Be Thankful You Have A Job And Other Corporatist Hogwash

image showing A Walmart protest in Maryland in 2012

There was an organized protest of Walmart employees timed for the largest shopping day known as Black Friday. Some cheap labor Republicans complained about the protests saying it was an attack on job creators by Unions. One of my conservative friends said that people should be thankful to have a job. When I hear that excuse for poor treatment of workers it makes me mad. Walmart is one of the worse offenders and if we didn’t have laws against sweat shops they would probably do that too.

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Hockey owners are like kids in a candy store

Well this weekend the NHL season may end if no agreement is reached on a collective bargaining agreement. Over half of the 2004-2005 has been wiped out because of a lock-out. A lock-out is a strike in reverse. Here the management prevents workers from working by locking the gates. As a strike is used as leverage by labor, a lock-out favors management.

The issue in the dispute is clear. The team owners want what they call “cost certainty”. This is just a another way of talking about a hard salary cap. Player salaries would be limited for each team based on overall revenues.

Over the years the percentage of revenues spent on salaries has gotten out of control and the owners have failed to keep a check in their check book. Not to mention expanding the number of teams to 30 including some in non-hockey markets has put a high price on the talent needed to win (due to a lack of supply of labor).

The players are being asked to take the hit because the owners have no will power.

That would be like banning parents from a candy store because their child can’t control themselves.

I like hockey and I have missed it. As time goes on I will miss it less. That is the danger of scrubbing the season.

National Hockey League Player’s Association