What will it take to get the working class people of the United States get employed and paid correctly again?

Question

I want to know what it will take to help the people that are the foundation of most companies in the United States to reap the benefits of their hard work for companies that give the CEOs bonuses and raises when employees thae paycuts and benefits cuts. How are employees able to make ends meet? CEOs live in glass houses and look down on working Americans who make them rich. I work for Northwest Airlines as a Flight Attendant and want to know if the judges that suppose to help negoiate our contract sleep with the company that we are against.

Answer 1

You are absolutely right. This whole administration is in bed with corporations. And health care costs are so great because HMO's are paid multi-million dollar salaries. Multiply that by 470 some in NJ.

GM pays no taxes and gets a rebate! Why! Because their multi-million dollar officers are not competent enough to manage a company!

Bush gives the top 1% two tax cuts. Trickle down doesn't work. Just ask David Stockman!!

Good thing they aren't Supreme Court judges who gave Bush the election in 2000!! You would really get screwed! Figuratively!!

I used to be married to a flight attendant who flew for US Air. I remember quite clearly when they began the 2 tier system for attendants. I would have been ripped!

And if my recollection serves me right, they make no distinction where you are stationed, you get the same money. You can't live in NY on a flight attendants pay. You are also paid only while in the air ! Am I right? Five legs a day is a bit much!!

When a company is as bad off as they say, and workers have been taking cuts, some were voluntary, how can your execs get the bread they get. I don't know how they justify it. I would be too ashamed to take that much!!

Don't compare actors with people who are not in the entertainment business. How is someone producing when 48 corporations PAID NO TAX AT ALL!!

How anyone can justify a 168 Million dollar salary or a 12 Million dollar bonus while they raise rates for premium holders and deny benefits?

That actor parallel was a joke! That's what is wrong with this country! What person who hits a damn baseball is worth 60 Million dollars, but a social worker with a masters is worth $35,000??

And Lonnie, that is only part of it! You left out shipping jobs overses and outsourcing!

Or, how about this: This is how workers get screwed!


Texas Co. Hired Illegals to Make MREs

McALLEN, Texas, Oct. 28, 2005
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(AP) A Texas employment agency was sentenced to five years of probation for hiring illegal immigrants to work at the nation's top producer of military battlefield rations, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The Tollin Group was also fined $20,000 and ordered to pay $414,000 in civil penalties Wednesday. It has been barred from Department of Defense contracts for three years.

The San Antonio-based company, which does business as Remedy Intelligent Staffing, pleaded guilty in January to hiring illegal immigrants and trying to cover it up by falsifying employment eligibility forms. The workers were hired for Wornick Co., which makes MREs _ or "meals ready-to-eat."

The investigation was initiated in February 2003 after an al-Qaida operative was arrested with information pointing to McAllen and Wornick as terrorist targets. Wornick had been awarded a $47 million contract to produce more than 1.1 million MREs for U.S. forces in Iraq.

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force ran background checks on Wornick employees and found hundreds of temporary employees with fraudulent documentation.

No direct link to terrorism was found.

MMV The Associated Press.

47 Million to make 1.1 million MRE's! And paying slave labor to boot while putting a few hunderd American's out of work!

You think companies gives a rats a__!! Not as log as they can drive thar 750 BMW home that is a tax write-off!!

Answer 2

I have a little bit of an issue with this kind of question.
It is not our issue on how much or how little anyone makes. If they made thier deal and they get whatever they get paid, why should we complain? It may be you one day making large sums of cash.

Where my biggest problem is, is this:
I hear the Hollywood Liberals complain about this very same subject. CEO's making 300 times what an average employee makes.
My Answers, generally: A CEO is responsible for the well being of a company. To make sure that the most is made by the product or services that they render. Including Research and Development for more products so that more money is made by the company. Nobel Goal and one that is a very difficult one at that. Most of the time, MOST CEO's work from daylight till past dark. They dont get overtime, but they do get bonus' for performing better then the stockholders are expecting.
Hollywood has YET to complain about the actors who make MILLIONS per FILM that they perform in. They are not responsible for anything more then performing correctly and getting thier faces out so that more people will watch a certain film. Most CEO's do not make but 1/10 of a popular hollywood actor's per film take. The amount of CEO's who actually take home any real major money are about the same as the popular Actor and acresses. You tell me. Why do they not pay a KEY Grip, which is one of the hardest jobs on scene the big cash? Or the people supplying food to the acting groups? Or even the photographer??
Because those people are not the main bread winners of the acting corporations. They are support.
No different then a Corporation. The CEO is the one who makes the mold form. The workers are support structures for it all.

Spell check was broke. Hope I did not screw up on spelling too bad.

Answer 3

Yes, there are plenty of problems here in the US. And the US airline industry is in real trouble. We don't have the luxury that most airline companies do (being subsidized by their governments). If a company is doing badly, and their CEOs are still overpaid, then it is the stockholders who are the fools. While we whine about CEO pay, no one seems to flinch when second rate actors make 20 million per movie. That money comes out of your pocket too!

I agree that some CEOs run their companies like kingdoms and deserve their comeuppance (e.g. Enron), but by and large, the pay for top level executives is very high around the world, and they are paid based on the value to shareholders they provide.

It's not a perfect system, but at least we are free.

Answer 4

We live in a market society - people are paid the exact amount it takes to attract them to their jobs. When the companies cannot find an adequate workforce to complete the work as it is designed, then changes will be made to see that productivity goals are met. The real problem is that companies cannot divine the future, and know where and when to train and deploy new technologies when and where they are needed. CEO's are nothing but managers, tasked to accomplish the goals of the company. True, at times they may be in control of determining which goals and their reward for accomplishing the mark, but it is the nature of corporate America that we are in this rat race. Nothing will change until we take a serious look at our own faults.

Answer 5

You want to know the truth? Nothing short of Revolution will change the power structure in the US.

And there's precedent for it. The French and Russian Revolutions, and many otehrs, came about after a gradual elimination of the middle class. As the middle class disappears, most members drop to the lower classes while a lucky few rise to the upper classes, once the split between the halves is nearly complete, revolution often occurs and the leaders are overthrown by the "revolding masses". We can't believe something like that can happed in America, but it's happened here once before, and only a few hundred years ago.

Answer 6

People should refuse to work for such companies.

I will not work for an organization unless I am rewarded for my true contribution to the company's success.

If enough people did what I do, those companies we hate will be forced to increase wages in order to obtain any reliable labour.

Answer 7

As long as our system of politics costs obscene amounts of money to achieve public office then the holders of these offices will be beholden to the people who put them there. Until there is campaign finance reform nothing else will happen.

Answer 8

It will take them "humility."