OK. So I had posted about my hubby's work in it's third attempt at unionizing. This time it's the teamsters. Well, yesterday some rumors started going around about pay cuts coming. OF course this would be AFTER the vote for the union. This is how it always happens. I thought it was odd that the employer would put that out there before a vote. Isn't this news going to help the unionizing effort?

Now before you go saying this is just a rumor. Can't believe rumors. Think about this. When the hubby was new, had been there about a year or so and was a level one there were a number of levels and they came with different pay scales. Well, hubby was a level 1 as was my brother. They made all the higher levels a level 2 and cut their pay while taking level 1 guys and increasing their pay and making them level 2 also. So there is a precedent for this. And when it happened I told the hubby not to be too thrilled. This could happen to him. And it looks like I was right.

the hubby surmises this was leaked out by someone who wants the union. Someone who was one of the rest of them and wants to make sure they know what is coming. It is such that my BROTHER who is a fire breathing anti government anti union guy is now wishing he hadn't thrown out his card he got in the mail. That says a lot. I told my hubby to tell the bro to ask for another one, if he is truly serious.

I hope this is enough to push it through. I mean, I am not sure about the number of cards that the teamsters have received yet. Trying to figure out what kind of a cut we were talking about, he looked at the new guy who is making $13/hr... I suggested they might meet in the middle somewhere. Hubby makes $17/hr. So if they cut it to $15 and increased the new guy to that it doesn't sound too bad huh. $2/hr isn't bad. It cuts us to $31k from our current $40k.

On a positive note... if you can call it that... we'd qualify for medicaid again. And I guess we'd qualify for food stamps now. Uggh.

The first two attempts were by the IBEW. Each time the employer would give all kinds of mandatory meetings with disinformation and be 'nicer' to the guys until after the vote. Now, my brother and brother in law also work for this company and are anti union. The vote went down both times.

Now the Teamsters are aggressively trying to get a union in there. There is ONE area the is unionized and I can't understand why workers don't look at them to see the disparity in pay and treatment of the workers. The unionized guys have gotten raises where my husband just got his first in three years. Not sure what else the unionized guys get, but I do know that my husband has had to work through his lunch and doesn't get paid for it. Technically they don't force him, but they are on them all the time about getting all this work done that there aren't enough people to do. They keep piling more work on the guys that is impossible for them to complete and seem to be all about cutting costs.

So there was a meeting yesterday. Here is a bit of the stuff being sent around to these guys...
"Signing a union card is the first step to getting into your pocket" Then they urge the reader to wait until the get all the facts before they sign anything.

Here are 'the facts'....

But if you do sign a card and a union gets in, you would be represented, like it or not, and you would face UNION COSTS and UNION RISKS, including the chance of a strike.

THE TRUTH ABOUT A UNION AUTHORIZATION CARD


Now, my hubby has a booklet that would be the contract. First of all, there is a no strike thing right in there. Secondly, this is an attempt to scare people into thinking a union would get into their lives and they wouldn't have a say. This is a company that tells these guys if they don't like it here, there are a line of people waiting to take their job.

It's a shame really. When my husband came to this company, there was a lot of promise there. But when the company became more interested in the quarterly profits than actually taking care of their customers.... it went downhill from there. The hubby has been shopping around for something else for awhile. It's not just about money... he took a paycut to come to this place.

I know I know... just be glad you have a job. And he is glad to have a job. But this company has been beating them down for a long time now. I wonder if it is enough to finally get a union in there. I hope so.

they did a story just now on my local news about the national impact. they talked about the polls and voters said it was about medicare. they talked about the third party candidate jack davis and that there was some talk about who was really the tea party candidate and when the tea party backed corwin and ran ads for her, the votes cyphoned off from davis went to hochul. so this was all about medicare.

