Hate your job? Watch the dumpster divers…

Hate your job? Don’t like the working conditions and think you are not paid enough?

Watch what I watched a few minutes ago and you might change your mind.

These days, I have read, it has become a status symbol just to have a job – any job.

I was getting something out of my car in the apartment complex where I now live (we had to downsize from a house to an apartment – we like it though). A young couple was dumpster diving, gathering all the recyclables they could in plastic bags. The guy said hi and told me “it’s a rough way to make a living”. While I was out for a morning walk a few days ago I had seen an older man and a younger man doing the same thing, dumspter diving, that is.

You could say, oh well, people make their own life choices. But really, especially in this economy, it is only by the grace of God, yes and maybe some decisions you made along the way, and luck that you are where you are now.

I truly think that as a nation (a world?) we are in another Great Depression. It may not be as bad as the last one or, in fact, it may be worse. But a lot of people whose lives have not been terribly affected yet, and especially that insulated class we call our leaders, don’t realize the misery much of society is going through.

On a happier note and related to all of this, I am back at work again truck driving. Unfortunately I am not at my last job – I had to go back to a previous job and am making half or even less than half as much as I made in my last job. But I’m not complaining. In fact, I am hopeful that I can keep working, and that will depend on two things: the economy, and my health.

For my regular readers, I had blogged the other day that I would be off the web for awhile because I was on the road. I’m back at home for a day and a half, but it’s back on the road tomorrow.

The optimists (the Republicans) say that if there is15 percent unemployment that it is not bad because that means 85 percent are working. Well without going into all of it, I doubt whether the statistics accurately reflect the real situation – they are at best an indicator. And the indication is that society is in turmoil.

I noticed a lot of businesses along the road boarded up. I was going to stop at a café I used to stop at out on Highway 97 in eastern Oregon, but it was no longer in business.

Stay with me here – I’m not skipping to another subject: I just read a news story that said that Iraq war veterans now in Afghanistan are finding the enemy there fiercer.

It’s an all-volunteer force now – kind of like a mercenary force, and I’m sure they all feel happy to at least have employment. And they seem to be quite brave.

But maybe our leaders need to rethink this whole thing. We’ve already leveraged or indebted ourselves to the tune of a trillion dollars or more to fight in Iraq, which we did not have to do, and now to fight in Afghanistan where our goal is illusive. And Afghanistan has been resistant to invaders through the centuries. Maybe in some broad geopolitical sense there is a rationale for fighting there. But in the real world of economics I am afraid it is going to bankrupt us.

If my job and I hold out I won’t have as much time to blog and pontificate or bloviate (maybe), but at least I will be part of the world again, and I do plan to continue this blog and may blog quite often when I can upgrade and get more mobile with it.

Raise tariffs, re-tool America, lower retirement age, and go for universal health care…

I watched Charlie Rose last night and heard Bob Woodward say that President Barack Obama has not really been tested by his own crisis yet. He said that he did not know what crisis might be in the offing, but perhaps unemployment might be it. And today I read that unemployment has reached 10 percent in 15 states. I know it is higher than that in my local area, and maybe in yours. If unemployment remains high, I think the Obama administration will be seen as a failure. Actually we are already in an unemployment crisis — so let’s see how Obama handles it.

Raise tariffs and provide tax incentives to U.S. industry that employs people right here in America, lower — not constantly raise — the retirement age to increase job opportunities for younger folks, and relieve businesses of providing costly health plans and thereby at the same time free up workers to more easily go to better or more suitable jobs by providing some type of universal health care scheme not tied to employment.

And so the doctors, and others, will not gripe that government bureaucrats (as opposed to private health insurance bureaucrats?) are dictating health decisions, let doctors serve on public boards to oversee the government-guaranteed health care. Notice, I have not written “government-sponsored”. Actually I assume that under any scheme to guarantee that everyone has health care coverage there will be government funding.

How about those ideas to put America back to work and get the economy going?

And while I don’t want to just concentrate on health care, I can see from my own personal experience that health care rules so much in our lives (it’s the cost and availability).

So I will address health care and then go back to some of the other economic recovery ideas.

The only way I can see that there is ever going to be health care for everyone is for the government to be involved, the free market can’t seem to do it.

I watched part of a documentary on PBS some time ago about how other nations handle health care, but it was kind of hard to follow or at least remember, except that it seems to have a lot to do with attitude of the public. For some reason maybe the rest of the world is just crazy, but they see a role for their governments to serve the interests of their citizens. For all the need and talk about health care reform in this nation, I sometimes get the idea that the general public is not into it as much as one might imagine, that is until something bad happens in one’s personal life, but then you’re so mired in your own mess, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. But if the public really cared as much as it is reputed to, I think we would have had reform long ago. I keep hearing that Teddy Roosevelt ( a Republican – a progressive one) pushed for some type of national health care. That’s a century ago.

I’m extremely surprised the business sector has not pushed for national health care, seeing as how providing health care coverage for employees is such a major expense. And if employees don’t have coverage they will eventually be less productive and certainly it would seem more vulnerable to worker’s comp claims, which really can cost employers a lot.

