Random Thoughts

I understand we need unions, but I really can't stand them. There's no union looking out for me and my job. I can be fired today for no reason what so ever. My buddy is in a union and shows up late to work (at a delivery company) 3-4 times a week and can't get fired.

grab me a fucking violin. unions are such a fucking joke. i don't picket outside of potential employers when i interview for jobs and don't get them because someone was willing to do the same job as me for less, does anyone else? try getting a real job instead of creating some joke picket line, cocksuckers.

Fuck those lazy union ass-hats!! Do they really think the most important man in Boston personally hand picks plumbers? I guess this means 6 more tickets are available to the rest of the Pats games this season...

I'm with you Paul. Unions were good way back in the day, but now all they do is drive wages WAY up for no good reason, and promote crappy work ethics because of job protection. I have a buddy who is a mechanical contractor and he's got tin-knockers making $100,000+ a year because they are union, and they live paycheck-to-paycheck because they are idiots. Why should anyone feel obligated to support that kind of stupidity by using union shops?

Don't these numbnuts realize that this publicity makes THEM look like the idiots?

Hey if any of those union folks have Pats season tickets i'll take them off their hands.

laphroig23...no, they don't. a few years ago my buddy was in negotiations w/ the union on wages. they went on strike, and by the time they got their fuckin wage increase, they had lost so much money by picketing that the increase wouldn't even cover the lost wages. morons. maybe they should stop standing outside with a fucking stupid sign on and go earn some money.

Could not agree more, is this a joke? It's one condo, and just b/c it's Brady they are going to bitch. Stop picketing and go fix someone's shitter.

That's it. From here on out I'm boycotting the Union Oyster House.

I agree with dumredneck and Paul. Unions were great back when working conditions were a joke and truly life threatening, and wages were a pittance, say, 100 years ago.

You left out the best part:

"The picket line was aimed at flushing out Tom’s plumbing contractor A&K Plumbing of Revere which, the plumbers say, doesn’t pay the “established community standard” wage of $61.75 an hour plus benefits and does not employ any women or minorities"

Where do I sign up?

that was funny giggles. and State of the Union addresses as well. you can bet my kids will never go to Union college, or join a federal credit union.

My buddy at the delivery company told me that they had a guy who was on disability for his bad back or something, but was caught playing golf TWICE and only got fired after getting caught the second time. Of course, the union stepped in, and he got his job back. Crazy.

You guys are right. Workers should just bend over and let corporate America fuck 'em right in the ass without lube.

i don't understand why people complain about other people making too much money or about them not making enough. you're not making shit because you're a fucking plumber and probably didn't go to college. deal with it. if the dude from blackstone just made $8 bil on that IPO, so be it. it's his fucking money, he earned it. i'm so sick of people whining about their position in life. wherever you are, you're there for a reason. so suck it the fuck up, or do something about it.

ok i'm finished.

To say that we don't need unions? Probably not true. But this incident? Hella-stupid. And yeah, I just said hella.

Amen Don Jeans, Amen.

Unions are like a legal Mob. They want a piece of everything.
Look at the great job the talented Unions did on the Big Dig?
Every one of those lazy bastards were in the bars getting hammered on breaks and going back on the job. I know I saw them!
The Big Dig was built by union drunks.
These guys in the paper look like dummies! If Tom caves in and gets union drinkers/workers (he probably will because he's a wuss) I'll have to say he has no balls.

Unions are good because they keep employers in line. With that being said, they do go overboard. I'm a union guy, but non union construction companies are cheaper and turn things around much quicker than union construction companies.

These fat slobs need to get a life.

Plumbing is a fucking racket. I had a split pipe in my house this winter, the plumber was there for 2 hours at the most to replace 6 inches of pipe and it cost $500.

And what the fuck does "“established community standard” wage of $61.75 an hour" even mean. Last I checked we have a free market economy.

if i were tom brady i'd hit casa romero and stuff my face. then i'd wait for the diahhrea to hit. i'd go on my roofdeck, pul down my pants, and take a huge fucking dump on this picket line. then i'd stand up and piss on them, all the while screaming "i'm tom brady bitches! fuck your picket line!"

Chip - from what I've heard, the Big Dig was built by Union Junkies, not Drunks.

Unions are out-dated. Its b/c of unions that we need all these illegals to pick vegetables. If it weren't for illegals, and unions picked our produce, peanut butter and fluuf sandwiches would be athing of the past. We'd only eat the fluff, b/c that shit gets pumped out of the ground. Oh wait, that's "The Stuff".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090094/

First things they teach you in unions is how to wear a sign around your neck and hold a sign. If you master that your in!
If you can look like an idiot (see above pic) doing it-you get to be the poster boy!

