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Most states require the employer to give their employee time off to vote if voting is only done during the employee's shift.

https://aflcio.org/2016/11/5/k...

That said, with the ease of early voting, having voting day a national holiday is not really needed

Add in some fixes to the income gap as well. CEO's in Sweden only make low 7 digits, any more and they are criticized. Stateside, many CEO's make 8 and 9 digit salaries. Not to mention stock options and other nonsense they get. I'd love to see a law that states "A CEO cannot earn more than n times his/her employees average salary". Even better if 'n' were 15, and instead of average it were lowest salary. Give the low-level worker bees a living wage and invest that CEO wallet padding into productivity somewhere.

You can figure with corporate overhead, insurance, lights/power/water and such for a typical worker you're looking at *actual cost* for an employee is 3x their salary. You *could* cut Alphabet's CEO's salary to $100M/yr and afford to pay a whole corporation of 300 people $100k/year including that huge factor of overhead. Realistically it'd be more like 600 folks at $100k a year (assuming 50% overhead instead of 200%). Does one person really contribute that much more than 600 to earn such a crazy high salary?

Yeah, that's what people with zero understanding of running a business say. Most executives I've run across are easily worth more than what they're paid, and very few aren't. Just as a case in point:

https://aflcio.org/paywatch/TM...

The AFL-CIO thinks it's terrible that John Legere makes 533 times more than the line workers. But here's why he gets paid what he gets paid: He turned that carrier around from hemorrhaging customers to being the fastest growing carrier within three years, overtaking Sprint as the #3 carrier in the process.

Besides that, because of him, my phone bill has seen both a 50% reduction in cost and a massive increase in quality of service. The same can be said of non T-Mobile customers. When Verizon started losing subscribers for the first time in over a decade and kept doing so for several quarters, they abandoned their line of "customers don't want unlimited data" to offering unlimited data.

AFL-CIO is welcome to suck my balls. And the CWA union can suck my balls as well. It's because of them that Centurylink's employees are lazy as fuck and have made phone service here really turn to shit. I kid you not, Centurylink's employees, as per union rules, are required to bring a lawn chair and an umbrella to their work sites.

I personally have avoided working for unionized companies not only because I would have yet another boss to answer to, but I really don't want to have money taken out of my paycheck to fatten up some mafia boss that ultimately doesn't do anything for me other than pretend he's looking out for my best interests. (Not to mention union executives everywhere make well over 6 figures...tell me...why am I supposed to hate the CEO's pay, but not theirs?)

http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-n...
http://nlpc.org/2016/02/01/top...
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Tim Cook has only led the most successful company ever. For just salary (not stock), he could probably get paid 10x more to go to just about any other company.

You're right. Apple should pay him $85 million to never come back.

PS - Yes, that's tongue-in-cheek obviously. The real issue isn't that Tim Cook is paid $8.5 million. It's that so many more CEOs are paid ridiculous amounts. If Tim Cook's salary were the actual effective cap on CEO pay, then it'd make a lot more sense. It really undermines the whole "free market" BS. Instead, CEOs are a lot like professional athletes: because so much money is involved (and there's so little room for competition), all (high enough) levels can demand enormous salaries and it's still a profitable venture. So, that's what happens.

There are a variety of online articles that contradict your claim that independent labor unions are allowed in China such as this one , this one, and this one. Perhaps Chinese labor unions are defined in law but protections are not enforced in practice like their environmental regulations.

Given Chinese censorship of news and social media it is difficult for anyone including Chinese citizens to know exactly what takes place in that country. I am more inclined to believe the accusations of dissidents than the wealthy authoritarian party's propaganda.

Answer: Unions need to go global as well.

Many of them already have.

Here's a list of some of the things we can thank unions for:

        Weekends
        All Breaks at Work, including your Lunch Breaks
        Paid Vacation
        FMLA
        Sick Leave
        Social Security
        Minimum Wage
        Civil Rights Act/Title VII (Prohibits Employer Discrimination)
        8-Hour Work Day
        Overtime Pay
        Child Labor Laws
        Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
        40 Hour Work Week
        Worker's Compensation (Worker's Comp)
        Unemployment Insurance
        Pensions
        Workplace Safety Standards and Regulations
        Employer Health Care Insurance
        Collective Bargaining Rights for Employees
        Wrongful Termination Laws
        Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
        Whistleblower Protection Laws
        Employee Polygraph Protect Act (Prohibits Employer from using a lie detector test on an employee)
        Veteran's Employment and Training Services (VETS)
        Compensation increases and Evaluations (Raises)
        Sexual Harassment Laws
        Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
        Holiday Pay
        Employer Dental, Life, and Vision Insurance
        Privacy Rights
        Pregnancy and Parental Leave
        Military Leave
        The Right to Strike
        Public Education for Children
        Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 (Requires employers pay men and women equally for the same amount of work)
        Laws Ending Sweatshops in the United States

...

