4 ms·

How many of IL's former Governors are in prison?

danharaj 11y ago
I always have difficulty understanding how the people who do all the work and make none of the decisions are always to blame, and the people who make all of the decisions and do none of the work always avoid blame in the public discourse. Now, that's a very crude and strictly incorrect observation, but to me it seems perceptions have been heavily skewed against labor for a very long time.
- bsder 11y ago
  > it seems perceptions have been heavily skewed against labor for a very long time. The young never believe that one day, they too, will be old. Okay, youngsters, enjoy the world you got by dismantling things like seniority. Suddenly, now, everybody is complaining about age discrimination. I wonder why?
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Seniority by itself doesn't mean anything... if I can be mildly affective at a job, and the environment changes, and I don't keep up, why should I be given preference... I understand cross/retraining and maintaining talent and those with deep domain knowledge... all of that has value. But that all depends on the needs within a given environment. That said, it's hard to make 30-40% more than your entry-level peers when you do have both knowledge and experience on your side... even if the value you provide is far beyond what a potential employeer is looking for.
    - bsder 11y ago
      > if I can be mildly affective at a job, and the environment changes, and I don't keep up, why should I be given preference... Seniority and firing are two different things. Seniority kicks in when there are layoffs. You have to lay the younger people off first. This prevents management from using "layoffs" to suddenly reduce their salaries by swapping out all younger people for all older people. Firing is available at any age. However, the union will force you to DOCUMENT it. The problem is that management almost never wants to document things because it invariably makes management look bad--their demands look silly, the historical record is against them, end users love the person they are attempting to fire, etc. The reason for this is that the number of people actually being fired for being grossly incompetent/work hazard/etc. is dwarfed by the number of people management is trying to fire for political reasons. Yeah, you all have apocryphal stories of the youngsters being disadvantaged. I have real stories of being part of strikes, the abuse companies used to try to push people out before they could get their full retirement benefits, reassignment of roles to abuse someone for speaking out about dangerous conditions, etc. And, those of you who suggest that lawyers are the answer have never actually sued someone. I have. And won. It would have been more profitable for me to lose if it had happened 3 years earlier. The law is expensive and slow.
      - fennecfoxen 11y ago
        > you all have apocryphal stories of the youngsters being disadvantaged. The big disadvantage is for youngsters is being utterly unemployed. Notice that in places like highly-unionized France youth unemployment is something like 25%+. That's not apocryphal, that's we-got-tons-of-data.
        bsder 11y ago
        And in the US we're finding the same percentages as older workers replace younger workers in jobs like food services that traditionally employed younger kids. We also have lots of stories of H1-B's replacing workers even in the youthful age brackets. That's the sort of thing that seniority rules also prevent. It ain't unions causing the problems. You would do well to cogitate on the real causes instead of just swallowing the anti-union propaganda.
        VanillaLime 11y ago
        The youth unemployment rate in the US is around 10 percent. I'd say a two and a half times difference is pretty significant. Would you rather move to San Francisco or Paris straight out of college? Which you do think has better career prospects? Do you think that has anything to do with the extreme difficulty of hiring and firing workers in France?
        bsder 11y ago
        Yet, if I look here: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7197743/3-01032016-AP-EN.pdf/d91b795a-f165-4a39-a961-1ae07d6c4b13 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7197743/3-010... One of the most unionized countries (Germany) has one of the lowest unemployment rates. So, apparently the issue isn't unions. > Would you rather move to San Francisco or Paris straight out of college? Unfortunately, THAT ISN'T AN OPTION. Immigration policies specifically block the ability to do that. And, personally, if I did have the option, I suspect going to Berlin and joining the union is the best option.
        11y ago
  - maxxxxx 11y ago
    We have created a system where for a lot of people there really is no clear path to retirement. As engineer some time in your 40s your market value goes down to the level of often not being employable (yes there are exceptions). That together with wage stagnation and no defined pensions leads to a lot of people having a very uncertain future. Unless you make it big as executive, in the stock market or ride the real estate bubble you are in bad shape getting older. For regular income earners the best and secure path to retirement is a unionized job where you get a defined pension.
    - mjevans 11y ago
      Which was actually the thing that employees cut even before I entered the workforce. I distinctly remember that my dad was on the declining wave of such benefits being cut from the company he was working for. It seems like for the programs that were pre-funded over the years those retirement funds either got lost in stock market declines or were otherwise raided for various non-retirement reasons (usually by the company or through cutting benefits and freeing that stored resource); in other cases I can easily see it having been 'funded' the same way 'Social Security' was 'funded' (assume eternal expansion, pay for today's retired with today's income). I think the appeal of Basic Income Guarantee ideas is not just how effective experiments show them to be, but that it replaces 'retirement' and all sorts of other social safety nets with one solution that's a lot more streamlined. It turns all of the other fraud problems in to tax enforcement and tracking, which thanks to credit cards, the average consumer already gladly agrees to.