Unions are the worst, and I love this story because it makes them look ridiculous...again.

Mike-Its probably a little of both. The bars along the Big Dig routes were packed with fat smelly hard hats who got me hammered just smelling their breath talking to them and those guys were the "skilled" guys. Shots and beers for hours straight.
They made Wade Boggs look like a social drinker.

KWall's National Honor Society Induction Ceremony is on YouTube.

Unions went from organizations that protected worker rights to fat lazy drunks who stick together in an effort to remain overpayed for underperforming. $61 dollars an hour for a plumber? Criminal.

Don Jeans=Tony Robbins.....I like it.

$61 an hour for a plumber who's trying to make a living on that...as compared to an athlete making millions...and nobody complains about that...now thats pathetic. Just like an athlete, a person has the right to make as much money as he possibly can, by any means necessary.....good for those plumbers...fuck rich athletes no matter who they are. Brady isn't any better than any other athlete...and by fathering an illegitimate kid he actully proves he's just like any other athlete.....

Unions do suck. It's much better to work for a faceless billion dollar corp who can shitcan you at the drop of a hat for wasting company time on a message board instead of having proper representation. Unions add nothing to this city---it wouldn't run without the white collar worker.

Sure, a plummber has every right to make as much money as possible just like you, me, and Tom Brady should have a right to select any plumber we want. Here's an idea union guys... lower your rates or improve your work. Maybe you will win the bidding war for Youk's shower pipe work.

As a Union member himself, Brady should always use union workers. I mean he's having a baby with a SAG member and nailing a card-carrying VS Union model, but he goes to a non-union plumber? C'mon Tom, you are better than that.

actually rearadmiral, in your sarcastic rant, you actuall made a good point. without the white collar financial services jobs that make up oh, probably over 50% of employment in boston proper, boston wouldn't run. so you are right.

Always good to see a Republican not catering to the unions. Atta boy Tommy.

what we do need though, is more union staties and boston cops out there doing road details making $50 an hour reading the herald and drinking coffee. that's what we need more of. we need more cops who give me tickets for driving 75 on the highway and pull me over on the way to work for having a cracked windshield. fuck all the gun violence and black on black crime in dorchester, the real enemy here is 26 year old males driving at the speed of traffic.

Unions suck and overcharge for everything i love watching from my office the "work" they do on the greenway, and hate more than anything getting stuck behind their lackey in dunkin donuts who order 15 coffees and 20 breakfast sandwiches and slows the whole operation down, at least stick to their word and go to a union coffee shop and out of non union shops, hypocrites

I'm pretty sure I've seen these guys out picketing over the last couple of days. It's quite the sight. They have a giant inflatable rat with moving arms on a trailer parked out in front of the building where the work is going on. I'm not sure of the significance of the rat (that seems like more of a "Stop Snitchin" mascot, not a plumber's union mascot, but I digress), but it's pretty funny looking.

It's on the corner of Arlington and Beacon if anyone happens to be in the neighborhood.

Don Jeans, police details are paid by the companies that hire them---not taxpayers. And without workers to build the buildings, you have no office/cubicle. It's a chicken/egg thing. I wouldn't get too comfy either. Because your CEO will likely ship your job to New Delhi in the next few years.

Unions are more than drunken Big Dig workers and pissed off plumbers that the Herald loves to showcase.

The worst type of unions...teachers unions. They get summers off, april, feb vacations AND regular vacation/personal days...yet they still complain all the f-ing time. I hate teachers unions.

Obviously, I over-estimated the I.Q.of the average commenter. Unions are the reason for: the eight hour work day, weekends off, overtime pay, vacation time, holidays off, sick days, the minimum wage, the prevailing wage, and most importantly, our way of life in America. Get a grasp of history other the Celts, Sox, or Pats. You jackasses live in the most historic part of our country. Pull your heads out of your asses.

"They have a giant inflatable rat with moving arms on a trailer parked out in front of the building where the work is going on. I'm not sure of the significance of the rat (that seems like more of a "Stop Snitchin" mascot, not a plumber's union mascot, but I digress), but it's pretty funny looking.

It's on the corner of Arlington and Beacon if anyone happens to be in the neighborhood."

I see these guys over by my office in Stoneham.

I love all the anti-union comments from people making god-knows what an hour while checking barstool from their cubicle in an air-conditioned office...

