Perrigo Factory Workers Strike Over Wages

Memo to workers:

New York state has a 10% unemployment rate. Many would love the chance to work for $8.50/hour.

I suggest you put on your shoes, get off the Laz-Y-Boy, fill out an application at Mickey D's, or go back to your country of origin.

America, love it or leave it.

@OII: Unionized workers built the middle class in this country. Weekends, overtime, family & medical leave and safe working conditions are all thanks to the tireless efforts of generations of workers. I suggest you take you pampered, privileged, arrogant, know-nothing self and move someplace that welcomes your kind of stupid. America, love it or leave it. Loser.

Better get your comments in quick, Elmer. By the time of your next post union membership will be zero. Why did yesterday's labor report show increasing productivity in the face of declining union membership? You can answer that one. I like to brag on the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the least unionized. I'd even pay a bonus to any union scab that crossed the picket line. Someday all fifty states will have right to work laws. Unions are an anachronism unless you favor public school principals making quarter of a mil/year and fat cops taking in 130K$ for sitting in Dunkin Donuts. Maybe the Billybobs in Buttcrack, USA don't larn them things in your one room schoolhouse.

@oii - smiths, guilds, masonic lodges, etc etc etc have been around probably since cavemen got together to take out enough predators at the watering hole. Meaning, "labor" organizes and re-organizes itself over and over again and that is not going to stop.

I think "right to work" - Orwellian crap-speak for SLAVERY - was replaced by "right to OWN your work" after a bloody war on USA soil. Push hard enough and it will happen again - the war to have the right to OWN your work.

As for who is more "corrupt" - unions or borg unimatrix derivative generating financial engineers? - well, once again that is just a p-ssing match too stupid to engage in since I'm sure there's room left on both sides to find a new low.

Unions are a joke in 2012. No wonder the "gov'ment" had to bail out GM. The dunderheads working for the GM were grossly overpaid for the type of work they did.

Yep, and Obama Motors stock price is so depressed that the company can't sell its shares at a profit so that it will be able to pay back YOU and ME, the United States taxpayers the $38 BILLION it owes us. All the while guys like Richard Trumka feeding his fat freaking face while lining his pockets with union money. Jimmy Hoffa would be proud of this thug as well as Jimmy Jr.

My father, who was an exec in textiles, used to talk about the ways the big cos. in the South (and some in the North) used racism as a way to keep workers from organizing. E.g., "You know, if y'all form a union, y'all will have to work with all those N's."

It worked. "Right-to-work" North Carolina is, in some respects, descended from those days.

And, of course, this doesn't even touch the pitched battles in which troops were called in to mow down organizers in KY, WVA, etc.

So it's probably true. Busting unions is great for white guys with guns.

JiM, please tell me what alternative did the white guys running GM have other than calling in the Detroid PD when When Hoffa et al set the Detroit Wheel Factory on fire? Wasn't it Henry Ford who paid these guys well enough so that they could afford to buy the cars they made?

So far as I can see most of the muscle in organized labor is lily white. They are the ones who have strongarmed the minorities into believing that the unions would offer a better way of life.

I visited the Nissan auto plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, a while back. Highly racially diverse. Competitive wages (untilrecently 50% of union scale). Nissan Smyrna workers have repeatedly rejected unionization when the UAW tried to unionize the plant.

It was the combination of Walter Reuther and FDR that started the long road to what now ranks the US as 16t most competitive in the world. Will take a long time to reverse the damage that the those two inflicted on this country. It is starting already, thank God, with the knee jerk voters in their 80's and 90's who are croaking on a daily basis on the lush fairways of South Florida and being replaced by a sensible younger crowd. We've got the young kids covered since they are largely historically ignorant and never heard of the New Deal or FDR. Just give them a new xbox and they'll vote any way you want.

OII-Obviously, these issues are too complex to have a genuine discussion here. But here are some bits:

--the corruption in big labor has more or less paralleled the corruption in big biz and in other institutions that have a lot of power to hide behind (everything from Penn State to the Catholic church).

--No doubt we differ on who, in general, has too much power and how they handle it. As a union member, what I have seen essentially no relationship between who are the most competent, committed, honorable, and productive workers--people who often got shafted before we had a union. Getting shafted had many causes--personal grudges, competition, capriciousness, or (most common) just being in the way of someone else's power play/ploy to suck up to the powers above them. Our members are protected from at least some of these random acts of exploitation.

--When people feel less vulnerable and their work lives are more predictable (not immune and not not-accountable) a lot of other things follow: better health outcomes (few sick days); greater creativity; more loyalty to their work and institutions; more likely to work in the interest of people other than themselves (their personal "survival").

