is the language being used to describe occupations. It's rather simplistic. Is this a function of needing to be understood their audience? No, I'm sure it's being used to minimize a profession. I suspect most people working on cars professionally would prefer to be called mechanics, or automotive technicians, as opposed to the vulgar "car repairman."
My guess is "car repairman" is the actual job title. Given that this is the MTA, I doubt they deal much with automobiles and do more things like fixing lights and seats in subway cars.
Also, I'd like to know the calculations they ran to come up with those numbers. I wonder exactly how many hours of OT those people would have to work to make that much. My rough estimation is that the car repairman would have to put in 70+ hours a week every single week to make that much OT. If someone works 70+ hours a week, they deserve that, imo. Probably more.
Also, even with the ultra-inflated income that these calculations give, it is fun to note that not a single one of these people would make enough money to reach the tax bracket that Obama wants to let the Bush cuts expire for.
Regarding job titles, agreed. I figured that out once the coffee took hold, and I was able to fully absorb what was going on. In the future I will wait until I'm fully awake/caffeinated before doing more than reading.
Great way to start the day, huh? I hadn't been up for more than 30 minutes and making a fool of myself already. (Almost a personal best, actually)
No problem, happens to all of us. :) No offense or ill will intended.
OR they could be underneath a rail car, uncomfortably on a filthy truck, fixing a traction motor lead!
We're not just light bulb changers!
As I said in another post, I work for them.
Some people at SOME locations DO work those hours. The solution to not giving out so much overtime, as others have pointed out, is hiring more workers. But then sometimes you'll probably have too many workers. SOMETIMES.
OR they could not pay the over time and not get cars put back in service on time and not have such a well running railroad as you do.
Everything comes with a price.
Wasn't meaning to diminish what you do. I hope you noted I said that working that much is deserving of what you get paid. :)
I didn't sense anything malicious in what you said.
By the way, I think New York City Transit does call their subway car workers "car repairmen". I don't think people mind it very much.
some camera man who is also part of a union doesn't step out from behind one and clock one of these ignornat bastards. Of course that would be wrong but, maybe I'd loosen the screws in one of these idiot's chairs and watch them tumble on their ass's! Everyone can't be part of the on air talent and these people show a lack of respect for the very people charged with making things go.
when will you learn that business owners make the money and employees work for FREE. as in Freedom.
That's pretty damn close to the libertarian definition of freedom.
They want the freedom to fuck their workers - THEIR freedom be damned.
Is the Communications Workers of America still a union?
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
in November will mean watching fox nitwits and the Beltway media crap their cages wondering how they got it wrong. Not to mention that Republicans just plain suck at governing. I'm really hopeful that all who are unemployed will get out their and help crush these wingnuts. I'm not sure who it is the media keeps polling but, anyone who had to sit and watch as Bunning, Coburn and the rest of the hateful GOP who kept blocking unemployment extensions while simultaneously complaining about the lack of jobs has to be fired up to kick some ass! Voters should also be reminded that it was the same Republican clowns who think they're going to win in November who crafted the very legislation that caused this mess. Why anyone thinks they should be rewarded for this is beyond me. I intend to get out there and encourage all Democrats to do the same. The way I see it, it's payback time for the GOP and their teabagger cartel as well as our useless media!
I worked for a railroad, and when I first started, train crews regularly worked a 16-hour day. The men worked outdoors in all kinds of weather moving freight trains over the railroad. Often, if the taxicab that picked them up at the end of their trip was late, the working day may have lasted 20 hours or more. 8 hours of rest, and do it all over again. Unions and the federal government forced the companies to change the hours of service to 12 hours, and it is still brutal. Falling asleep did happen, considering long hours of staring ahead at the rails and signals.
I have to laugh that the poor abused overpaid stockbrokers and their corporate mouthpiece, Fox News, are upset because some transit worker who has probably worked harder in twenty years than these chair-bound idiots will in their lifetime, happened to fall asleep. They have no idea what kind of conditions these workers would have to endure had the unions not existed.
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
It just has to be that greedy union, or that greedy union worker who is at fault for working so many hours of overtime LOL. I mean really, look at the difference between these workers' base pay and the horrendous amount of overtime -- absolutely outrageous.
Of course, a little digging under the surface and it turns out that even with the tremendous amount of overtime paid these workers, the MTA is actually saving money by not hiring additional workers -- health insurance, unemployment insurance, workman's compensation, training and testing, pensions, etcetera.
In other words, the MTA is doing what so many other businesses, local & state governments are doing during this period of economic downturn. Rather than hiring additional workers, they are forcing their existing staff to work long hours of overtime in order to "make do with what we already have", even to the point of creating dangerous working conditions due to worker fatigue.
