Originally posted by Toad
What? No comments about the poultry industry injuries? I thought for sure you'd point out an adequate safety system already protects those workers [/B]
Despite the hardhats, goggles, earplugs, stainless-steel mesh gloves, plastic forearm guards, chain-mail aprons and chaps, leather weightlifting belts, even baseball catcher’s shin guards and hockey masks
What were the nature of the injuries. What were the nature of the illnesses.
Why were there injuries after the above listed safety precautions?
What is your level of expertise in the meat and poultry packing industry?
Originaly posted by Toad
as you said, you don't know jack about the airlines. Well... except that you know the unions are the ones making them go bankrupt.
Not that I "don't know jack", as you so eloquently put it, but that my knowledge is cursory. I knew when I posted it that you are in the airline industry.
Perhaps if the unions hadn't extorted salaries that were above the market, our tax money wouldn't be needed to keep them afloat.
It would be very hard to ever point to one single factor as the sole cause of such a large company filing for bankruptcy. The comment was made about federal subsidies though.
March 11, 2003
The series reported that McWane, a company in Birmingham, Ala., that employs some 5,000 workers in a dozen American plants, had been cited for more than 400 safety violations since 1995, far more than all of its major competitors combined. During that time, records show, McWane employees suffered at least 4,600 injuries. Nine workers were killed, three of them because of McWane's deliberate violations of federal safety standards, OSHA inspectors concluded.
Originaly posted by Toad
Hey, look! It only took OSHA from 1995 to 2003 to figure out that McWane was deliberately violating safety standards.
Nope, they figured it out back in 1995. There needs to be an adjustment in the procedure of handling companies that are in violation. Someone involved in the inspection process needs to be held accountable along with the company.
Originally posted by Lazerus
My personal opinion is that the unions are far more corrupt than the regulatory agencies of the US. Granted, the same people that abuse the unions would probably migrate into those agencies as experts and corrupt them further if the unions were eliminated. And I'm not saying that they should be eliminated BTW.
I just think that the power of the unions needs to be moved back to the local level. The national representatives have a track record of not looking out for the employees or their company.
We obviously have a difference of opinion. I don't think either one of us is going to change our mind.
But before you write me off as some anti-worker fascist, consider the option of maintaining authority in local unions, where people who's day to day lives are involved with the people they represent and the companies who's welfare has a direct effect on those people.
I will happily agree with you that unions have positively effected the work environment in this country. I will also never be convinced that they have not negatively impacted the economy of this country. Both are fact.
Of course redundant systems to ensure the safety of workers is a good idea. Of course it is more beneficial to the employee to have an advocate that is in their employ (union dues), as long as they have a direct influence on that advocates employment. Of course power leads to corruption. Of course the larger an organization, the more out of touch the upper level is. Union and employer.
Rather than dogmatic and emotional responses, how about a comment on my statement that I've quoted again for you.