Point taken. However I disagree on one point. I have always been an "at will" employee. I could be fired at any time for any reason. When you introduced the word "predictable" my response is to introduce the words "job security ad infinatun, complacency, and lack of motivation". Where is the impetus to work hard when you know where your next twenty years worth of meals are coming from? I'd probably work less hard if I had a union job too.

What is the greatest motivating factor for striving and advancement?

FEAR. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.

Unions played an important role in American history. They helped improve working conditions/safety in the workplace, and ensured a fair wage was paid to laborers. These were noble pursuits during the industrial revolution, at a time when there was no oversight of employers.

Today, things are very different. We have a mandatory minimum wage, and extensive regulations surrounding workplace safety. Most importantly, these regulations are monitored and enforced by federal and state agencies.

With government oversight of these issues, there is no need for unions anymore. Furthermore, because of the lack of competition/motivation, they do create an environment of complacency, which reduces output.

re: motivation, I have no certain job security in my union-negotiated contract. If I mess up, I can be canned. And, indeed, there are a number of other conditions, that have nothing to do with performance, that could lead to my being canned.

Still, predictability is relative, and having at least grievance procedures in place has made a big difference for some of my colleagues who are as competent and dedicated as anyone at this institution.

And trying to avoid sentimentality, what motivates me is that I love what I do, believe in its importance, and know it has made a positive difference in a lot of lives. It is definitely not for the moolah. You'd be very surprised, I think, how little the moolah is (even with a CV full of "merit badges")!

Training and mentoring - basically education - are the most valuable functions in society that true "unions of workers" provided over the course of HUMAN history.

The chain of civilization has been broken because knowledge is not being passed on to the people who have passed the tests - welding and tool and die craftsman are the most immediate examples that come to mind. There is a surgeon's level of hand-eye skill involved in a lot of the "manufacturing" that is necessary to stay competitive (robots, energy infrastructures, water, farming, etc). We have about 3 decades worth of youth that have organized themselves into nihilistic and predatory GANGS who have no skills or education in managing the infrastructure of cities or the coordination of goods distribution (food, energy) across the whole country. You have 50 years olds who can't hold on much longer with 12 hour days keeping the "machine" running for millions. Truth. One of those people are in the family - 5 licenses to operate every type of energy supply. Without a workers union structure to mentor and educate - there is no supply of people who are competent to take over a good, LIFE LONG job. I think dealing, alone, with making sure over 70,000 volts don't short-circuit next door to the hospital that uses the electricity is worth a little more than minimum wage, "right to work" fear bs, and theoretical pontificating about a worthless public education system run by a worthless government. Everyone's a critic...

Which goes back to what Justice noted - the "fraud" infected everyone at once. Great greed is always followed by great violence.

I would rather see a rise of the weldors, so to speak, in the 'hood other than another hooligan wannabe drug/slave/war lord "leader" taking over shaking everyone down for "protection" money via his cell phone and parading around like a peacock "inked" over every part of his visible body. Losing 3 generations to nihilistic and predatory practices is bye-bye Ms. AmericanPie. They ain't "building" nothin'....

Yeah, worker's unions destroyed "our way of life"...next fiction...?

JiM, you need to get tenure so that you will become entitled to 30 years of non teaching, unproductive research, and filling your days sitting on committees to deny tenure to promising assprofs so that you can perpetuate your career in academia.

Drove my Chevy to the levee but it broke down because it was made by a union worker.

My Chevy is doing great. Truly! Who made your beamer?

I deliberately chose a non-tenure route because I do a lot of things besides teaching/research and, frankly, to be a full-time academic was never my idea of a good time, for some of the reasons you suggest.

But "even" tenured folks have less immunity than I think you assume, at least in universities. And many of them are creating unions too.

Isn't a union just an expression of the right of assembly and working toward collective goals--just as businesses do (as opposed to everyone in, say, marketing being a "free agent" and figuring out their promo plan on their own?).

Likewise, collective bargaining does NOT mean that some kind of immunity from accountability is insured or even asked for. That's why it's called "bargaining"--there are many possible outcomes.

The answer: GMC

Given the perks of being a university professor, at least from the outside, I fail to see how the AAUP could make life any better for an academic. You might be able to convince me.

However, where I absolutely draw the line is where graduate students have sought to unionize. Being a grad student is by definition one step above slavery and one step below indentured servitude. The mantra in the biological sciences is that unless you have spent 5-7 years killing 5000-7000 rats you haven't paid your entry fee to join the "Community of Scholars".