Right now with so much of the work force out of work, huge numbers of people are without or soon to be without health care coverage or are trying to figure out how poor they have to let themselves get to become eligible for government programs.

Health care has become so expensive but is so necessary that it has become one of the most important, yet hard to meet, requirements in life, darn near beating out food and shelter.

Unless you have the fortune required to pay out of your pocket for all health services you might need, you generally have to join together with others in some type of group plan. So why can’t virtually the whole nation join together as a group? Yes it is going to cost, and everyone should have to pay a fair amount according to their means. And the amount of taxes raised for health care cannot be unlimited. So, yes, that means that decisions as to what is covered and how much the insurance will pay will have to be made. They always are, even in private insurance.

Taxing the rich (and who figures out what rich is?) to pay for health care is a bad idea. Social Security, the one program with “social (ism)” in its name that seems to have near universal support or at least acceptance, was designed so everyone (almost) pays for it and everyone is eligible and everyone has a stake in it.

A doctor who writes a column for my local newspaper said he dreaded any type of public option because the government would be telling him how long or what kind of treatment he can give his patients. Not any more than private or so-called group insurance does. And no one would tell him how long he can spend with a patient. That is up to him. He’s talking about his reimbursement. He can spend longer with his patient than the reimbursement covers (the government or other insurance entities only limit the money, not the time), and he can charge the patient the difference (and that is what is often done). Whether the patient can pay that extra amount is always in question (and do doctors consider themselves mere hourly employees?). And it might seem nice to compare the medical care market with any other consumer offering, but, you know, there is just not much competition. In fact, a lot of doctors do not accept new patients.

There is a concern that the number of family practitioners is dwindling because there is just not the money in the field there once was (still better than when they used to accept chickens from farmers). Maybe there needs to be more incentives to create new family practitioners, such as subsidized training for promising students. And maybe if the private sector cannot offer enough services, there needs to be government clinics staffed by well trained doctors and support personnel.

Such clinics would have to be well funded, because if not, you get the stereotypical zoo.

And then there is the problem – who wants to go to a cut rate doctor?

I got off the track on this medical thing. I was really wanting to put another pitch in for the re-industrialization of America. I know all the learned economists and political historians will tell you that raising tariffs is “protectionism” and protectionism is a bad thing because it leads to retaliatory protectionism from other countries and stymies world trade and leads to even more economic hardship and that there is precedent that proves it – the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 and the Great Depression. But that notion has been brought into question by some. And besides, that was then and this is now. I love history, but we live now and maybe things are slightly different today.

What so-called free trade has brought us is unbalanced trade where the U.S. competes with nations with a much lower standard of living and it continues to drag the U.S. down. Free trade was sold partly on the idea that other nations would prosper and come up to our standards. And I have to admit that in my ignorance I once thought if something can be made cheaper elsewhere, so be it, I’m generally for it. But there is such a thing as buying value (something that is hard to find these days – except in foreign cars), and there is such a thing as keeping the wealth in one’s home country. In our own greed we may have been tricked into giving up the store by becoming a nation of bargain hunters rather than a nation of those who produce or support in the production of quality products  and who share in the wealth that the demand for quality brings. Developing nations may develop, but they also may surpass us while we are not paying attention.

And even though a lot of money is made out of war, our current wars are a net drag on our economy and it is morally wrong to base our economy on war anyway. We should work to get out of war situations as quickly as possible and avoid wars when we can. And we are finding out that in today’s world rapidly moving events all over the globe can cause us to be overextended easily.

Kind of a scatter shot approach here. But just some thoughts.

P.s.

I heard someone mention on a TV news talk show that even with all the hubbub about whether a health care plan will make it through congress this term, even if it did it would be five years before anything went into effect. That’s absurd.

I still think everyone is trying to make this whole thing too complicated. Complication is not what we need. And it is hard to shop for health care, especially when you need it (think about it).

Just expand Medicare for those who cannot afford to pay for private plans now on the market. The market has no interest in providing health care for those with no means to pay. In fact, left to its own devices, the private health care industry would avoid offering coverage to anyone who might actually want to use it.

Remembering after-work mandatory meetings with beer and re-inventing myself to fit the job…

Just watched a stupid commercial where a guy gets thrown out of an upper story window for suggesting at a company conference that they save money by not serving Bud Light at the meetings.

Reminds me of years ago when I worked at a paint store and we had mandatory meetings from time to time after work. We did not get paid for these meetings, but they did serve beer in a cooler.

Another good thing about that job is that I lived within walking distance – didn’t need a car.

I began the job mixing paint matches for auto body repairs – hey I know nothing about colors and how to mix them – I just followed a formula from the proper paint code, generally under the hood of your car somewhere (at least that’s the way it was back then). It was mighty exacting, though. One tiny drop too much and the entire batch was ruined – we just mixed pints, quarts, and gallons.

One day I was informed I would be doing the deliveries. And as it turned out, from then on I did the deliveries every day – a morning and an afternoon run. Easiest job for the money I ever had.

