Can be found at Blue Oregon

http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/01/seiu-503-releas.html#more

Ranked on their support for some common family issues; namely, health care, job security, retirement. There might (likely to be) more criteria, but that's gotta wait for a web update, it seems.

The comparison is very interesting. Democrats essentially are working on these issues, where the GOP isn't. Could it be that legislating morality / supporting Iraq / dealing with scandals, consumes just a bit of their time? Or could it be they really don't want to work on those issues?

The GOP is more concerned about how they can lower taxes for the weatlhy and cut services for the poor.

If you received an "F" from SEIU, you're doing a great job! Those losers at SEIU are farther to the left than Stalin or Mao.

"If you received an "F" from SEIU, you're doing a great job! "

For Whom?

For the working people, that actually contribute to socciety.

So, If I understand you correctly, there are no members of SEIU, or any other Union for that matter, who contribute to soCCiety?

To the left, up is down and down is up.

In reality, an 'F' on that scorecard is the best grade possible.

Herb

Think hard about what you just wrote, Herb.

You can't make this stuff up.

Look.

I'm all for merit pay. That includes SEIU workers, teachers and most anyone else.

But by jacking up the MANDATORY dollar per hour pay that virtually all workers must receive without regard to training and experience, who gets hit? Joe Lunchbucket, on his way to work to get coffee and an Egg McMuffin.

Herb

Are you saying there should be no mandatory minimum? Does the concept of "slave wages" exist for you? If so, what level would they be at?

So Herb did other Postal Workers get paid more than you did per hour?

"Are you saying there should be no mandatory minimum?"

Minimum wage jobs are entry-level. These are workers who are learning. To give a ham-fisted figure is not the answer. There are simply too many job types. If a Dairy Queen owner doesn't pay enough, no one will work there. You have to remember that employers are competing for workers just as employees compete for work.

I'm for merit pay, in most any situation. However, minimum wage jobs are not intended to be family-wage jobs. These are for people starting out. They are being taught some basic skills which they learn on the job. They are starting a work history and building a resume'.

Besides, if the answer was the minimum wage, why not $100/hour?

Herb

$100 / hour would be too much value in return for the work.

$1 / hour is not enough value for anybody, in return for the work.

$7 / hour is likely close to enough value to make sense.

IMHO, it costs some to just exist, arrive to and travel from work, have clothing, etc... The wage earned needs to at least be something at or more likely, slightly above that.

Here, we've had a higher minimum than seen elsewhere. One thing I've noticed is the fast food prices are largely the same! Those vary more by where the place is located, than they do how much the workers are compensated for their time and energy.

If the compensation is less than that amount of value required to participate in the work, then it's exploitation and it's of no value to us as a whole.

Think about it. Those being compensated at a level less than that required to exist day to day, are gonna either drop off and die, or they will do what it takes to get what they need elsewhere.

That means pulling on services, begging, theft, higher health costs, and other things related to people in severe need.

Really, that's what a minimum is all about, in my mind.

If you think about wages as being compensation, then a minimum makes sense. Pure, unskilled labor, with no value added, should be paid at the minimum as that's due compensation for ones time and energy.

If skill is added, then that person has made an investment that differentiates them from other people, and that's a value add that deserves a return on that investment. That person then gets compensated at a higher rate, with the idea being the more value added to the labor, the greater the return for the employer, which pays for the higher rate right?

Unless there is a good reason for compensating somebody at a level below that required for them to participate, that in and of itself is a very solid justification for a minimum wage.

Also, if that work really cannot be done at that minimum wage, for a profit that makes sense for the investor (employer), then we really don't need that work happening, or innovation needs to occur in order to balance the equation.

That whole pickle is why I've a problem with all the outsourcing going on. It changes the economy balance such that our value expectations are not always in line with the actual value required to realize the product or service!

Maybe somethings are just more expensive than we think they are. Either we don't need them, do need them and can pay more, or we innovate to replace them / scale back costs on them.

We don't make much here any more. Costs have fallen, but so are wages! It's an ugly cycle we have little control over, but the multi-nationals do! Not a good scene for us.

Look at our GDP. It's mostly intellecutal / creative works and financials now, where it used to mostly be manufacturing. That has brought us lower cost expectations, but it has also cost us a lot of family wage jobs. Allowing that cycle to continue really is just bad for us all around.