Unions Status Update = Still The Worst

I love all the anti-union comments from people making god-knows what an hour while checking barstool from their cubicle in an air-conditioned office...

It's certainly not $61 an hour, I'll tell you that much.

Worst Union ever = MLBPA. Fuck them. They make these guys look reasonable.

liuna - i worked my ass off thru college to get to where i am so fuck you and fuck the union workers who complain about "white collar" guys like me who make a decent living. $61 is 2x as much as my wife makes and she saves lives for a living, and had to spend a shitload of money for college to do it.

I am actually surprised there are this many people backing up unions.

I support teachers' unions because they provide me with awesome medical coverage, but my favorite union is the NBAPA.

hunior89, get your head out of your ass, most people say unions WERE useful, they just aren't now.

dumbredneck, you couldn't be righter. for the record i just coined that word. i grew up in a middle class family with a father who was actually in a union, and they were always striking and charging him fees for this and that. so the "higher wages" he got paid were largely offset by his dues and other bullshit he went through. now he runs the company and can't go to work when his faggot union employees are striking because it will be perceived as bad if he crosses the line, and he wont have their confidence anymore. he realizes the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but has to play the game anyway. anyway what i mean to say is fuck all you douches complaining about white collar people. neither of my parents went to college, so i worked my ass off when i was young and it paid off by getting me into a good college with solid alumni connections in finance, which got me where i am today. and my father is proud of me because i will never have to deal with the life and bullshit he went through being in a union, and will probably create a better life for my kids because of it. people who don't think a little old fashioned hard work gets you places in this society are plain fucking lazy.

Unions being the reason for our way of life??? Ahhhh...huh?

Assuming you know at least one union worker, when was the last time they worked an 8 hr day?

Don Jeans: right on.

Don Jeans... it is good to hear that you realize why you have a job... Because of who you know, not because of what you do.

dumbredneck, I'm not saying you didn't work hard to get where you are, or that they deserve 61/hour. I think there are arguments for and against unions. But making a blanket statement about unions because some dozen union plumbers decide to do something stupid is just as stupid as what the plumbers are doing

This is the exact reason my dad only hires non-union workers for his business. The unions today are full of crybabies as I witnessed first hand at my last job. They go running to their union leaders the first time they feel like they have been slighted.

Plumbers deserve to get what ever they can. Any of you guys out there want to stick your hand in someone else’s toilet?

Unions suck and all, blah, blah, blah... but could someone please take down that hideous picture of Alicia Silverstone before I lose one of these vurps...

Have you ever seen a photo of a union protest without at least one fat obese bastard? I challenge anyone to produce said photo.

I guess we can all pour a little of our collective "40" out for the demise of Boston as a blue-collar city. Now we can become just like Manhattan. Full of the haves and have-nots, fuck the middle class---the same middle-class that busted its ass for the last 75-100 years that made this city the safe, livable place it is today.

TEE, I agree, we are saying unions once served a useful purpose, they stuck up for the working man. Now they're geared towards saving the lazy shitbag's job next to the working man. I have this out with my brother, Mr. super-union, everyone else is a scab fuck, union or die guy, all the time. I've been doing engineering/construction for a long time and worked with both union and non. They both have a majority of guys who just want to do thier jobs and then the handful of lazy, lying assholes who fuck off all day. The difference is you can't get rid of the union guy who sucks. Now, if you're a hard working guy and the asshole next to you fucks off all day but gets the same bennies and pay, doesn't that piss you off?
And the whole wage thing is a huge farce. I look over all the proposals and believe me the pay scale is not that different. The unions want you to believe that the non-union contractor is raiding Guatamalan mountain villages and stealing children to force them to fix pipes for 50 cents an hour. Not quite true.
And even it were, who the fuck are they to tell me or you or Tom Brady we can't get the best price.
Aaauggh, I'm getting pissed.
Sorry for the long rant.

rearadmiral,

They're really not more than the Herald depicts them. I work for a general contractor, and it costs 20% more to use unions than non-union companies, and they work slower...on purpose! I have plenty of stories. A new guy was working hard the other day, and the guys he works with told him he needs to slow down! The slower they work, the more hours they have a job.
Also, my friend is a custodian, and a guy he worked with got caught smoking crystal meth on the job TWICE and they couldn't fire him. Fucking ridiculous.
Its a free market, capitalism here people...

Sounds great rearadmiral. Let’s go back to the good old day of Boston. Lets get Whitey back. Let’s segregate schools. Let’s break into our professional athletes houses and shit on their bedspreads. Maybe we should stay blue collar like Pittsburgh, that’s a hell of a place.

