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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Jun 28, 2018 - 01:00pm PT
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The GOP is making sure Corporate America can screw you at will. And Trumpies just bend over and take it, hoping for a reach-around.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Jun 28, 2018 - 01:08pm PT
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The GOP is making sure Corporate America can screw you at will
Shhhhhhhhh!
I let you in on a little secret.... that happens no matter which of your favorite 'teams' has the head puppet position.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jun 28, 2018 - 01:19pm PT
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I'm pissed at Kennedy for deciding to retire just a few months before the mid-terms! Sheesh, considering what the republicans did to Obama in not bringing up his scotus nomination for nearly a year before the last presidential elections, this feels extremely unfair. I would have hoped that he would have felt that way. Maybe he got bought off.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Jun 28, 2018 - 01:36pm PT
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I'm pissed at Kennedy for deciding to retire just a few months before the mid-terms! Sheesh, considering what the republicans did to Obama in not bringing up his scotus nomination for nearly a year before the last presidential elections, this feels extremely unfair. I would have hoped that he would have felt that way. Maybe he got bought off.
LMFAO--so a Justice who is over 80 freaking years old decides to retire and people think he's bought off! :))
And not to say Justices should play the retire when the Prez-is-one-their-guys game, but if they do, Kennedy is a freaking conservative who was appointed by Ronald Ray-Gun! (yeah Kennedy seemed a little moderate, but that's only compared to some of the other guys, who are basically as right wing as they come. He's been a very reliable conservative on the important issues, obviously he's got a soft spot for gay rights--I kinda like the guy!)
(And not that it matters, but I do believe the Repubs tactic with Garland was "unfair" and sets a terrible precedent. The Repubs should have duly considered Garland and then simply voted his liberal ass back down.)
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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Jun 28, 2018 - 01:54pm PT
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LMFAO--so a Justice who is over 80 freaking years old decides to retire
That f*#ker should have retired at 65, like everybody else.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jun 28, 2018 - 02:04pm PT
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I've never understood forced contributions to unions.
But then again, I'm not a fascist.
What the Supreme Court lackeys ignored in their decision is that unions are run by the members. If they don't like the politics of their leaders, they have the mechanisms to replace them. So, if you dislike the fact that as a union member your income is a third higher than nonunion workers, and you hate the fact that you get a vacation and it burns you that the boss's son can't fire you for whatever reason, you can elect like minded suck ups to run the union.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2018 - 02:16pm PT
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I do believe the Repubs tactic with Garland was "unfair" and sets a terrible precedent.
That's the Republican way, ever since 1992. Before that, both parties were able to cooperate, at least to some degree. With the ascendancy of the Gin Grinch to Speaker of the House, Republicans in Congress became less amiable, and more combative. Obstruction, rather than cooperation, was the Gin Grinch's battle cry.
The rhetoric from the Republicans now is that the Democrats are the obstructionists.
The Republicans are like schoolyard bullies who punch a kid in the face, and then complain when the other kid hits them back in the face.
Trump supporters calling for civility and tolerance is an exquisite example of the hypocritical double-standard that is a Republican trademark.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jun 28, 2018 - 02:34pm PT
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The Abood Court said that a state could balance managing its employees and labor interests to avoid “free rider” situations where non-union workers benefited from a union’s advocacy for pay raises and other benefits without paying for the negotiation process.
The GOP loves freeloaders. The parasites at the top who are sucking the life out of this country, the Republicans only exist to do their bidding.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2018 - 02:52pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Assolutamente
They've put those "core values" in the same dumpster that they've put fiscal responsibility and a balanced Federal budget.
It's a tragic episode of Whores Gone Wild.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jun 28, 2018 - 03:25pm PT
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Workers most in need of union protections are the ones least likely to have discretionary budgets for union dues! Keeping gas in the car and lights on in the house and food on the table and paying medical bills all take precedence, and many people struggle with these basics. Making dues optional is tantamount to killing a union.