It makes me wish the senate could have held the vote on the ryan plan last week because I know that gingrinch got slammed for having the sense to criticize it. That means in the senate the repubicans would have felt the need to vote for it because of that. but now that the voters seem to be showing they aren't going to stand for this, if reid actually does hold the vote when they come back like he said he would, i wonder if they will vote against it.

I honestly thought davis really was part of the voting issue here and why hochul won. i think it was that corwin was a sucky candidate and I guess it had to do with medicare. Wow. I wonder what this means for next year then. And I hope whatever it means can last long enough to make it more than a year to another election.

in fact Corwin's Chief of Staff. LOL! What a big surprise.

WGRZ who were at the incident trying to find out why Davis pulled out of the debate at the station set for this morning.


This is so funny to me for some reason. I had posted about this 'assault' this morning as did another poster. It sounded kind of fishy to me. And now that we know the 'volunteer' was actually a member of Corwin's staff.... It seems even more suspicious. Of course Corwin will know nothing of any misdeeds and the Chief of Staff may leave the campaign at best... but it sure is making for an interesting election here in WNY. More interesting than I had thought possible. And I hope this makes it even worse for Corwin.

OK. the other day my sister had posted on facebook about how much the superintendent of her school system was making. and someone had responded about how greedy teachers are. of course.... they must all be making $150k like the superintendent. then my sister responded that all children should be required to be homeschooled and then everyone can be responsible for their own kids and we would not need to pay for school buses. i was really upset by what she said. I thought she was a democrat!! i responded by telling her how disappointed i am in her response. to which she asked why? but then I started thinking about it. When people start complaining, she comes up with some outlandish thing that would achieve what these folks wanted.... but that many of them didn't like the idea of. what about those of us who have to work!! I didn't give her enough credit. She is very smart. Which is probably why my wingnut family members won't ever mention political stuff with her. she will eviscerate them!!

I say this because I myself am terrible at dealing with wingnuts. I get so mad and it doesn't help me make an argument. I take things so personally. I just can't handle talking about politics with people. But they seem to LOVE to discuss it with me. I wish I were more like my sister.

TOday my aunt's husband posted in my aunt's facebook page (since he got rid of his account)



To which my sister replied:


I unfriended henry after he replied to a post I had written about my family with his political bs. I sent him a message telling him how inappropriate it was to poison my family posts with his garbage. If I had posted something political and he replied with it, then that would have been fine. But while I am friends with folks who post political stuff and I will reply to their posts, I rarely post poltical stuff on facebook as I use it mostly to keep in touch with my family and friends.

This post I am writing seems to be all over the place, but generally I was posting about the way we argue with people we disagree with. I know I suck at it. But there seems to be a great way to shut these guys down.... I have seen other posts on DU that have shown great ways to do this. And I would like to thank all of those who are great at confronting the lies. I wish I were better at it, and I do what I can, but I am so thankful for those who can get a clear message across. THank you all.

Says a lot about where i live i guess...comments from my neighbors i guess. fucking idiots!! here is a link to the site.



I am not sure what exactly this is supposed to mean, but the commenters were not happy it was removed. 'free speech' i guess. Had someone put a sign up there saying something disparaging of tea partiers or someone else these same people would be bitching it should be removed. I guess free speech only applies to them. I am sick of these folks. I wish they would go find somewhere where they can have their 'freedoms'... no government interference. Somalia sounds like a great place for them to go.

Wasn't quite sure what title to put up there, but here is the main crux of what I wanted to say. I have seen so many posts on here regarding the rich and if the poor are lazy etc. And I kept thinking about a couple of movies I watched on Netflix the past couple of days. Documentaries by one of the Johnson kids, Jamie Johnson about the rich and their money. The first one I watched was "The 1%" in which Jamie Johnson and a friend with a video camera discuss (or attempt to) the rich and their money. Now, his father repeatedly tells him he doesn't want anything to do with this documentary and tells the kid it's a bad idea. It turns out the father is so nervous about this because he himself made a documentary about american companies practices in Africa and Johnson and Johnson, the family company, was in that documentary. He got his ass reamed for being in that documentary and was afraid to do anything anymore.