Another time, the site super asked a carpenter to install a window before the day was over. So he did it in about 20 minutes. The next day the union rep. came up to him and said, "From now on when you install a window, it takes three hours".

I have just been corrected by someone...it costs 30 to 40% more for unions.

Special Ed, depending on what type of construction, 30%-40% sounds pretty high. I generally see 15%, up to 25% more for union.
But ask a union fitter and a non-union fitter to see thier wages and you can bet your ass the union guy isn't clearing anywhere near 25% more in his check.
They just don't do for the average worker what they used to. It's a fucking scam.

Lots of people with major chips on their shoulder about money and authority on Blog Island.

rearadmiral: the middle class and the working class aren't the same thing.

Although I'm glad to see that the "common man" on BSS actually means "yuppie"

I wish that fat union fuck was standing in front of Alicia Silverstone when they took that picture...

Oldstoolie,
True, 25% is more common...it all depends. But ya, the union guy isn't actually making much more.

And there really isn't a big mix of hard workers and slackers, they're mostly slackers. If you're getting paid the same as the lazy guy next to you, and you can't get fired, then why would you work harder than him?

Liuna...I absolutely wasn't making a blanket statement...my opinion of unions comes from knowing people who have been in them, and people who pay employees that are members of them...this includes teachers, nurses, tin knockers, telephone workers, and mill employees. not once has anyone ever convinced me that they are "good"...including the people in the unions, who typically agree that they are a pain in the ass - that the dues outweigh the benefits. They were designed to protect workers back in the day and if you ask me, they are doing the opposite today. take manufacturing for example...why do you think "outsourcing" is such a hot topic? i'll tell you why: unions have driven the cost of labor SO high that companies are fed up and are moving their operations to mexico, canada, china...wherever...and are paying 1/2 of what what the unions are demanding. lot of good the union does then...now they have 0 paycheck.

KWall joined the Blessed Union of Souls in 1999.

Not sure how many of you are actually speaking from experience in regards to this topic. My father owned a constuction company for 39 years...all 39 years were as a Union-Contractor. I have seen the good and bad that come along with Unions. Unions are the best and worst that has happened to this country. Like earlier posts stated Unions helped build this great country and we 100% needed them back in the day. HOWEVER, in today's world Unions are the absolute worst. Nothing good comes from Unions nowadays. For every good union worker there are twenty bums out there who are a drunk or addicted to some sort of drug.

I couldn't tell you how many times I would come home from college during the summer to witness the horror's of what these people are capable of on a daily basis. I could go on and on with stories about these "world class" low-lifes. They have cost my father alot of money and given my family to much shit over the years. FUCK ALL YOU UNION COCKSUCKERS.

$62 x 8 hours = $496 per day
$496 x 5 days = $2480 per week
$2480 x 52 weeks = $128,960 per year

Protecting the working man indeed.

How is making a total judgment of a concept based on the few people you've met not a blanket statement? And you're telling me that saying the cause of outsourcing is solely because of unions is NOT a blanket statement?

$128,960 per year huh? how might one get a job like that? I'm overweight and drink a lot, is that enough?

Dumredneck,

You don't sound so dumb. Good point about the outsourcing.

Liuna...that's ONE example, another would be the time my father-in-law lost thousands of dollars in lost wages due to a strike. (the alternative was to lose the respect of his union peers). Another example might be the time my buddy lost a multi-million dollar contract because his "underpaid" $100k+ sheet metal workers went on strike for more $. another might be the time when the hospital my wife was working at voted in a union and her dues cost more than her raise provided. would you like me to keep going?

Liuna, in that case any opinion that someone has is just a blanket statement. Doesn't make sense.

And the cost of unions is a major factor in outsourcing. Look at the auto industry. American cars cost more and aren't as good, so people aren't buying them anymore. Union wages are a major cause of that.

Yeah, Unions were cool when we were BUILDING THE F*CKING RAILROADS or losing 25 hardworking men a day in horrific Mining tragedies...Today though? Not so cool.

And who the hell threatens to not renew their Pats tickets??

Special Ed, that's exactly what I was saying, in an admittedly roundabout way. Believe it or not, in my experience there are a lot of good, hard working union guys. It's just that, like you say, where's the motivation if Freddy Fuck-off is next to you and he's untouchable. It's like they try to purge that hard work ethic right out of you. It's fucked up.
Hey, I know who can settle this whole thing once and for all...
Paging Soog, help us end this argument with your all-knowing opinion, calling Soog....

