I kind of agree with that. After all, there's a great many things allowed in your home that aren't "moral" but are legal, as well as many things society allows under "expectation of privacy" (like skinnydipping) that society has to get a grip on... and given the current extreme religious right leanings of US/UK govts lately they're not inclined to make laws that would favor realigning with what society has decided to be "normal". The legal expectation of "normal" is considered behavior in very public places... but places like private property or secluded public property have always had slightly different social rules. Cameras take that away. Suddenly stolen kisses or quickie sex, or skinnydipping become "sexual offender" crimes because they have you on camera! Society is trained to follow the rulemakers, but the rulemakers are out of control... Go read the list of dumb laws many states in the USA have... every year people ask the legislatures to review the codes to remove them because they're not socially valid... and the legislatures REFUSE to remove 100 year-old laws... because they have POWER and don't want to give it up.
our society is based on the lie that laws are actually made thoughtfully... they're not. It's really a small number of people of similar religious beliefs doing things their way.. when faced with the fact that society doesn't care about old beliefs, they will openly subvert democracy at any chance they get! Combine with things like Absolute monitoring it is truly scary...
Almost all policemen I've meet even the one's I like and think are good people all want MORE... More surveillance, bigger guns, less interference from courts... to catch the "bad" guys. And almost all fall into the "christian" trap of thinking they are doing the work of "god" and country...even when they do the messy work nobody wants to do like smash people in the face. It's not a societal norm to want to go out on the street and cage men. Ultimately that's what happens to ALL of them... they can't stop and think that in a free society it's not RIGHT to cage ANYBODY... so there better be a damn good reason! Fundamentally, they are mentally ill people... just like they would say about any slashdotters on here at 5AM!!!
The brits dont' have it as one single statement like in the US Constitution. There is precedent all over starting with the Magna Carta, but it's a product of parliamentary and judicial case law limiting the Absolute power of the Crown, not an actual written statement. There is ultimately still the underlying idea that the "Crown" has 100% control of life or death and thru that, the state and police. It would be like allowing George Bush to just grab and try any person, on any street, at any time... our system in the USA is built specifically to NOT ALLOW that! Under US law that would be 100% State case, the President and federal agents would have no jurisdiction unless it was a federal agent or federal property. UK laws have more power that US federal laws... They're a combination National/State govt... there's not the same separation of "jurisdictions" that exist here in the USA. The Crown is the Crown all over, all the time.
NO, A free society allows people the freedom to choose to be lawless... that's a little different. YES, society should follow laws, but the people, not the government, should do that. Part of that is giving people the CHOICE to follow the law or not... people must BELIEVE in the laws they live under for society to remain strong and free. If most people don't, they you don't have a law abiding society anymore.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be punishments for breaking the laws... Of course you should do that, but the mark of a free, moral person is to do the RIGHT THING when nobody is looking, BECAUSE nobody but themselves will ever be disappointed by it!!!! IF you don't have a society that breeds that kind of self-respect and TRUST, your society's already collapsing!!!!
and as you can see from recent cigarette smoking and Trans fat ads, the bar for "wrong" goes down and down... after all, with cameras they have to find "wrong" doing in order to justify their existence...
after a divorce he's probably going to LIVE out of that car for a while! Couldn't afford both!! And you have to have transportation to work so getting the car ties up money so the Ex can't have it.
It's got a little more "plausible denyability" that... Oil and gas have actual prices, options, futures, etc. at each step of the way. The key is that somebody pays CASH each time the oil changes hands and when it trades "virtually", but it's the Cash points that determine the pump price. IF you notice almost all gas stations are owned by local companies as franchises. "Gasco" doesn't own the same oil from Arabia to the pump with their name on it. Even though it says "GasCo" on the sign it's really not... it's just one guy buying gas. The same with the refinery and the trucker... Each of them have to pay "cash" at market price... as well as "royalties" all along the way to sell "GasCo" gas! The big oil companies have stake in all the steps, but go thru the motions to look like a "free market" Like all good cartels, they got the Feds involved too.. the feds can't Sit on reserves.. they go bad if they're not used so they have to buy and sell to "freshen" the pot. they run the actual refining plants really lean, workers make high wages, and if anything small goes wrong the prices spike..the stupid market pays out every day, unlike other markets where shipments are monthly or farther apart, and that's where they make the money... The whole system is a "right now" system... with a war going on, it's easy to have "trouble" somewhere and due to regulations and such nobody downstream can legally "save up" on you to wait even a few days for the manufactured "crisis" to pass. But it's a "free market" so it's the STATION'S fault they don't find a way to smooth out their wholesale cost curve... I say this because my town has 3 "local" refineries (overlapping sales areas)... but our prices are always $.10 HIGHER than surrounding areas? If it was that way in the bigger city 50 miles away people would squeal.. but here they don't... wonder why?
