Some hedge fund managers made over a billion dollars [in 2007]. Hedge fund manager John Paulson, who made a clever bet against subprime mortgages, made close to $4 billion.

How much is 4 billion dollars? If you work as a sales clerk in a retail store, you’d have to work 200,000 YEARS to make 4 billion dollars. If you have a steady $50,000 a year job as a laborer and work for 50 years, in all that time you’d make as much as the hedge fund manager gets in one hour at the office.

4 billion dollars would pay a year’s salary for ALL the public school teachers in New York City.

Yet this money goes to one individual.

When something goes wrong with hedge funds or others in the finance industry, executives still collect their bonuses. But think how much you’ve heard about how teachers’ unions are one of the big problems with education today, standing in the way of efficiency. Think how much you’ve heard about auto workers being the problem in their industry—when they work for decades to earn what this one hedge fund guy takes in in an hour. And at least auto workers produce cars instead of the economic crisis that’s been the major thing to come out of Wall Street recently.

It’s time for the traditional media to take a hard look at their assumptions about profitability and fair wages, to recognize that working people are not the problem.

Main Street

DENVER — Just as voting is set to begin on a new union contract, King Soopers is accusing union representatives of disrupting business and intimidating workers by sending groups of union representatives into stores to talk to workers.

In a complaint filed in federal court this week, the supermarket chain claims the union is sending groups of representatives, many of them dressed in black union t-shirts, into stores to talk to workers on the job and hand out union fliers and buttons, a practice the company said is known as “blitzing.” King Soopers asked a federal judge to step in and stop the practice both for the current round of talks and in the future.

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn said Friday he would consider the issue during a hearing next Thursday, two days after workers finish voting on the contract. That leaves the union free to keep talking to workers ahead of the vote. Denver area workers are set to vote Monday and Colorado Springs workers will vote Tuesday.

In previous negotiations, Mulligan said union representatives have checked in with store managers and waited to talk to employees on their breaks in the employee lounge. “Union representatives, who are often fellow employees, have a contractual obligation to talk to grocery workers, and we have not had any problems with Safeway and Albertson’s,” union lawyer Crisanta Duran said.

 Lawyers for King Soopers said the aim of blitzing is to disrupt business and intimidate workers and customers.

“While at the facility, defendants have hindered and disrupted operations, threatened, intimidated and coerced employees and staff and the public, and acted in ways that are not peaceful. Defendants interrupt employees who are working, go into non-public areas and pass out union fliers and pins,” lawyers said in the complaint.
7News

Are you smarter than Fox News??

Can you answer this question posed to Jim Cramer on Morning Joe????

I’ll bet you can !!!


                             
                               

This is how Fox News fearmongers about the Employee Free Choice Act.

For usable information about EFCA, watch the next video with Ed Schultz.

        Here are some things you can do to be a better Union member. 

        First off, think of yourself as a Steward. You may not be the real Union Steward in your building or workgroup, but we are all Stewards of the labor movement. Stewards do a lot more than just handle grievances. Stewards can be proactive. An active steward of the labor movement encourages members to support the Union Cause. An active steward is a friend who cares. Everyone wants an active steward on their side. Here are some things you can do to be an active Union member in your workplace. Try out some of these ideas. They are fun.

             Have a MAD Day. Methods Awareness Day. Set a specific day each week, like Tuesday and walk around saying, “The method of the week is parking on the right side of the street. Practice it, master it.” Each week pick a new method. “Three point contact entering and exiting the car.” It’s good practice for the coming of Telematics. The company won’t stop you and you get to talk to everyone. Communication is your best friend as a steward.
             Speak up at the PCMs. Work Denverbrown.com into the conversation at a PCM. You’ll be surprised how hungry people are for information. Or read the key points of an article from the contract, such as Art.3, sec7a. Read the first line. Or Art. 17, the second paragraph. Get in the habit of speaking up, make 30 seconds of the PCM your time. Union time.
             Come in 15 minutes early some day and walk around holding your contract book. People have questions. Have a cheat sheet ready so you can find the articles they have questions about. Write down questions you can’t answer, ask your Steward and get back to them the next day with the answer. Be around, be visible, be the Union.
             Do a printout and pass it out to all your drivers. List important phone numbers, like the Local’s phone number, the pension fund, the health insurance provider, OSHA, the Labor Board, UPS corporate, etc. Include website addresses like Denverbrown.com., TDU, UPSer.com, your Local Union Hall, NABER and others. List your stewards and your business agent. Put on a joke or a cartoon. Don’t slander the company, that’s not a good idea and it will turn some people off. The Union is here to help.
             Bring in a candy bar or some kind of treat for everyone some morning. Dumdums are fun and cheap. They make for some interesting jokes. People love trinkets The company used to give us something for Founders Day. Have your own Founders Day. Say you found a supervisor working and won a money grievance and you wanted to share it. Brotherhood. The company won’t give us anything again for about a hundred years.
             Talk to people about the Employee Free Choice Act. Strong Unions make a strong middle class. Do a Google search and know the websites that promote EFCA and strong Unions. Know how to contact your Congressmen and Senators. It’s not hard. It only takes a few minutes. Get people involved in protecting their own futures. It will pay dividends in the future.  

        These are six fun things you can do as Steward of the Labor Movement to make your presence felt and get to know your brothers and sisters. Your shop steward can’t do it all and he shouldn’t have to. It’s your Union.