It should also well illustrate the value of having a strong union representing workers, and the benefit of working in a union state instead of a "right-to-work" state, where worker abuse is prevalent. Imagine having to work those very same excessively long overtime hours and only being paid "straight time".
GD, but this country is seriously fucked up. It took a couple of generations, with corporatist politicians from both Democratic and Republican Parties running the government, for the situation to get this way.
Fuck Faux Noise, Roger Ailes, and Rupert Murdock for twisting the truth into a shit-covered pretzel.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
Well put.
When ever i bring up the huge salaries of CEOs to my Fox watching Republican family members they always give me the same answer. "I don't begrudge anyone their salary".
Well, those fine upstanding CEOs are just taking thier fair cut of what thier work generated. Those MTA scum though, those lazy bastards are getting paid on my tax dollar!
The world would do fine without CEOs.
People maintaining public transit, on the other hand, keep society moving. I don't remember any CEO producing much of anything. Well, outside of upward motion of wealth, outsourcing, etc, etc ...
Centralized management and strategic planning are necessary for entities functioning in the world today. We are too big, complex, and interconnected as a species to just let everything go here and there.
That said, the immense concentration of wealth is, imo, indefensable. The idea that the value added to the company by the CEO is 1000s of times that added by the janitor is ludicrous. It's the same mentality that makes people think the government provides them no value because they fail to appreciate what laws, police, schools, transportation corridors, and a number of other things do for them.
I do.
This place is fucked up, mostly because of greed. Specifically the idea that what's good for me is good, whether or not it fucks everyone else.
I begrudge them their ill-gotten gains. Those were taken from people who ostensibly worked for their money.
I'm sure the Fox Business report would include the good journalistic analysis of the costs of hiring more workers - i.e. the biggest of which is health insurance. Yep, I'm sure Fox Business supports Medicare for everyone in order to help businesses...
Good thing that the fux Noise business channel viewer ratings are in the tank and only a few stupid Reslugs listen to their bullshit and lies.
taking naps during one of their two fifteen minute breaks they get a day?
Well, if they are working enough hours to earn the amount of OT listed here, I'm betting they are getting at least 3 or 4 15 minute breaks, and probably 2 30 min unpaid meal breaks. Damn those unions for getting empolyment laws passed.
Earlier today, I posted something here on the News Corp/Kim Il-Jong thread to the effect that the evident level of Orwellian doublethink at News Corp is positively mind-boggling...and this only convinces me even more. For crying out loud...just what do the people at FOX think the word "labor" in Labor Day means?? Do they think it's a reference to childbirth or something??
It absolutely sickens me to see the way in which conservatism is slowly yet increasingly succumbing to the creeping and pervasive influence of Social Darwinism...the idea that a person's worth as a person is equivalent to their net worth, that wealthy people are inherently more deserving no matter how they obtained their wealth, and that poor people are morally/mentally inferior. What infuriates me even more is how many of these people claim to be Christians, when Social Darwinism is directly at odds with the principles of Christianity as taught by Jesus of Nazareth. I observed this Social Darwinism in the way that many conservatives were so disparaging towards the victims of Hurricane Katrina. A lot of the people who didn't leave New Orleans were those who either didn't have the money which would have enabled them to leave and/or were afraid of possibly losing what little they did have...why was that so very hard for conservatives to understand?? Contrary to what a lot of conservatives tried to claim, a lot of these people did have jobs -- but they were most likely the kind of thankless and unappreciated jobs which need to be done yet which generally pay very little. We can't all be stockbrokers, especially in a city which depends on tourism as much as New Orleans did -- someone has to wait tables and clean the hotel rooms, but nobody ever gets rich that way.
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
I said this in a different thread about Rand/objectivism a while back, but really, everyone should play Bioshock. It makes this exact point very well.
What gets me pissed off is the total cavalier arrogance of the people on this panel, a bunch of crony capitalists having a good laugh at the expense of working people. They obviously consider themselves part of the managerial, moneyed class. Implicit in their talk is the belief that THEY don't have to be accountable for how they spend time on their job, after all they are above all that, but these working people must be held accountable, and god forbid that they make too much money. Any suggestion that management is responsible for some of the MTA's problems is immediately brushed off and the finger pointed back at workers. I'll bet if any one of these guys wants to get a haircut or needs new tires on the Escalade they will take time off from work as they please as long as it doesn't conflict with on-air obligations. Yet a blue collar worker often can't get time off to drive their kid to a doctor's appointment. Yes I've heard this kind of talk before, these are the same kind of people who go to restaraunts and treat their waitress like shit. Leave it to Fox put together a panel of worthless jackals like this and produce a show.
If you are within a day drive, or rail access to Washington, DC. Please come for the Oct. 3 "OneNation" rally.
If you can go, and don't, then take a long look in the mirror before you next post here attacking Republicans.
This is a message to spread far and wide....especially on sites like this.