It's just like the stock market. The people that make big bucks are the ones that get paid to move stocks every day..with other people's money... not the actual investors. That's why for "real" products walmart came around and made so much money "owning" the product chains!! They sell the price for less, but because they push out so many middle men looking for a cut of the action they can still make more profit per retail unit than the small shops having to play the "game". It's funny that deregulation of the oil industry to make it more "free", just like with telcos and power, has actually made it worse because it removes blame from any one company for high prices or faulty supply problems... after all everybody is paying "market" values so it MUST be "fair"... but all the real profits go to the same hands as they did before the rules were changed!! It's the little guy at the bottom that continually is going out of business as they have to make a profit every day or loose their shirt.
the reason to add it to the check like that is not fishy, it's the tax code. Companies can't "give" you anything worth over about 25$ now without claiming it as "wages". Your "gift" was worth $620 (so they could cover the $450 after tax) so that's how they had to write it up for the tax man. With the huge bonuses, they get extra scrutiny that they are following the rules to a tee... YOU would end up with the $170 tax charge (plus interest, penalty, fines if you make $100K+, being accused of "cheating", etc)if the IRS wanted to be asses about it.
I think he's right because they count the time as "business closed" time, not vacation. While most salary is quoted by year, I believe the legal standard of salary is by week... so to be legal and not pay you they have to be closed the full, normal work schedule week to count as "business closed" time. The trick doesn't work with only 1 day or 2 as salary employees are weighted on as little as 1 partial day of work a week... if they count you even by day you're not salary.. but like the California case above they did authorize forced use of Vacation time in 4 hour increments (so they have to give you a full or half day off, not just 1 hour for an appointment). But that's about the only budge they've given businesses for salary employees.. and with large corporations trying to get MORE people classified as "salary" I think the DoL is about to crack down even more.
it's nice to have it be a formal program, that's what my company does. Of course, when I hired in they knocked a few grand off my asking because I would get OT and bonus... so far that's worked out OK. But there's always that nagging little thing that corporate likes to say bonuses are a "privilege" to do a little jab at the ole morale. They also do the "free turkey" thing on holidays but that's done as something nominal to be nice.
Truth is that when it's just the "boss's choice" what bonuses will be is when you have the most trouble. One minute it's "reward" for hard work, the next "favor" depending on what they feel like giving.
Side note that due to federal law changes Vacation time is going that way as well.. as a "privilege" not a benefit, so companies don't have to compensate you if you can't use it. I noticed my company stopped putting it in employment contracts and instead refer you to the "handbook" (subject to change...) and things should be getting better....right?
but that's the "server" game... it became "common" for people to tip, so the Congress put it into wage and tax code... Businesses of course love it because they get help dirt cheap. Servers are legally obligated to claim 8% of every bill as a tip... they DON'T have to claim more and can get "free money" but they also pay social security tax and such that affects long term finances, so it's better to claim actual tips and pay the appropriate taxes. In most places, the "minimum wage" barely covers the tax liability for what a good waitress makes!!!
