H
human_being
Guest
I don’t want socislim either for I read part of the previously posted encyclical which I enjoyed reading. I was raised the son of a United Auto Worker and am myself a Teamster today. I work for a trucking company that is owned by the largest trucking company in the world. I would hope that I never have to work for a small trucking company again. It makes me literally sick thinking about it and our jobs are never secure. There are reasons for the DOT checks you see alongside of the road and that there are regulations on the hours we work and small businesses and non-union carriers abuse this the most and don’t pay either. But even though we are Teamster Freighthaulers we have still managed to be the most profitable/dollar spent trucking companies in the LTL business. We have been sometimes at the top but almost always in the top 3. We do quality work. We use enough guys and hurrying is not the best way to do things it causes damages and injuries. We were owned by a family and have been acquired by the huge mother company a few years ago making uneasy feelings because as we discussed the ceo’s and stockkholders only think of profits not the people who have done the work to build the business. Small businesses don’t want to pay enough for a family to own it’s property nor do they give any decent healthcare benefits nor retirement plans. Yet the small businesmen I hear on talk radio don’t want to pay taxes for national healthcare either. I geuss they want to be the only ones with healthcare. I don’t support national healthcare because my union provides me with great healthcare. Our union voted for a 10% pay cut in Jan. because we see that places are closing and that freight isn’t moving so we are not greedy to the point of breaking the company. After that the non union carriers also forced similar cuts to survive. This shows me that if GM goes down and the toyota and honda plants only keep their employee payrates close to the UAW rates to keep the union out. Because if the UAW ceises to exist the toyota & honda pay rates will fall even more. The stories of union laziness and unions not producing quality products is hogwash because if you ever watch those crazy auto auctions on tv where people pay millions for GM cars of the 1970’s tells me that they were making quality cars back then and i Know they do today. I would never want a foreign car. Combined the big automakers and the UAW paid alot of taxes to be sold out to the foriegn interests in D.C. . so I agree that socialism nor communism is the answer. The encyclical metioned above was written at a similar economic state as now it seems that maybe socialism was geting big. The labor unions/trade guilds of the time were dismantled and people were not being treated fairly leading to revolts and possibly the begining of evil socialism. The church did not support communes nor socialism. But compeition was fierce and workers were being mistreated for profit sake. i didn’t get to finish reading it but times were similar. I also don’t agree that small businesses are the answer because we are not all college educated nor business minded but we most all desire to own our own properties and deserve the dignity to work and afford to take care of our own families instead of letting the state take care of them.