Tag Archives: unions

InCity Voices

Worcester’s Teamsters on the rise?

By Gordon Davis

The Teamsters have tentatively organized the technicians at St. Vincent Hospital in downtown Worcester.

The nascent unit of the Teamsters is awaiting a unionizing election. Should the majority of the technicians at St. Vincent vote in favor of the union, then the hospital management would be compelled to negotiate in good faith with the new technicians union. The negations would then be codified in a contract or collective bargaining agreement.

Given the petition for election to the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB), the management of St. Vincent cannot legally retaliate against any of the technicians for union organizing work done outside of their own duty work time.

The NLRB has set a goal of not more than 56 days from the filing of the petition to the day of election, sometime in late June 2015.

The Teamsters union was expelled from the AFL-CIO in 1957, after allegations that its leadership was associated with organized crime. Jimmy Hoffa was president of the Teamsters at the time. His son, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., is now national leader of the Teamsters. The Teamsters today have a similar structure as the AFL CIO. It organizes in all industries – not just truck drivers.

The Teamsters today is only a shadow of its former self in terms of its working class advocacy/struggles. It sometimes calls for strikes but, in general, the Teamsters, under Hoffa, have become more like a business-as-usual organization.

In contrast to the business model of the Teamsters:  On March 15, 2015, a more militant group of Teamsters met in Worcester, in the Italian American Club.

Teamsters United is a  caucus inside of the Teamsters, and it is working to unseat Jimmy Hoffa Jr.

It wants to return the Teamsters to a more democratic and hands-on practice.  Tim Sylvester is running against Hoffa in the 2016 election. Mr. Sylvester is from the Teamster Local located in Long Island, New York, Local 804.  He said he and his fellow Local 804 brothers and sisters successfully resisted the sellout contract that Hoffa imposed on most of the other Teamsters locals.

Running for Vice President of Teamster United is Fred Zuckerman, from Ken Kentucky’s Local 89. Zuckerman is something of a firebrand and is certainly charismatic. Given his Kentucky union background, I am not surprised that he can hold your attention and inspire people to strive for a world in which workers have more power in the workplace.

Issues not discussed were racial and gender disparaties, given the number of cases against United Parcel Services being brought at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The issues that Sylvester and Zuckerman raised were:

the so called sell-out contracts that created the two-tier wage system in UPS, where new employees are being paid minimum wages

the underfunded and delayed pensions, inability of the National Union to organize Fed Ex

and Locals being able to veto a contract for their area

Although this Teamsters insurgency group has an uphill struggle to unseat the entrenched Hoffa, Sylvester and Zuckerman presented what seemed to be a viable plan to the locals recently gathered at Worcester’s Italian American Club.

It consisted to a large extent of “bring your own voters.”

There is a rumor that Jim Peters who is the present Business Agent for Worcester’s Local 170 and the negotiator for St. Vincent’s technicians might not run for reelection in 2016.

It has been alleged that he has tired of making quid pro quo agreements with the employers and being complained to by the employees. The new goals of the more the vocal Teamster union members might prove too much for him.

The future shall bring us the answers about what happens to Hoffa, Peters … and the Teamsters.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog, Uncategorized

City of Worcester employee salaries are out …

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By Rosalie Tirella

… And the latest figures show what InCity Times, the paper, has been running in each issue for years: scores and scores and scores of regular old folks, people who were never top in their class or showed any signs of intellectual prowess, making $100,000 a year and often much much more, courtesy of the taxpayer.

What chumps we are! A Worcester Public Schools grammar school principal pulling down $100,000? Teachers making $90,000 a year? With summers off, not to mention Christmas, winter and spring vacation weeks? Have we gone mad???!

Years and years ago working for the city was like working for the post office. You realized you were not the most brilliant bulb in the tree, but you landed yourself a city job, usually through connected relatives or politicians, that got you into the middle class. You became a public servant. Not great wages, but great health benefits, a pension, vacations with pay and a job for LIFE. You were grateful and stayed the course. You lived in a cute little house in the city and drove a station wagon. Maybe you spent a week at the Cape during summer vacation.

