 Wolfie00My dog is an elitistPremium
join:2005-03-12
kudos:4 | reply to uhh
Re: So, who says there's no need for unions? Here come the anonymous union sycophants, undermining their own positions with their extremism. 
I've already pointed out that CAT has a culture of self-serving profiteering with no responsibility towards either their employees or their community. But stuff like this is bullshit:
said by uhh :Don't even get me started on US wages versus CDN wages. You cannot compare them, so that point is moot.
Well, maybe YOU can't compare them, but company management sure as hell can. And they can base their planning decisions accordingly.
It's when they do it with an utter lack of accountability and contempt for their responsibility as employers and corporate citizens that I really have a problem with it.
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"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -- a corollary of Murphy's Law
"A dog is like a child who never grows old ... always there to love and be loved" -- Aaron Katcher
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| said by Wolfie00:Well, maybe YOU can't compare them, but company management sure as hell can. And they can base their planning decisions accordingly.
That is funny considering it is the same management that agreed to pay such wages. If the management is dumb enough to consent to such a deal, then they only have themselves to blame.
Nice flaming by the way in calling me a sycophant union extremist. Your arrogance is remarkable given that I am neither syndicated, a sycophant or an extremist You lose credibility and respect the moment you attack the person and not his/her rhetoric.
...and your winking smilie does nothing to attenuate your silly comments. It makes you look ridiculous. |
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Wolfie00My dog is an elitistPremium
join:2005-03-12
kudos:4 | Standard union defense that I hear all the time: "if management was dumb enough to agree to our demands instead of kicking our asses out the door, that's their problem." Beautiful logic, and perhaps something that should be remembered the next time a company faces union demands, and decides that maybe kicking their asses might work out better in the long run.
I've already said that there are major issues with CAT management. There are also major issues with CAW. A religious devotion to one side or the other isn't going to solve anything. If unions weren't such assholes they'd have a lot more public sympathy against exploiters like CAT.
BTW, that wasn't a "smilie."
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"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -- a corollary of Murphy's Law
"A dog is like a child who never grows old ... always there to love and be loved" -- Aaron Katcher
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| reply to AR
said by AR:$60/hour?? Really?
Wow....that's $125,000 with benefits?
Are you sure?
Fully loaded costs are a pain in the rear. For an employee with health benefits, DB pension, etc. that are up to union standards, the loaded cost can easily be slightly above 2X hourly wage. |
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| reply to noelstrom
LOl and Ahahahaha!!!! @ all those who say CAT is going down hill or taking losses, they are virtually a monopoly in this kind of business and if they are truly going down then they deserve it just like RIM. |
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| reply to AR
said by AR:$60/hour?? Really?
Wow....that's $125,000 with benefits?
Are you sure?
That is about what a carpenter[good one] makes in Halifax take it from that point. |
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 linicxCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2002-12-03
United State
 ·Cass Communicati..
 ·CenturyLink
| reply to Wolfie00
Canada I believe has a different medical system than the US. CAT has taken very good care of use for 30 years. We do not wait for tests, surgery, hospital beds, X0rays, CAT?MRI scans, prosthesis, medical equipment at home, oxygen, ambulance, drugs, hospice, home nurses, blood tests, or anything medical, dental, vision or prosthesis. The real problem is the hospitals are in bed with the insurance companies and the pill makers. In 1950 the doctor's office call was $5USD. Thirty years later it was $25. Fast forward thirty years and add a zero to the office call. In 1960 a life birth in hospital was $500. Today it is well over $10K for the same procedure. In this economy no one can afford to be sick. Hospitals do not hire well qualified American doctors. They hire what they can find and contract them in such a way that the hospital bottom line and written prescriptions come before patient health. CAT is contributing to employee health care. The difference is employees are sharing part of the cost. They can thank the insurance giants for that.
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Mac: No windows, No Gates, Apple inside |
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 dirtyjefferAnons on ignore.Premium
join:2002-02-21
London, ON | reply to Wolfie00
said by Wolfie00:Standard union defense that I hear all the time: "if management was dumb enough to agree to our demands instead of kicking our asses out the door, that's their problem." Beautiful logic, and perhaps something that should be remembered the next time a company faces union demands, and decides that maybe kicking their asses might work out better in the long run.
that is exactly what EMD is doing, by offer a 50% cut offer.