They've already dumbed down the masters programs by offering a "non thesis alternative" to get an MS. Mostly taking more of the same courses that failed to prepare you adequately for your orals in the first place (so that the school can sop up more of your money at $1500/credit hour), and in the process denying you entrance to that sacred community and relegating you to the status of PhD student dropout James Holmes (hopefully minus the weaponry)

As Cronkite said, "that's the way it is".

Note to self - schedule a marathon watching PBS's series "Inspector Lewis". He always gets the professor.

I can hear the fingers typing away to access the official talking points against PBS funding....there goes the "cut and paste" feature...

3-2-1....

ya got nutin' - sure the site wasn't hacked? Official talking points sound like a Colbert skit...

"...drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry and good ol' boyz were drinking whiskey and rye singing, "...this will be the day that I die...""

Doesn't look like any BBB molecule works against "delusional"...

Don't be too hard on non-thesis MS programs. They are geared toward people who work full time as opposed to those who want to be an academic. They certainly are far better than the ultimate bullshit degree, the MBA. I have yet to meet anyone with an MBA who knows their ass from a whole in the ground.

MC I was referring actually to failed PhD candidates in the biomedical sciences who get their "terminal" MS degree because they have 1) failed their orals, 2) did not cut their thesis advisor's lawn to the desired length, 3) let the lab coffee pot run dry to many times, 4) failed to complement the portly wife of the advisor on her stunning good looks, 5) failed too many times to bring the lab advisor exactly what he wanted on his pizza, 6) failed to change the HPLC columns once/week, 7) failed to polish the advisor's car to a high mirror shine, and most egregious of all failed to insert the lingual speculum into the advisor's chocolate starfish deeply enough to give him the Big O.

All of which are good arguments for grad student unions. They work. Sometimes all goes well. Sometimes they get shafted. The have a right to organize in defense of shared interests.

It's not about Ph.D. versus not, btw. Plenty of Ph.D's like me who pursue multiple careers which include university teaching.

Thanks JiM. In the sciences the average age at which the PhD is awarded has increased from 27 to 32 years since since I got mine. Maybe we were just too young and stupid to organize. This us a pretty big age shift since it basically cuts five years off your lifetime earnings. Grad student work is a long lonely slog to the end. Never had time enough to socialize and learn what interests were "shared". Here's my take. The term "abuse" when I was in school pertained to physical acts of abuse. Unlike today nobody talked about "emotional abuse" and I see grad student abusive as a logical extension of this concept. That might underlie some of this organizing activity, at least in my mind.

I came across a few versus from the anthem of the CGEU (Coalition of Graduate Employees Unions).

From the song "Solidarity Forever":

"Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, For the union makes us strong...

"Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite, Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?

"Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?

For the union makes us strong.

"It is we who grade the papers and prepare the syllabus, Hold office hours daily, give advice that you can trust,

Imagine taking finals without help from all of us,

For the union makes us strong."

"THE FIRE IN THE BARREL’S DYING,

AND, MY DEARS, WE'RE STILL BUBBYING,

AND AS LONG AS YOU F**K US SO,

WE’LL TELL YOU NO, TELL YOU NO, TELL YOU NO!!

Pretty snappy, JiM, don't you think?

I don't get it, truly.

JiM, you're a smart guy. It's very simple. Remember what they told us on Day 1 of PhD school:

"IF YOU WANT TO JOIN THE CLUB YOU HAVE TO PAY YOUR DUES "

These guys don't want to pay their dues, except of course if they are union dues to protect them from the blue meanie profs that shovel a bit of extra work that might interfere with their social lives.

Best paid teachers in the nation...ise

Rejected 16% raise..

Glad my friend's kids in Chicago go to private schools..

http://drudgereport.com/

It's probably not the money. Most likely the teachers are holding out until they can get their talons into your kids.

Don't forget what Rick Santorum warned us about! Teachers are enemy number one!

@JiM - yup, you always have to question what are the "values" of a regime that manages to "displace" large groups of workers and teachers in order to "save" an "economy", or wha'ever...

I always wondered why psychologists keep repeating that experiment - how much damage is one willing to inflict on another? As IF millions dead, supposedly over an "ism", isn't enough "empirical" data from WWII to understand the, ahem, neurosis?

Here's history from when "teachers" were treated as the enemy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/katyn-massacre-memos-us-soviet-crime_n_1870498.html?utm_hp_ref=world

cut and pasted:

"...The Soviet secret police killed the 22,000 Poles with shots to the back of the head. Their aim was to eliminate a military and intellectual elite that would have put up stiff resistance to Soviet control. The men were among Poland's most accomplished – officers and reserve officers who in their civilian lives worked as doctors, lawyers, teachers, or as other professionals..."