The second film, "Born Rich" which was actually done in 2003, is where he discusses with some of his friends what it is like to be born rich. Part of this film has to do with Jamie Johnson inheriting a lot of money when he reaches 21 and a party he has. He had kids like, Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump, among others. They discussed a lot of things including prenups and what it is like to grow up rich. They showed the party life in the hamptons, they all went to the same schools and hung around each other. There were a couple guys who were real jerks that I don't care how much money they have I would not have wanted anything to do with them. But there were a couple decent guys seemed more down to earth.






If you have netflix I would encourage watching these.

Wow. It makes a person angry to know that they could have stopped it at several points along the way. And other countries are putting things in place to prevent it from happening again while we twiddle our thumbs. UGGH!! I can see how they permeated every aspect of government and apparently the thinking in colleges as well where people are taught. It was nice to see that they talked about the effects on regular people and the disparity in income as well.

I thought I would write a post about it. They are considering that fracking here in NY. I live in WNY between Buffalo and Rochester. We live next to protected land, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't be affected by this. My husband and I saw it and he said after ten minutes of that movie there is no way he would do that here!! Not that we really can anyway, hopefully. Considering what they did in Colorado and other areas.

I am going to advocate anyone I know to watch this movie when it becomes available. Some of them are wingers though so I don't know if they would, but when you have oil and natural gas companies telling you this is completely safe and they aren't hurting the drinking water, yet they WON"T drink the water..... and they basically tell the people they've done this to tough luck. I mean, sure it sounds like a lot of money. The guy in the movie was offered $100k.... but look at the family with the ranch that they couldn't even sell if they wanted to now. The eyesores all over. You could say, you signed a contract so live with it.... but they were lied to! and the fact that the EPA won't even test anything or step in!! They can't because of the energy bill signed in 2005.

Anyway, I just wanted to remind everyone about the movie coming out on dvd on the 28th and encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to watch it.

and destroying the union. I am very upset by people. I admit I didn't pay much attention to it. I watched Rachel the other day who put it so clearly. Showing the influence on elections and where unions are in that just opened my eyes all around. They are getting rid of the only thing fighting the right wing juggernaut!! and it scares me. I swear I am ready to move out of this country sometimes. I am sad and scared. but here is my reply to this guy. my first reply was to talk about the political nature of this attack on the public unions and how it was interesting three unions are exempt... the ones who supported the governor. steve replied that no unions support republicans. here is my reply to that....

I was wondering if anyone knows any good non biased sites to go to to find out about the candidates so I can see who I want to vote for? I thought there was at least one out there but i am not good at searching. I am on a site that has ads about how out of touch nancy pelosi is. i know those are ads, but I want a site that I can find who is running in my district and what their ideas are. not just what commercials telling me how bad so and so is are. plus more local elections. i hate going in to the booth blind.

So the local station hyped up this ad buy. I did not see the 3 minute ad last night, but they talked about it this morning (more free tv time) while saying he has relied on free tv time up til now. They showed a bit of his ad .... luckily it was a small part they showed because he blamed the 'liberal media' for their coverage of him and the reason he got so mad at that reporter is because they are more interested in controversy than the issues. it should be about the issues not divorces and adultery and illegitimate kids.



This plea for money is interesting because I remember when he was on our local station saying how he has had people calling him to contribute and how he has all this support. Then the local station story talks about how carl is now not available to talk to them. Also he isn't planning on campaigning in NYC. can he win without even campaigning in NYC?

I posted this in my notes on facebook. i am hopeful that folks will read it and actually listen, though i doubt it. i have family who will think it's some kind of left wing conspiracy or some bs. but i tried to make sure they knew this had nothing to do with political leanings, but in our last bastion and our last place to have a voice.