A Brief History of US Imperialism and State Violence in Colombia

From the 1960s to the late 2000s, the United States government has played a decisive role in how the Colombian state has carried out its brutal war against left-wing dissidents and Colombian civil society.

Recent history in Colombia reads like something out of a dystopian horror novel.

A recently released report from Human Rights Watch describes how between 2002 and 2008, the Colombian military kidnapped and murdered “hundreds, possibly thousands of civilians”, typically “rural peasants, drug addicts, the homeless, and petty criminals”, and dressed them up as rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Union leaders regularly targeted for assassination. making Colombia consistently top the charts of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a labor organizer. Recently released documents have shown how Chiquita Brands International, a major US banana company, maintained close ties with right-wing death squads
who threatened, kidnapped, tortured, and killed labor organizers in the area who spoke out against low wages and poor working conditions. Agricultural industries, like the palm oil sector, appear to have grown in the last decade through a repeated pattern where paramilitary groups forcibly displace peasants from promising agricultural lands and then sell those lands to multinationals.

  As of 2014, Colombia had at least 5.7 million internally displaced people (~11% of the total population); only Syria had a higher number of displaced people.

You're (I believe inadvertently) painting an inaccurate picture when it comes to Tesla's stance towards unions. Even if they are neutral towards employee unions (more on that in a minute), NADA is still one of the largest unions in the automotive industry, and has made no bones about the fact that they are opposed to Tesla's business model. Unions have been attacking Tesla from the start and continue to do so even now. Factory employee unions may not be a part of the fray yet, but they're hardly the only type of trade union.

Moreover, on the topic of employee unions, Musk may say he's neutral, but Tesla's actions make it clear that it is hardly neutral. From another article (emphasis mine):

Musk's opinions on unionization aren't clear. When he announced the Fremont factory's purchase from Toyota, Musk told The Chronicle that "on the question of the union, we're neutral." [...]

Tesla's last annual financial report struck a far less welcoming note. It listed the possibility of union activity under "risks" to the business.

"The mere fact that our labor force could be unionized may harm our reputation in the eyes of some investors and thereby negatively affect our stock price," reads the report, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Additionally, the unionization of our labor force could increase our employee costs and decrease our profitability, both of which could adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations."

[...] Other Tesla managers, [UAW President Bob] King said, seemed to be opposed. Musk, he said, was "very open and said he would respect what the workers wanted. But his operating management has done the opposite."

And, contrary to your claims regarding Uber, it has been facing issues from trade unions, namely taxi, limo, and other professional driver unions across the country that have been campaigning extremely hard to keep Uber out. I'll grant that they are almost entirely operating against Uber at the city and state level, but that pressure on the governments is originating from the unions. Without the unions campaigning, the city governments likely wouldn't be getting involved at all.

That said, I do agree with you that the summary grossly missteps by suggesting that the issue of state-level protectionist regulators has much of anything to do with the complaints of small-government folks.

Hm. $250k per week is 'only' $13M per year.

Lots of CEOs in CA make that. In fact, all of the 100 highest paid CEOs make that.

http://www.aflcio.org/Corporat...

It must be good to be a gangsta.

> German view of what the corporate and social hierarchy should be

Even _if_ I agree with you, you still need to show why it's bad.

> it is screwing over its workers, and German obedience and submission of authority has German workers comply.

At least Germany is not bankrupt like Italy, Spain, Portugal, the USA, and so on. And at least Germany is not enacting laws to weaken unions like it was done in the USA. Or at least the CEOs of Germany are not screw the workers like the American CEOs do. The average ratio wages of America CEOs to their workers is 354:1, compared with Germany 147:1 [1]

[1] http://www.aflcio.org/Corporat...