And what bothers me most about this ignorant Faux News panel is they have NO IDEA how dirty and potentially dangerous my job is.
I'd like to see one of these fat asses come turn wrenches underneath a filthy car on a hot sweaty day - or inspect trains on a freezing January night.
When people cry about my salary I wonder aloud what the average salary of the people riding the train to their comfy desk job in Manhattan is making.
As far as overtime - I've been on the railroad for a few years and EVERY year I'm lucky if I made a grand more than my base salary.
And it is a FACT that worker shortages - vital and essential jobs not filled - is what creates the vast majority of overtime. The job not filled may be because it is just not filled (the job exists but somebody bid out of it and no other worker bid it) - or somebody called in sick. As far as vacation goes the company is VERY good about that - they have "vacation relief" positions to specifically fill in for people on vacation - they do this to try to cut back on the overtime. These vacation relief guys make flat pay - not overtime.
Thus there is a lot of overtime at some of the bigger maintenance facilities on the railroad.
The location I work at is relatively small and it is known on the railroad that there is very little overtime there.
We have had some recently, but we also know that it will dry up in November once the new electrician class comes and they are forced to fill those positions.
As far as sleeping on the job goes I will only tell you that SOMETIMES we are not that busy - sometimes there are not many broken cars or sometimes we don't have parts right away - BUT SOMETIMES we're busting our asses - sometimes there are quite a few broken cars and we're troubleshooting, replacing parts and rushing them out the door to get the next one in.
Which brings me to another question:
Should Metro-North Railroad hire so few workers that we can NEVER sit around, BUT risk not having enough of us when the cars are breaking left and right? Then they REALLY will be paying overtime!
So AGAIN, these problems are WAY more complex than your anti-union CONservaRetard can wrap there tiny minds around - they can't have it both ways.
Either MTA will have to hire enough workers to get the job done efficiently and on time - WITHOUT the need for giving out lots of overtime - BUT with the natural side effect of occasionally having more work than workers...
OR they can hire less workers to get the job done, and there will be a NEED to get the workers they have to work overtime. And NATURALLY many people with families and people who are having difficulties making ends meet living in the tri-state area on the salary they are paying us will take that overtime - and they just might end up so tired that they'll grab an opportunity to relax here and there if they can.
Hiring more workers, if you don't want to pay overtime, but understanding their might be more workers than work sometimes seems to be the solution.
FINALLY, MTA get's subsidized by the tax payers - they are not paid 100% by the tax payers - have these people ever heard of paying a fee to ride a bus, subway or train?
When I pay to ride a train, and the train is run by a government agency, it's just another government fee that I pay the government, and any fee to the government is basically a tax, so you are 100% paid by taxes! Yay logic!
(just in case anyone was not sure, this is a sarcastic comment)
We have interns taking quick naps in hospitals
Does that mean they're underworked?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Yes. And clearly people that sleep under thier desks at work in the software industry are underworked as well.
There would be no Labor Day without the Labor movement. The NRA is not a special interest group. Insurance Cos, banks, oil Cos, Multinationals are all not special interests, but unemployed people, in the worst economic period since the Great Depression, are interest groups.
Who really knows how many hours of work a CEO or any other executive actually work for their company? They get 100 to 1000 times the pay of the average worker who is actually being supervised. If you see workers sleeping on the job then you need to ask where is the supervisor and the entire chain of command since they are the ones getting the big pay to make sure the workers are working.
How dare these peons make 6 figure salaries! In New York! How dare they make the same amount of money as 50 years ago, adjusted for the cost of living!
Who the hell can work 4x more then their base hours for an entire year? Those numbers are rigged, anyway.
FBC is exactly like Fox News except it doesn't preach social conservatism, only economic conservatism.
the entire point of the 40-hour work week and overtime pay was to give an incentive to businesses to not overwork their employees. well-run police depts, etc would do themselves a disservice to have hiring freezes whilst paying exorbitant overtime costs. when i pick up a shift where i work i'm given hell for taking it as i get paid time-and-a-half for it, and that's exactly the point: it's not about giving somebody extra money, it's about getting the most out of your workforce and not overworking them. jeez, hire some more people for cryin' out loud. it's not like there aren't qualified people desperately searching for work in every field. this isn't neurosurgery, people. it's not too difficult to figure out.
i might point out that it was the union movement that brought us the 40-hour work week -- and overtime pay. but NOT to pad the paychecks of employees, but too limit the abuse of workers.
that depicted what these bobble heads get paid, salary and benefits, or are there too many digits in the amount column.
Those people do nothing except spread hate. They have researchers, producers, typists and beauticians who prepare everything for the bobbleheads, who then take what they learned there to their radio shows.
I would bet not a single one of them has lifted anything more that 10 lbs at work, except their wallets. I bet they don't know what 'labor' is compared to a 'position'.
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
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