I should have known it was too good to last. I don’t recall how long I did it, but one day I was told they had to cut back – last hired, first fired. I was gone.

I actually thought I had learned a skill, mixing that paint, but when I applied at other places, they told me they didn’t need an extra hand, that they all took turns mixing.

I eventually went back to school and then later I went back to journalism and still later I went to big truck driving. When I applied for a big truck driving job, even though the company offered its own school they preferred some related experience. Those paint deliveries came in handy. Let me tell you, driving a pickup truck or a van or one week when both of those were not available, the boss’ station wagon, is not anything like driving a big truck – but of course I did have to make deliveries.

Come to think of it, when I applied for the paint store job, the boss wanted to know if I had sales experience. The only thing I could put down was that I sold newspapers on the street as a little kid. Good enough, I guess. Well I did sell insurance briefly – not sure I mentioned that.

And one time while I was working at the paint store, I had to make some deliveries of oxygen and acetylene tanks – the store I worked for was actually a welding supply store with an auto paint department. Good thing I had just taken a welding class (which I did not do extremely well in), because at one stop, the airport, as I recall, they assumed I knew how to undo the old tanks and hook up the new ones. Fortunately I did.

After that job played out I tried to get a truck driver job at another welding supply store. But the guy looked at my resume and saw that while I had just come from a welding supply business, most of my experience was as a newspaper reporter.

“I can’t figure out what you want to do” , he said.

I guess in a way I couldn’t either, but at that very moment I needed a job – any job. Didn’t get that one. I think that’s when I decided to go back school.

I’ll bet there’s a lot of people going through this sort of thing nowadays with unemployment so high and businesses closing their doors all over the place.

If I’m sure of anything, I’m sure things will get better, but just like everyone else I don’t have a clue as to when.

Meanwhile, large numbers of people are out there trying to figure out what they want to do or what they can do and trying to re-invent themselves to fit into a more competitive job market.

And if you are one who envies those who always knew what to do from the start and followed the straight path and have been successful at it, I have empathy – I feel your pain.

P.s.

And I know you’ve heard this one before, but take it from someone who thought he was a goner due to a bout with cancer – find some enjoyment in every day you can. Every day above ground is a good one.

Supreme Court firefighter decision shows why we need judicial balance…

And now I know why we need balance between conservative and liberal justices on the Supreme Court.

I wholeheartedly agree with the high court’s announced decision today that white New Haven, Conn. firefighters were wrongly denied promotions when they passed a promotion test with high marks but the test was thrown out by the city because no blacks scored high enough.

And let me insert quickly here that I am relatively sure that such does not mean black firefighters in general are just not smart enough, it only means that those who took that test were either not quite up to it or did not study hard enough or did not use the correct study materials. Unfortunately in life we sometimes have to take exams to get ahead, and worse yet the way to pass the exams is often to study the exams themselves, that is to say, it’s more important to get the correct answers than to actually know the material (sounds contradictory, but that’s the way tests are sometimes), and the exams might not be the best measure of someone’s knowledge or leadership ability, except that one who does not realize the relevance of studying to the test may not have the reasoning and judgment to be a leader.

The court found no evidence that the exams were flawed or were not relevant to the job for which they were designed to test for or that they were worded in such a way as to be more favorable to white firefighters than minorities.

In a previous blog I suggested that perhaps the New Haven fire department might initiate a program to encourage and offer some assistance (I think that is what I wrote more or less) to black firefighters to help them study for promotion exams. I would add that any actual help would have to be offered to all.

The Supreme Court basically indicated that the city overreacted when it threw out the test on the grounds that since no blacks scored high enough (many did pass, they just did not get high enough scores) the city might be liable to a discrimination lawsuit. The court said there was no evidence that the test or procedures were flawed or discriminatory (I’m just going by my own interpretation of a news story here – this is of course not a scholarly legal analysis).

This whole problem is the end result of policies first codified in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and furthered by various court decisions since then in the name of affirmative action.

While I don’t consider myself a conservative, I have always been opposed to affirmative action. I totally support equal rights and because so many people did too the Civil Rights Act was passed. I now recall doing some research for a college paper and reading the original bill’s intent and If I recall correctly it said there was no support of quotas only equal access (paraphrasing of course). But all that changed with various judge-made laws over the years that called for all kinds of schemes, from hiring quotas to busing school children all around town to get racial balance (how would that play today with the cost of fuel and our environmental consciousness?).

Quotas and I think busing have been done away with for the most part (not sure about that, though). But the notion of somehow stacking the deck to make sure that minorities get jobs or promotions still seems to exist.

The main problem in all of this is that in trying to do away with discrimination the courts implemented reverse discrimination.

I have two nephews who wanted to be firefighters for the state of California.They took classes at junior college. But they were discouraged from applying. One veteran firefighting official told one of my nephews point blank that if he was not an American Indian or black or Hispanic, he should not bother. They both moved on and got into other work.

It seems to me that affirmative action has worked against minorities. It has put the notion forward that they cannot qualify on their own and that they are just not smart enough to pass tests. Nonsense.