I had such an uncle. A doll of a person who was a public school principal in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Unlike today’s public school teachers or city cops, my uncle and his family did not own two SUVs. They did not live in the best Worcester neighborhood street. They did not build themselves a big, roomy McMansion. In fact, they lived in the same cute, little Worcester home until my aunt died a few years ago. My uncle lived education, was a good principal and a loving, no-nonsense dad. The old Worcester. The old way. Salt of the earth. Before our municipal employees and their unions got greedy.

Before a bunch of ordinary men and women decided to grab the City of Worcester by the nuts and make us pay them doctors’ salaries. Or the kind of dough a lawyer makes.

I am all for unions and the working person, but a ton of our cops making $150,000 or $100,000? Insanity! And then leaving the job at 58 years old to collect 80% of their city pay check FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES?! People live to 85, 90 these days! This is why the City of Worcester closed its branch libraries, closed its neighborhood swimming pools, closed many of its elementary school libraries, CHARGES POOR PEOPLE $$$ to skate on our city common ice oval.

Hiring freezes anyone? An overhaul of City of Worcester pensions anyone? We need to act NOW!

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog, Uncategorized

The proposed slot casino would bring jobs …

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By Rosalie Tirella

… to Green Island. GOOD PAYING jobs if we play our cards right (bad pun intended).

But we can’t even begin to have a conversation around this intriguing project because the city has gone all puritanical on us and said NO WAY. City councilors are taking this interesting option off the table by taking/buying the site away from the owners of the site, at the old Wyman Gordans. It’s called eminent domain.

Good fucking luck!

This is insane. When a municipality takes someone’s house or property it is to make way for, usually, a huge public project like a highway, not because the owner’s plans for it gets city fathers’ panties all knotted.

Worcester shouldn’t take acres away from THE OWNER OF A PIECE OF PROPERTY because he wants to do something with it. Even if it feels a bit controversial, even if they pay the owner the fair price for it, in this case around four million bucks.

Worcester’s unskilled folks need good paying jobs, jobs that could pay them around $40 K a year. Good union jobs if we play our cards right.

Why keep our unskilled folks in Mcjobs when we can get them GOOD JOBS? Jobs that will turn their lives around.

This is wrong.

We need to discuss this option and work with the developer to leverage a bunch of good paying jobs FIR GREEN ISLANDERS.

The factories are gone. Not everyone is gonna go to college or even get a certificate to be a vet or lab tech or nurse. Some people haven’t the time, the money, the interest, and maybe even, and we have to face facts, the smarts.

That’s why the factories were so great. They provided good pay checks to just average or below average folks if they just showed up each day ready to work.OR If they had a good work ethic.

I have been to Mohegan Sun at least 20 times over the years.

Lots of fun. Great music. Great White Russians, one of my fave drinks. No I didn’t play the slots, and yes, the folks who did play slots looked a bit desperate. Many of them hooked up to mini oxygen tanks. Lots in wheel chairs. Lourdes for unlucky i guess.

But who is Worcester to judge? Let’s squeeze as many union jobs as we can. Let’s make sure the place provides at least second tier rock bands. Let’s make it classy and fun.

Let’s blow on the dice and give them a tumble.

Uncategorized

The Twinkie Manifesto

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Great Op-Ed from The New York Times’  Paul Krugman – R. T.
 
The Twinkie Manifesto
By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times
Published: November 19, 2012

The Twinkie, it turns out, was introduced way back in 1930. In our memories, however, the iconic snack will forever be identified with the 1950s, when Hostess popularized the brand by sponsoring “The Howdy Doody Show.” And the demise of Hostess has unleashed a wave of baby boomer nostalgia for a seemingly more innocent time.

Needless to say, it wasn’t really innocent. But the ’50s – the Twinkie Era – do offer lessons that remain relevant in the 21st century. Above all, the success of the postwar American economy demonstrates that, contrary to today’s conservative orthodoxy, you can have prosperity without demeaning workers and coddling the rich.

Consider the question of tax rates on the wealthy. The modern American right, and much of the alleged center, is obsessed with the notion that low tax rates at the top are essential to growth. Remember that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, charged with producing a plan to curb deficits, nonetheless somehow ended up listing “lower tax rates” as a “guiding principle.”