      - Spooky23 11y ago
        Basic income is like the Ron Paul of HN. Pensions are too unsustainable, but we're gong to magically pay a wage to everyone. Good luck with that.
        maxxxxx 11y ago
        10 bonus points for "Ron Paul of HN"!!! That's funny.
        11y ago
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Okay, youngsters, enjoy the world you got by dismantling things like seniority. When did "youngsters" do that? They all got the short end. Some people in previous generations did too, but they'll find more likely culprits in the mirror.
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  > the people who do all the work and make none of the decisions are always to blame A union is NOT just a bunch of ordinary hardworking employees with no power. A union also has a leadership apparatus, and for the larger unions this can be huge, with dozens of full-time employees. Such leadership apparatus may use the union dues that they collect to engage in extensive lobbying efforts, especially when it's a government employees union. If that's the case the unions' campaign contributions are at least as much to blame as, say, an arbitrary corporation or billionaire with similar spending volumes. Or if we want to talk "prison" specifically we could talk about the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa's organized crime ties. > it seems perceptions have been heavily skewed against labor for a very long time. Just recently I came across a curious article estimating that some astonishingly low percentage of US union members (<10% IIRC) had actually ever voted in favor of the union that they're in. I wonder if there are relevancy issues. (Certainly any tenure-based organization has some amount of relevancy issues with younger members.)
  - calibraxis 11y ago
    Right-wing unions aren't the only kind. Take the IWW, which is quite anarchist: "They are known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers elect their managers and other forms of grassroots democracy (self-management) are implemented. IWW membership does not require that one work in a represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor union." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...) Obviously, corporations and governments support right-wing unions. Which they then attack after successfully coopting any threat of workplace democracy.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    If you want to talk about Hoffa and organized crime ties, why don't we talk about strikebusters, many of whom were cops? Hell, why don't we talk about Enron, or any number of companies who have committed crimes? I guarantee that if you tried to compare corruption done by unions and that done by corporations, corporations would have more by a landslide.
    - 11y ago

I always have difficulty understanding how the people who do all the work and make none of the decisions are always to blame, and the people who make all of the decisions and do none of the work always avoid blame in the public discourse. Now, that's a very crude and strictly incorrect observation, but to me it seems perceptions have been heavily skewed against labor for a very long time.

bsder 11y ago
> it seems perceptions have been heavily skewed against labor for a very long time. The young never believe that one day, they too, will be old. Okay, youngsters, enjoy the world you got by dismantling things like seniority. Suddenly, now, everybody is complaining about age discrimination. I wonder why?
- tracker1 11y ago
  Seniority by itself doesn't mean anything... if I can be mildly affective at a job, and the environment changes, and I don't keep up, why should I be given preference... I understand cross/retraining and maintaining talent and those with deep domain knowledge... all of that has value. But that all depends on the needs within a given environment. That said, it's hard to make 30-40% more than your entry-level peers when you do have both knowledge and experience on your side... even if the value you provide is far beyond what a potential employeer is looking for.
  - bsder 11y ago
    > if I can be mildly affective at a job, and the environment changes, and I don't keep up, why should I be given preference... Seniority and firing are two different things. Seniority kicks in when there are layoffs. You have to lay the younger people off first. This prevents management from using "layoffs" to suddenly reduce their salaries by swapping out all younger people for all older people. Firing is available at any age. However, the union will force you to DOCUMENT it. The problem is that management almost never wants to document things because it invariably makes management look bad--their demands look silly, the historical record is against them, end users love the person they are attempting to fire, etc. The reason for this is that the number of people actually being fired for being grossly incompetent/work hazard/etc. is dwarfed by the number of people management is trying to fire for political reasons. Yeah, you all have apocryphal stories of the youngsters being disadvantaged. I have real stories of being part of strikes, the abuse companies used to try to push people out before they could get their full retirement benefits, reassignment of roles to abuse someone for speaking out about dangerous conditions, etc. And, those of you who suggest that lawyers are the answer have never actually sued someone. I have. And won. It would have been more profitable for me to lose if it had happened 3 years earlier. The law is expensive and slow.
    - fennecfoxen 11y ago
      > you all have apocryphal stories of the youngsters being disadvantaged. The big disadvantage is for youngsters is being utterly unemployed. Notice that in places like highly-unionized France youth unemployment is something like 25%+. That's not apocryphal, that's we-got-tons-of-data.
