Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010

Your Letters

Unions will be the death

of the economy

No longer do unions serve the function of protecting workers from unscrupulous employers. They now financially rape the employers and create unrealistic wages and benefits that foster mediocre work ethics.

America now has two auto industries - the Big Three, which are in decline and ruin, and the non-union shops in our southern states, which are flourishing.

A mile-long line of applicants want to work in the Volkswagen Jetta plant. In South Carolina, 500 potential BMW plant workers line up. These non-union shops can adapt to changing trends by reassigning personnel to different functions and jobs on an as-needed basis to cope and to keep everyone employed at a good fair wage.

When I was 19, in 1975, I was making about $250 a week - astronomical at that time for a kid just out of high school.

But, you see, I was a skilled worker, a graphic artist. I was the art director at the ABC affiliate TV station, WEAR-TV 3, in Pensacola, Fla. On the other hand, my buddy Scott was a cameraman. He was making about $3.80 an hour. Cameramen also swept out the studio, put up and took down sets and emptied the wastebaskets.

The union tried to get in. Had it succeeded, Scott would have gone to about $19 an hour and would have been provided with a cable puller. Yes, I said a cable puller. The sole job of a cable puller would have been to follow Scott around the floor (for $12 an hour) and just pull his camera's cables around the studio floor for him. For 12 bucks an hour in 1974. And, of course, all the other functions (sets, maintenance, etc.) would have required other union workers.

In short, the station would likely not have survived in a Gulf Coast economy, and we would have all been out of work.

Sound familiar, GM? Look like your situation, Ford? This is why we no longer have great vehicle lines like Plymouth, Mercury, etc.

I've worked radio broadcasting all over the Southeast, and I've seen what unions like NABET and AFTRA can do to a small-town or family operation. Look at the number of General Motors employees who are being paid to sit around "job centers," drinking coffee and reading newspapers when there is no work for them.

This is not the behavior that deserves to have our tax dollars bail them out. Until the gravy train is cut off, unions will have absolutely no incentive to make any concessions or compromises in order to keep their jobs.

Workers beware. The union is not on your side.

Dave Tuttle

Emit community

Forget the Etheridge incident

Having read the letters to the editor from both Mark Otto and Jesse Worley, I am inclined to forget the incident in which a startled Congressman Bob Etheridge grabbed and held a "gotcha" filmmaker in a most undignified manner. Since no one was hurt, I say just forget the Etheridge incident. What I am not inclined to forget is that Congressman Etheridge could allow himself to become so very enraged by the simple question, "Do you support President Obama's agenda?" It is a simple fact that Congressman Etheridge has a near-perfect record of voting the way Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants and in support of the president's agenda. So why didn't Mr. Etheridge just say "yes" rather than flying off the handle? Perhaps he was ashamed to answer the question, or perhaps he was hoping that no one in North Carolina would notice what he has been up to in Washington.

Mr. Worley suggested that the congressman had to vote the Obama-Pelosi way, despite the fact that doing so would not be popular in the district, because of the need to stimulate the economy. I fail to see how supporting a rushed government takeover of health care was essential to the economy. As for the president's economic stimulus, consider the fact that had Congress opted for a six-month moratorium on federal personal income taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes, the loss in revenue to the government would have been approximately equal to the amount of money that "We the People" had to borrow to fund the president's stimulus plan. The difference is that the tax moratorium would have immediately put the money into circulation, and the federal government would not have been able to direct spending for things such as road signs to tell us that stimulus funds were being used or to fund whimsical grants.

Forget the YouTube video of Bobby Etheridge. If you are happy with Congress, then by all means support him for reelection. But if you think that things are rotten in Washington and that we need a different perspective on the country's problems from the solutions being cobbled together by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, elect a new congressional representative.

Tom Bell

Smithfield