Just make sure you never get labeled an "anti-______" in USA today in this high-competition "market". (Fill in the blank from the potpourri of political correctness that suites your motives the best).

You guys probably won't be surprised by the fact that 79% of Chicago public high school students read at an 8th grade level. It has to be true since I heard it tonight on the Michael Savage radio program. That's why the teachers are striking, because their pay is being tied to student performance, something over which they say they have no control.

Could someone please seriously explain to me how teachers have no control over students' academic performance?

I'm doubting the average eighth grader would be able to discuss the relationships between salary and student performance.

In any event, a lot depends on how "student performance" is measured. There are a lot of Bozo the Clown schools that teach purely in preparation for standardized tests. As Fox news celebrates them, they do well with almost no teachers (thus justifying massive lay-offs) or even classrooms for that matter. Students just sit in front of computers practicing for the test, and the few adults in the room are "coaches" that help "assess their performance" (i.e., check in with the relevant keystroke). This is called "individualized attention," btw.

What I want to know if how many of these kids can write a comprehensible sentence? How deeply can they comprehend writing they have not seen before? How capable are they of critically and creatively responding to an argument about, well, anything?

I don't know how they measure "performance" in Chicago. But if the Bozo/Fox schools are the models of how teaching is linked to performance, we should get the kids out of the circus.

@oii - "Could someone please seriously explain to me how teachers have no control over students’ academic performance?"

I think 79% of Chicago high school kids reading at an 8th grade level in today's environment is pretty good :-) Wasn't that the level that "public education" in the frontier days of USA history was supposed to achieve? A functional "bottom" for the majority of the population? Basic reading, writing and 'rithmatic skills? Know how to count the cattle, read the contract, and sign your name?

After age 12-13 years old, improving reading skills is more dependent on the student putting in the personal effort. And the only students who put in personal effort are the ones who become interested in learning a lot more about what caught their intellectual interest. Public libraries and skilled worker's guilds picked up the rest of people's education. Women got left behind because unless they were born into a wealthy family, their "labor" place in society was so punishing that they did not have time to read a library book nor were there guilds for women who had the intelligence to be doctors, scientists or engineers. So women in USA have been consistent in advancing education through "collective bargaining", so to speak. Many times did USA teeter on taking a path that would leave it in a non-first world country status, like it was until the industrial revolution, because of the discrimination (access to higher education) being practiced on half of the human species (women). Meaning that if only the men were educated beyond the 8th grade level, USA would never have evolved the bona-fide culture necessary to become "first world".

So let's keep in mind that men dominating policy is a retrograde motion in regards to modern education.

Heck, maybe throw in a test to see who is the fastest tweeter based on how many "BFF" or "LOL" type of "english" they pass off to their tribe....?

How can you write a coherent sentence or paragraphs when your intellectual horsepower is limited to 140 characters or less?

@oii - I was being sarcastic - of course you can't be coherent.

U R right. Gr8 Comment

Have a class of first-years from all over the country. Their writing is also all over the country, but I don't notice a significant change from, say, twenty years ago--may even be some improvement. Almost all went to public high schools.

@JiM - sorry, but in the interest of constant improvement which makes "creative destruction" less likely of a tactic to promote progress - with tongue in cheek - this is how I would "edit" your post:

"I have a class of freshman who hail from all regions of the USA. Their writing STYLES are indicative of the culture found in their region of the country. I do not notice a significant change from, say, twenty years ago. In fact, there may even be some improvement. (an example of the improvement you noted would be nice). Almost all are graduates from public high schools (% is even better than "almost all")

LOL

But I get your "conversational" drift in your original post....comments on the internet are a hybrid of conversation short hand and slang based on assumptions that the audience has the same cultural touchstones to "get it" as you do, and the written word. Bottom line - it's all new and evolving - this internet communication stuff....get it? The only thing not new, is the comment censorship leveled on "private sites". I have a book full of censored posts and it is very illuminating :-))

I was in academia not that long ago and I think you have to go farther back than twenty years. JiM how would you compare expository writing from 1966 when we all had to take "frosh comp" with today's students. Put us all in one room, give us a single topic and tell us to write 1000 words in two hours. No access to the internet for us to plagiarize from, no cutting and pasting. Nothing between our brains and the sheet of paper. You will grade the papers. I will bet one week's salary that you will be able to tell the quality difference between 1966 and 2012, assuming that 2012 students can even write 1000 words in two hours.