In my own life experiences I have not, in general, detected any outright difference in abilities among the races (yes I know white men can’t jump and blacks make good athletes, but you know what I mean), at least not in intelligence or leadership capabilities. I think it is more about the upbringing of individuals and the choices they make.

I fear that affirmative action has given some in the minority groups a sense of entitlement, the same sense that whites once had over minorities.

How much confidence can one have in one’s self when he or she has to depend upon affirmative action rules to get ahead? Not much.

If minority New Haven black firefighters want promotions I suggest that they do what their white counterparts did – study for the test.

And before I forget, as I said at the top of this blog, it is good that there are conservatives on the court. I guess it is too bad that justices seem to have to be labeled conservative or liberal and cannot just be expected to objectively interpret the law – but then again, interpretation implies some kind of ideological thinking takes place and it does. So to get a balance between conservatively rigid, unbending interpretation that would uphold outright and quite legal at the time discrimination of the past and rulings that go far beyond the letter of the law or constitution, which liberals are prone to make, we need that balance. The New Haven decision was 5-4, with the expected conservative/liberal split. The tricky thing is getting a justice on there who is middle of the road so decisions can go either way, a swing vote, as they call it. I think at this time Justice Anthony Kennedy is the closest to the middle ground, although primarily a conservative. And he did write the majority opinion in this one.

Interestingly, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sat on the appeals court panel that voted the other way in what was called a cursory opinion. In her defense, some observers say she was just following precedent. From what I have read about her, she tends to be liberal but is unpredictable. I kind of like that as long as she is following the law, as she interprets it, of course, and not making it up as she goes along. Maybe she could balance Kennedy and be a swing vote that is weighted to the left.

Bankers can’t have contracts broken, unions can…

Question for all of you Wall Street apolologists and the Obama administration, who just can’t do enough for the billionaire bankers:

If the parent company New York Times can attempt to force the unions at the Boston Globe to accept abrogated contracts, then why couldn’t  the investment banks have abrogated their contracts with the million dollar bonus babies who put them into insolvency?

Some inconvenient truths about truck driving…

(This is a slightly updated version of a previous blog.)

People out of jobs are going to truck driving school, an article in my local newspaper said. Been there done that. In fact, a newspaper article is what led me to my more than a decade odyssey out on the road.

Things are not as bright out there today – while there has been a big demand for truck drivers for years, with the downturn in the economy freight movement has fallen off sharply.

But I just wanted to get something in here for anyone who might be considering going the truck driving route.

Most of the entry level jobs for big truck driving are in what is called long haul. You need to realize that the rules of employment are different in that field than most others. The normal laws of pay and working conditions do not apply.

Typically, long haul drivers find themselves waiting a lot, far from home, baby sitting a truck, as I call it.  For the most part, as a long haul driver you will only be paid when your wheels are rolling. Long haul pays by the mile, not by the hour or fixed salary. Some companies do pay a little something for layover or even wait time (but usually not total wait time and such pay is usually not much, often not even minimum wage). And layovers can last for several days. I was once laid over for nearly a week, some 2,500 miles from home.

And if you don’t like wait time, I’d advise staying away from hauling refrigerated or temperature controlled freight (such as produce).  I once logged in 40 hours of wait time in one month, not counting sleeper birth or meal breaks. And I was not paid for any of it, as I recall (and if  I was it was only a few dollars).

I would discuss that issue upfront with a prospective employer (they may string you on, though).

Employers often quote cents per mile, but what they either lie about or do not tell you is that you may well not get in enough miles to make a living. It costs the employer very little to let you sit out there at a truck stop, because the employer does not have to pay you. It costs you a lot. When I began truck driving I found that a lot of drivers really were not making any money. They were simply drawing on their pay for subsistence and when it was time to get their paycheck they had little to nothing left. In fact, some of them owed the company.

Now this all sounds kind of negative. But long haul driving conditions, I believe, have improved somewhat since I got into it and got out of it.

(And for those of you who have not read my blog before, I drove truck for more than a decade. I worked in long haul for most of that time. My last job was what you might call short haul LTL (Less than a load) and paid well, but I came down with cancer, and am not able to work now.)

But I just wanted to point out some things folks not familiar with over-the-road trucking need to know. Another thing you might not have thought of is your schedule. No such thing. While some long haul drivers may have dedicated runs (going to the same place each time), most do not. In the course of a week, you will work around the clock; your hours will vary each day. That’s because pickups and deliveries are made at any hour of the day or night.

I won’t go over hours of service and log book rules in total detail, but basically under the current rules, you have 11 hours driving ahead of you before you are required to take a 10-hour break. There’s no limit to the time you can do non-driving work, but once you have reached 14 hours in one tour, you can no longer drive until you have that 10-hour break (remember, you could get to 14 hours with less than 11 hours driving, due to wait times and even loading and unloading, which you might be called upon to do or assist in, and don’t forget mechanical breakdowns and flat tires – they happen).

If you were to drive solo across the United States (and I have done that) you will find that your start and stop times roll around the clock. It would be like working at a factory but doing a different shift each day. Remember, somewhere in there you have to eat and let nature call and maybe even take a shower (maybe).