Basically a server is considered by law like a "contractor" they service the customers, not the business... so the customers pay them directly based on their "worth". Good servers can make 100$ or more a night even at "cheap" places like Denny's....provided the business does IT's job of providing hot food, quickly in a clean restaurant. Of course when the restaurant is only out $2.35 for a waitress, it's not great incentive to have good service. I have two family members that are servers. On good nites they clean up, as they are very good...they have customers come to the restaurant just to be waited on by them. On nights management screws the business, THEY are the ones that don't get paid, they are the ones that look bad when there's no cooks to make the food! Management got their $10 a plate... it's not their problem that the server got squat. I agree it's a sham that they don't put it on the tab, but it's a business thing to make the price look better. That said, most businesses have started including 15% on larger parties because it requires all of the server's time to wait on them...it would be unfair if the server got nothing.
do you think a corporation like GM with 50,000+ hourly workers really gives a damn about individual worker's personal growth... be realistic. Any situation where 20 or less individuals decide the work and well being of THOUSANDS shouldn't be left to chase by not having a union, no small number of non-representative elected people should have THAT much power. And there are far fewer companies than workers, especially when you start measuring hourly workers by THOUSANDS, the market is NOT fair. IF they could sell them all off for slaves, they'd do it. Notice how COMPANIES like to change the LAW when competition starts eating at their pie... they add regulations, bribe lawmakers, anything to avoid actually having to COMPETE for their work... just like "lazy" employees do.
because there's more full-timers in the union than part-timers. While you may be paid well, you're still filling a spot as a student, without BENIFITS, that could put food on somebody's table and benefits for their family... In reality, your "real wage" was probably about 25%-33% of what a full-timer's wage was after vacation, benefits, pension, etc. is figured in. It's not in the Union's interest to have too many part-time employees... because businesses have a habit of expanding those part-timers to do lots of other stuff... while letting the Union be the bad guys because they "fight" about you.
For all the people that REALLY want to kill Unions! Go to a mandatory 3 week vacation period (transferable between employers, so temps that work 6-9 months at one place but work for years straight can't be denied) for all full time employees (35+ hours) and change the insurance industry to only cover individuals, not companies... so you can take your coverage anywhere just like your car or house insurance. As long as employers have those two strings to attach the ball will always be in their court... you'll always have to "pay dues" of reduced pay & work to "prove" your loyal to the company to be a "real" employee. Hence by the time you find out the "real deal" about how a company pays, you've passed up other better opportunities out of misplaced "loyalty" or "benefits". "Benefits" are the biggest scam in employment practice right now!
I think what he meet to say was that Unions often stand for the Status Quo, not necessarily the best interest of the employees. His example of Auto Unions in the 80's is a case of where they needed to adapt their workforces, perhaps start merit based pay scales, but instead fell to keeping the people in the UNION offices employed and political statements.. and not the actual employees they represent. In the auto workers' case, they pushed to keep the same pay for the same work... as that work became obsolete! Like you said though, the business-union relationship doesn't usually work that way... business usually try to exempt the new jobs from the union cutting off those "lazy" employees from moving to higher-skilled work at the company. As a tech related person I've see it time and again where the animosity of Union contracts keeps skilled people from moving up.. and as soon as they do move to the "company" position, they're almost penalized for being in the Union. Just as Unions want everybody to be the "same" it's really businesses that have fell for the gag because they can blame all the union as "lazy" and not offer them more challenging work...both sides are playing stupid here.
you were probably better off anyway. My experience is that when you do cover work after somebody is fired that is equal or beneath you it just gets added to YOUR job... the company never seems to replace the person even though it was so important to fire them. AND you get blamed because you're now not doing either job as well as before so all the problems are YOUR fault. If there's not money in it, and it's not something you can easily do, then you were probably right not to step up. I did that "fill in" thing for one company and every time I got done being the "fill in" it was always treated with going back to my "lazy" job...
I thing the problem is that most people aren't good at marketing THEMSELVES and that's what it's all about. You have to write down and prove "on paper" that you did X amount of things requested on-time, X amount with short notice, and X amount as "favors". I notice my boss and other counter parts in my company document and squeal about every little deviation from written instructions. (I always find that as time wasting and distracting to the task) I think geeks in general have it worse because we like to be "useful" but miss that the company "customer" wants to see that we did X number of things that made Y number of $$$$. A lot of time in Geek jobs it involves finding things to make the company more money, or not spend money... so we're tasked with "marketing" to tell our bosses what they need because they don't even know that sometimes.