Jamie Dimon was paid $20 million? Larry Ellison got over $96 mil in 2012, followed closely(?) by Elon Musk at over $78 mil. Hell, even Richard W. Dreiling, CEO of Dollar General Corp (that's right, The Dollar Store chain) was paid over $23 million in 2012. Check out the AFL-CIO's list of the 100 highest paid CEOs in the US -- the lowest guy on that totem pole took in almost $19 million. Lots of those people have nothing to do with banking or tech. Fashion, entertainment, retail clothing, even coffee shop chains are all represented.

http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-You/100-Highest-Paid-CEOs

Sigh. Its like you simply do not know what you are talking about and refuse to listen when it is explained. When CEO salaries are reported, they include the values of the bonuses and benefits. Go ahead and look up what they clain it is. The site i posted is a union arguing exactly what the topic is and they do it specifically.

Also, you listed nothing about tax breaks i didn't already list like location. Aa of offshoring profits, small businesses can do the same if they operate the same. It is not a tax break either. But if you think it is a problem, then wouldn't make mlre sense to change the tax code then attavk the CEO?

Someone good at statistics will probably be able to figure out X in the statement "when X million tax dollars are spent, on average one person will die in the effort of making that money".

In the US, the median income is $40k. $1M tax requires an 'extra' 25 jobs beyond what people would take to feed and clothe themselves. The workplace fatality rate is 3.5 per 100,000 (source), or 1 per 28,600. This means you get $1.1B of revenue per fatality. US personal tax receipts are almost $2T, so you could argue that the federal government kills almost 1800 people per year through the tax burden.

This income include social security and medicare, and I'm quite certain that spending on those two programs alone saves more than 2000 people/year.

I don't think the number is very large.

Thus demonstrating Scheier's point that we're really not very good at estimating risk

Sure, me too. My question is, what have they done for us lately? Answer, fuck-all. Let's see them, for example, push to increase the minimum wage, so that people can even afford their union goods and services. What, they don't want to do that, because they don't have to worry about the minimum wage?

Actually, unions have been among the strongest advocates of raising the minimum wage. Here, for example, is the AFL-CIO's position on this subject.

Perhaps even send the raw footage to the AFL-CIO

Nitpick, but I assume you mean the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), not the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)...

Dude, experts, real engineers and executives that work at Boeing, say that you are wrong.
Offshoring is the real culprit Here,
and here,
and here,

Why pay through the nose, both in terms of dollars and in terms of horrendous lead times, for space-qualified parts when commercial, industrial, and automotive parts work just fine?

Heh.. Proof right there that you're not affiliated with a US government agency. And, to answer your question, the reason is to keep the tax dollars funneling into the privatized black-holes* It's rampant.
[*]
http://rt.com/usa/blackwater-security-iri-report-300/

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/ALEC-s-Funnel-Turns-Public-Dollars-to-Corporate-Profits

http://www.alternet.org/one-states-poor-excuse-funneling-taxpayer-cash-private-schools

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/01/1181678/-Walker-s-Plan-for-Wisconsin-Public-Schools-Make-Them-Private

average of about $146 million per year

It may not sound like much but for that amount of money we could afford more than a third of an Apple CEO every year.

There isn't an insurance company in the world that operates solely by taking in money and never paying it out in the form of claims.

There's a difference between the GP's claim of "never intend to deliver" and "never paying it out"
Insurance companies have been sued and investigated and settled multiple times in multiple states over denying claims.
This happens to be the first article I found: http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/26/california-investigating-7-health-insurers-for-denying-claims-hiking-rates/

In September [of 2010], California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) released a report that which states that since 2002 the state's largest health insurers rejected more than one in five medical claims. Data from the last half of 2009 shows the rejection rate has jumped to more than one in four (26 percent), with PacificCare leading the way, rejecting 41.7 percent of claims, according to the CNA/NNOC report.

An insurance company denying 41% of claims never really intended to deliver the coverage you're buying.

You missed the part where I exempted Health "Insurance" from the argument; there was never a deeper perversion of a word than trying to label as "insurance" what companies like Anthem, BCBS, UHC, etc provide. The packaging, sale, and delivery process for that product is so beyond fucked up that there isn't even any way to compare the two.

There isn't an insurance company in the world that operates solely by taking in money and never paying it out in the form of claims.