Yet in the 1950s incomes in the top bracket faced a marginal tax rate of 91, that’s right, 91 percent, while taxes on corporate profits were twice as large, relative to national income, as in recent years. The best estimates suggest that circa 1960 the top 0.01 percent of Americans paid an effective federal tax rate of more than 70 percent, twice what they pay today.

Nor were high taxes the only burden wealthy businessmen had to bear. They also faced a labor force with a degree of bargaining power hard to imagine today. In 1955 roughly a third of American workers were union members. In the biggest companies, management and labor bargained as equals, so much so that it was common to talk about corporations serving an array of “stakeholders” as opposed to merely serving stockholders. … “

To read more, please click on the link below. R.T.:

InCity Feature, InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here? A proposal from Michael Moore

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Friends,

This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement’s “vision statement” to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

We Envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.

Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore 

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation’s spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can’t run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a “second bill of rights” as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

Let me know what you think. Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don’t have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.

We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we’ve been hoping for, waiting for. If it’s going to happen it has to happen now. Don’t sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Yours,
Michael Moore

InCity Letters, InCity Voices

City-budget talk: the good, the bad and the ugly

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By Worcester District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller

I am writing this after a recent Worcester City Council budget meeting. By the time you read this, changes may have happened because this coming budget is still a work in progress. Here is where we stand now:

The CHALLENGE a week ago: find ways to close a $7,000,000 budget gap.

The STRATEGY: negotiate with our City’s unions on health care reform and wage increases. This is actually 3 pieces: (1.) City Manager O’Brien has developed a local health plan that significantly reduces costs to both employees and the city. (2.) We are asking city employees to pay 25% of the cost of health care. (3.) We are asking employees to take 0% wage increases for this coming year.
The PROMISE: the money saved with each union who agrees to accept these 3 conditions will go back into that same union to save jobs for the union and services for the taxpayers.

(Note: The City Manager moved all non-union city employees to these 3 conditions, including himself and his Administrative staff, earlier this year and preserved jobs and services. The City Council has also accepted these conditions, although there are no job savings that result and not all councilors use the city health coverage.)

The WRINKLE: All unions must agree to all 3 conditions in order to generate enough city-side savings to restore overtime accounts. This means that services that rely on overtime will be cut even if the union that works in those departments accepts the 3 conditions. You will see how this plays out further into this article.

The PROGRESS-to-date:

WORCESTER FIRE DEPARTMENT union has agreed to the conditions. This saves 35 firefighter jobs, 1 Ladder Company, 1 Engine Company, and preserves our present average response time of 5 minutes and 49 seconds (the PROMISE). THANK YOU WFD! It does not, however, restore the overtime account (the WRINKLE) because not all unions have signed on as of now. Because of the overtime loss, brown-outs and temporary closings of companies will be used during periods of summer vacation and the like (NOT GOOD FOR US).

WORCESTER POLICE DEPARTMENT unions have agreed to the conditions. This saves 35 police officers, restores support to Community Policing, the Traffic Division, the School Liaison Program, and prevents demotions and 100 re-assignments (the PROMISE). THANK YOU WPD! Like the WFD, it does not restore the overtime account (the WRINKLE). So we will lose important programs like the Summer Impact, SWAT training (NOT GOOD FOR US). City Council voted, under the leadership of CC Bill Eddy, to hold the WPD budget for a few weeks to see if we could figure out a way to restore the Summer Impact. We all know that this program keeps us safe during highest risk summer months and we are not willing to kill it without a fight. The City Manager tells us that there is nowhere to find the money except by having all the unions agree to the 3 conditions (the STRATEGY).

That was the good news.

PUBLIC WORKS & PARKS: No union (Local 495) agreement yet. This means 19 layoffs, closing 2 yard waste sites (Foley and Clark Street) on Wednesdays and Saturdays, essentially the end of Keep Worcester Clean, no services for litter, overgrowth, trash, bulk items, graffiti. No parking enforcement except for downtown. New signage will only happen if $ can be found on an individual basis. No sweeping, no litter collection on business corridors, including downtown. Downtown trash receptacles will be emptied 3 times a week rather than 6. No park maintenance at 15 sites. No maintenance of veteran’s squares and monuments. THIS IS BOTH BAD AND UGLY FOR US.