      - bsder 11y ago
        And in the US we're finding the same percentages as older workers replace younger workers in jobs like food services that traditionally employed younger kids. We also have lots of stories of H1-B's replacing workers even in the youthful age brackets. That's the sort of thing that seniority rules also prevent. It ain't unions causing the problems. You would do well to cogitate on the real causes instead of just swallowing the anti-union propaganda.
        VanillaLime 11y ago
        The youth unemployment rate in the US is around 10 percent. I'd say a two and a half times difference is pretty significant. Would you rather move to San Francisco or Paris straight out of college? Which you do think has better career prospects? Do you think that has anything to do with the extreme difficulty of hiring and firing workers in France?
        bsder 11y ago
        Yet, if I look here: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7197743/3-01032016-AP-EN.pdf/d91b795a-f165-4a39-a961-1ae07d6c4b13 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7197743/3-010... One of the most unionized countries (Germany) has one of the lowest unemployment rates. So, apparently the issue isn't unions. > Would you rather move to San Francisco or Paris straight out of college? Unfortunately, THAT ISN'T AN OPTION. Immigration policies specifically block the ability to do that. And, personally, if I did have the option, I suspect going to Berlin and joining the union is the best option.
        11y ago
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  We have created a system where for a lot of people there really is no clear path to retirement. As engineer some time in your 40s your market value goes down to the level of often not being employable (yes there are exceptions). That together with wage stagnation and no defined pensions leads to a lot of people having a very uncertain future. Unless you make it big as executive, in the stock market or ride the real estate bubble you are in bad shape getting older. For regular income earners the best and secure path to retirement is a unionized job where you get a defined pension.
  - mjevans 11y ago
    Which was actually the thing that employees cut even before I entered the workforce. I distinctly remember that my dad was on the declining wave of such benefits being cut from the company he was working for. It seems like for the programs that were pre-funded over the years those retirement funds either got lost in stock market declines or were otherwise raided for various non-retirement reasons (usually by the company or through cutting benefits and freeing that stored resource); in other cases I can easily see it having been 'funded' the same way 'Social Security' was 'funded' (assume eternal expansion, pay for today's retired with today's income). I think the appeal of Basic Income Guarantee ideas is not just how effective experiments show them to be, but that it replaces 'retirement' and all sorts of other social safety nets with one solution that's a lot more streamlined. It turns all of the other fraud problems in to tax enforcement and tracking, which thanks to credit cards, the average consumer already gladly agrees to.
    - Spooky23 11y ago
      Basic income is like the Ron Paul of HN. Pensions are too unsustainable, but we're gong to magically pay a wage to everyone. Good luck with that.
      - maxxxxx 11y ago
        10 bonus points for "Ron Paul of HN"!!! That's funny.
      - 11y ago
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Okay, youngsters, enjoy the world you got by dismantling things like seniority. When did "youngsters" do that? They all got the short end. Some people in previous generations did too, but they'll find more likely culprits in the mirror.
fennecfoxen 11y ago
> the people who do all the work and make none of the decisions are always to blame A union is NOT just a bunch of ordinary hardworking employees with no power. A union also has a leadership apparatus, and for the larger unions this can be huge, with dozens of full-time employees. Such leadership apparatus may use the union dues that they collect to engage in extensive lobbying efforts, especially when it's a government employees union. If that's the case the unions' campaign contributions are at least as much to blame as, say, an arbitrary corporation or billionaire with similar spending volumes. Or if we want to talk "prison" specifically we could talk about the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa's organized crime ties. > it seems perceptions have been heavily skewed against labor for a very long time. Just recently I came across a curious article estimating that some astonishingly low percentage of US union members (<10% IIRC) had actually ever voted in favor of the union that they're in. I wonder if there are relevancy issues. (Certainly any tenure-based organization has some amount of relevancy issues with younger members.)
- calibraxis 11y ago
  Right-wing unions aren't the only kind. Take the IWW, which is quite anarchist: "They are known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers elect their managers and other forms of grassroots democracy (self-management) are implemented. IWW membership does not require that one work in a represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor union." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl...) Obviously, corporations and governments support right-wing unions. Which they then attack after successfully coopting any threat of workplace democracy.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  If you want to talk about Hoffa and organized crime ties, why don't we talk about strikebusters, many of whom were cops? Hell, why don't we talk about Enron, or any number of companies who have committed crimes? I guarantee that if you tried to compare corruption done by unions and that done by corporations, corporations would have more by a landslide.
  - 11y ago