Under current rules, if you have 34 consecutive hours off, you start a week again with 70 hours available on your log book.

Some companies or dispatchers or your own greed or all three may goad you into cheating on your log book.  Or you might feel compelled to because you notice that the first to get his or her load delivered is often the first to get a reload. Do not do it! You, not anyone else, are liable if caught or anything goes wrong. The most likely scenario besides you falling asleep at the wheel and killing folks is that someone will run into you. If this happens and your log book is not up to date and/or legal, you may well get the blame under the law, no matter who was really at fault.

Then there is loading and unloading. I will say for most of time I did not touch freight. But if you do not touch the freight, you or someone (your employer) will have to pay someone to do it. It is not uncommon for drivers to end up loading and unloading on their own time and not get paid for it.

Finally, there is weather. If you will be driving over the mountains, particularly on the West Coast, you have to be prepared to handle snow chains. If you are not up to that, you have no business on the road, because you will be a danger to yourself and everyone else (there’s no shame in not being up to it, but there is in getting yourself out there and not being up to it).

I only touched the surface of this road. Most of what I wrote was negative. Ironically, I enjoyed the work immensely (although not every minute or day of it). A lot depends upon your employer and yourself and the type of freight you haul. And some feel a sense of independence out there. It certainly is not like most jobs. You are not highly supervised.

And in this time of high unemployment to have any job has become a status symbol. Just ask any unemployed investment banker (right after you ask him what the hell he did with that bonus check paid by your taxes).

Oh, and one more thing, long haul is not for anyone who wants a home life (that’s why I did not enjoy it all the time). I don’t care what employers promise you, from my experience, long haul drivers have no home life. I have heard many a long haul driver lament: “I didn’t get to see my kids grow up”.

Good luck!

(Copyright 2009)

Income, not loans, is what the nation needs

I’ve had two cups of coffee this morning so I am wired and have to blog.

A financial analyst, one Charles Biderman, speaking on Bloomberg TV last night,  said something I can relate to:

Speaking of our economic crisis, he said: “the problem is not getting the banks to loan money, it’s increasing income.”

He did not elaborate on that particular point as I recall, but it seems plain to me that simply loaning money to businesses and even homeowners would be too risky and foolish if people are not working and have no money to support the businesses by making use of their products and services.

Exactly how we get there from here I am not sure.

I continue to be an advocate of the re-inudstrialization of America. That belief was reinforced within me yesterday when I went shopping at Walmart. I bought a toothbrush made in Brazil; there were no USA one’s available. I did notice that some type of high tech disposable battery operated toothbrush made in Switzerland was on sale. I was in the market for new socks and found the reliable Dickie (work clothes) brand, but was turned off by the big bold letters that read: “Made in Pakistan”. Yeah, I want to help support a country who hides the forces who kill our soldiers. There were some made-in-America socks, but they were white and I prefer dark colored socks.

I suppose it comes down to the cost of labor. While I don’t like the idea of government subsidizing labor, we might be better off doing so and thus putting everyone back to work and get the economy going. That old idea that we are better off concentrating on the higher end — you know, computer software, financial services, has been proven wrong, wrong, wrong. Sure some people do well in that, but the majority of the public suffers from lack of jobs and in turn our economy has been brought to a near standstill by the lack of consumer buying power.

I don’t see protective tariffs or most other trade barriers as the way to go either. But I do see becoming competitive on the world market as a way to to go. We do not want to and should not accept third world living conditions, so we again might have to look at a government subsidy for labor – I don’t know. Walmart essentially did that when some time ago they were hiring part-time workers and providing them with info on how to take advantrage of various government social programs. Maybe they had the right idea after all. Walmart is becoming so successful by offering lower prices in this time of economic depression that it is reportedly improving the conditions of its workers (that may be more hype than reality, but apparently Walmart is doing well).

One more thing: the debt that is being piled up by the Obama administration is worrisome. The Bush administration put us back into big-time deficit spending after the former Clinton administration pulled back. And now, citing economic emergency, the Obama administration has upped the ante.

It is said that a household cannot spend or borrow its way out of debt. How can our government do so?

I took a class in college in which the professor said that American companies are run by and large by folks who know how to make quick profits, but know little about what they produce. His idea, for example, was that a mining company should be run by an engineer (with business acumen, I would add), not an MBA.

I have a notion that our domestic auto companies are run by executives who know a lot about sales and manipulating their books, but probably could not change a fuse in their cars if their headlights went out.

Because of that, with their mind-set about pleasing the investors for the next quarter, they are blind to changing technologies and actual market conditions.

Union card check debate can be misleading

There’s a lot of misinformation going around on the so-called Employee Free Choice Act that has been introduced into both houses of congress.

On the one hand, the pro union side would have you believe the proposed legislation is designed to enhance freedom of choice for employees (I’m not so sure). On the other hand, the anti-union side, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, would have you believe that the unions are attempting to rob workers of their right to a secret ballot (well not entirely, maybe).

