Feel Like a Game of Poker ?

Legend has it that Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, once upon a lean time, made the company payroll on a trip to Las Vegas and saved the company. It appears he still likes to gamble.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would make it easier to unionize FedEx Corp. workers, prompting the company to renew its threat to hold off buying billions of dollars of new planes if the bill becomes law.

I’d call that bluff. More importantly, James Oberstar -- Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure -- did.

It’s all a complicated labor relations subject but the power play is interesting. Don’t lose sight of what is important though. We’ve gone through the period where the right-wingers -- where business is good and government is bad -- were in charge and they wrecked the economy. No environmental regulation, no business regulation and an Administration that was blatantly hostile to unions. You remember the arguments don’t you ? Money will “trickle down” to us peons, profitable companies will take care of their employees and your money is safer being handled by Wall Street than your own Government. Remember ? And if we let those thugs form unions, America as we know it would collapse.

How is that 401k looking ? How about your pay ? Let me guess, you took a hit on your health insurance too (assuming you’re lucky enough to still have any.) Did your union do that or was it the guys telling you how bad unions are that did it ?

By the way, Fred Smith will buy whatever airplanes he wants to buy -- regardless of who makes it. Remember, he started with Falcons made by the French. And the current fleet isn’t real heavy with American airplanes either.

I can’t understand why people think they would be better off without unions. It’s almost as dumb as thinking you’d be better off with no health care than government health care. I hope there are 13.7 million people that are taking a look at just exactly what the cold hard facts really are. Businesses are not in the business of taking care of citizens. That is the government’s “business”. Your government. Your business. Don’t you think it’s time to stop letting businesses mind our business ?

Don Brown
May 24, 2009