Adjusting the minimum wage down will only result in more profit. It won't increase buying power / hour worked. It will also increase dependance on foreign goods, leaving us with fewer and fewer solid wage jobs. And the cycle continues...

I agree that outsourcing is a problem and completely disagree with what NAFTA, GATT and the WTO have done to our economy.

Here's the deal. We need to truly open up trade with corrupt governments here in our own hemisphere. Some countries south of our border are run by a handful of families, whilst the average citizen lives on truly meagre rations. Only when our workers can truly compete, is the game no longer rigged.

Herb

...or we don't do much trade with them, and start building wealth here. I prefer we do it here, because those dollars will remain here.

If we are not making things, we really are not adding all that much value in the world. We will suffer as a result of it too.

Wonder why we have all the aggressive IP law pushing going on? It's our big export right now. Nothing wrong with that, but that it's not balanced enough to be longer term viable. Research, engineering and development is being moved off shore too. Only a matter of time before we lose that as we did manufacturing.

That will leave creative works and financials. Not a pretty picture! That's really telling stories and owning stuff.

And that owning stuff is why we have bolstered our military. (wonder how that works, getting our core components from china...)

We need to make stuff here, period. Until we do, we are gonna continue to have problems.

How does wealth get created?

Labor. Labor can be physical, as in making things, or making things that make things. Labor can be mental, as in engineering, process enhancement, etc...

We take raw materials, and that includes ideas, work with them, and create things that were not there before.

Right now, we don't add a lot of value and that's coming home to roost, IMHO. The current wage pressure is a direct result of us simply not building enough wealth to purchase the work of others.

Our choices are to do more of our own work, or live with less. Also, we may well lose our leadership position as those building the most wealth tend to dominate over time.

If you worry about us being in charge, that should be a worry. (it is to me --and makes me seriously wonder about those talks of a American Union, European Style.)

Another aspect. The percentage of foreign owned entities here is growing rapidly. Why? Because our global value is dropping, because we do not build enough wealth for it to be otherwise. Military efforts to deny / control that will be futile in the end.

A nation of buyers can only buy so long.

The wealth that is built here is increasingly going off shore, leaving us without it's benefit here! Not good either.

Think about adding value. If we make lots of things, then there are lots of ways for people to invest in themselves and grow toward higher wages.

Right now, we have simple services as one of our largest growing job sectors. Those jobs used to be manufacturing jobs, that paid a lot more. Nobody had a problem with that, until we opened things up to global markets.

Multi-national companies can exploit the differences between governments for profit. This happens at our expense!

Here's how:

Governments make the rules for business to operate in. The combination of those ends up being markets. The big secret not being talked about is markets are what we say they are.

Markets where there is no regulation period, then exploit people to the max, for profit. Markets with too much regulation, exploit companies to the max, leaving people over compensated and also making it very difficult to accumulate wealth (profit).

Here, we have a balance. Say that's the minimum wage. Another balance is a union. Another is our democratic self-governance.

In China, there are few balances and exploitation runs higher than it does here.

So, making things there costs less because it's ok to exploit at a higher level. That's their rules.

Here, we must live by ours, meaning the moment a market is opened to the outside, that difference in rules means those wanting to produce here must either endure extreme innovation pressure, suffer cost pressure, or quit, or do what the others do; namely, off shore the thing.

Now, those Americans still living here are denied jobs that pay what is necessary to exist here. That's profit at our expense, leveraging the differences in rules between nations.

Over time, as more and more of it goes off shore, we replace those jobs with things that cannot be moved off shore. Sales, services, simple labor, etc...

Follow it out, and we become a nation of people unable to build enough wealth to maintain their standard of living and the entire nation becomes devalued!

Witness the dollar recently, and wonder.

If our government does not work to maintain the necessary balance, we will be exploited for profit, and that's exactly what has happened and that's the significance of this score posted here.

A real life example; namely, mine!

Started out minimum wage. That was $4 per hour. Was enough to just deal with work and myself. Doubled up with others for rent, etc... Just the way it should be.

Over time, I made self investments. Invested my time to build skills and gain understanding. That return was realized by entry into manufacturing jobs.

Did well there, rose quickly, gained a lot of skill, both manual and technical. At that time, living here, there was a wealth of good paying jobs, lots of advancement, etc...

Outsourcing eliminated that.

Seeing the writing on the wall, I made another set of investments, this time focusing on technology, computers, and liberal arts, writing speaking etc...