To compound all the misunderstanding a lot of liberal proponents who are not hourly employees who would likely be affected by all this are jumping on the bandwagon and pontificating on something they know not. They think they support the rights of workers, but they don’t wear the workers’ shoes.

While Wikipedia muffs it in its entry on card check, coming off as blatantly pro-union, it does a better job on its entry under Employee Free Choice Act. So if you want to get a synopsis of the whole issue read that.

But basically, as I understand it (and sometimes labor law is about as easy to read and understand as the baseball infield fly rule) as things stand now, a labor union can force a union vote if they can get 30 percent of the eligible employees to sign up for a card check. But employers can demand a secret ballot vote even if a union can get 100 percent to sign cards.

The new bill before congress would allow certification of a union without a formal vote if the union could get more than 50 percent to sign cards. “Card check” is the term bandied about by both sides.

As a side note, as I understand it, under current law a union can be decertified if 30 percent of the employees sign a petition calling for a decertification and then if a majority vote for decertification via secret ballot. All of this must be done under National Labor Relations Board oversight and rules. It can be complicated.

(Also, disputes over union votes, often involving eligibility of voters, drag on in the courts for years.)

So what does this mean to the common person? At first glance not much if you are not a union person. Of course you know that the more unionization the costlier products become, just ask General Motors.

My initial thought was chard check was an intimidating process. I mean you’re going to be approached by possibly a co-worker, someone who has more seniority, officially or unofficially, than you, or a union organizer who wants to imply you care nothing about your fellow workers if you don’t sign up.

I still think that way, but I also realize that no matter what the system, unless you eliminate unions altogether (and many would like to), there has to  be at least a posibility that a worker will will be asked to sign a petition, how else would a union request certification?

So on the card check, I think I won’t have an opinion, other than the fact that it does not interest me.

I did notice that the liberal blog The Daily Kos said something to the effect that card check was a secret ballot for employees. How so? Someone approaches me and asks me to sign a card. That is not much of a secret. It was suggested elsewhere that many employees would be tricked into thinking they were just showing a preference by signing a card, but that the actual certification of a union would require a further secret ballot vote. Not so. Under the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, 50 percent plus one sign up of cards and the union is in. The unions counter that there is still supposedly an option for workers to go the secret ballot route, but obviously the union organizers prefer the chard check route.

I have mixed emotions about unions. While I personally don’t prefer them, they may provide a kind of baseline for other workers.

The last trucking company I worked for had its union side and its non-union side. I worked on the non-union side. I was paid just as well as the union workers and I did not have to pay dues and I only had one set of bosses, the company, not the union and the company. But again, I have to believe that the union served as a baseline for wages and benefits. But under present economic conditions with a drastic downturn in freight, all that means nothing. Unions do not supply freight. (I’m using trucking as an example because that is where my applicable experience lies.)   

Unions at their best help workers get better pay and benefits and at their worst lead to overstaffing and inflexible work rules that hurt both productive workers and the employers who provide the wages. Unions sometimes force toleration of malingering in the workplace, and that hurts everyone (and I have witnessed this personally many times in many places).

For my money, employers who treat employees with respect (which by definition includes decent wages), demand a full day’s work for a day’s pay from everyone, need not fear unionization.

Right now I am not in the workforce. But if I were to return, card check would be a non-issue to me. I don’t plan on signing any union cards. I’ve always worked for the people who pay my wages.

(Copyright 2009)

I list some secrets of financial security…

Here’s some remarks aimed primarily at young couples or maybe anyone who is not on Social Security yet, and you might file it under do as I suggest not as I did.

It’s all about how to handle money.

What makes me an expert? I’m not. But I have a life time of frustration to look back upon and can see the error of my ways.

I realize most who even bother to read this will soon forget it or reject it outright, but I have nothing else I want to do at the moment so here goes:

Definitely create a household budget. You don’t need a computer program for this. What you do need at the minimum is a pencil (pen) and paper.

Write down your unavoidable expenses.

Housing – (rent probably, but a mortgage payment of course is the same thing – you don’t own that house until the lender gets paid off.).

Utilities – Where I live, if you don’t keep current on your utilities the city actually has the power to evict you.

Food – you have to eat, but the good thing here is that you have wide latitude on how much you have to spend.

Clothing – This is difficult. Not everyone has the same clothing needs, but again, you have wide latitude on this as well. The best you can do on food and clothing is see what you are spending now and then arbitrarily cut back a few percentage points.

Transportation – I will assume here that you will depend upon a personal vehicle. If you have convinced yourself that since there are two of you you need two vehicles you’ve already fallen in to the money pit trap. My advice is to make one vehicle work for you until you get financially secure enough to expand if need be. If I sound unrealistic, then you probably don’t want to read any further. Good luck! But on that transportation, count everything – fuel, tires, general upkeep, and payments if you are buying a vehicle on time (but if you are, I think you’ve already gone wrong, but that can be debated).

Now that you’ve added your expenses comes the easier part. Add up your income. There is no getting around it, your expenses have to come out below your income. In no case should one, even temporarily, try to live beyond his or her own income.