My experience is that it's almost always the BOSS that starts the antagonisms. In corporations it's usually passed down from "on high" as some way to squeeze out the "lazy" employees. That makes it a fight from the top down and always set's up the bad mojo.. because you can't ever PROVE your office/department/etc. isn't the problem.. they'll always find some metric that's off and say they want better.
It usually starts as "help out the company", get the project done on time... then devolves into you MUST do X amount mandatory "free" work or you're not "dedicated". As soon as the employees start giving out "free" work to get themselves caught up, the corporation immediately will rely on them to do the free work again.... and again... instead of updating their resources for the increased needs they have. I worked one place that pushed that to the limit.. I ended up leaving, but I wanted to "help out" with stuff not my specialty, then it just became "assumed" I would do it whenever with no more pay... or at least the "no more pay" gets forgot about when you go to say the "extra" stuff's not working out and you need somebody else to fill in a while... then it becomes "lazy employee's" fault for failing, "helping out" is almost always PUNISHED, never truly rewarded because it's not what you were "hired" for and somebody "hired" for the position you "helped" in will always do it better than you.
in a way you're right. I go into jobs looking for a overall yearly amount, not an amount per hour... That way I'm not expecting anything. It's when THEY start brining up OT, bonuses, and such that it gets sticky. Especially at medium sized corporations with good standing in the community, they like to say that a certain part of your compensation is the OT and bonuses so they can offer you a slightly lower than average wage. (not much but one of those, "we're well known so you work for US, we don't PAY YOU to work here" type things.) It's at the end of the calender year that they say you didn't "earn" it, or it's just a "gift" that feelings start to get hurt.
I always joke to my co-workers that literally EVERY job I've had since I was 16 years old has cut it's bonus/gift/party standard after I started working there... That's 5 long term jobs over 17 years... so my expectations for year-end "korporate indness" are a little low.
My current job is pretty cool but not immune from that behavior... fortunately, they have a formal bonus program and it pays at certain times based on company performance. (of course always subject to change) The only issue I saw was that they changed the 4th quarter & year end payouts from 2 checks (one at Thanksgiving and one in December) to just 1...in December. Kinda wrecks the Christmas shopping thing. On one hand it's "cool free money" thanks, on the other, if they really care about the employees why are they playing games over saving maybe a dollar by cutting only 1 check.. the bad will is worth more than that. It's a corporate thing to prove their the "bosses" and shake things up. In my experience, that's how the slide starts... I don't hold my breath anymore though so it doesn't bother me. Note: this is also the company that did the whole "pay you less because you get bonuses" thing when I hired on... it always starts with playing with the money.
I'd have to agree though, I'd rather NOT be promised a bonus at all, perhaps a free turkey or ham (or a token gift card for one), than to have a "gift" turned in to "performance" based on the whim of the company owners. Moral of the story to Bosses... if it's anything other than a formal written bonus plan, don't talk about it... don't promise it... then feelings won't get hurt!
no, that is EXACTLY what Israel is proposing to the UN that will be the "only way for peace" in the region. Label and ID everybody, put up a wall to keep them in line, ransack and raid and kill at will, and ration their economic relations with other countries... it's Apartheid in all but name...worse even. Remember it wasn't legally called that in South Africa either! You'd think the Jews would be smarter than that after all, it's EXACTLY what Hitler did to them...you'd think they'd work for REAL peace and not revenge, but historically they've been REALLY STUPID (tm) and like all the other middle easterners look to knife somebody in the back just as fast as they can.