The Supreme Court has ruled that government employees don't have to pay union dues, which will ultimately lead to the death/irrelevance of unions for government jobs. Instead of our government being the shining example of how to structure our society to balance the needs of employers (to make a profit) and employees (to have livable conditions even if they are not endowed with special/rare skills), it has followed corporations toward the perdition of humanity.
The herd is being thinned. Will you and your offspring survive?
Is your area of specialization safe from AI? Can you perform some task better than a machine, and is someone willing to keep paying you for that? We can each pretend like we are special/different and that this only affects someone else, all those other lazy slobs who didn't study or relaxed on weekends while we were working hard to better ourselves. But pretty soon we who feel unaffected will realize we are standing alone and nobody is left to defend us when we thought we were safe.
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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Jun 28, 2018 - 04:06pm PT
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The Janus decision is appropriately named; it has two faces.
The conservative justices may rue the day they elevated collective bargaining to first amendment protected free speech.
THE RIGHT IS TRYING TO TAKE DOWN PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS. IT MAY BRING MUCH MORE DOWN WITH IT.
Rachel M. Cohen
February 25 2018
IN THE MIDDLE of last week, Dixon O’Brien, a 60-year-old engineer, and his union, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, quietly filed a federal lawsuit against Lincolnshire, a village in a northern suburb of Chicago. Together they raised issue with Lincolnshire officials using taxpayer dollars to fund a statewide lobbying group, the Illinois Municipal League, which advocates for things like limiting collective bargaining and reducing pension benefits. “O’Brien objects to the use of his tax money to fund private organizations that lobby and/or engage in other political activities that run directly against his economic interests and his political beliefs,” the complaint reads.
On Thursday, the head of the same union filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, challenging portions of state law that requires unions to provide representational services to non-dues paying members. “It is absurd that state law forces unions to provide equal representation and service to public sector workers who are not members and pay nothing toward associated costs,” said union President James Sweeney in a statement.
And then on Friday, the International Union of Operating Engineers Locals 139 and 420 filed a federal lawsuit against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, challenging a law he signed in 2011 that dramatically restricts public employee collective bargaining rights. The unions argue that the law’s restrictions impinge upon their protected free speech rights under the First Amendment.
These three consecutive lawsuits are a warning to the Supreme Court that if it buys into an extreme conservative argument being used to undermine labor unions, the justices are going to take a lot more than just agency fees down with them.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 – a case experts have long predicted could strike a mortal blow to public sector unions. The plaintiff, an Illinois state worker named Mark Janus, has argued that he has a First Amendment right to avoid paying anything to a union that bargains on his behalf. With the current ideological leanings of the court, the plaintiff — and the conservative groups backing his lawsuit — face strong odds of victory.
But while most of the media has focused on the fact that the Janus case stands to decimate union coffers – and by extension, Democratic Party coffers – some labor activists and legal scholars have begun sounding the alarm on what they say would be the unintended consequences of the suit, effectively opening up the floodgates for countless lawsuits like the recent ones filed by the International Union of Operating Engineers. If Janus doesn’t have to pay his agency fees because collective bargaining is speech he disagrees with, then collective bargaining is speech. And it can’t be restricted. Indeed, when some of Janus’s lazier advocates lay out the case, they accidentally argue on behalf of unions’ right to free speech. “Because government is both employer and policymaker, collective bargaining by the union is inherently political advocacy and indistinguishable from lobbying,” wrote George Will on Sunday, directly implicating the First Amendment.
For more than 40 years, the Supreme Court has held that there’s a constitutional difference between a union’s political activities and its collective bargaining work. Compelling workers to fund the former would infringe on their freedom of speech, the court ruled in 1977. But under current law, collective bargaining is different. Imposing conditions, such as requiring mandatory dues or limiting the scope of their negotiations to wages and benefits, is fair game.
