$18 for eight hours of work.

[Skidmore]

I've kinda been half paying attention to the DHome network this morning where they have a show called "Material World." The idea behind this is to provide a view of how top notch interior designers work with extremely wealthy clients. There is one segment of the program that has been on that deals with some billionaire building a huge bachelor pad I'm not sure. The designer's strong suit is not planning and he does appear to do more than flutter around and be anxious and have "vision." Practical he ain't. Well, owner's insisting on flying in the next day and the designer is all aflutter about how he needs to "present" the house. There's SO much to do because the he hasn't asked some pretty practical questions and provided clear instructions to his contractors. Well, he needs to get workers to ramp things up and so he sends someone out to look for warm bodies. The man he sends picks up about 18-20 workers, all of whom will be working for $18/day. This is somewhere in Mexico. The neighborhoods in which he recruited these workers were pretty impoverished. This wealthy man is clueless about the workers putting his fancy digs together. He's flying in to piss and moan about the quality of work and product without one thought as to what it has taken to go into the products and physical construction of his home except for the posturings of the useless designer who essentially sucks up oxygen and gets int he way of doing actual work.

Perhaps the only point to this post is an observation about this disconnect between possessions and what goes into their production and the instant gratification that comes from having products on demand in today's culture. What would it have taken to get this home owner to tell his designer to make certain that the contractors paid a living wage? This concept needs to be applied the workd over.

[Katzenjammer]

1. "What would it have taken..."

It's a catch-22. As one wealthy guy said (quoted in the book "Swim with the sharks"), "anyone who would be satisfied with $10 million doesn't have the kind of personality it takes to get the $10M in the first place". People focused on wealth can't see other people.

[demnan]

2. It will never be individually enforced

That's why we used to have unions in this country, to protect people in the building trades. The Right-to-Work movement is one of the most evil things ever perpetuated on the working class.

[2Design]

5. unions were and are important and most people don't get that

They point out the miss use or abuses just like welfare moms etc. This was and is a method to say the whole system is bad but unions got us vacation, benefits, holidays, and decent pay and now that they are gone so are those jobs - people just don't get that we are turning the world into the early 20th century when people first went from farms to factories and were treated unfairly - it is now happening world wide -
And I still here unions are not good - they take for granted the perks

[CrispyQ]

11. My mother bashes unions all the time.

She doesn't mind, however, that it was a good paying union job with excellent benefits that put me through college. That good job was mine & I now have a better job & help her out with her monthly bills. I finally told her that she could can the bad rap on unions in front of me because a union was largely responsible for where I am today. It's funny how union wages for people she doesn't know is bad, but union wages for her daughter is ok. I hope she picked up on that inconsistency in her thinking.

I had better benefits in the union than I've ever had at a white collar corporate job. That was back in the 70s and they kicked some major butt. Perscriptions for $1 if you used the company pharmacy. No formulary, just buy your Rx at the company pharm & it cost you a buck. No shit. I know people who worked there just for that bene alone. I wonder if they still offer that? ;)

Check out my post below about Dorgan's book, "Take This Job and Ship It."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2293598&mesg_id=2294666


:hi:

[dysfunctional press]

16. the unions got in bed with/infiltrated by/affiliated with organized crime-

and it was EASY to demonize them in the public eye.

[rosesaylavee]

3. Happy to give this its 5th R.

What will it take to get the wealthy to recognize their effect on those not wealthy? Probably something that will scare them out of their complacency that its all about them... unfortunately. Revolution and death has done it in the past.

There's always hope that someone wise will step up and draw them a picture before the blood starts to flow.

[raccoon]

4. Tumbrils and guillotines? to answer your question. nt

Or at least the fear of them.

[rosesaylavee]

6. Yes. Unless there is wise

leadership in place that will ease the tension by acknowledging and then alleviating the disparities. This will lead nowhere good if left on its own.

[michreject]

7. Never happen

What would it have taken to get this home owner to tell his designer to make certain that the contractors paid a living wage?

The contractor would have added the extra expense to the home owner. He wouldn't go for that.

[zalinda]

8. The wealthy are VERY disconnected

While my ex-mother-in-law would spend $600 on a hand painted needlepoint canvas, and then had to buy the yarn separately. Yet, when my son forgot to add in the sales tax (he was about 14 at the time), on a computer she was buying for him, she went ballistic. She punished him till the day she died by only giving him $50 on his birthday. She was worth millions of dollars and never had to work a day in her life.

Although, she and her husband did quit the repub party during Clinton's time because it was being taken over by the religious right.

zalinda

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. True story

Back when cell phones were brand new and charged per outgoing call, I was volunteering for a non-commercial radio station that was having a pledge drive.

The announcers' pledge spiel gave a phone number and a*NUMBER (for cell phone users) making pledges. We'd take the calls, write down the info, and mail copies to the people who wanted to pay by check.

The next week, I was in charge of opening the mail and sorting the checks when I came across a payment on a $100 pledge from a woman who had pledged by cell phone. Only it wasn't quite $100. It was $99.65, because the announcer had not mentioned on the air that the pledger, not the radio station, would be charged for the cell phone call. :eyes:

[CrispyQ]

9. Everyone should read Senator Dorgan's book,

"Take This Job & Ship It." It is excellent & if you know any republicans who are suffering under bush economics, this book is for them. He tells how globalization is hurting labor everywhere. By shipping our jobs overseas, corporations no longer have to abide by the labor laws that our grandparents & parents fought for. Hence, Americans are competing with twelve year olds who work 16 hour days for pennies. He reminds us that when we buy goods produced in foreign factories with exploited labor we are contributing to our own demise. Conversely, he points out, corporations are impoverishing the very markets they need to sell their goods.