Rolli, not sure WTF Whitey has to do with this. And Boston schools were never segregated (a liberal myth). People went to school in their own neighborhood. Just so happens ethnic groups lived together more so back then so the local schools reflected that make-up. There were no 'white' schools and no 'colored' schools like the South legally mandated. As for Bill Russell's house, obviously fucked-up people did that...but it was 40+ years ago.

I forgot how much better yuppies made neighborhoods with their mere presence and getting beat on an 800 square foot condo.

Dumredneck, now that I've seen three examples of people you know I say fuck the unions!

And special ed, when someone holds an opinion without ever admitting that there may be opposing views that make sense, I see that as a blanket statement, yes. But I guess you could argues its not...

"And Boston schools were never segregated (a liberal myth)."

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

LOL, actually Boston public schools were segregated waaay back in the 1850's. On top of that they were found guilty of rezoning schools to keep them segregated as recently as 1974. Don't let the facts get in your way rearadmiral. We need unions and racism doesn't exist in Boston. Stupid yuppies.

Rearadmiral, I guess Whitey has as much to do with this topic as Yuppies do.

So I guess I would rather have a young urban professional live next to me than a fat, drunk, union worker who has a bunch of shitty kids that kick the side mirrors off my car.

Stop with your romantic notions of Boston as the blue collar good old days.

Kwall and ICRat97 enjoy their Civil Union.

People that say Unions were good once upon a time but no longer since we're not building railroads on 16 hour days at straight time or sending guys up on balancing acts a few hundred feet in the air are sort of missing a key point... without the union, a lot of that sh*t would still be going on. With that being said, I worked on management on the Big Dig and can tell you at least 60% of these guys were friggin slugs. I also have an old man who is a non-union brick layer and he could lay El Prez a yellow brick road from Abington to Boston before these guys finnished their coffee, and be called a rat for it. So no, I'm not a big fan of the enitre state of Union labor today, but unfortunately you do kinda need to have them.

Who put up those condos, rearadmiral?

Ya gentrification really sucks...Southie was way better during the Whitey days and the south end was better when it was all crackhouses.

Just to clarify, they weren't legally segregated in the 70s as the South was in the 50s (de facto 'segregation' is certainly different than Jim Crow).

And there are more than yups and a "fat, drunk, union worker who has a bunch of shitty kids that kick the side mirrors off my car" that live here. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to leave The Purple Shamrock after my 3 hour lunch to get back to work on the Greenway so I can afford my OC habit.

American by Birth Union by Choice

Mike22, a good chunk of today's "condos" were built 50-100 years ago. They're just gussied up apts that grandma used to live in that people overpay for. The newer ones were 'put up' by developers (and likely built by union workers).

or Union by No Other Choice.

Just kidding...had to.

Shecky Soog over here.

Tip your waitresses.

i love how all the dumb fuck charlestown and southie townies complain about gentrification like its a bad thing. maybe if there were more yuppies in southie, there wouldn't be an HBO special called "South Boston Drug Court" on demand.

the whole point is to crowd out the original slobs who lived in these neighborhoods so normal people ACTUALLY want to move to boston and live there. there's always more room for you in dorchester.

Don Jeans I wouldn't go through Southie or Charlestown anytime soon

yeah cause frankdatank is gonna get ya.

Not Me Whitey

The comments pretty much completely hijacked the topic, I love it.

no matter what brady does or says, he is a greek god in the flesh. the plumbers union local 12 can go fuck themselves. a feeble attempt to gain publicity, and an even feebler attempt to meet tom brady. maybe they are actually brilliant. oh shit i forgot they are union guys.

They didn't follow the proper process, and then complain because BRADY didn't write them back. Knobs!

If I was boning Gisele, the only writing I'd be doing is leaving mushroom stamps.

peyton and eli dont use union workers

Rearadmiral, kudos to you. It seems that you and I are the only ones with a grain of knowledge about American history and economics. The Middle Class built America. Without unions there is NO middle class. All you right-wings fucks who hate unions and want to sodomize W. should enlist and die in Iraq for delusion filled leader and his failed policies.

Hey, how did union talk get on the sports board?

These people complaining about Unions would be the first whiners when they get canned because of "down-sizing". Unions foremost keep people in work. They remove the "at-will" portion of most employments. I'm in the PACE union, and it's a wonderful to know that even if the market I work in drops, my company can't lay me off to hire someone cheaper two years down the road.

And Don Jeans - slow down on the highway, and write to Menino, it's his fault that Dorchester resembles a DMZ now... he's refused help on multiple occasions.

to prevent myself from exploding and writing an essay on 101 reasons why union guys are asshole, im just going to go ahead and say fuck you to all of you.