If the Janus plaintiffs win their case, this critical distinction would be dismantled. (A decision is expected by June, when the court’s term ends.) A union’s bargaining and political lobbying would be treated the same — as protected free speech. In other words, the court would actually be elevating the free speech standards of bargaining. That, in turn, could bring with it new legal protections.
If the Janus plaintiffs win their case, a union’s bargaining and political lobbying would be treated the same.
“If the plaintiffs are right that collective bargaining is political speech indistinguishable from lobbying, well, the flip side of that coin is that that protected free speech can’t be restricted,” said Ed Maher, a spokesperson for the International Union of Operating Engineers. “We don’t think this has been thoughtfully considered by the plaintiffs, and it is our belief that a win for Janus will open a tremendous Pandora’s box.”
This Pandora’s box, Maher suggested to The Intercept, holds all sorts of chaotic possibilities for the U.S. legal system and state governments across the country. Nearly all states impose some form of restriction on collective bargaining, limiting who can bargain and what workers can bargain over. If the Janus plaintiffs win in court, the theory goes, then workers could start bringing First Amendment challenges to limitations on their bargaining rights, like the restrictions Walker, the Wisconsin governor, passed in 2011.
And, as the three cases filed last week demonstrate, they’ve already started.
COURTS HAVE LONG sought to avoid applying First Amendment rights to unions. From the earliest court decisions that concerned worker protests in the 19th century, as labor writer and strategist Shaun Richman has written, judges have tended to treat unions “as criminal conspiracies that interfere with employers’ property and contract rights.” And while courts have chipped away further at the free speech rights of workers and unions over the last half-century, they have also expanded the free speech protections afforded to employers and corporations.
Ann C. Hodges, a labor law professor at the University of Richmond, agrees that a win for the Janus plaintiffs could invite all sorts of new legal challenges. Writing recently for the American Constitution Society, Hodges said:
Courts have regularly ruled that states like Wisconsin can provide collective bargaining rights to some groups of employees and not others, using the rational basis test to find no equal protection violation. … But if all union activity is protected political speech, then these distinctions implicate fundamental rights, invoking strict scrutiny for such classifications. Thus, the differential treatment of employee groups by the states may not survive. Indeed, unions may even have an argument that there is a constitutional right to collective bargaining.
Equally unlikely to survive are many governmental employer restrictions on employee speech. A long line of cases allows government employers to impose various restrictions on employee speech. The Supreme Court distinguishes employee from citizen speech, permitting employers to limit and control employee speech in the interests of the government as employer. … A ruling in favor of the Janus plaintiffs could obliterate the distinction, requiring employers to tolerate much unwanted speech by their employees.
Some left activists remain understandably skeptical that Janus could lead to some interesting or even good opportunities for labor, arguing, as Richman wrote, that a judiciary “that could buy such a craven argument as Janus will refuse to take the precedent to its logical conclusion and shamelessly waving away workers’ free speech rights.” But if the anti-Trump backlash leads to a wave of liberal judge appointments, the legal landscape could grow significantly more friendly for unions over the next few election cycles. Plus, unless Janus ends with an extremely narrow ruling, it would be a while before the Supreme Court could really stamp out all the knock-on cases, even if it wanted to. In other words, legal chaos could reign for years in the lower courts.
Richman goes so far as to say that Janus “could hand new liberal majorities a roadmap for restoring a legal balance of power between corporations and workers.” Or, as Sweeney of Local 150 puts it, “The free speech rights being invoked by the union-busters behind Janus work both ways.”
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/25/conservatives-public-sector-unions-janus/
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jun 28, 2018 - 04:21pm PT
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Workers most in need of union protections are the ones least likely to have discretionary budgets for union dues!
That's the beauty of collective bargaining, You have discretionary income.
But you guys clearly know better and what’s best for those non-union knuckleheads and where and how they should spend their money and whatever else you assume you have a right to enforce on them.