There's a difference between the GP's claim of "never intend to deliver" and "never paying it out"
Insurance companies have been sued and investigated and settled multiple times in multiple states over denying claims.
This happens to be the first article I found: http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/26/california-investigating-7-health-insurers-for-denying-claims-hiking-rates/

In September [of 2010], California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) released a report that which states that since 2002 the state's largest health insurers rejected more than one in five medical claims. Data from the last half of 2009 shows the rejection rate has jumped to more than one in four (26 percent), with PacificCare leading the way, rejecting 41.7 percent of claims, according to the CNA/NNOC report.

An insurance company denying 41% of claims never really intended to deliver the coverage you're buying.

Do you wish your trolling powers were put to better use than simply trolling the already crappy /. messages threads? If so, there is an opportunity for you on the AFL-CIO blog!

For a lot of people, discovering something new that they didn't know about is part of the enjoyment of reading. If you know exactly what you want, you can order it from Amazon. If you don't know exactly which title, but you are looking for something in a certain genre that you enjoy, or by an author you like, a real-live bookseller can help you find something interesting. This works better for fiction than it would for reference or technical books, but the decline of the large-scale bookstores means that this sort of personal advice will become unavailable to large segments of the population. You can't exactly go look at the table full of new non-fiction or trade paperbacks, pick one up and leaf through the pages, and if you like it, use your 30% off coupon and take it home with you today, if you're sitting in front of your Mac logged in to Amazon.(OK, I know Amazon has this great algorithm for predicting what you'll like based on what you and others have purchased, and you can download and read an e-book immediately, but see my comment about mom's basement, again, and there's this thing about actual books versus having to read it on a gadget.)

Wal-Mart is the cause of the decline and fall of small town commerce. Time after time it's been shown that when Wal-Mart builds a store on the outskirts of a small town, business in that town dries up, the jobs at these stores go away (to be replaced by part-time employment at said Wal-Mart), and the money that people would have spent at locally-owned and operated shops goes out of town. All to save a few cents on light bulbs or pickles. (Even big cities are seeing the same thing.) When the town dries up and blows away because there's no way to make a living there anymore, Wal-Mart closes up shop too (another article), and moves on to conquer the next small town. Much has been written about the aggressive tactics that Wal-Mart uses to exact the lowest prices from its suppliers, many of which have had to move US jobs overseas in order to meet these demands, or have even gone out of business because they could not continue to sell goods to Wal-Mart at a loss.

To turn the subject back to books, Wal-Mart happens to also be one of the largest book and music retailers, and they are known to censor what they sell, to the point of requiring publishers to provide expurgated versions of books and CDs. (Maybe it's a good thing we have Amazon, then.)

You don't deal with many non-profits do you? Even middle-management at many non-profits earn a very healthy income, easily on par with anything the corporate world offers.

Let's see, the CEO of the WWF (the authors of the report) earns a whopping $465,427. Now have a look at this list of CEO compensation by industry type. Can you see any under $1,000,000? How many over $10,000,000? They are certainly not on par with the WWF salaries.

That said, some of those executives you describe are directly responsible for the existence of non-profits. The money has to come from somewhere.

No, not the ones we are talking about. Do you really think that the mining industries are funding the climate advocate groups? No, I don't think so. Sure they have their own industry groups and think-tanks, but none of those could be called "tree huggers".

You don't seem to understand this newfangled "burden of proof" concept.

It would've mattered in court. In our argument it is not as important, because it is not, what my point hinges on. The one-hour minimum overtime was just an example of a possible absurd rule.

If you actually support the claim, sure, then it stops being BS.

Are you, actually, denying, that the gross abuses in the Union-contracts exist? More like are simply trying to bog me down with this meaningless nit-picking... Here are some overtime-related examples for you:

• Up until this year, employees of Wall Street Journal had a 5-hour minimum overtime pay. That's gone now, but only in exchange for other concessions.
• If the employee works more than one-half of an extra consecutive shift, the time worked for the entire extra shift shall be paid at time and one-half of pay. Yep, round it up — AFL-CIO are proud of this one, they quote it, even if without the full text.
• Firefighters received overtime pay regardless of whether they worked more than scheduled because their union contract guarantees regularly scheduled overtime (emphasis mine).
• The union contract for Muni operators prevents the SFMTA from hiring part-time drivers, meaning overtime must be paid overtime

The last two, in particular, blow up your entire argument about employees "not caring" for employees, and "forcing" to work overtime... The examples show, how the unions consider the overtime rules as a "benefit".