I think he's getting at the idea that a corporation should be treated like we treat US citizens abroad. We have rules so a guy like Bill Gates can't just keep his citizen ship but move to an island and never pay taxes... as a US citizen you're Always on the hook for Social Security, and income taxes on the money you make... even in other countries. But for some crazy reason corporations don't have to pay "social tax" on anything outside the geographic boarders? I think what he's pushing for is the ideas that corporations are "citizens" of their "home" country and can't get out of their employer obligations by moving the jobs somewhere else why they enjoy intellectual property restrictions on all the customers in the home country!! Of course the US govt would NEVER allow that as they rely on all sorts of para-govt, para-military corporations like Haliburtion for example to enforce the REAL US policy abroad.
wrong, he's not talking about the arts, he's talking about routine funding for slow-moving buearocratic organizations like the DMV.... where inefficient middle managers "following the rules" waste time and money not getting work done... like read myspace while leaving the clients waiting.
the problem is that much of the research is at least co-funded by big govt grants or professors and students from public university... all the taxpayers help with the discoveries... it would seem unfair that only one company would get the profits.
it's like the silly one-click patents... they didn't patent the "gene".. just the application of sciences to display "that" gene and then act on it to cure cancer. Current state of the art shows there's only 1 way to read a specific gene and the patent would be open enough...like the one click... that it covers "all" approaches regarding genes and a specific type of cancer. More like the recent Microsoft RSS feed, they "jumped ahead" of the govt researchers to patent the method of using the information before it could be free... like MS is patenting all sorts of RSS things so that even though they didn't create it, they "own" all the uses... I think in Medicine it will simply be taken when it gets too bad... after all, everybody cries how the govt isn't spending enough on Aids, Cancer, etc.. yet the money that does get spent gets spend on R&D... the "product development" is neatly compartmentalized so the "free" research gets patented as quickly as possible.
it's those damn socialist northern countries at fault for this!!! Think.. Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Canada.... Santa is a conspiracy by socialist powers that don't respect proper IP law. The retail chain stores are hurting this year. Santa bringing "free" presents will mean more mommies and daddies out of work next year. Forget DVD John or AllofMP3.. the motherload is SANTA CLAUS! He's copying everything from toys, to books, to CDs and DVDs, to whole computers... At least he respects trade secrets and doesn't release toys early. I wonder if there is some collusion going on here between Santa and the Toy companies... perhaps they look the other way as long as he doesn't steal the new toy designs?
there's also the national security front! If Santa is magically popping down chimneys, who's to say where else he may be getting into? have his elves been checked out for baggage handling... those toys could be tainted by Al-queda operatives... you know those shady organizations might be working together. IS santa cleared with the TSA and FAA for air travel? He needs to provide his 23 points of identification to get thru customs as he's not a US citizen... and why the hell are we allowing non-us-citizens into our airspace? Norad tracks Santa, it's time they bring him in for questioning... hopefully he won't be an "enemy combatant"! He's already evading customs decelerations and not registering for tax purposes!! This guy is a lawbreaking menace and MUST be stopped!!!
I won't be sleeping easy knowing that a foreign agent is working in our boarders this holiday.
This came up during the Cold War at NORAD. They wanted to make sure that the Russians didn't send an attack south at the same time Santa was making his rounds on Christmas Eve!!! So they track Santa every year.
I noticed this year he cleverly missed the middle east... maybe he's afraid of getting shot down this year.... or maybe UN sanctions apply to Santa too!!
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our society is based on the lie that laws are actually made thoughtfully... they're not. It's really a small number of people of similar religious beliefs doing things their way.. when faced with the fact that society doesn't care about old beliefs, they will openly subvert democracy at any chance they get! Combine with things like Absolute monitoring it is truly scary...
Almost all policemen I've meet even the one's I like and think are good people all want MORE... More surveillance, bigger guns, less interference from courts... to catch the "bad" guys. And almost all fall into the "christian" trap of thinking they are doing the work of "god" and country...even when they do the messy work nobody wants to do like smash people in the face. It's not a societal norm to want to go out on the street and cage men. Ultimately that's what happens to ALL of them... they can't stop and think that in a free society it's not RIGHT to cage ANYBODY... so there better be a damn good reason! Fundamentally, they are mentally ill people... just like they would say about any slashdotters on here at 5AM!!!