Whose salary? If it's mine, it wouldn't be worth it....

I actually teach "frosh comp," and I think you'd lose the bet. If you want to put the salary in escrow, we can figure out how to time travel to 1966 (we share the same freshman year) and I'll "experiment" with my current crop.

I think they'd win. "Free writing" on whatever topic is their forte. It's having to tease out what someone else is trying to say that they get goofy.

JiM, of course they'd win. Their Ritalin-addled minds have been doing nothing but free associating for 18 years. No, here's the deal. You assign them the book "The Organization Man", that I had to read in 1966, then ask them to write 2000 fact based words on how the technological, cultural and societal norms have changed over the past 40 years, which make it less likely that they will be interested in working for Corporate America when they graduate.

They don't get to pick the topic, you do. I could do it in my sleep. Let's see what they come up with. Bet's on me.

If they get past your course do they have to take any more real english like we did, e.g. Introduction to Western Literature, the Classics, Homer, Iliad, Odyssey, Dante, Paradise lost, and that King of Boredom John Milton?

Ahhh the teachers really are playing the middle. On one hand, they tout themselves as being important enough to command good salaries and benefits but on the other hand they can't be reponsible for poor student performance. They forget the old rule that if you can't measure something it isn't happening. I say get rid of the teachers, hire a bunch of babysitters at a fraction of the cost, and the taxpayer will come out ahead.

JiM, "...It’s having to tease out what someone else is trying to say that they get goofy...."

Sounds to me like that is a choice - to not understand - because the game they are playing is political.

I'd ask them if they prefer knowing the position of the sunrise every morning, or would they rather have the power to keep everyone guessing about the position of the sunrise? My guess is that they would prefer to keep everyone guessing because, as we all know, the sun rises for ME ME ME, not for thee :-)) And if I am the only one who knows, then I'm the winner.

Babysitters, if found, actually charge a lot more $$$$ for being int he company of such brats then teachers get for having a classroom full of them.

Babysitters don't make close to 100k per year at the end of their careers, don't have cadillac health plans, and don't have expensive pensions.

To MC--Just for the record, nothing on your list applies to me, but I assume you are talking about some number of high school teachers.

Before we had a union, the lowest paid employees at my university were non tenured faculty--averaging around 24K/year just a few years ago. These are people with MAs and often PhDs as well, some newbies but some with 10-20 years of teaching experience and relied upon by their departments. Needless to say, if they have families (or ever feel like eating) they also get other jobs.

It is astonishing how much misinformation there is out there about teachers in general and how they've become the demon du jour. I would rather be a trial lawyer! Or maybe work in pharma. People would say nicer, and maybe even more accurate, things.

to OII--the "classics" are no longer required so some kids know them and some don't.

They actually weren't required at Harvard in 1966 either. A basic "Humanities" course was, but that could include a lot of different things.

So the only Milton I know is Friedman and Berle.

@MC RPh, "...Babysitters don’t make close to 100k per year at the end of their careers, don’t have cadillac health plans, and don’t have expensive pensions...."

Nothing but the best for your kids, huh?

Think of it as "product" - how many kids did the teacher teach in 30-40 years? Maybe even the wildly successful entrepreneur remembers who lit the love of learning in them and WANTS a society in which teachers are respected?

Not everyone is a life-long, card-carrying love-less misanthrope!

I'm glad someone read Friedman. Trouble is that he has been out of favor ever since we elected Paul Krugman as President of the United States.

Glad you mentioned an Ivy League school. Just because you have Krugman, Kreuger and Bernanke in one department at Princeton doesn't make it top notch. It just makes it a mindset. Actually Krugman won't let Ben have his old job back until he invokes QE23.

Somebody had to be reading the classics out there or Cliff Notes would have gone out of business long ago.

Babysitters make even more than you think, considering all of the food they pilfer from the family refrigerator on a Saturday night and the price you have to pay to reupholster the couch after a heavy makeout session with the boyfriend while you were out watching Oceans 18.

We aren't getting the best for our kids, that's the problem. Our public education system is a failure and a waste of money. People are quick to pick on the healthcare system, which is far from perfect, but ignore education which in my opinion is even more important. We need public education reform.

@MC RPh = yeah, you just go ahead and keep working on that "reform" that will completely exclude the human relationship factor of "education" (ie. teacher-student).

It's already happened at pre-K - the process of "imprinting" did not occur in large swaths of the population.

Pick one of the two dziecko - teachers make a difference or they do not. If the answer is that they do, then there must be a way to measure it.