I'm only three chapters into it, but Dorgan has a very down to earth way of explaining it without being overly accusatory. Personally I would like to have seen him harsh on Reagan more & specifically call out Cheney in the first example below, but I think his message has a better chance of getting through to right wingers without little zingers like that.

We hear platitudes and wishful theories, including a new mantra from some conservative circles that deficits don't matter. Nonsense. Any working person with a checkbook can tell you that deficits matter. And if they won't, their banker will. Yet, in both Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street these days, up is down, black is white, greed is good, and deficits don't matter.

Somehow they think we can remain great as a nation of consumers not as producers.

While "globalization" has galloped along at lightening speed in recent years, the rules for globalization have not kept pace. I believe that by helping create a broad middle class, the labor movement in America was a crucial key to opening the door of greatness for this nation. And can be for underdeveloped countries as well. Reasonable workplace standards and fair wages built a strong working class that became the backbone of America. But it has not been easy and there have been great sacrifices along the way.

Opening the floodgates to global trade has put workers in the fight for their lives. Labor forces have been pitted against each other on a scale never seen before. It is splintering unions, stagnating and lowering wages, and worst of all, weakening the manufacturing infrastructure of this country.

These days free trade means that the protections for American workers are a stumbling block for companies that say they must employ less expensive labor in order to compete. So, they go abroad and hire workers who come cheap. No labor protections for these workers. You are free to fire them if they decide they want to organize. Or have the host country throw them in jail and make an example of them.

(emphasis mine)

http://www.amazon.com/Take-This-Job-Ship-Brain-Dead/dp/031235522X/sr=8-1/qid=1159882367/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-2338533-6255352?ie=UTF8&s=books

Way to go Senator! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[CrispyQ]

10. Oops, I forgot the best nugget!

If the $5.15 minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest-paid workers in the country would make $23.03 an hour.

~gasp!

[krispifried]

15. Yet

the prescription will be well regulated slavery, not socialism.

[thirdpower]

12. A major reason why Unions are getting backlash...

because of actions like this:

My father was a union man for decades, Teamsters. Supported them, voted for them, etc. When he was killed on the job, the union has proceeded to do everything in their power to cut my mother from COBRA coverage including quadrupling her rates, refusing to pay for medication until the state got involved (then they "discovered" the error and charged her 4 months back fees), and giveing her the standard beaurocratic runaround.

These actions turned my family from strong supporters to strong skeptics.

[CrispyQ]

17. I'm sorry about your father's death & also that your mother

was treated so callously by an organization that was to support & look after her. Your story is a clear example of greedy union leaders serving their own interests & not the interests of union members. Sadly, I think these types of stories come to mind for many people when they think of unions. Senator Dorgan is right when he says we are locked in a continual struggle to balance labor & management. It will be interesting to see if he addresses powerful & corrupt unions in his book. Actions like those by your fathers union have done serious damage to the image of unions in this country.

These days, however, the company may very well have taken a life insurance policy out on your father to collect at his death. It's called peasants insurance or corporate owned life insurance (COLI).

Does your boss want you dead?
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp


snip...

Right now, your company could have a life insurance policy on you that you know nothing about. When you die -- perhaps years after you leave your employer -- the tax-free proceeds from this policy wouldn’t go to your family. The money would go to the company.

What’s more, the company might use this policy to pay for retirement benefits and other perks not for you or your fellow workers, but for your company’s top executives.

Sound outrageous? Such corporate-owned life insurance is also big business:
Companies pay a whopping $8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage, according to the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.

The policies make up more than 20% of the all the life insurance sold each year.

Companies expect to reap more than $9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years. The policies are treated as whole life policies. So, companies can borrow against the policies (though the IRS won't let them write off the interest). And the death benefits are tax-free.

Hundreds of companies -- including Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney and Winn-Dixie -- have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank-and-file workers.

=====

I could not believe when I first read this story. I was under the impression that one could not take out a life policy on someone else without their consent & knowledge. ???

Sigh. I am fortunate that I have lived most of my life during one of the more balanced times & have enjoyed the prosperity that that balance brought to our country.

:hi:

[tomreedtoon]

13. Another Rich Bastard Show.

In the Reagan years it was "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." Remember it? This snide-sounding jerk named Robin Leach - who never noted the appropriateness of his name - went around showing off the homes and vacation spots of wealthy celebrities and businesspeople.

Since my TV station ran this show, and I often had to check the tape for air, I saw a LOT of it. And the one thing that impressed me was how dull these people's lives are. You never saw them doing anything real. Their kitchens, huge places with commercial-grade ovens and grills, looked like they were never used - I certainly never remember anyone cooking in them. Their resorts were just twisted streets with overpriced clothes and food, kind of like Disney World with about one-fifteenth of the people on the street.

It was enough to make me sick.

It made everyone sick when Leach interviewed, and was enthralled, by some Middle Eastern arms merchant - I think his name was something like Ashwan Kasnoggi (corrections welcome) - and lauded over his solid gold faucets and plumbing, and his exquisite jet plane. Leach only briefly mentioned how he got the money and didn't dwell on it. Undoubtedly, the people killed in the little brushfire wars that Kasnoggi supplied didn't dwell on it either. That was pretty much the point where Robin Leach jumped the shark.

I knew it was coming back with a show called "Livin' Large," which tried to do the same thing for the gangsta-rapper, MTV-celebrity world. It began in 2002 or so, and although it didn't last, it was a clear indication that Sucking Up To The Rich was again a big thing. There's still a rich-people's real estate show, "Beautiful Homes and Great Estates," that gloms over mansions for sale.

Well, at least the show mentioned in the original post SHOWED the debased slaves that keep such places running. "Lifestyles," "Livin' Large" and "Beautiful Homes" don't.