The brits dont' have it as one single statement like in the US Constitution. There is precedent all over starting with the Magna Carta, but it's a product of parliamentary and judicial case law limiting the Absolute power of the Crown, not an actual written statement. There is ultimately still the underlying idea that the "Crown" has 100% control of life or death and thru that, the state and police. It would be like allowing George Bush to just grab and try any person, on any street, at any time... our system in the USA is built specifically to NOT ALLOW that! Under US law that would be 100% State case, the President and federal agents would have no jurisdiction unless it was a federal agent or federal property. UK laws have more power that US federal laws... They're a combination National/State govt... there's not the same separation of "jurisdictions" that exist here in the USA. The Crown is the Crown all over, all the time.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be punishments for breaking the laws... Of course you should do that, but the mark of a free, moral person is to do the RIGHT THING when nobody is looking, BECAUSE nobody but themselves will ever be disappointed by it!!!! IF you don't have a society that breeds that kind of self-respect and TRUST, your society's already collapsing!!!!
and as you can see from recent cigarette smoking and Trans fat ads, the bar for "wrong" goes down and down... after all, with cameras they have to find "wrong" doing in order to justify their existence...
after a divorce he's probably going to LIVE out of that car for a while! Couldn't afford both!! And you have to have transportation to work so getting the car ties up money so the Ex can't have it.
It's just like the stock market. The people that make big bucks are the ones that get paid to move stocks every day..with other people's money... not the actual investors. That's why for "real" products walmart came around and made so much money "owning" the product chains!! They sell the price for less, but because they push out so many middle men looking for a cut of the action they can still make more profit per retail unit than the small shops having to play the "game". It's funny that deregulation of the oil industry to make it more "free", just like with telcos and power, has actually made it worse because it removes blame from any one company for high prices or faulty supply problems... after all everybody is paying "market" values so it MUST be "fair"... but all the real profits go to the same hands as they did before the rules were changed!! It's the little guy at the bottom that continually is going out of business as they have to make a profit every day or loose their shirt.
the reason to add it to the check like that is not fishy, it's the tax code. Companies can't "give" you anything worth over about 25$ now without claiming it as "wages". Your "gift" was worth $620 (so they could cover the $450 after tax) so that's how they had to write it up for the tax man. With the huge bonuses, they get extra scrutiny that they are following the rules to a tee... YOU would end up with the $170 tax charge (plus interest, penalty, fines if you make $100K+, being accused of "cheating", etc)if the IRS wanted to be asses about it.
you don't happen to be manufacturing CDs or DVDs for the entertainment industry (*IAA) do you!!!
I think he's right because they count the time as "business closed" time, not vacation. While most salary is quoted by year, I believe the legal standard of salary is by week... so to be legal and not pay you they have to be closed the full, normal work schedule week to count as "business closed" time. The trick doesn't work with only 1 day or 2 as salary employees are weighted on as little as 1 partial day of work a week... if they count you even by day you're not salary.. but like the California case above they did authorize forced use of Vacation time in 4 hour increments (so they have to give you a full or half day off, not just 1 hour for an appointment). But that's about the only budge they've given businesses for salary employees.. and with large corporations trying to get MORE people classified as "salary" I think the DoL is about to crack down even more.
Truth is that when it's just the "boss's choice" what bonuses will be is when you have the most trouble. One minute it's "reward" for hard work, the next "favor" depending on what they feel like giving.
Side note that due to federal law changes Vacation time is going that way as well.. as a "privilege" not a benefit, so companies don't have to compensate you if you can't use it. I noticed my company stopped putting it in employment contracts and instead refer you to the "handbook" (subject to change...) and things should be getting better ....right?
Basically a server is considered by law like a "contractor" they service the customers, not the business... so the customers pay them directly based on their "worth". Good servers can make 100$ or more a night even at "cheap" places like Denny's....provided the business does IT's job of providing hot food, quickly in a clean restaurant. Of course when the restaurant is only out $2.35 for a waitress, it's not great incentive to have good service. I have two family members that are servers. On good nites they clean up, as they are very good...they have customers come to the restaurant just to be waited on by them. On nights management screws the business, THEY are the ones that don't get paid, they are the ones that look bad when there's no cooks to make the food! Management got their $10 a plate... it's not their problem that the server got squat. I agree it's a sham that they don't put it on the tab, but it's a business thing to make the price look better. That said, most businesses have started including 15% on larger parties because it requires all of the server's time to wait on them...it would be unfair if the server got nothing.