And the best piece of advice I have ever heard is from an extremely shrill and annoying infomercial when the idea of buying property for nothing and then flipping it was in vogue (maybe those ads still run). But the sage piece of advice was this:

“Watch what the poor people do, and don’t do it!”

Poor people always live beyond their means. They do things like go to check into cash and pay a thousand percent interest to borrow on their next paycheck or their next welfare check.

Up until recently banks were sending out guaranteed approved credit card apps willy nilly. So poor people, and soon to be poor people, just charged it all to the max, thereby eliminating any chance they might have had to get out of the financial hole.

The lesson here is don’t buy on credit. Don’t buy on time (same thing). Always, always, buy cash. If you don’t have the cash right now, guess what? You don’t need whatever it is right now.

This may sound pathetic, but some of the happiest moments in my life have been when my wife and I bought something for cash. A few years ago we bought a new clothes dryer. Paid cash. We had something we needed at the time and no worry over how to pay for it.

For my whole life prices have been driven upwards because merchants have pushed credit to induce customers to overspend creating a bigger and bigger demand (well until recently). If everyone paid cash, prices could be kept more in check.

So for instance, how does one purchase a home without taking out a mortgage (borrowing)? You don’t. I’m thinking the idea that everyone should want to invest in a home was a false notion all along. It does work for some. But rent is a straight forward deal. I pay you the money and I get to live in your house as if I owned it, but I don’t have to worry about the upkeep. If you, the landlord, do not live up to your end of the bargain, I move. If I don’t live up to my end, you evict me.

Houses can be a good investment (well in the past), but they require tremendous upkeep (money), insurance payments and taxes. Think of all the things one could do with the money that is sunk into a house. Sure you get that mortgage deduction (but even that is threatened by the need for tax revenue), but that is a kind of slight of hand. You would not need it if you did not have all those extra house buying expenses and had a lower rent payment. It’s kind of like not claiming deductions on your payroll tax throughout the year, thus lending your money for free to Uncle Sam and then pretending you are getting some type of windfall when you receive your refund. Congratulations, you’ve loaned out your money for free. I guarantee no one, but maybe your folks or a rich uncle, is going to loan you money for free. You just flunked introduction to business or consumer finance.

Buying a car is a subject all in itself. There are many ways to look at this, so I think I will address that in a future post.

And here’s something: you might say that you have to buy certain things otherwise you will not be able to keep up with your contemporaries and you will not be happy. I’m sorry, you may have a neurosis. You probably need counseling or better yet, snap of it, or just ignore all of what I have said and again, good luck!

Just as you need to get a handle on your income and outgo, you need to above all sock some money away in some type of interest bearing account that pays you compound interest. Just read up on the basics of compound interest (even if you are math challenged). A lot of unsophisticated people have made a lot of money over the years because they understood the benefits of compound interest. And this savings is a way of making continued earnings on your money and is a safety net should you lose your job. It is not a Christmas Club.

And it just keeps coming to me. If you are still young enough, you owe it to yourself to learn a skilled trade or profession or better yet, both. Don’t relegate yourself to unskilled or semi-skilled worker status. Skilled people are always able to demand good compensation (or at least better than what everyone else is getting). And don’t let yourself get stuck in a profession where your worth is measured in a totally subjective manner (a journalist, an artist). And in this day and age you have to have broad knowledge and be flexible and maybe even continue your education or training on the job.

Not everyone can do all of this. And not everyone can be financially secure and secure in themselves either. But maybe you can.

P.s.

If you are single, I would suggest checking out the military. If you are already married, no. The ancient rule in the military was that you did not get married until you attained career status. They should have kept it (I know, these days a lot of couples are in the service together – can’t see that one). While the military is fraught will peril, so is life in general. Do your own research. Do not depend upon recruiters. Unfortunately they are pressured into at the minium stretching the truth and too often into outright lying.

I would talk to career military persons, the more the better. And go for the top. Be an officer or warrant officer or at least strive to make it to the top of the NCO ranks. But you have to accept the military way. It is not the civilian way. Be honest with yourself. The military offers great opportunity. It offers great peril, as well (you need to realize that even if statistics are with you, you have to be willing to lay down your life for the cause). So it may not be for you. You also have to realize that you cede many of your personal rights to the military. You will be under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You might want to take time to study that and read some history on how it’s been applied before you sign on the dotted line and raise your right hand.

(Copyright 2009)

Jobs disappear, but so does the working person…

Went to a barbershop I never had been to before on the advice of a former truck driver co-worker. I went there for nothing more than a haircut and I got one that suited me.

The barber was just finishing up a customer as I walked in and I caught the tail end of their conversation.

I did not go there for conversation. I was glad I did not have to fake interest. I’m talking a traditional barbershop, a disappearing business in my area, replaced primarily by something called Supercuts, or a variety of phoo phoo hairstylist salons where the cutters are usually women and have no clue how to give a simple haircut without dipping your head in water. Don’t need the water torture.

