Union Gains Tiny Foothold In The South. Yes, The American South.

Stupid Unions. Why won't they die? Instead Scalia dies and public sector Unions live. Now everybody will be sick with the blue flu and taking bathroom breaks without repercussions. What a world for our Corporate People to live in.

Workers of the World Unite! in Tennessee of all places

When they're not busy teaching their cars to beat emissions tests like they're lie detectors, Volkswagen makes a bunch of curvy vehicles in Tennessee. In fact, you may remember the meddling Tennessee conservatives getting all up in the personal space of this German Corporate Person and maybe offering it hundreds of millions in subsidies IF Volkswagen didn't give in to their socialist inclinations and let their employees unionize back in 2014. The Tennessee Working Man already has it good enough that the GOP would pay millions to make sure wages, benefits and working conditions are as Randian as possible so that they'll have to pay millions more in public assistance.

After a fierce propaganda campaign that involved a sitting governor and US Senator scaring the check off cards out of VW employees, the United Auto Workers narrowly lost the 2014 election. But they might be back in business .

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board voted 2-1 to uphold a December election in which a small group of workers at Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) Chattanooga, Tennessee plant voted to join the United Auto Workers union, the NLRB said on Wednesday. VW had asked for a review of the election, which involved about 160 skilled trades workers at the plant, in which 71 percent voted to join the UAW.

While Volkswagen considers appealing this ruling to federal court, this group of workers is on the cusp of becoming the first crew from a foreign-owned auto manufacturer to gain collective bargaining rights in the South.

But it's not that the South is anti-union. It's just that treating laborers like shit is part of their "heritage," and, hey let's throw in something about a "State's Right" to prevent the intermingling of union and non-union workers. First, it's Unions. Next it's all the good southern kids subject to forced VW Busing.

Last Wednesday, 36,000 Verizon workers grabbed their picket signs and went on strike . This is the largest strike in the country since 45,000 Verizon workers blasted passersby with catchy populist chants back in 2011.

Hmmmm, maybe there are 9,000 fewer strikers because employees are disenchanted with their Union, the Communications Workers of America. On the other hand, the decrease in strikers might be related to the thousands of jobs Verizon subcontracted or shipped overseas when they should've been bargaining in good faith with their pesky employees.

These are not Verizon Wireless workers, so don't worry -- these Union Thugs did not entrap you into a three-year cell phone contract extension by giving you a "no strings attached" car charger. In fact, the wireless company is flush with cash and busy helping the Feds monitor our calls with AuntISISIris.

But what about the other sectors of Verizon's business?

Wireline sales have been steadily falling over the past several years. Last year sales fell by nearly 2%, and Verizon lost 1.4 million voice customers.

Sometimes it's tough out there. You're on the same team, Union Thugs. What's wrong with a little belt-tightening all the way around?

Still, Verizon managed to post an $8.9 billion operating profit in its wireline business last year. That was down slightly from 2014, but not by much.

Oh. No belt-tightening for this profit-bloated corporate Fat Cat. Hundreds of millions have been saved through outsourcing, simultaneously helping Verizon's cash reserves, assisting executives in achieving bonus benchmarks, increasing the stock price by 40+% since 2011, with the added bonus of siphoning well-paying Union jobs and undercutting their workers' power! So stop getting in everyone's face with your legitimate complaints and get back to work, pinkos.

Nine state attorneys general wrote sternly worded letters to various retailers , inquiring about their garbage on-call scheduling practices. These schedules double ding the already low wage (and non-unionized) workers by preventing them from scheduling pretty much anything in advance, as well as often denying them reliable income.

Real corporations like Disney, Forever 21, and Payless Shoes, and possibly fake ones like BCBG Max Azria, Uniqlo, and Zumiez will receive these WTF? inquiries in an attempt to understand why the corporations can't give their employees more than an hour's notice about whether they receive the privilege to make $10.25 an hour helping Americans try on Cambodian-made clothes.

It's not clear how prevalent on-call scheduling is, but University of Chicago researchers estimated 41 percent of 26- to 32-year-olds with hourly work in the U.S. received their work schedule a week or less in advance, according to a 2014 report.

Psssh. Just another example of entitled millennials all bent out of shape wanting to know if they can buy a snapchat or schedule child care or make an interest payment on a six-figure student loan. Can't you just wait by the iPhone until we need you to go fight on the 7th front of our War on Terror?

Rob Karr, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said scheduling in the retail service sector is "dynamic and constantly evolving."

Oh. Well if you corp-splain it like that I almost believe that you aren't treating your employees like disposable, low-wage, retail drones simply because you can.