do you think a corporation like GM with 50,000+ hourly workers really gives a damn about individual worker's personal growth... be realistic. Any situation where 20 or less individuals decide the work and well being of THOUSANDS shouldn't be left to chase by not having a union, no small number of non-representative elected people should have THAT much power. And there are far fewer companies than workers, especially when you start measuring hourly workers by THOUSANDS, the market is NOT fair. IF they could sell them all off for slaves, they'd do it. Notice how COMPANIES like to change the LAW when competition starts eating at their pie... they add regulations, bribe lawmakers, anything to avoid actually having to COMPETE for their work... just like "lazy" employees do.
For all the people that REALLY want to kill Unions! Go to a mandatory 3 week vacation period (transferable between employers, so temps that work 6-9 months at one place but work for years straight can't be denied) for all full time employees (35+ hours) and change the insurance industry to only cover individuals, not companies... so you can take your coverage anywhere just like your car or house insurance. As long as employers have those two strings to attach the ball will always be in their court... you'll always have to "pay dues" of reduced pay & work to "prove" your loyal to the company to be a "real" employee. Hence by the time you find out the "real deal" about how a company pays, you've passed up other better opportunities out of misplaced "loyalty" or "benefits". "Benefits" are the biggest scam in employment practice right now!
I think what he meet to say was that Unions often stand for the Status Quo, not necessarily the best interest of the employees. His example of Auto Unions in the 80's is a case of where they needed to adapt their workforces, perhaps start merit based pay scales, but instead fell to keeping the people in the UNION offices employed and political statements.. and not the actual employees they represent. In the auto workers' case, they pushed to keep the same pay for the same work... as that work became obsolete! Like you said though, the business-union relationship doesn't usually work that way... business usually try to exempt the new jobs from the union cutting off those "lazy" employees from moving to higher-skilled work at the company. As a tech related person I've see it time and again where the animosity of Union contracts keeps skilled people from moving up.. and as soon as they do move to the "company" position, they're almost penalized for being in the Union. Just as Unions want everybody to be the "same" it's really businesses that have fell for the gag because they can blame all the union as "lazy" and not offer them more challenging work...both sides are playing stupid here.
I thing the problem is that most people aren't good at marketing THEMSELVES and that's what it's all about. You have to write down and prove "on paper" that you did X amount of things requested on-time, X amount with short notice, and X amount as "favors". I notice my boss and other counter parts in my company document and squeal about every little deviation from written instructions. (I always find that as time wasting and distracting to the task) I think geeks in general have it worse because we like to be "useful" but miss that the company "customer" wants to see that we did X number of things that made Y number of $$$$. A lot of time in Geek jobs it involves finding things to make the company more money, or not spend money... so we're tasked with "marketing" to tell our bosses what they need because they don't even know that sometimes.
It usually starts as "help out the company", get the project done on time... then devolves into you MUST do X amount mandatory "free" work or you're not "dedicated". As soon as the employees start giving out "free" work to get themselves caught up, the corporation immediately will rely on them to do the free work again.... and again... instead of updating their resources for the increased needs they have. I worked one place that pushed that to the limit.. I ended up leaving, but I wanted to "help out" with stuff not my specialty, then it just became "assumed" I would do it whenever with no more pay... or at least the "no more pay" gets forgot about when you go to say the "extra" stuff's not working out and you need somebody else to fill in a while... then it becomes "lazy employee's" fault for failing, "helping out" is almost always PUNISHED, never truly rewarded because it's not what you were "hired" for and somebody "hired" for the position you "helped" in will always do it better than you.
I always joke to my co-workers that literally EVERY job I've had since I was 16 years old has cut it's bonus/gift/party standard after I started working there... That's 5 long term jobs over 17 years... so my expectations for year-end "korporate indness" are a little low.