Hey hunior89 you are a regular Howard Zinn. Please tell me more about history, I would love it. “Without unions there is NO middle class”???? are you out of your mind? That’s like saying if there were no slave traders there would be no NBA.

And seriously, is anyone out here worried about being fired in favor of cheap labor? Where do you guys work in a clothing factory?

Unions built America? And here all this time I thoiught it was capitalism. My bad.

Hey Mom I wanna be like Dad and hold a sign up in a line and yell at people all day like a moron. What really sucks about unions dumbasses are the union boys who are happy working and taking home a paycheck but have to strike. Fuck unions. So now instead of taking home a check he stands in a line with little or no money for as long as the union heads tell them. Fuck them. If I have a house to pay off and kids to feed-I'm working.

Hunior89 sounds like he'd like to sodomize himself. Get off yourself.

You realize the original issue was a bunch of plumbers(union or not) trying to exploit Brady for their 15 minutes of fame. You do don't you?

Most of these guys are expressing opinions. You're the guy who's thinks he's educating us w/ his "grain of knowledge". You gotta love that guy.

Unions-the American Mafia.

Hey shitbird, $61 an hour takes you out of the middle-class. Unless 120k a year is the new middle class.

Dear Hunior89 and Parkomas,

Can I join your union? I just lost my job to some 5 year old in India who can sew a zipper on much faster and work for 5 cents an hour. Rolli is dead on, not many people where I live have to worry about cheap labor.

One of my all-time favorite union stories that I tell my buddies. I'm working on my dad's jobsite when one of the Union workers decides he needs a new toolbox. How does he get this you might ask yourself? He decides to try and be sneaky when no one is looking and put his entire toolbox under a 30,000 lb. load that our 100 ton crane was moving. No one except myself saw this d-bag do this. Before I could get the crane operators attention he set the load down and crushed the guys toolbox.

Guess what happened next...my father had to buy the guy a new set of tools and toolbox. Nice $1000-$2000 Bill. Nothing we could do because he was protected by our beloved Unions!!! I have a million stories like this crap.

I said it before I'll say it again...FUCK UNIONS

"Unions foremost keep people in work." -Parkomas

So does being productive and efficient. Well that's what I heard...

Boss it's 9:15 time for our morning break.

Boss it's 12:00 time for our lunch break.

Boss it's 3:15 time to clean up so I can be in the bar at 3:31

Nice mfsaint. Good call.

Thank God the Big Dig is over. It put more union people out of work!
Did any of the assholes save all their money? Nooooooooo.
They drank-drugged it all away. Overtipped strippers-bought Brazillian hookers-expensive cars. Dumbasses.

Hey Unions-Trishelle's not dating a union guy. quick go grab a sign and protest her appearance. Retards.

Sorry boys, had to step out for my union-mandated, two-hour shit...

Seriously though, I can't believe we've gone this whole fucking post without ONE person bringing up the 1920s version of Pimply Faced Teenager get muscled by strikebreaker Abe Simpson (please correct me if I'm wrong here)..."You watch, we'll form a union and get big. But then we'll get greedy and the Japanese will eat us alive...". (Help us UB, you're our only hope---get that youtube)

Let's face it, every collar fucks off at work. Be it the tunnel rat who has a four Heineken coffee break, the middle manager who puts lap dances on the corporate card, the garbage man who sneaks an extra 15 minute nap, and the entry-level desk jockey spanking it to BSS when he really, REALLY should be working on those TPS reports.

I'm not in a union. The one I was in had the teeth of a newborn kitten. But when you make a generalized 'all unions suck' statement, remember you're shitting on just about every cop, firefighter, teacher, nurse, EMT, DSS worker, bus driver (sometimes deserved), train conductor, janitor, and 100 other jobs you wouldn't want to do. Are there fat shits cashing in? Shit yeah. But again, that's not specific to unions. It's any walk of life.

Now let's get fucked up for Thirsty Thursday. First round's on my at Harvey's on Boylston St.

For those who can't get enough, ESPN radio (via Mike Wilbon) is resurrecting the 'racist Boston' angle today at 5.

Don Jeans, your cyber-ESP is faulty. You have no clue where I'm from. And everybody knows that NO yuppies do drugs and would EVER end up in drug court.

