Thread: A Fireside Chat about wages, prices, and illegal immigration

I agree with most of what you wrote, except for defense of unions. They are no longer the path to middle class, but are global entities that are greedy self-enriching communist leaning aristocrat leaders at the expense of the workforce.

If it was not for the unions demanding, and getting, decent wages for their workers, the wages of every other worker in America (remember, this was before the outsourcing of jobs and importing of slave labor completely destroyed the natural balance of the wage-price system) would be lower.

That was in the past, when they fought for the average worker and lost ground through strikes and work actions to prove the point. Now they include illegal aliens in their unions - R I D I C U L O U S.

Also, most union members are died in the wool Democrats who blindly follow them off their own cliffs. For instance, they are supporting the public option. What? They get those Cadillac health care plans now, paid for by the union, that will be taxed and/or eliminated off the backs of the union bosses and the workers thrown to the wolves. Why can't they seem to understand that it is not in their best interests to support this fiasco?

SEIU tried to include professional nurses in their union as though they were service workers - they used union thugs to intimidate and coerce, but the nurses have joined the AFL-CIO instead - why I wonder because there is no basis for similiar interests - the nurses want control over patient ratios but the unions want control over the healthcare industry.

Don't get me wrong - my dad was president of his AFL-CIO at GM, he has died and his plant has closed. The union made many gains for which we sacrificed as a family by going on strike every other Christmas, but they were good to him. Many expenses that would have been paid by Social Security and Medicare (taxpayers) were paid by the union for my mom until her death. Those days are over and the Medicare system will cover many of the people formerly covered by GM healthcare. I don't know what the top echelon made at GM in the good days, but I seriously doubt if it was as high as the multiple millions these CEO's made while undermining the very people who they need to buy their products.

How can the unions support the Dems? NAFTA (Clinton) has done more to destroy our middle class than any other act. Trade with China is another.

The union leaders are as corrupt and traitorous as our politicians, both Democrat and Republican.

Our tea party movement seems to be our only answer. Welcome 50sKid, good thinking for most of your article. However, the general public is not as "dumb as rocks" as you believe, we are very aware and worried.

Unions are not corrupt. There may be a couple bad apples there, but overall they are not corrupt. They fight for workers rights and wages. Of course corporate pigs always deride the unions as being corrupt because they dont want anyone defending the right of workers. They want a pool of slaves. So they will always say that unions are corrupt. Its kind of funny....allegations of corruption coming from the corrupt corporations. LOL

50sKid, Good article. Can you get politicians to sit down and read it, as well as make changes? I wish, really do, and agree with you in this 100%.

I will tell you all this about wages. My husband is 59, Vietnam Veteran, was highly trained (but his training did not translate into any civilian job). He is currently a "lead person", in a wholesale warehouse, as the receiving supervisor. He manages incoming freight, receiving, training, overseeing several people, managing special freight, you name it, he does it in this department.

Now this I will say also, he started late on his family, I am 42, we have two kids, 16 and 12, so a family of four to support....on currently $13.50 an hour. Now mind you all, this is a very physical job, some of the freight cannot be brought out with a forklift due to it's nature and how it is packed into a truck, so about half must be man-handled out, he and the other receiver. The third person in his department is a young small woman who just does the computer work and receives, labels and such.

Really, he should be making at least 5 dollars an hour more than he is according to many job related sites. With the economy in shambles, what kind of bargaining power does he have? None, and likely will not anytime soon, and when it finally comes around, he might just be at the end of his working career, and then it will be me taking over to bring in income once the kids are older (we do not believe kids should be left alone, even as teens, in order for the parents to simply make "more" money).

Yes, families should be able to live on one income and afford to live decently, it is not happening. We do not live with any credit, we live by cash alone. If we cannot afford it with cash, we do not buy it. We do not want to get ourselves trapped into owing money to some big bank who will rape us for every penny they can in interest, and line the pockets of some CEO who is getting millions in bonuses from interest, made from loans to struggling families who can barely afford to live.

How can anyone justify unions accepting illegal aliens?

Originally Posted by GaPatriot

How can anyone justify unions accepting illegal aliens?

It's all about "Market Share" and because NYC is a sanctuary city more and more large jobs were going to non-union, illegal alien hiring contractors. The only way to regain those jobs was to recruit the workers regardless of their immigration status. Members like myself who opposed this madness became outcasts put on blacklists. Now though with the economic collapse devastating the industry the chickens are coming home to roost.

Thank you for the kind words. I wrote the article myself, starting with several ideas a few years ago, and updating it recently.

I also sent an e-mail to the white house (copied below this reply), and tried to get the article, or a shortened version, printed in several papers, including UAW Solidarity.

I have strong opinions on other, non-illegal immigration issues, but will limit myself for this site, so as to stay on topic, even though the world, and all of the problems facing it, are very interrelated. All things affect our lives, as partially mentioned in the reference to terrorism, in the e-mail to the Detroit Free Press (also copied below this reply).

Of course, I do not believe that Americans are actually stupid, even though a lot of us are acting that way, through our inaction. That was partially meant to be satire, but it really is the way we are perceived, since most of us just continue to roll over and take it. In fairness, it is very difficult to enact change. However, the Tea Party movement, and sites such as this one, prove that the American people have finally been pushed to the breaking point.

In most instances where political change is accomplished, it is usually a relatively small number of citizens who do the heavy lifting. That is just the way it is, and I’m not whining or complaining, nor are any of the rest of you. We all have our particular gifts and abilities to apply to the task at hand, and that is what I am trying to do by clarifying things and hopefully reducing the vast amount of misinformation that is out there.


I worked in shipping and receiving for over three years, with some of the time spent driving a fork-lift truck, and understand the labor involved with using hand-trucks to get those unusual-sized loads out of a long semi-trailer. It was satisfying work, though, at the end of the day. At the time, I was properly compensated for the work, and this should be the norm, not the exception.

I understand that many unions have lost their way. I believe this is due to corrupt and/or misguided leaders, in turn misleading the members. Many of the leaders and members also do not see any acceptable alternative to the Democrats.

It really bothers me that unions support illegal immigration, and I hope that some union leaders and members will browse this site and start to re-examine the wisdom of that position.

Mr. Gheen deserves a huge thanks from all Americans for making this forum available, where informed, and uncensored, dissent and discussion are actually possible.

Again, the unions are a good thing, but they need to be cleaned up, just as our representative Democracy is a good thing, but also needs a good power washing from time to time.

I see both the Democrats and Republicans at fault when it comes to illegal immigration.

The Democrats want the potential extra pool of voters, regardless of the damage it will cause to the nation and its legal citizens. The Republicans want the cheap labor, and the chance to bust the unions, again completely without regard to the damage inflicted upon America and Americans.

It seems impossible for an independent candidate, who puts the interest of America first, to fund and maintain a viable campaign for President. Even if they get started, the media and both established political parties, along with the ACLU and other strident activists, will launch massive, all-out disinformation campaigns and grind them into dust.

It is a real shame that all of these people cannot seem to apply this same type of energy to solving the problems in our country.

In the 1970’s, I thought of running for Mayor of Detroit, and even thought of trying for President, but I am not a politician, nor am I politically correct, for which I am thankful. Besides, I fell in with the wrong crowd when I was younger, and the message for reform would be lost in all of the time spent defending myself.

There is no time to waste on any of that nonsense, so I will try to help, instead, by applying my perspective, through writing, to the cause of preserving freedom and sanity in America. Hopefully, my humble efforts will have a positive impact.

To paraphrase what a wise man once said, “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good [people] to do nothing.â€

I can only wish that I could learn to write so eloquently 50sKid!