Count Everyone

I remember having a chat with my Dad about unions, and he telling me about some of their excesses, and how they severely hurt his father's business. I asked, "So, unions are bad, right?"

Turns out, he thought they were needed to represent workers whose employers take unfair advantage of them. He said that unions sometimes went overboard in their demands, and sometimes their own upper management wasn't great, but they still performed a valuable service.

I think we forget that not very long ago there was no such thing as weekends off, or worker benefits, or paid sick leave. We could easily go back to that kind of life if the means to organize workers is outlawed.

Now I think we need unions for middle management. Managers are on salary, so they get more and more work piled on them. They have no choice but to work extra hours to get it all done. More work, but not more pay. It's such a good deal for upper management that they often will take this as far as they possibly can. If they can get an 80 hour work week out of one employee for no extra cost, they figure that's a pretty good deal! Can you tell I've been that manager?

Unions aren't the answer to everything, but they are one of the ways we can balance the competing priorities out there. We need to be sure that all constituencies are heard from and counted.

This is a really cute little video. Have a look.

How Rich is Rich Enough?

The news has been full of the NFL and NBA lockouts/strikes over whether players were paid 6 million or 8 million, and how to divide the billions in revenue that the teams take in.

Really? Millionaires and billionaires are so hungry for yet another dollar that they can't divide up their pots of gold without resorting to strikes and lockouts? What could they possibly spend it on that is of any real importance?

Meanwhile, good, hardworking people struggle. Some families default on their mortgages, which puts a downward pressure on housing prices in their neighborhoods. Small businesses struggle to stay afloat. Some don't make it. All working people suffer in ways large and small because of this.

Maybe it is time for people like us to reassess how much of our hard earned money we should be giving to our favorite sports franchises. Just because we enjoy the games doesn't mean we really need all that logo gear. A banner here, a team towel there. A water bottle. A gas grill emblazoned with the team logo. They all cost more than their un-logo'd counterparts. A lot more. And it adds up fast.

What if everyone who was thinking of making some logo purchases this year didn't do that? Or, bought less of it. What if, instead, they bought the regular gas grill for $200 at the local store, and used the $200 that they'll save to buy some things they didn't think they could afford at a locally owned shop? Or were able to go to a local farmers' market and buy all the fresh fruits their families could eat?

As Thornton Wilder said in The Matchmaker (later Hello Dolly), "Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow." Maybe, just maybe, we can resist the urge to help the very rich use our money to get even richer, and instead encourage the neighborhood flowers to grow.

Doggie Diets

So there on the 11:00 news there's a piece about spas for dogs that help them lose weight. I LOVE my dogs (ask anyone - I'm halfway obsessed by them), but I'm pretty sure that most of us should be able to keep or get our dogs at a healthy weight by only feeding them the amount of food that they need, and no more. Oh, and throw a toy for them every day for a while.

Really, do we need a fat farm for the dog?