Of course, you know, my example was valid. BS here is produced by you — at least, the bulls produce it through proper orifices...

Then describe it for me. What do they gain?

Lets look at socialism in the United States.

The U.S. spends about 20% of the nations GDP.
85% of the revenue collected by the U.S. government comes from 15% of the population.
Note that that 15% also acquires 85% of the adjusted gross income after basic living expenses.
The U.S. spends that revenue on:
9% Welfare
12% Defense
14% Education
14% Pensions
16% Health
All of which are socialist in nature. The bulk of the expense is covered by 15% of the population but 100% of the population benefits.

In some areas of the economy there are worker unions where the workers acting as one attempt to guarantee better wages and benefits for all. Usually the end result is not only better wages and benefits for union members but also for other areas of employment. And before anyone starts spewing the usual anti union rhetoric I suggest doing some research on the working conditions and wages of industrial workers in the United States prior to unions. And before bringing up GM versus Toyota note that Japan is even more socialist than the United States, their government is spending 30%+ of the GDP, so breaking the unions in the United States to pay for socialism in Japan is ludicrous.

I think any socialist system in which people are free to choose their own work to self-actualize, will suffer from a labour shortage in some sector, and so either people will be forced to work in a job they don't want to in order to compensate

That is communism and I believe you are correct, it doesn't work and it creates more problems than it solves.

Communism != Socialism

They are not the same thing. Socialism is practised at varying levels in virtually every industrialized western nation. People need to get over the propaganda they've been fed for decades. You can have socialism and still have private ownership of production, free market competition, compensation based on effort, skill and knowledge, etc. I know this to be true because its being done today.

Ah, the old "capitalism is exploitation" chestnut. Contrary to popular opinion, many people actually enjoy their jobs and are not being "exploited".

Ah the old "I don't agree with this guy so I'll try some simple labels to suggest they fit in some culturally negative stereotype, communist should work."

In 1980 the average CEO compensation was 42 times the average worker compensation, today its 319 times.
That is over 600% increase in compensation.

Median household income from 1980 to 2008 in 2008 dollars increased 14%, converted to current dollars for an accurate comparison thats a 173% increase.

From 1980 to 2008 the United States GDP grew over 400%

And yet here we are in the United States arguing over basic health care for the public because 1) as a nation we can afford it and anyone who says we can't is either a liar, in denial or hasn't bothered to actually look at the numbers and 2) because we have many cases where even individuals who have health insurance end up denied coverage which sometimes results in death.

Health insurance coverage sponsored by employers has continually dropped.
From over 68% of employees covered in 200 to under 60% in 2008.

By its nature capitalism is exploitation, I know that word has negative connotations but only because in some cases exploitation can turn into victimization.

When wages of 95% of the work force are suppressed to

Speaking of who we should tax...

One of the largest problems I see is the imbalance of wages. Check out some executive salaries, then tell me if these Stamp Jockeys deserve to make their 8 digit salaries (or more). Stephen Lazco of Seagate technologies raked in over $28 million in 2008, Michael Jeffries of Abercrombie and Fitch made over $12 million in 2008, Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin pulled in close to $26 million, Mark V. Hurd of HP made $34 million in 2008. Of course these are just the CEO's salaries, most corporations/companies have a lot of people at the top, and I'd bet that any of the direct reports for these people pull in 7 digits, and the people below them are in the mid-high 6 digits.

The other major piece of this puzzle is for those companies that are unnecessarily "top-heavy", they have too many people up top and too few workers to keep them afloat. It'd take serious dedication to the company for a CEO to take a pay cut so employees can stay on board, something Mr. Hurd did here. Given the choice between keeping your employees on the payroll and taking a pay cut, or firing thousands and giving yourself a bonus, how many CEO's do you think would pick the former?

Why would he be so concerned about union growth that he would try and take steps to lower the bar on organizing groups of people who probably don't even want it?

Why the rotten politicians want unions is quite understandable — and Blagojevich is on tape explaining the top reason.

