It Ain't Like it Was

Yes, the union was already there when I hired in. They had previously negotiated a "union shop" agreement with the company, you had to join the union as a condition of employment. Actually, there was a "probationary period" for the first couple of months before you could join. During that time, they could fire you with no questions asked. When your probationary time was up, you joined the union and they couldn't fire you without "due process".

Union shop agreements are now illegal in Michigan, since we have recently become a "right to work" state. It's being tested in the courts, but it's doubtful that it will be overturned since the law was modeled on similar laws that have been in effect for a long time in other states. In a right to work state, you don't have to join a union, and can resign from one that you are already in. You don't have to pay an equivalency fee either. The union is still required to represent you because they are the certified bargaining agent, and you are prohibited from cutting your own deal with the company, which is called "independent bargaining". I don't know if I like that or not. There were times that I wished I could have quit our union, and there were times that I was glad that I hadn't. After working there for ten weeks under the new owners, and without a union, I understood the old slogan: "Any union is better than no union."

I guess the same thing is wrong with unions as with governments, I only have one vote, and have to live with the majority decisions whether or not I voted for them. It wasn't any better when I was a union steward. I only represented the Papermaking Department, and was part of a committee of all the other department stewards, plus two chief stewards, a president and vice president. Majority rule would be easier to take if I was ever in the majority but, for some reason, I seldom am. I don't know what's wrong with people that they fail to see that I'm right and they're all wrong. I tell them, but they don't listen. Stupid people!

I seem to remember that North Vietnam was allied with Russia, and Cambodia was allied with Red China. If that's true, Nixon was barking up the wrong tree if he thought Red China was going to help him pacify Vietnam.

I used to have an internet contact who lived in Taiwan. Actually, the blogs were written by the guy's dog, who was a beagle from the U.K. His owner, which he called "his daddy", had an Irish sounding name, but the blogs sounded liked they were written by someone for whom English was a second language. I asked the dog about that once, and he said "I have two daddies, one is Irish and the other is Taiwanese." It occurred to me that the two guys might be gay partners, but the dog didn't volunteer that information, and I was too polite to ask. I did ask the dog once about the current political status of Taiwan. He told me that the Taiwanese consider themselves an independent sovereign state, but the Chinese believe that Taiwan is a province of China. Neither party has ever made a move to formally enforce their claims. I think it's a Chinese thing called "saving face". Each side pretends that the other side doesn't exist, so they never have to confront each other. My old beagle Splash was like that. He would chase anything that ran away from him but, if the critter turned and faced him, Splash would pretend that he was unaware of the critter's presence. He would look away, or up into the sky, carefully avoiding eye contact.

I looked up some stuff on international trade, and it's way more complicated than I thought. Even thought most trade is between individual companies, the national governments are in it up to their eyeballs. Each country's central bank can do all kinds of things to manipulate the system if they want to. Apparently, when a U.S. company buys something from China, they pay for it with Chinese money. I didn't find anything that tells where they get this Chinese money, since China sells way more stuff to the U.S. than vice versa, but I assume they trade U.S. money for it at their local bank. The banks must get it from the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve must get it either from China or the international currency traders. One way or the other, China must end up holding U.S. dollars, because they loan them back to us at interest. If this is true, my idea to tax U.S. dollars as they leave the country will never pass. While the trade deals might be private sector, the government is heavily involved in getting the money in and out of the country, and the government is certainly not going to tax itself. Back to the drawing board!