Right-to-Work Laws, Horse Meat and Wal-Mart

WELL, WHAT’S NEW IN RIGHTWINGLAND? Oh boy! In Michigan, GOP lawmakers have passed a “right-to-work” law in an attempt to break labor unions. 

The Koch brothers, Charles and David (and isn’t there a third brother, Beelzebub) are really happy. 

They might even donate another ten bazillion to right-wing political causes. 

This means, according to voices on the right, that great days are ahead for American business. Jobs will be created left and right. Crappy paying jobs, with no benefits, true. Still, as Gertrude Stein once said, a job is a job is a job.  

Isn’t that right? 

It’s gospel if you listen to Tea Party voices that Big Government and Big Unions are crippling the economy. (Not to mention terrible public schools, producing uneducated workers and terrible unionized teachers). We must free Business Heroes from regulation. We must defeat the machinations of unions, which are collections of greedy bastards.  

We must hand over control of public schools to corporations. 

That’s the Tea Party mantra. Business Heroes are always good. Not half the time. Not ninety percent. Always. 

ALWAYS? YOU MIGHT THINK TWICE if you’re planning a trip to Europe any time soon and plan to do a little eating. It has long been legal to ship broken-down American horses to slaughterhouses in Canada or Mexico. Then the slaughterhouses sell the meat for consumption on the other side of the Atlantic. In Paris horse meat is considered a delicacy. Lately, though, there have been concerns about what’s in the food chain. It seems at race tracks across the United States sleazy owners and trainers (no, wait, we mean Business Heroes) have been shooting mounts full of steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs and pain killers. This allows badly injured horses to keep running, even if they tend to break down at times in the middle of the races that they are running. 

See! We’re already talking job creation! After all, someone has to inject those drugs into the animals. 

Someone has to shoot all those horses.  

Wait…what was the big problem in America again? Oh yeah, unions. And too much government regulation. Canadian authorities just had to start meddling when they found phenylbutazone and clenbuterol, which mimic anabolic steroids, in slaughtered horse meat. You damn Canadians stick to your hockey and leave our Business Heroes alone.  

If restaurants in Paris want to serve horse meat let them.  

Trust the Koch brothers and the Business Heroes. These people aren’t greedy bastards doing everything they can to drive down wages for working men and women. They’re humble bazillionaires who happen to have bazillions of dollars. 

UNIONS…THOSE ARE SOME GREEDY BASTARDS, driving jobs away from places like Michigan. Then Business Heroes have no choice but to send those jobs to Bangladesh. No greedy unions there. No stupid safety regulations, either.  

Great place to do business and pile up stacks of money. No, no. These business folks aren’t greedy.  

You say a factory in Bangladesh, where clothing was being produced for Wal-Mart, went up in flames a few days after Thanksgiving? A hundred and twelve workers died as a result? Hell, in a way, that’s job creation. Kill off one set of underpaid, non-union workers, with no health benefits (who don't need them anymore, anyway) and replace them with another set of desperate human beings. 

Down with unions! Up with right-to-work freedoms! Let’s have some horse meat for supper and go Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart because their checkout people and greeters and truck drivers aren’t unionized. This is America friends. And Merry Christmas to bazillionaires everywhere and good night. 

If you think unions are the problem in America today, you’ve been listening to way too much right-wing horseshit.

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ADDENDUM: For the poor fools who think unions are ruining America (see comments at end of this post) here are a few facts: 

The average construction worker in a union makes $361 more weekly than a non-union worker in the same field. This is partly true because non-union jobs often go to illegal immigrants. Unions used to be able to protect such jobs. 

Factory workers in unions make $56 more per week. That might not sound like much but it comes to $2,912 per year.  

Transportation and warehousing:  union guys make 30% more than non-union workers. 

Even a business newsletter, citing advantages of non-union workers, admits that union workers make $200 more per week ($917 vs. $717). So: you’re either for the average working guy getting higher pay. Or you’re not. Unions fight for the average American who wants to insure a place in the middle class. 

The billionaires and millionaires are doing fine. Think Wal-Mart couldn’t pay more? Think the Koch brothers are hurting? 

Go to the Forbes 400 list for 2012. Unless you’re blind you might notice some eye-popping figures.

 4. Charles Koch is worth (in billions): $31

5. David Koch: $31

6. Christy Walton $27.9

7. Jim Walton $26.8

8. Alice Walton $26.3

9. S. Robson Walton $26.1

 
No wonder these people fear unions and their wild wage demands, like for a Wal-Mart clerk to make $13.50 an hour and not $12. 

Other famous right-wingers to make the cut:  Sheldon Adelson, who gave more than $100 million to GOP candidates in 2012. He’s not greedy at all, way down there in 12^th place, just getting by on $20.5 billion. 

Ron Perelman? He might not support the GOP (that I don’t know). But he did make his money in leveraged buyouts, which is the very essence of killing American companies and jobs with it. He’s in 26^th with $11 billion.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News—which fills the empty heads of viewers every chance it gets with hatred for greedy unions? Poor Murdoch. How does he get up every morning, realizing he’s mired in 36^th with only $9.4 billion? 

It’s interesting to note that Ann Walton Kroenke shows up at #79 on the list, with a crappy $4.5 billion.  

Every family has at least one loser.