What's less obvious, is why did the techies, who are justifiably against joining unions themselves, have voted for the party, that's trying to make unions much harder to avoid for other workers. One of the top items on the Unions' wish-list is elimination of the secret-ballot voting, which an employer can currently demand, before a workplace is unionized. Called THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT (while promising the exact opposite of free choice) it has a high chance of passing, because Democrats owe unions quite a bit — and both need each other.

Having spent the better part of the last century trying in vain to make everyone equally rich, the two groups are now settling on making (almost) everyone equally poor — as long as large pools of money remain available for retiring politicians in exchange for favors such as Senate appointments.

So, why did techies, who, as a group, don't want unions, vote for people, who are trying to impose them?

No one has held up banks or killed people for sugar before. No sir, the major difference is that drugs are extremely addictive. Far more than sugar or fat ever will be.

Not true. In the Napoleonic Wars, access to sugar was successfully used as a weapon. And thousands of slaves were killed during the rise of the sugar trade, a direct result of our desire to harvest and market this deadly white powder. Why, just a few months ago, 14 workers were killed by a blast of sugar.

To paraphrase Nancy Reagan: The casual user may think when he licks his lollipop or spoons a dollop of the devil's carbohydrate into his tea in the privacy of his nice condo, listening to his expensive stereo, that he's somehow not bothering anyone. But there is a trail of death and destruction that leads directly to his door. I'm saying that if you're a casual sugar user, you are an accomplice to murder.

It wasn't Bush, but it was deregulation and it was Championed by conservatives. The reason why you don't see it mentioned specifically might due to some embarrassment over the bill being signed by Bill Clinton in 1999.

----from wikipedia---
Provisions that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which passed the U.S. Senate in one form on a party-line vote of 54 (53 Republicans and 1 Democrat) to 44 (all Democrats) and on a 343-86 vote in a different form in the House of Representatives, before being resolved by a joint conference committee; the conference report was approved by both houses of Congress (Senate: 90-8-1, House: 362-57-15) and signed by President Bill Clinton.[2][3]
--------------------

And here is a thoughtful perspective on re-regulation from people you probably hate:
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec03052008a.cfm

IT has a shortage of good workers and high barriers for new employees, so if every worker left a company that refused to pay overtime, then the company would fail almost overnight.

So stop being individually ineffective in your dissatisfaction with employers and form a union. Yes unions come with their own set of problems, but over time having a union presenting work standards for a field of work, will improve working conditions for everyone in that field, union or not. As you pointed out, for IT workers to really effect a company that refuses to pay overtime, every worker needs to leave. It's called a strike, and if your work demands are within what the company can reasonably support, you won't have to go on strike very often. The union I belong to has only had to go on strike once in 121 years.

I agree that eight million ought to be considered a huge salary, but it's not. The CEO of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made on average $14.78 million in total compensation in 2006. And it seems clear to me that Jobs would be considered an above-average CEO.

He should start kissing my ass if he wants to presume to tell me what I "should be" donating my spare computing cycles to.

Instead of spending billions of dollars on advertising, Merck, Eli Lily and Pfizer should be buying computing clusters to do their own fucking research. They're the one's who'll get rich(er) off of it.

This asshat really thinks he is taking the moral high ground? Fuck him. It's my computer and it's my decision what I'll do with my spare CPU cycles.

LK

The article claims that BoA hopes to save $100 million over 5 years, or roughly 20 million a year.

Check out CEO pay here:

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou /database.cfm?tkr=BAC&pg=1

What's the easiest way for a company to cut $20 million from their budget?

The problem is that it isnt store managemnet that is the issue. Its head office. As far as it goes, you can google walmart and look past the first few entries, and look a little fuiuther, and start to see how many issues people are having with the store. http://www.walmartworkerscanada.com/ http://walmartwatch.com/ http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/walmart/ http://www.1worldcommunication.org/Walmart.htm (boycot walmart in bangledesh) http://www.labourstart.org/wal-mart/ http://www.walmartmovie.com/facts.php (facts in the movie) i could go on

Over seventy percent of all products sold at Wal-Mart are made in China. In 2004 it was estimated that $18 billion of WM's stock was of Chinese origin.

Check out the Frontline PBS special on the trade defecit. I don't think it's exaggerated by any means.