Stepped off the manufacturing track and onto a technical one.

Now, that's being devalued as again off shore pressure is making it difficult.

Another self investment, this time in people skills to leverage all learned so far. Sales, pre-sales, account management, consulting, etc...

Now guess what?

It's very difficult to outsource me, but it's also very difficult to get people to pay for goods and services being sold and or delivered! Price pressure runs high, and is growing. Few companies here can afford the very services necessary for them to compete with their peers, able to leverage cheap exploitation overseas!

I'm frankly not sure what the next self-investment needs to be, so I'm gonna scale back and simply have less, and that's gonna happen to the vast majority of us, if we continue this path.

Most of my peers have attempted similar moves. Some with success, many without.

A young kid, coming out of school today is gonna go and do what exactly?

During this time, I've seen services grow huge. Lots of little businesses doing basic things. I've not seen great jobs growing, only diminishing, and with them, the pool of people working them.

The balance when I started was mostly better paying jobs, and a strong incentive to do for ones own self. Today, the reverse is true!

We spend out of problems, leverage a lot of credit (well, I don't), and generally are having less buying power per hour than we did before.

Each stage of this can be directly linked to the policy decisions, noted here, favoring the wealthy at our expense.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for any entitlement. When I say scale back, I mean living small --smaller than most, largely because I refuse to leverage credit and use my home as an ATM.

Living within ones means is important. The point I am making is those means are far less for me today, than they were 15 years ago, despite a very serious amount of personal investment, spread out over three career changes!

The dollars earned each year are more than the last, yet they buy less each time. Wage increases, often substantial ones, do not keep up with the rapidly diminishing buying power and that is directly tied to our national value in the world.

They have their wealth, but I don't have my buying power in return!

If you want to live in a scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours, third world environment, continue to support these clowns. Otherwise, we need to seriously examine the changes we've made to our markets and their impact.

That means change and that does not mean GOP at this point. Nor does it mean a lotta Dems either! One thing at a time, though!

Which, again, was the point of this thread in general.

Let me state the obvious . . .

Some on the right moan about crappy teachers and also moan about teachers getting paid too much . . .

Yet we don't see a rush of college kids having a potential of being "better" teachers entering the teaching profession.

The bottom line . . . You get what you pay for. Want to attract better teachers? You gotta pay a heck of a lot more. Me thinks those bitches and moaners will never agree to that.

Have you checked teachers salaries lately? They do pretty good, especially for a job that is only 9 months.

Not the right metric.

Look at their buying power, and their wage increase over time. If you boil that down to buying power / hour worked, they are losing just like most everybody else.

Think about it. We've got inflation happening right now, and our currency is being devalued fairly quickly. Annual wage increases, typical of most employers who grant those, don't come close to matching those two factors combined.

So, raw dollars appear to be growing, but their buying power is diminishing at a higher rate.

That equals a net loss in value for time worked, and that's a growing issue.

Currency devaluation doesn't affect you, unless you buy a lot of products made overseas, buy American!

"Currency devaluation doesn't affect you, unless you buy a lot of products made overseas"

Like gas.

Agreed, wherever possible buy American, or even better, buy LOCAL.

Every dollar spent at Walmart or Target buys another nail for the coffin of the economy.

Currency devaluation affects everybody.

Totally agreed on the buy American part, and buying local. All good.

Have you looked at your options lately? Buying American is not so easily done, and given the wage pressure, costly!

And gas, coming from overseas, impacts just about everything. Your food, basics for the house, clothing, and other core things all are seeing the impact of higher overall energy prices. All of that stuff, given it's not actually produced close enough to matter, gets shipped somewhere and that shipping cost is growing nicely right now.

The reality is we have an overseas component in nearly everything! That means currency matters are impacting everyone, and that goes right back to buying power / hour worked. Most everybody is losing right now, despite raw dollar increases.

"Have you checked teachers salaries lately? They do pretty good, especially for a job that is only 9 months."

Lets put a teachers workday into perspective. First off you got over crowded classrooms, meaning 28-32 kids average. Best case for teachers is 18-22 students.

Depending on the age group you're going to have constant interruptions that takes time away from class time, which takes away from prep time for teachers.

Plus the obvious is they are teaching our kids. Go almost anywhere else in the world and teachers, especially those from the US who teach overseas, are worshiped and in many cases given almost everything they need to teach. Including salaries that are pretty decent.

