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Whenever one speaks of the Employee Free Choice Act, we always get a Santa's list of reasons why it would end the world if enacted. We hear how it will kill business and life as we know it in America. We get the same old propoganda shoved down our throats by the same old people. They continually tell us how when businesses are struggling, we simply cannot afford a middle-class in America.
However, the very people who tell us we cannot afford a thriving middle-class in this country and that the Employee Free Choice Act would destroy business need to take a long hard look at how they do business. I think the majority of Americans would agree that if it destroyed the way THEY do business it would be a good thing.
Yes, just look at some of the behaviors of the very people who are telling us that creating and maintaining an American middle-class is too costly, and not worth the effort.
First, we have pay for failure among the banking industry, which has just been bailed out by the very Americans corporate America tells you should not be able to attain the middle-class:
Pay for Failure: Bank of America Corp.
The bank’s board of directors subscribes to a philosophy that rewards executives regardless of performance. Experts say this practice encouraged CEO Ken Lewis to make risky acquisitions of such troubled financial companies as Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial. New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgensen says: "Many investors say the whole pay-for-performance model is a mirage."
http://aflcio.org/...
Even worse than that however, is how FedEx Corp. treats its employees as in relation to its CEOs:
Job Security for the CEO, Insecurity for Workers:
FedEx Corp.
Frederick Smith, the chairman, president and chief executive officer, opposes unionization and the Employee Free Choice Act. So while Smith receives a generous salary, assurance of a severance if the company gets bought, perquisites and a traditional pension—FedEx workers can only dream about benefits. FedEx Ground classifies drivers as independent contractors, so it doesn’t have to provide them with basic benefits, such as overtime pay or expense reimbursements. FedEx Ground drivers also are required to pay for their own delivery trucks, as well as for the insurance, repairs, gas and tires for their jobs. By arguing that the drivers are independent contractors, not employees, FedEx maintains they can’t unionize.
Disgraceful. So, FedEx can pay huge salaries and severance to CEOs, but won't provide the lifeblood of their corporation with a basic package of benefits?? The cannnot even provide and maintain trucks for their employees to use?? It is no big surprise that those that argue the most against the Employee Free Choice Act are the very places whose workers need it the most.
Tyson Foods is another company whose employees could benefit greatly from the Employee Free Choice Act. What can this company afford??:
‘Golden Parachute’ Severance Benefits: Tyson Foods
Workers laid off by companies in these tough economic times are lucky if they receive more than their last paycheck and their legal right to extend health care benefits they pay for, but chief executive officers at many of America’s largest companies often receive a "golden parachute," or a generous severance package, when they depart. Richard L. Bond, president and top executive of Tyson Foods Inc. until Jan. 5, stood to collect more than $14 million in severance.
You see, it is not that American corporations cannot afford to do more for their workers. If you can afford some of the things described above, you certainly aren't hurting much for cash. What these corporations don't want is to spread the profit more evenly to ALL those who labor to make it. They want to lavish CEOs and management with huge bonuses and benefits and let the working person languish in poverty for making those benefits possible.
It is time the working man and woman in America had some say in how the fruits of their labors are dispersed once again. Despite a failing economy, corporations are simply having no trouble at all rewarding their fatcats on a disproportionate scale to the rest of us. All the Employee Free Choice Act does is level the playing field for the working person in America.
From what I have seen that is needed now more than ever.