My current job is pretty cool but not immune from that behavior... fortunately, they have a formal bonus program and it pays at certain times based on company performance. (of course always subject to change) The only issue I saw was that they changed the 4th quarter & year end payouts from 2 checks (one at Thanksgiving and one in December) to just 1...in December. Kinda wrecks the Christmas shopping thing. On one hand it's "cool free money" thanks, on the other, if they really care about the employees why are they playing games over saving maybe a dollar by cutting only 1 check.. the bad will is worth more than that. It's a corporate thing to prove their the "bosses" and shake things up. In my experience, that's how the slide starts... I don't hold my breath anymore though so it doesn't bother me. Note: this is also the company that did the whole "pay you less because you get bonuses" thing when I hired on... it always starts with playing with the money.
I'd have to agree though, I'd rather NOT be promised a bonus at all, perhaps a free turkey or ham (or a token gift card for one), than to have a "gift" turned in to "performance" based on the whim of the company owners. Moral of the story to Bosses... if it's anything other than a formal written bonus plan, don't talk about it... don't promise it... then feelings won't get hurt!
no, that is EXACTLY what Israel is proposing to the UN that will be the "only way for peace" in the region. Label and ID everybody, put up a wall to keep them in line, ransack and raid and kill at will, and ration their economic relations with other countries... it's Apartheid in all but name...worse even. Remember it wasn't legally called that in South Africa either! You'd think the Jews would be smarter than that after all, it's EXACTLY what Hitler did to them...you'd think they'd work for REAL peace and not revenge, but historically they've been REALLY STUPID (tm) and like all the other middle easterners look to knife somebody in the back just as fast as they can.
I think he's getting at the idea that a corporation should be treated like we treat US citizens abroad. We have rules so a guy like Bill Gates can't just keep his citizen ship but move to an island and never pay taxes... as a US citizen you're Always on the hook for Social Security, and income taxes on the money you make... even in other countries. But for some crazy reason corporations don't have to pay "social tax" on anything outside the geographic boarders? I think what he's pushing for is the ideas that corporations are "citizens" of their "home" country and can't get out of their employer obligations by moving the jobs somewhere else why they enjoy intellectual property restrictions on all the customers in the home country!! Of course the US govt would NEVER allow that as they rely on all sorts of para-govt, para-military corporations like Haliburtion for example to enforce the REAL US policy abroad.
wrong, he's not talking about the arts, he's talking about routine funding for slow-moving buearocratic organizations like the DMV.... where inefficient middle managers "following the rules" waste time and money not getting work done... like read myspace while leaving the clients waiting.
the problem is that much of the research is at least co-funded by big govt grants or professors and students from public university... all the taxpayers help with the discoveries... it would seem unfair that only one company would get the profits.
it's like the silly one-click patents... they didn't patent the "gene".. just the application of sciences to display "that" gene and then act on it to cure cancer. Current state of the art shows there's only 1 way to read a specific gene and the patent would be open enough...like the one click... that it covers "all" approaches regarding genes and a specific type of cancer. More like the recent Microsoft RSS feed, they "jumped ahead" of the govt researchers to patent the method of using the information before it could be free... like MS is patenting all sorts of RSS things so that even though they didn't create it, they "own" all the uses... I think in Medicine it will simply be taken when it gets too bad... after all, everybody cries how the govt isn't spending enough on Aids, Cancer, etc.. yet the money that does get spent gets spend on R&D... the "product development" is neatly compartmentalized so the "free" research gets patented as quickly as possible.
there's also the national security front! If Santa is magically popping down chimneys, who's to say where else he may be getting into? have his elves been checked out for baggage handling... those toys could be tainted by Al-queda operatives... you know those shady organizations might be working together. IS santa cleared with the TSA and FAA for air travel? He needs to provide his 23 points of identification to get thru customs as he's not a US citizen... and why the hell are we allowing non-us-citizens into our airspace? Norad tracks Santa, it's time they bring him in for questioning... hopefully he won't be an "enemy combatant"! He's already evading customs decelerations and not registering for tax purposes!! This guy is a lawbreaking menace and MUST be stopped!!!
I won't be sleeping easy knowing that a foreign agent is working in our boarders this holiday.
check out here http://www.noradsanta.org/en/default.php for the scoop!!!
I noticed this year he cleverly missed the middle east... maybe he's afraid of getting shot down this year.... or maybe UN sanctions apply to Santa too!!