INSPECTIONAL SERVICES: No union (Local 495) agreement yet. This means 6 layoffs, longer stretches between inspections, no Canada geese egg addling, neighborhood crime watch attendance reduced to every 3 months, reduced nuisance enforcement, reduced problem property reviews.

DEFINITELY NOT GOOD FOR US.

PUBLIC LIBRARY: No union (Local 495) agreement yet. This means 4 layoffs, reduced hours at Greendale branch, reduced outreach with WPS, must obtain a waiver to get State aid (if we fail to get the waiver the results will be 7 more layoffs and dramatic reductions at the Main branch), 10 Sunday closings at Main Branch, longer lines at the service desks. Also, fewer purchase of books, DVDs, audio books. All of this while the demands on the WPL are growing. OUCH! We have run out of Band-Aids. City Manager O’Brien tells us that he has groups that are interested in contributing money to the Library but only if the union agreement is in place – they are not willing to fund a system that no longer works.

CLERICAL POSITIONS: No union (Clerical Union) agreement yet. This means 8 layoffs in various departments. This will lengthen response times to housing court, assessment questions, and financial reports.

LESS WITH LESS.

Like I said at the beginning, the city budget is a work in progress. We need Local 495 and the Clerical Union to stay at the negotiation table and figure out how to stop the dire cuts in jobs and services. Our other unions have found a way to say “yes” and we cannot stop there.

Stay tuned.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Worcester Mayor Joe O’Brien – Part 2

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By Rosalie Tirella

After I wrote yesterday’s blog, I remembered this: You would think Mayor Joseph O’Brien has scored a few points with some of his detractors. After all, he is asking the city’s public school teachers to pay 25% of their health insurance premiums. (Good!) While a friend of labor, O’Brien knows that everyone – including our unions – needs to give a little these days, and Worcesterties will balk at paying higher taxes if they feel their money is simply going to the unions’ sky rocketing benefit packages. Going to pay 80% of our teachers’ health insurance! Worcester taxpayers are especially annoyed when folks in the private sector pay as much as 50% of their health insurance premiums – and our teachers are whining about paying only 25%. Worcester biz folks and rersidents balk at paying higher taxes when they have to listen to our teachers – most of whom make at least $70,000/year and many of whom pull down a salary of around $90,000 – think they are taking the moral high ground when they refuse to accept a 5% increase in their health insurance premiums.

Pathetic.

So, of course, the Worcester Public School teachers union is giving O’Brien a hard time.

Then there is O’Brien’s support of Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Melinda Boone. Worcester is a provincial place – filled with people who accept no one outside their circles of trust (family, church, political groups, ethnic enclaves). This narrowmindedness is a black mark on Worcester because civic life doesn’t run that way in places like Hartford or Springfield or Lowell. These cities’ civic lives are actually enriched by all the new and varied voices! But here, in Wormtown, newcomers like Boone, will be dragged through the mud by yappers like Gary Rosen, Worcester School Committee member Tracy Novick, etc. The Goddard School MCAS test brouhaha was reason enough for Novick – who wants all of Worcester to know she is such a good Catholic – to lead a racially tinged witch hunt.

Mayor O’Brien has backed Boone with passion and grit. Kudos to him!

And finally, Mayor O’Brien has taken a bit of a shelacking from neighborhood activist and InCity Times pal Gary Vecchio. Gary (usually a very nice guy) is not behaving too sweetly these days. He will not let O’Brien forget that during campaign season O’Brien said he was for the lowest residential tax rate – Gary’s hobby horse. This past year, however, after meeting weith biz folks and carefuly considering the city’s future, O’Brien along with a majority of the Worcester City Council, voted to raise Worcesterites’ property taxes a teeny bit. Old people are exempt, really poor people are exempt. But if you are middle class, it means an increase of about 100 bucks or so for you. Some how this has put Gary Veccio over the edge – he won’t let O’Brien forget that HE WENT BACK ON HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE. I wish Gary, who is a great guy, would lighten up and see O’Brien’s move for what it was: a desire to keep Worcester running smoothly during a nasty recession.

So, I guess, Gary and all the blue collar home owners in Worcester are now pissed at O’Brien – or that’s what Gary wants us to think.