------------------------------

I don't know how many people even know what this is. But it is the basis of the power of the internet. It is the fact that we are all equal on the internet that we can be heard. The TV is owned by big multiconglomerates. The radio is owned by the same people. And as regular folks we have no voice on either unless we are allowed to by the big companies.

The internet has helped artists get an audience when the record companies didn't want to give them a chance. It has allowed writers to have their books published and people to even know they exist. It has allowed amateurs with video cameras to go viral on youtube. But there are those out there who want to take it away from us. Verizon and google are working on a way to make it so that instead of us all having equal access to the internet as we do now, THEY can decide who gets the bandwith. Who gets heard.

This may sound benign. But it isn't. When Iranian citizens protested the fraudulent elections in their country, we all cheered their use of Twitter to organize. We in this country as citizens use the internet to be heard by our government as well. We use it to come together and plan how we will get our choices on the ballot and to work towards getting them in office. We use it to voice or displeasure with how our representatives are governing or not governing. It is our voice. And they want to stifle us.

Imagine if verizon or time warner could give those who could pay the ability to keep us from voicing our concerns. They could control which messages get out. They could control your website if they don't like what it says. Imagine you don't like your service with verizon or ATT and want to tell the world. They could inhibit your ability to get that message out there. What if you don't like what your senator is doing or want to support ron paul? if they don't like your message they could make someone trying to get to your message have a harder time doing that.

We are the people and we are losing our voice. This is not about politics or religion. This is not about anything other than the fact that as regular folks we are about to lose the last place we have to change things. I know we think the internet is unstoppable, but once the people who we have to go through to get to the internet can control how much of it we see and how quickly we get there, we will lose that which we have come to expect.... the freedom the internet has given us and it's voice. Our voice. No matter what the message, it should have equal access to everyone online.

Of course they aren't doing that yet. But they are going to try unless we raise our voices to say we want NET NEUTRALITY. i may not like the message you want to put out there. You may not like mine. BUt we should both have equal ability and equal access to get that message out there.

Please let your congress and senate representatives know that we want net neutrality to remain intact and protected. I want to preserve net neutrality so that we regular folk have at least one place left that we can have a voice. we have already given up so much. Let's protect the only place we have left.

Here is a facebook conversation:

Kevin O'Neill Remember Cindy Sheehan, the Mom of a Marine killed in battle? She bravely became the face and voice of the anti-war movement. She was arrested outside the White House recently, but now gets NO media attention.
Troop levels have doubled in Afghanistan. Last month was the deadliest month ever. 8 have been killed this wee...k. Now Cindy wonders what I'm wondering.... then there was a link

Eileen Ostrander
why worry about the wars when you don't have anyone there. if there were a draft you can bet there would be rioting in the streets by now. my niece's husband is in afghanistan right now having only gotten a glimpse of his baby girl. guess he was lucky he could be there for her birth even. while we spend half an hour on bristol and levi's engagement, what does afghanistan and iraq get? these soldiers are risking their lives and in constant threat of injury and death and we can't even give them more than five minutes on the tv. sick.

Now keep in mind that my post had more to do with the lack of media coverage of the wars and the casualties. my mention of a draft had to do with people's concern of what was going on and the coverage of it.

David Czajkowski
a war for heroin is not really cool, but hey, i guess we need our heroin.

Don Congdon
Eileen the key words here are "If there were a draft".This Cindy's son joined up knowing the job and his duty simply said. NO ONE joins the military thinking they wont be in a battle of some kind. I feel for her but her political rantings are a waste of time and space. I have several family members that joined and serverd in Iraq, joined knowing ... See Morethey are fighting for our freedoms and rights and then there are folks like this Cindy that carry on taking all the nobility of what her son did and why he did it away. War is a nessesary evil in our word as sick as that makes me feel to say that its true. It truely isnt alot different then standing up to a bully in school aside for the death part. the idea is the same. I am sorry she lost her boy but enough of all this anti war crap, he knew what he was in for and chose that as his path in life he wasnt forced to do anything

See, they CHOSE to be in the military so it makes it ok. so cindy sheehan should just shut up, i guess.