My only problem with the traditional barbershops have been that the conversation often centers around sports and I have zero to contribute. Sometimes it’s politics. Now there I could contribute endlessly (just ask any of my siblings or other family members). But I would not dare spout off my opinions among the usual crowd – they have strange notions and are not all that open minded. Then there is the weather. But what can one really say? “Well we sure got a downpour. We needed it though.”

But the conversation I walked in on and then continued after the other man left was centered on the disappearance of the working class. We all know jobs have disappeared. But even before that, the working class, the men and women who were essentially folks who had a strong work ethic, an ethic that only asked for a full day’s pay in return for a full day’s work, has been withering away.

Sure the older generation probably has been accusing the younger generation of sloth since time immemorial, but things really have deteriorated. I hate to say it, but the problem may have had its infancy with my baby boomer generation. While the bulk of us, even ones who sowed their wild oats during the relatively harmless hippie revolution that turned into the insidious drug culture, found their way back into the mainstream, not all did.

Coincident to the sexual, hippie, drug revolution of the late 60s, there was the emergence of the Welfare State as it had never been seen before, even under FDR. With I presume mostly good intentions, President Lyndon Johnson introduced the Great Society programs. Interestingly, to play the idea up to a compassionate but somewhat skeptical public the dire poverty of white folks in the hills of Appalachia was featured as much or more than the plight of those in the black urban ghettos.

And forty years later we find that the desperate poverty remains in both places, with the added misery of the expanded drug trade and in the case of Appalachia (and all over poor white America) the introduction of prescription pain pill abuse. Since almost all of these people do not work and since the drugs cost so much, the only source of money is crime and what I generically refer to as welfare. It is government aid of various types. I’m not an expert, but I have eyes and ears and know that among the two culprits are Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) along with the program or programs that pay people who claim to be disabled, but whose disability is often self-induced alcohol or drug abuse or just an outright aversion to work.

The refusal to pay attention enough to even get a high school diploma adds to the problem (in California, until recently you only had to show up. There is some testing now, but it is usually waived when it is realized too many would fail). 

The fact of the matter is we have generation upon generation now of mothers who beget children to increase their AFDC take and rear new mothers who do the same as well as fathers who take no responsibility (they had none at home themselves as a role model or maybe they did, same difference).

Some of this is no doubt due to a normal distribution of a pathological brain disorder in a given percentage of the human race, with the only real difference being in how society handles the situation. And while it is far too easy to fall into the trap of using racial stereotypes and prejudice, my honest observation is this condition presents itself quite equally among at least black and white.

If you were to ask, but how do people get out of this cycle? I would say that blacks who simply move out of the ghetto and whites who move away from the depressed areas are often successful. It’s kind of like when your folks said don’t hang with the wrong crowd.

For the truly mentally diminished there is not much we can do, other than to make sure they get the care they need, but we should not be forced to finance their bad habits or their fecundity.

Even in this time of high unemployment, 15 percent now in my county, the previous customer (we’re back to the barber shop) said he was actually offering jobs for his house cleaning service. He said the work is hard (and I can be sure the wages low – although I suppose there might be tips) but he has to please his customers. He has a hard time finding, first, anyone willing to work, and, second, anyone who can pass the legally required drug screen.

(I add one cautionary note, however. There is unfortunately a segment of employers who like to exploit vulnerable workers and not allow them the same minimal rights you or I would take for granted.)

In my last job as a truck driver the pay was excellent and until a year or so ago the demand for drivers growing. But it was quite hard for my employer (and for all truck driving companies) to find drivers who could pass a drug screen.

And then there’s the guys who claim to work a certain trade and won’t work below that. But they are often imposters.

I watched one of my brother- in- law work construction all his life. He was a skilled carpenter and as such drew top wages, but he did it al, all phases of construction, and in all weather if required.

And he told me the other day. “You know us carpenters are hard workers. And if there wasn’t carpenter work, we’d do something else.”

And the barber told me that his son was lucky enough to be in a skilled trade but that he, the barber, always told his children: “if you’re out of work, you take what you can get”.

So what is left is the dying breed of the worker, the new pretend worker who wears his construction duds and drives down to the welfare office in his super-sized pickup (kind of like the old drug store cowboys my uncle used to tell about), and the strictly non-worker.

Until I came down with cancer I was a worker. In fact, at heart I still am.

World, you’re goona miss us.

P.s.

As far as social programs such as AFDC, I do not propose that they be dropped. The too obvious answer is that current eligibility requirements need to be enforced along with monitoring for abuse. While I am not a big fan of government intervention into family life, if we are going to run an aid program that is designed for the welfare of children but is drained to satisfy the drug and alcohol habits of adults as well as used for funds in place of work, then there is a role for the Child Protective Service.

P.s.  P.s.

Stopping welfare abuse will not solve our economic problems, but it will control the inevitable erosion of support for costly, but needed social programs and hopefully deprive the likes of know nothings such as Rush Limburger Cheese of too easy fodder for making propaganda to eliminate humanitarian programs and discredit liberals or progressives or open-minded conservatives (and I hope that was not an oxymoron).

(Copyright 2009)