Paying top price doesn't isolate you from problems inherent in an inner-city neighborhood. No matter how many 'slobs' you manage to crowd out.

id just like to say this, bravo "boston loves johnny cakes," bravo. i could not agree with you any more

rearadmiral, that reminds me. there's a corporate challenge road race with about 10,000 people going from the commons to fenway and back and it starts at 7. It'll be crowded down there just so everyone knows.

rearadmiral, i don't recall making an assumption of where you are from. should we both pull out our cocks and measure them though?

DJ, I was one of the guys (or only guy) "complaining" about gentrification. You wrote "i love how all the dumb fuck charlestown and southie townies complain about gentrification like its a bad thing." That implies that you assumed I (or another 'complainer') am from SB or CTown. That's all.

Fourth stall on the left...

rearadmiral:

Street kid gets arrested, gonna do some time,
He got out three years from now just to commit more crime.
A business man is caught, with 24 kilos,
he's out on bail, and out of jail AND THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES!

and props to Johnnycakes.

and that one guy wore his nicest Fenway shirt to the protest.

They even got hooker and stripper unions too.
They're protected from getting HIV tests,don't have to ride laps of non union workers.

This entire argument is ridiculous. There could not be anything more clear cut than this. Just as many have said, unions were good at one point in time. That time has come and gone, and they are now worthless. Not only do they do retarded things like picket Brady's joint, but they fuck with non-union workers. The balls on these fat fucks. I have seen first hand, a group of union guys destroy a non-union company's equipment. They were both working on the same work site and yet they still fucked with their gear. They even throw rocks at my truck drivers when they deliver product simply because they are not union. These are the same insecure douche's who messed with the Freshmen when they were Seniors just because they could. They are ALL and I mean ALL jokers and worthless low lives. Scum of the earth if you will.

Hunior69- My friend you should consider yourself a lucky man, that I don't know where you live. I may want to "sodomize W." I may not. But unlike you I have a pair of balls and did join the army went to Iraq, was shot three times, blown up four times and had two close friends die in my arms. For failed policies? Wrong dickhead. For my/our country, because I saw 3K innocent people die a horrible death. The next day I signed the dotted line. Next thing I know I was in Iraq TWICE, and was filled with pride every second of it. No union for me, I did my job, I did it good and as quick as possible. Never did I complain about my wage (25K a year) a break(non available) I just did my fucking job. Probably the same time your fat ass was filling your ugly face with cheese puffs while you were on the clock. Oh and guess what you self proclaimed educator of American History, since we were sent over there...not one innocent American has died on American soil. In closing, fuck you, fuck your union, and do us all a favor and move to China. America is a better place because of George W.

Cperault-

dont get me wrong here. i appreciate the fact that you went to iraq. i think its an honorable duty. i certainly wouldn't have had the balls to do it myself. but i think there is a big misconception among a lot of the troops that they are over there "fighting for our country". fighting for what? iraq had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. this isn't an issue of freedom, or defending our nation, or anti-terrorism, or any of that shit. it's about politics. anyone who doesn't realize that is living in fantasy land

GW is going to go down as one of the worst President's in our history.

and just to clarify-- i would be the first guy in line for the Army if a sovereign nation like N. Korea, Iran or China pulled an attack on U.S. soil. i just think it's kind of fucked up that after 9/11 a legion of patriotic young men blindly signed up for the army to go and fight a nameless, faceless enemy. and under that guise, they were all shipped off to iraq to fight a war that has absolutely no purpose to it, and sadly, many of them have died. i ask you CPerault, for what?

Don Jeans- I am not sure if you will get this but I will try to educate you anyway. You said it yourself that we have been given the daunting task of fighting a nameless and faceless enemy. That my friend is not an easy task. I don't think that for one second you will try to tell me that Iraq had anything good to offer the world with Saddam Hussein in power. He was a ruthless tirant who tortured his people and sure as shit supplied any and all resources at his dissposal to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. I will go as far as saying that without Saddam 9/11 would not have happened. As the groups more than likely would not have had the ability to carry out such a complex attack. As the worlds single super power wheather you like it or not we have the daunting task to protect democracy in and outside of our borders. That is one of the many reasons why this war is just. To say that scores of America's youth "blindly joined the military" could not be further from the truth. Before you make those kinds of comments, I challenge you to step foot in Iraq and tell me that those people did not need help. And that those people for the most part don't want our help. They did and do want us there. If they didn't they wouldn't be on the streets waving at the troops as we walk and drive by on patrol. Now that Saddam is gone and the start of a soverign nation has been in place the goal of the war has shifted. As tough as is it to accept in a way we are using the grounds of Iraq to fight these pricks so we don't have to fight them in YOUR backyard. Obviously both the troops and the president are doing something right as nothing has happended on American Soil. Look at the poor people in Europe the terrorist fear no retribution for attacks over there, much like they didn't when Clinton was in office. They bombed an American war ship and what does Clinton do? He shoots a couple of skud missiles. That set a very bad precident. One that said we had no back bone and that we were afraid to fight. George W. comes into office and has done everything in his power to change that precident. Well the proof is in the pudding. Nobody has died yet, and America is safer for it. All you liberal pussies can bash bush all you want but the truth is he will go down in history with the likes of Washinton and Eisenhower.