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My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us
be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world. - Jack Layton 1950-2011 |
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 ARPremium,ExMod 2001-04
join:2000-09-21
Toronto, ON | reply to Horsey
125k in Halifax?!!!!
A Manager at Rogers/Bell/Telus makes that with bonus! In Toronto! |
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Warez_ZealotRural land of the rising sun
join:2006-04-19
Hamilton, ON | reply to linicx
said by linicx:Canada I believe has a different medical system than the US. CAT has taken very good care of use for 30 years. We do not wait for tests, surgery, hospital beds, X0rays, CAT?MRI scans, prosthesis, medical equipment at home, oxygen, ambulance, drugs, hospice, home nurses, blood tests, or anything medical, dental, vision or prosthesis. The real problem is the hospitals are in bed with the insurance companies and the pill makers. In 1950 the doctor's office call was $5USD. Thirty years later it was $25. Fast forward thirty years and add a zero to the office call. In 1960 a life birth in hospital was $500. Today it is well over $10K for the same procedure. In this economy no one can afford to be sick. Hospitals do not hire well qualified American doctors. They hire what they can find and contract them in such a way that the hospital bottom line and written prescriptions come before patient health. CAT is contributing to employee health care. The difference is employees are sharing part of the cost. They can thank the insurance giants for that.
I think this is the huge problem, and the reason why our medical costs are so high:
»www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/201···ort.html
»www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/···253.html
IMO MD's, and making way more than they're worth. Time to bust up their Union/Association and start giving RN's, and midwives more responsibilities and power.... Well maybe not... but I think Doctors are clearly taking more than their fair share of the pie.
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"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it."-Malcolm X
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3pt graph |
Back here in Ontario the AG reported that Ontario was overpaying doctors, the health Minster defended the costs as part of the overall 'improvements' her government was making to provincial health care.
Apparently she and her party never read any thing by Deming -merit pay does not work. |
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Wolfie00My dog is an elitistPremium
join:2005-03-12
kudos:4 | reply to Warez_Zealot
said by Warez_Zealot:IMO MD's, and making way more than they're worth.
What is your life worth?
And it's not just the number of doctors in total that tells the story, it's their distribution within specialties and geographically. There are still too many Canadians without a primary care physician, and both the US and Canada have primary care shortages. Doctors are the foundation of our medical system. Their rates of pay are just fine. Our medical system costs about half as much per capita as in the US. There are still ways we can make it more efficient, but stiffing doctors is not the way to do it.
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"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -- a corollary of Murphy's Law
"A dog is like a child who never grows old ... always there to love and be loved" -- Aaron Katcher
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| Even though, there would be plenty of doctors if greed wasn't a factor in choosing the profession, the upper range of middle class salaries is the least of our problems. Allowing a small group of large business interests, responsible only to accumulate wealth, to dictate global economic policies is what brought about the conditions that erode the middle class in North America and Europe.
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If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
—George Bernard Shaw |
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Wolfie00My dog is an elitistPremium
join:2005-03-12
kudos:4 | I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. There would be more doctors if they weren't so greedy? What??  |
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| reply to AR
said by AR:125k in Halifax?!!!!
A Manager at Rogers/Bell/Telus makes that with bonus! In Toronto!
I think the "good ones" make about 250 K |
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linicxCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2002-12-03
United State Reviews:
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| reply to noelstrom
said by noelstrom:First, the article - »www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011···506.html
So, you may recall in May, negotiations between Caterpillar and the CAW broke off, with the company threatening a lock out - going so far as to putting up a fence at the work site before they were in a legal position to lock out, etc. They ultimately decided to postpone talks for 7 months to cool down.
Fast forward to this week. Once again, the company is asking for cuts in wages, benefits and pensions in HALF! This after the parent company posted record profits in the 3rd quarter this year. So, they have shown that they can make money with the current contract in place.
The union isn't asking for anything. Their bargaining proposal was status quo - no improvements or raises, and no concessions. They want the existing contract renewed.
So, who's being greedy here? Once again, here is a perfect example of a company wanting it's workers to join the race to the bottom. The company has shown that it can make money with the current contract in place, and the local president for the workers have even increased efficiencies in the plant, to make it even better than it was in the spring.