Why not think this: O’Brien is not, as the Sunday Telegram stated in its headline, “an enigma.” Mayor Joe O’Brien is TRYING TO LEAD our city in very shaky times. He is asking ALL of us – residents, biz folks, municipal unions – to do our part to keep Worcester great.

Let’s rise to the occasion!

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

And while we’re talking about the Worcester Public Schools …

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By Rosalie Tirella

If the WPS teachers’ union feels its members are underpaid (average salary seems to be about $70,000, with lots of Worcester public school teachers making $80,000+), then our teachers can do what the teachers have done at the New York City charter school I wrote about yesterday. Yes, our teachers can earn $125,000 a year but ONLY if they skip union membership. No unions to protect hacks! If any teacher is underperforming, he/she can be fired – at any time. A new, competent teacher will replace the incompetent one.

Teachers always complain about not making the money their pals make in the private sector. Well, if they want the really big bucks, then they should be willing to embrace the same working conditions as their friends in the private sector: no unions. You make a lot of money only if you are so good at your job that you DESERVE to make a lot of money. The teachers making $100,000 will be truly excellent teachers – doing their jobs so well that they will be deserving of their hefty paychecks.

You do not get $100,000 just because you’ve parked your arse in the same seat behind the same teacher’s desk for 25 years.

Everyone is sick of the way lots of bad – or even average – teachers continue to teach. This doesn’t help our kids – especially our neediest students. For years and years and years due to union protection below average teachers have continued to teach! Many people – including President Obama, a progressive enough fellow – would like to see a merit system in place. If you are a better teacher than the teacher down the hall, you should be making more money than that teacher, regardless of whether your colleague down the hall has been working “in the system” longer than you have.

And let’s not forget: Teachers or anyone who works in municipal government has always known this: You may not make a ton of money working for your city/town, but your benefits will be super and you will have job security. So to scream for more money, a la WPS teachers, is silly.

And finally, we agree with City Council Vice Chairwoman Konnie Lukes: get rid of some of the dead wood at the WPS administration building on Irving Street. Lukes is correct: Let’s not take anything away from the education side of our public schools, but let’s dump some of these “administrative” types who make $80,000 a year and do … very little … or nothing at all.

A case in point: Last week I went to the WPS administration building on Irving Street to find out about a program. I entered the first room I saw. Inside this room: three women at desks. They were just sitting at their desks – doing nothing. Not answering phones, not filling out paperwork, not filing, not entering data into a computer. It was about 2 p.m.

I asked them my question. Could they help me?

No response from these ladies. Then: We don’t know.

And they went back to doing nothing.

So I said I was the owner of InCity Times and then puff! Like magic, they began to use their brains, one of them made a call and then directed me to the right place.

I told this to a friend – a parent whose child used to go to WP school. The parent said: At Irving Street, they don’t want to see adults – they think they are WPS students’ parents. They don’t want parents asking questions.

Let’s dump these useless people on Irving Street and save our city some serious money. Like Lukes says, the City side of local govenment can help handle any overflow (probably not a lot).

InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Unions must be scrutinized

By John J. Foley, Jr.

In a recent issue of InCity Times a writer by the name of “Jack” [editor’s note: NOT Jack Hoffman] tried to convince us that public-sector unions should be spared the kind of sacrifices that the rest of us have to make, that their ‘contracts’ are well-nigh sacrosanct, and that the taxpayers are not being taken for a ride. Perhaps Jack the union hack has not been keeping up with the list of city employees and their immodest pay that this paper has been printing in installments for the last several issues. So far over 700 employees making at least DOUBLE the income of the average worker have been listed. There are undoubtedly more names to follow.

If Jack can get past his pedestrian concern about ‘contracts’ and the legalese crap entwined about them, perhaps he can contemplate concepts such as greed. You see, it is currently fashionable to limit that term to the super-rich. In fact anybody is capable of being greedy and we see it at all levels in society. When people who are being paid a decent living wage continually and consistently demand more money for the same amount of work, regardless of inflation or the impact on the rest of the economy, the only accurate term to describe their demands is ‘greed.’ Continue reading Unions must be scrutinized →