And those guys who refuse to pay into their union, will also refuse the better benefits, working conditions and wages that the union brings to the table?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2018 - 04:23pm PT
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In re Janus, the Republicans want to have their cake, and eat it, too.
Faux-clever maneuvering eventually leads to contradictory results, with the weakness of the original concept providing strength for its self-negation.
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Jorroh
climber
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Jun 28, 2018 - 04:45pm PT
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I wonder if the supreme court will extend this logic to the money that corporate leaders piss away on politicians...money that rightly belongs to the shareholders.
After all, with Citizens United, the supreme court made it crystal clear that this money is never about getting favors to enhance shareholder value from said politicians. They're merely generously pissing away their shareholders money because the politicians are such good guys.
And lest we forget, Republicans passed a law a few years ago where corporations don't even have to disclose these "gifts" to their owners.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jun 28, 2018 - 06:25pm PT
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Enforced union dues on on non-union memebers was a gross violation on the freedom to associate.
And being forced to pay taxes to support wars I disagree with it is a gross violation of my beliefs. And don't get me started on having to pay my workers minimum wage or not being allowed to drive 100mph on the interstate.
And perhaps more relevant, as a stockholder why can those companies donate to politicians I vehemently disagree with.
Very gross violation. Sad.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2018 - 06:45pm PT
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There is nothing better than a lively debate, and a civil exchange of ideas.
That said, Trump is frickin CRAZY!
They're merely generously pissing away their shareholders money because the politicians are such good guys.
A corporation's board of directors is tasked with ensuring that a corporation appropriately conducts its affairs, including how it spends its money. If a corporate board approves of, say, bribing government officials to allow polluting public waterways to boost profits, that board is within its corporate mandate.
External regulation of corporations serves to ensure that a corporation that behaves as a single-minded, sociopathic entity is not allowed to injure the public, as collateral damage, in its quest for profits.
Unbridled, unregulated free enterprise is an inherently unstable system for a society. Greed, callousness and money addiction pervert the "magic hand" of the free market system. History has shown this to be the case, over and over and over and over and over and over.
The problem that a society faces is not that there is regulation, but how to regulate so that nefarious actors are restricted, without unnecessarily fettering honest and legitimate economic activity.
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Jorroh
climber
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Jun 28, 2018 - 07:13pm PT
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Thats my point though Tom...the two can't coexist.
You've either got corporations bribing politicians or screwing their shareholders.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2018 - 07:21pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
My college education is in engineering - the science of compromise. An airplane that is as light as a feather is not robust in a sudden gust of wind. A Porsche engine should produce high power, but also not burn fuel at a prodigious rate. A skyscraper, as in San Francisco these days, should have a solid foundation, and not be built on the cheap, simply to steal Pisa's lunch by having two leaning towers in the same city.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Another-building-is-sinking-in-San-Francisco-13028603.php
This dolt who I worked for in the medical device industry once said, "We're not going to compromise". He was technically illiterate, and had no idea what his statement really meant. He wanted his cake (lightweight short leg walker substitute for a cast) and eat it, too (a structural system that would not break under any conceivable loading).
After I quit, I was contacted when there was a personal injury lawsuit because someone had been hurt when that company's short leg walker product failed structurally.
The Valley Giant is the most robust, strong and reliable camming device, because I have seen, firsthand, how to NOT do things. I have decided that my heavy mountaineering gear is an appropriate compromise between low weight and functional strength. Many people have agreed that I have made the correct decision.
As an engineer, I know the benefit of a compromised solution.
I agree.
But, you MUST avoid the Trump tendency to misspell words, such as "counsel".
It is important that correct language be used in a valid statement, lest a grammatical error be construed as invalidating it.
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Pennsylenvy
Gym climber
A dingy corner in your refrigerator
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Jun 28, 2018 - 08:37pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Anything other than this blatantly shows the corruption of our system .
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