[BeanCounter]

Wes,

I've read your little class dividing diatribes before but this one really takes the cake. Let me put it in perspective. I grew up in a two room apartment above a bar in one of the worst sections of Kansas City. My Dad, a uneducated Okie farm boy who chopped cotton for a dollar a day, my Mom, my brother and sister and I lived and slept in those two rooms. My Dad was one of the original founders of the Grain Millers Union here in KC. My Mom was a steward for the machinists. My father in law was the International President of a construction union. My son is currently a union electrician. So it's safe to say I have a pretty solid union background. My mom and dad and we kids worked hard to get all three of us through college. In fact all of us have MBA's. I got mine on the GI bill when I got home by working a full time job and going to school at night. While the union guys were *****ing about working 8 hours I was working 12 to 14 hours, traveling away from home and continuing to better my skills. So the three of us now have a pretty good chunk of money. And I don't apologize one bit for what I've worked so hard for. The unions were very necessary in the first half of the last century but soon they began to abuse their power. High wages for doing substandard work that eventually put the auto, steel, and other industries into such a non-competetive position that now they're hurting for a job let alone a good paying one. I see the electricians union heads doing nothing but feathering their own nests while they let the guys doing the work suffer. They fight to keep guys who have failed drug test after drug test on the job endangering everyone who works with them. Meanwhile the good workers sit on the books or have to go to other cities to get work. 60% of the work in KC is now done by non-union companies and it's the union's fault for having the standards of trailer park trash.

Maybe you need to work a little harder instead of blaming everyone else because I see none of the problems that you cry wolf about. Nowhere in the world can a person better himself as he can in the good ole USA. Try it. You'll be surprised.