Kevin W Eggert
Well said Don.

Amy Iven Wilson
We shouldn't even be arguing over our presence in Afghanistan. As far as Iraq- there WERE wapons of mass destruction and their names were Saddam, Uday and Quay Hussein. And they were coming after us as soon as they were finished practicing on their own people.

this shit just pisses me off. this person seems to think there WERE wmd and while there were biological agents they used on their own people in the 80s, weren't we friends with them then? didn't seem to be any problem at that time when you see all those pictures of don rumsfeld shaking hussein's hand!!

Don Congdon
Don Congdon
Thanx KWE enough is enough already, hope she realizes her son was killed so she has the right to post this nonsence but i somehow dont think she has thought of that. We must remember all the pirating internet posts and videos that were put out there when this war started. the Iragy Govt. tried preventing anything from leaking out of the country in ... See Morethe begining and that was all the info and sources we had when the bombs flew. Not all Gov't would allow a person like her and so many others to post all that crap and many wouldnt have just locked her up. She needs to be thankful for her rights even in jail

so we needed to invade iraq because they didn't let their people use the internet? are we going to invade china now?

Nicholas Mendola
I loved reading this, but as someone who's been on the Moveon side for a long, long time, I can tell you that moderates and democrats have NOT changed sides because of Petraeus. And I just went to the MoveOn site for the first time since maybe 2007... they have REALLY streamlined things. Missing a lot of stuff.

Eileen Ostrander
The Iraq war was a war of choice. Afghanistan was necessary but what
was and is the goal. I don't think the current goal is clear. We
cannot afford to continue this is nuts. And I believe my original comment had to do with media lack of coverage and the disconnect.
Those there may have voluntarily joined the military but they are
being used and thrown away. They are not bei

Eileen Ostrander
There were no weapons. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It was a LIE

btw... i am eileen in this exchange. I shouldn't let this stuff get to me, but wtf!! i mean, is there nothing wrong with the idea that the media spends a half an hour discussing bristol and levi's engagement or mel gibson's rants? yet what coverage is there of the wars? the toll on our soldiers? the fact that the soldiers get screwed if they get hurt over there. I just am so tired of the misinformation and that idiots still think that iraq was a threat to us. i mean wtf! ok, rant over. i guess, for now. this is why i can;t watch a lot of stuff anymore. just replying to a post sends my blood pressure off.

i had posted something about being tired and not being able to sleep because my 6 month old was taking up the bed. so my aunt's husband replied something about how obama ccould help me or something. i said obama has nothing to do with my daughter taking up my bed. one of my other aunts replied for him to stop it. he said something to placate her. and then today he posted on my wall this:

"Eileen was whining about being tired taking care of her children! AS she HELPED inflict Obama on me and the nation; and Obama is changing the USA to do every thing for everybody, I referred you Eileen, to Obama for the help YOU want."

so i replied with a comment about how obama was ELECTED not inflicted and how he's having to clean up the mess the other guy left. and some other stuff i think.

then i unfriended him and posted something on my wall which i realize he will not see now that i unfriended him, but here it is:

It's a shame that some people can't see what they are. maybe they could give up their medicare and any other goverment stuff they get to prove how self reliant they are and of course give back all the extra tax refund they got this year. i hope they don't call themselves 'christian' because they are not!

i am so damned mad. not only that this white man who is threatened by minority status has the nerve to post his crap in response to stuff about my kids. it pisses me off. i respect differing views. i respect that not everyone thinks like i do. but don't friggin infringe on me when i have not said anything to you about any of it. i am sorry i am just venting because i am sick of people trying to push their crap on me and blame obama for stuff the damned republicans did.