Vanity: Who here has (or will) cross the grocery store picket lines?

[Fledermaus]

Costs get passed on to taxpayers when working families without health insurance get sick and wind up in emergency rooms or public facilities. Emergency room care is the most expensive----particularly for routine medical conditions like colds and the flu. That strains resources at health care facilities, and leads to lower quality care for all of us.

While mostly correct, there is some over generalization in that statement. You are assuming "working families without health insurance" pay nothing if they use those services. That's not always true.

First, most companies are correctly forcing (another reason to strike to union morons) copays and higher deductibles. A copay keeps the idiots from going to the emergency room for a cold. Memphis was having a terrible time because they didn't require a copay for basic procedures under their generous plans for the "uninsured" a few years ago. Once they put in a small $10 copay for emergency room visits they saw those visits drop dramatically.

Second, there is a big difference in healthcare cost and insurance. If the government would get out of the way costs would go down and more would be insured. I still think there is nothing anyone can do to bring down the supposed 40 million that don't have insurance. That's a figure like unemployement...it's always going to be there regardless. Some people just don't want to pay for it regardless of income. Young people especially.

There are lots of people without insurance paying their own bills for medical needs. I once had a gap in coverage (my new employer incorrectly told me I'd be covered on day one but it was 90 days later and thus I didn't pay COBRA for my other coverage) and I had a car accident. I received the best care available from Vanderbilt Medical Center and they never even bothered to ask about my coverage. Once the bill was presented we worked out a fair payment program with no interest charges at all. They even tried to talk me down when I wanted to pay twice their monthly suggestion.

I'd never let others pay my way.

[Drammach]

http://www.house.gov/smbiz/facts/

Small Business Share In GDP

The private non-farm sector share of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) fell slightly to 50 percent from 51 percent from 1992 to 1997. This is not unusual though, because it has been fairly stable over the past two decades while only fluctuating slightly. Also, preliminary data shows an increase of that 50 percent share to 52 percent in 1998 and 1999. This is only a preliminary estimate however, as not all data has been compiled in the latest available reports.

The two main factors that affect the share of small businesses in the GDP are the importance of small businesses within each sector as well as how much the economy shifts towards the sectors where small businesses are providing the highest share of the output.

[Drammach]

http://www.house.gov/smbiz/facts/

Small Business Share In GDP

The private non-farm sector share of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) fell slightly to 50 percent from 51 percent from 1992 to 1997. This is not unusual though, because it has been fairly stable over the past two decades while only fluctuating slightly. Also, preliminary data shows an increase of that 50 percent share to 52 percent in 1998 and 1999. This is only a preliminary estimate however, as not all data has been compiled in the latest available reports.

The two main factors that affect the share of small businesses in the GDP are the importance of small businesses within each sector as well as how much the economy shifts towards the sectors where small businesses are providing the highest share of the output.

[Drammach]

Sorry, posting page hangup.

[NH Liberty]

"When I worked at TCI (which became ATT, which became Comcast) the installers and techs went on strike. so they flew in other techs to do the work. installs got done quicker. outages got fixed quicker, not to mention fewer of them to begin with. pretty lame when guys from 600 miles away do your job better than you, and you're gonna go on strike. not long after that, (when they came back for less than the offer they rejected) they voted out their union....the teamsters."

What a beautiful story! (LOL!)

So are they completely clean and "union-free" now?

[NH Liberty]

"Unionism is nothing more than organized thuggery designed to extort money by threatening to withhold services. I believe people should have the right to strike, but I also believe management should have the right to fire those strikers. I belonged to a union once and the harassment and intimidation they used to pressure people to strike was unbelievable. You do not raise the standard of living by striking any more than you do by raising the minimum wage. Wages should be a function of supply and demand, not extortion or social engineering. "

Right on, AlaskaErik!

(Thanks for saving me the time it would have taken me to type a similar response!)

[fishbabe]

thanks for the info..it was a big help...

[Charles Henrickson]

Here in St. Louis, grocery store workers have been on strike for a couple of weeks.

I have no problem whatsoever "crossing a picket line." The dispute at a given store is between those workers and that management. I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm neutral. Who's to say the management isn't right in this case? The union is not automatically right just by virtue of being a union. That's silly.

If the workers think the management of that store is being unfair, then they can seek better employment elsewhere. Likewise, if the management wants to fire these strikers for missing work and hire new employees, then they should be free to do so. If hiring cheaper labor causes the quality of their store's service to suffer, then shoppers will send management a message by taking their business to a store with more competent personnel. This is how the free marketplace works.