431 times, yes, and yes. A CEO at a major corporation making $4.5M is the laughingstock of his fellow CEOs, whose median pay is somewhere around $10-14M.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management /2005-03-30-ceo-pay-2004-cover_x.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/news/economy/ceo_p ay/
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/

Google for lots, lots more sources.

Gotta love Google Adsense, i got 3 links to Steve job's websites and articles about him for this page =)

But seriously, Is Mr. Gates so insecure about himself he has to surround himself with people who 'love' him? Its intersting, throughout history, people in positions of great power, sooner or later surround themselfs with pure yes-men who belive everything they say. Such as this and This example. Could this be a sign? Probably not, but it is an intersting move for this idea to even come out of redmond.. Only time will tell.

As opposed to capitalism, where you just give the money to someone else who then pays their CEO $24 million that could be used to provide services.

Is it irresponsible? Yes and no. Giving the benefit of the doubt to their motives, I think it's just and honorable that they perform outreach to reduce the gender gap in the IT profession. On the other hand, given my great and growing distrust of corporate ethics, my cynical side tells me that they wouldn't mind having an oversupply of labor to drive down wages. Considering that women make 77% of men's wages, http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/women/equalpa y/index.cfm it could be serving a dual purpose.

Well, the AFL-CIO says that a family of 4 needs about $33000 for a year. By the other statistics I've found online, about $6000 or $6500 of this would go to food. Divide by four and get $1500. So that $20000 could feed the kid...

Caviar? (Or it could be split up between a bunch of kids.)

graph of top 1% of earners' pay vs average worker pay

'nuff said?

I thought the widening income gap was common knowledge; just do a Google search for "CEO pay" or "income gap" and you'll find a ton of studies and pages of statistics to back them up.

All those people who decry the inhuman working conditions at EA, it's time to put your money where your mouth is. Stop rewarding their deplorable labor practices with your dollars.

It isn't as if EA employees have no other choice than work there. EA isn't anything like where the 8 year olds in South East Bumfuckistan that made the clothes you wear. If EA so bad of a place to work then the employees might want to think about working somewhere else. A boycott of some won't quite cut it.

Hey, you forgot Wal-Mart!

After all, they have proven skill in maintaining large databases, and everyone knows that they're trustworthy when it comes to consumer's privacy, not to mention their being an all-around good corporate citizen.

In 2003 the CEO of BellSouth made over $10 million in salary, bonuses, and stock. But, I'm sure he is only concerned with helping out those poor old people's retirement funds.

All the largest portions of stock are owned by company executives and wealthy investors. But, I'm sure the small time share-holders are a high priority.

In 2001 BellSouth executives released false information to artificially inflate the stock price and then cashed out before the stock plummeted. Surely that will help all those employees with 401(k) plans!

If you think corporate profits are boon to society I have some Enron stock to sell you.

Here's a brief synopsis of Kerry's Senate accomplishments:

Instrumental in passing most recent minimum wage increase; introduced bill to significantly increase commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS; passed law addressing nurse shortage; expanded early childhood development efforts; introduced plan that expanded children's health insurance coverage; stood with consumers against big banks on the bankruptcy bill and led and won the fight to pass the anti-money laundering act to stop terrorist and drug financing; secured assistance for families of Agent Orange; and led inquiry into savings and loan cleanup.

To keep things fair and balanced, here's a view from a Kerry-Edwards site, and one from Fox News.

The statistics are indeed flawed, but not only because non-poor people are counted as poor. The poverty line is too low since decent standard of living requires an income of about twice the poverty line:

http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/ns08032001.cf m

"Considering that the dot.bomb came out of the Clinton administration, I really can't blame Bush too much."

The reason bush is to blame is simply all the tax breaks to companies that outsource. (one of many sources) Reversing the policy was one of kerry's main points at his DNC speach.

Ofcourse I was way over paid in my cube dewlling days compared to my friends who were only able to get jobs at target and safeway etc, but I think the actions of the bush campaign have been very hurtful to the industry.

The tech industry crash might not have been caused by Clinton, but it started on his watch.

I'll agree with you on this point. But there are smart things you can do, as president, to minimize the impact of such a crash, and then there are dumb things you can do that will only exacerbate the situation.

March 30

That explains if you're a vet, you get overtime for regular pay, gee, how nice!
I'd like to explain how I feel with a brick, sideways, in a not pleasant place, Bend over Mr. Bush..whats good for us is good FOR YOU!