So, these workers are faced with a lock out yet again, likely to come just after Christmas. This sickens me. In a job market such as what London has right now, who in their right mind would accept a 50% cut in everything they have right now? Talk about life changing - for the workers and their families.
Here's hoping that cooler heads prevail.
Warez_Zelot: You are completely right. I was in the middle of the medical system for nearly 20 years. The rot is never talked about. Unlike many other US companies CAT is wholly self-pay. Humana or ? manages it or at least tries.
Sixty years ago doctors made house calls and did minor surgery in their office. The top graduates work on Park Avenue or Beverly Hills or the top hospitals in the US. Rural American hospitals get the dregs. No doctor that just spent 10 years in college want to want to watch corn grow or drive 200 miles to Dallas or Chicago. Hospitals make sure the doctors cannot make mistakes my allowing them to do much more than routine exams and write RX. Pharma pays them for every script they write. That less on cost $4000 in six months and the blood clotting drugs had not worked yet. I left that clinic and went straight back to our old family doctor who was a horse doctor before he was an MD. It took time and a ton of blood tests to regulate the body properly. He was mile away vs 200miles for the clinic and his office call was $25US until the day he died. And his "fix" lasted 14 years. It where I learned to tell the hospital clinic quacks "NO". They would have changed all the meds for the kick back and left me with a new mess to clean up after every unnecessary and expensive visit.
It is bad when doctors do not have the brains or the permission to culture an infection. Its why I had to play games with MRSA until I found an independent doctor who would. Ir took another six months to debride it and heal it.
When the same doctor found spots on the lung he called cancer and wanted us to go to his buddy I took the films and drove 1200 miles round trip to a specialist. He laughed.. The good doctor back home diagnosed a shadow.
When the two lung diseases were diagnosed the lung doctor would not treat without doing surgery. That was really special. There are only four drugs in the world to treat COPD/Fibrosis type diseases. They work or they do not. Fortunately for us three worked longer than expected by three years where one did not.
CAT is not trying to kill employees. It is opposed to, as well as other are, the new "health" plan. It actually undermines the level of medical care CAT currently provides. It will put my local hospital and pharmacy out of business and force me to drive (I can't see to drive) 50-miles to a network doctor and hospital. What it does is put insurance companies, hospitals and pharma in full control. We don't need it. What we do need is low cost clinics that the uninsured and poverty level poor can afford. Wallyworld offer the generic drugs for $4. I know too much about the drug game too. Medical care is a god awful mess in the US.
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dirtyjefferAnons on ignore.Premium
join:2002-02-21
London, ON | your issues seem to have more to do with the state of the Health Care System in the US than what this thread is really about. |
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linicxCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2002-12-03
United State | You are correct. I saw CAT mentioned and jumped in. WE are neighbors living in two different worlds.
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| reply to Wolfie00
said by Wolfie00:I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. There would be more doctors if they weren't so greedy? What??
That was the least relevant part of the entire post, but I'll expand it just for the benefit of your comprehension........
Many people are saying that without high salaries (i.e. motivation of greed), there wouldn't be any doctors. That is false as in the commie nations, where a doctor wouldn't earn much more (if anything) than a janitor, they had no shortage of medical professionals who signed up to be doctors either in order to help people or for the prestige of the profession.
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If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
—George Bernard Shaw |
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Wolfie00My dog is an elitistPremium
join:2005-03-12
kudos:4 | The "commie nations", as you put it, were closed economies following a failed economic model. They had a crappy medical system and their doctors were not exactly free to emigrate to the United States as ours would do if they couldn't make a decent living commensurate with their skills and responsibilities.
If anything, our doctors are underpaid considering the responsibilities we demand of them and the almost insurmountable challenges they often have to deal with, and considering what it takes to qualify and graduate from medical school, internship, specialty residency, board certification, specialty fellowship certification, the long and often irregular hours, and the constant stress that takes a toll on their own health. If you want an example of overpaid uselessness, look no further than the typical senior business executive, or some of the more extravagantly overpaid union bums. If we can pay a hockey player ten million a year, we can surely pay a doctor as much as a mid-level bureaucrat at a plumbing-supply company.
Usually the shrill accusations hurled against doctors' compensation can be boiled down to a simple translation, "he drives a Lexus and I don't."
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"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" -- a corollary of Murphy's Law
"A dog is like a child who never grows old ... always there to love and be loved" -- Aaron Katcher
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