You can't look at teachers working only 9 months; you are forgetting the work they take home as well. correcting tests, personal prep time before and after school. Many times teachers are at school for almost a week after classes get out and two weeks before classes start.

Herb answer the question if you are all for merit pay, did you ever have a job where your wage was deceided 100% based on merit?

Mine is. And I like it that way.

And, I'd be totally up for merit pay for teachers if they could have way to gauge the merit. The problem is how to do this and still maintain consistent guidelines that are fair to all teachers no matter what school.

"...did you ever have a job where your wage was deceided 100% based on merit?"

Yup. I also have had jobs that were entry level. I can see both sides.

Herb

nwokie sez: "Have you checked teachers salaries lately? They do pretty good, especially for a job that is only 9 months."

Yet, it isn't enough to attract "better" teachers. "Merit" pay will have to be higher than this. And pity the kids in a class with a teacher not getting high merit pay. He/she will be even more likely not to give a damn having no job security.

Again, "merit pay" is an unworkable soundbite primarily from people not wanting to pay teachers what they're really worth. Fortunately, voters have time and time again told them to F off.

ps: truly bad teachers can and do get fired. Anti-union folks keep forgetting to mention this.

The "nine month" work year for teachers is a total myth. Chris made some great points and also touched on the extra time spent before and after school. I will leave the details to Edselehr, but my understanding is that they have only a handful of weeks off like any other working Joe.

I love how folks attack teachers unions, and seldom make a peep about unions for law enforcement. In Multnomah County we have a Sheriff who pads overtime for years, but the Portland Public Schools are the problem? This is simply backwards thinking. Education is the best anti-crime tool ever invented.

To return to topic, I love how it reads like a golf scorecard. While looking at the ties for #82, I saw nine legislators who must have flown a barstool from Dorchester to Salem. As Bob Slydell would say -- "So, uh... Tom... what exactly do you do here?"

I'm surprised that nobody asked about the methodology used to rate the legislators. What are the metrics??

To Herb:

Since when are postal workers paid on merit pay?

If they're not, then they should be.
That would include quality, not necessarily only quantity. For example, if they keep delivering plenty of mail to the wrong address in a timely manner, that's not much help.

Herb

From the O today;

"Inflation Eats Away Buying Power".

Its odd that the troll would blast postal workers -- a source for rare like-thinking allies.

Classic leftist thought: Merit pay is bad.

Pay good employees more and cut the slackers loose.

Union thugs need not apply.

Herb

Classic rightist thought: Confuse and distract.

If I didn't like the truth, I'd try to defend the indefensible, too.

Herb

Herb, merit pay doesn't work for all industries. There has to be a way to grade merit, and I'm afraid that nobody to date has come up with a fair system to grade teachers and yet keep the playing field even between schools. Demographics play a big part in a school's success, and this is not something that a teacher can overcome.

So if merit pay doesn't work, how does one handle those with poor job performance?

Fire them?

Merit pay is actually more humane, because it has a redemptive approach. Improve and you'll be rewarded.

Herb Huckabee

To the EXTREME RIGHT, ANYONE ELSE and left is WRONG and EXTREME right is RIGHT....

The HUCKster is toast!

Uh, okay, Trixter.

President Huckabee aside, care to weigh in on the topic...or are you simply going to ham-fist everything?

Herb

I'm TRIPLE HAMMIN' it tonight baby!

President HUCKster....

LOL!

Unless the DUHbya and Co. steamroller comes out and starts trashing all the other Repubs on the ticket like they did McCain in 2000 then the HUCKster is TOAST!

Meaningful "merit increases" in the jobs we have left in this country are the very last thing you'll see on most of today's P&L reports. Labor is typically the biggest controllable budget item, and Corp always wants it lower so the bottom line is higher...especially in service industries like Food & Beverage and Retail.

Getting back to teachers and merit pay, how does one measure improvement and how will the measurement process maintain fairness between schools and school districts?

My measurement is dollars. Teachers don't generate dollars.

"...how does one measure improvement and how will the measurement process maintain fairness between schools and school districts?"

A fair question. I believe Edselehr, if prompted, might provide us some guidance here, even if he might have an admittedly vested interest, and therefore arguably be a potential 'hostile witness.'

Have at it, Edselehr. Help us out, here, guy.

Herb