so because iraq "had nothing good to offer the world with Saddam Hussein in power" we storm their country, stir up a fucking hornets' nest, and let it degenerate into civil war? your logic is faulty my friend. i see bums on the side of the road every day on my walk to my car, i don't shoot them in the head and take their shit because they don't have any thing food to offer my city, do you? though Saddam was no saint, the country was certainly more stable and arguably better off with him as a leader, regardless of whether or not it was because of fear in his people. i could argue now that the current instability in Iraq is far more dangerous than a Hussein-led government ever would have been, as it's causing nations like Iran and N. Korea to grow a set of nuts and get involved in places where they shouldnt, which is only going to lead to more anti-US sentimate and more bad things. and Iraq had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. one could argue that 9/11 was more a result of a lack of cooperation between US intelligence agencies than anything else, along with Bush's insisting on ignoring clear and cridible threats to the united states. the fact is, attacks on US citizens both at home and aborad have been and will continue to be a fact of life for as long as we'll be alive, and Bush and his homies simply DROPPED THE BALL on 9/11 and the U.S. paid dearly for it. i guarantee if you put the hundreds of billions of dollars (or whatever the figure is) we've spent in Iraq into counterintelligence and homeland securitiy programs, the US would be a much safer place than it is today. and you fighing in Iraq has not had one single ounce of effect on helping protect this nation.

As I sit here and read your comments I know exactly what kind of person you are. You are the guy who views one segment of Face the Nation and forms an opinion on those single facts. To say that Iraq is not better with us there could not be further from the truth. The sad fact is that the American media has the power to mold simple minds such as yours in any way they see fit. Any way that sells. In this case blood guts and death sells. I can not come close to telling you how many missions we ran to the local schools bringing the children pencils and simple school supplies. And to see the shear joy on the faces on those kids, because they had never had a pencil a book or a beanie baby made the cause just right then and there for me. You do not see those type of stories on the news you only see the stories of death. On top of all that I can not tell you how many times I pulled security while the Army Corp of Engineers gave little cities and towns running water and electricity that we not allowed to have while Saddam was in power. That my friend is what you call progress. To say that Bush dropped the ball on 9/11 could quite possibly be the most asinine comment I have ever heard. If you really think about it or even do some research on your own you would find out that the plans for 9/11 were put into motion well before Mr. Bush came into office, in fact they were put into place at the same time Mr. Clinton was messing around with an intern. As I said before if nothing else this Iraq war has shown the world that if you mess with America we will not stop at your front door(like Clinton lead most of them to believe), but we will kick in your front door fuck your wife, kick your dog, and blow up your house. In regards to nations like Iran and North Korea I contend that the only reason they have stepped up their military progress is because they know what they have done in the past and they also know that it is only a matter of time before we come a knocking. You can think what you want about the military and President Bush, but the fact still remains that because of the actions done by both you are given the right to voice the ludicrous opinions you have. How could you possibly say that Iraq was even close to being better off with Saddam in power. An entire religion was surpressed, used to test chemical and biological weapons on, only specific children where given the choice to education. And an entire village was destroyed because one of its citizens attempted to kill the evil ruler. As of date there has been over 25 mass graves found within the countries borders, totaling over 130K innocent civilians murdered and raped by his Republic Guard. My logic is faulty? I think not. Please do me a favor and do some reading before you speak.

i don't even have the energy to write a response to that. you have so many ridiculous flaws in your argument that i would need footnotes, and unfortunately this website doesn't have that feature. you are clearly not very well educated.

"As I said before if nothing else this Iraq war has shown the world that if you mess with America we will not stop at your front door(like Clinton lead most of them to believe), but we will kick in your front door fuck your wife, kick your dog, and blow up your house"....yeah, you guys did that in Haditha, right? killed 24 civilians who were cowering with their hands up as you broke into their houses? that's the American way!

you are singlehandedly causing me to lose what little faith i had left that our troops actually have some sort of concept as to what's going on over there.