[daviddennis]

I've never seen them getting rid of the name brands. If you think they do, shop at Gelson's, which if you've never heard of it is the elitist supermarket for the upper middle class or wealthy customer who doesn't want to waste time in line.

Ralph's and other markets have jacked up their prices so much lately that Gelson's is now price-competitive about three weeks out of four, depending on what they have discounted.

For me name brands have always been significantly better than store brands, so I've pretty much lost the habit of trying the latter. Perhaps that's because they've already made them worse by the time I get around to trying them.

I can't help but note that at Target, name brands of cereal are about the same price as store brands at grocery markets. You might want to bear that in mind if you buy a lot of cereal or other groceries Target stocks. They have a limited selection but seem to be the cheapest anywhere.

Of coure Wal-Mart is the same way, but I don't like the atmosphere at Wal-Marts much. It's much more pleasant to deal with Target, and I'm not inclined to go with a store I dislike to save a few pennies. I'm not against Wal-Marts coming in - they reduce everyone's prices - but I don't want to personally shop there :-).

To bring this back to the original topic, yes, I have crossed the grocery picket, and I tell them that they're pretty dumb not to take the contract as offered. The union people advised me to shop elsewhere, handing me a list of stores that weren't involved in the strike.

I thought that was rather self-destructive of them - do they want jobs when they eventually return to work? They might not have 'em if I take all my business to Gelson's.

They have much better service anyway, but there are a few products they don't sell that I like to pick up at Ralphs.

If you want to do a challenge to the union thugs, I'll film the confrontation and we can put it up as a Freep video. But we have to have at least ten people so I can stay out of the physical confrontation part. I'm a coward, especially with a camera that's still worth over $2,000 :-).

D

[WaterDragon]

Offhand, I can't think where you'll find the info. Hernando de Soto and Thomas Sowell are two economist/authors I've read most about it. Send off an email to Sowell via Jewish World Review and see what he can tell you. I'd be interested in more popular sources, myself.

[GOPrincess]

This situation is a matter of basic economics, in my eyes. Supermarkets are losing market share to lower-priced non-union stores and their profit margins are shrinking. They need to cut back in order to keep their prices viable against this competition. (And this is actually a positive, market competition, which benefits the buying public.) Healthcare costs continue to rise at great rates. The most logical thing to do is ask that supermarket employees to shoulder a portion of their healthcare costs as just about every other employee in America does. Being in the position of being "insurance consumers" will also give the employees incentive to care about their medical costs and hopefully help slow the rising medical costs. If employees have their way, prices will have to rise to cover the increasing healthcare costs, market share will continue to erode, and the employees will have not only no healthcare, but no JOB.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Every chance I can. F the union goons.

[ArrogantBustard]

workers have the right to collectively withold their labor.

What they don't have is the "right" to harass and assault customers and workers who don't choose to withold their labour.

[halfdome]

I heard on the news that small businesses are benefiting greatly from the strike. People are going to mom and pop groceries, and places like Trader Joe's, Sav-on, Rite Aid, in droves. They showed a Trader Joe's with people waiting in line while forklifts unloaded pallets of items. Trader Joe's does not normally have that much business. How would small businesses be hurt?

[dubyagee]

I currently work part-time at food lion. No unions there. But truth is, I could only dream of 15 dollars an hour. Good grief! And they're striking???

[BamaAndy]

I cross one every chance I get--socialist unions are a big business and invariably contribute and support stupid pols who are and will forever be against what I stand for.

[petercooper]

I would

[Joe Hadenuf]

I currently work part-time at food lion. No unions there. But truth is, I could only dream of 15 dollars an hour. Good grief! And they're striking???

Don't worry. The unions will be eliminated and those that used to work for unions will be making what you are. The only problem is, once they break the unions, and they will, everyone, including you will have your wages and benefits reduced. This is a clear goal of the companies.

They companies are there to make money, not lose money.

Once the unions are broke, they will continue to reduce and chip away at their wages and benefits. Bet the rent.....

[twigs]

We have stopped shopping at large chains that are not locally owned, just from conviction. However, I also admit that we have easy access to several stores that meet this description, so it's not difficult. We have found, much to our surprise, that some of the store brands are just as good and even better than name brands. It just varies from store to store.