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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46512)	5/9/2001 9:45:18 PM
From: Fred Levine	Respond to of 70976

OT OT re: Unions If it is morally correct for management to maximize salaries, why is less correct for unions to maximize wages? In addition, is ownership obliged to maximize profits? I do get angry when management manipulates a corporation so that their salaries and perks grow, while they lay off workers. As mentioned before, I'm proud that AMAT shares the costs and management takes cuts during lean times, IMO, the weakest moral link is ownership, the shareholders, who benefit without participating in the product or service. Us. I know someone will respond that we take risks and provide capital, but that is only during IPO stages, and for raising capital, bonds and debentures. Usually labor is between 10-20 percent of costs of a product, so there is plenty of room for decent wages. My father was a shop stewart in Jimmy Hoffa's teamsters. Without the union, he could not have put bread on the table. fred

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46512)	5/10/2001 1:48:40 AM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

"You may be qualified to be a software engineer, but if those jobs are sent overseas to a lower wage labor pool, you may be required to take a minimum wage retail clerks job." Assume it is 2010 and 90% of the software being written to maintain our infrastructure, with the exception of our armed forces, is outsourced to India and other third world nations. Further suppose that wages in the software industry have been flat for the entire decade, while wages of licensed plumbers have increased an average of 5% per year, more than keeping apace with inflation which has been 3% per year. You are called before a Senate subcommittee on trade and industry to give your recommendation on what should be done about the fact that the American software industry appears to be going the way of the dodo bird. President DoGood has declared, "I am prepared to the use the graduated income tax system to provide medical care, housing and food subsidies, child care, aged care, and children's higher education for software engineers and others who have been negatively impacted by the unprecidented trade gap that has developed in the professional services. I want to allow all hardworking people the opportunity to achieve a decent life for themselves and their families." Meanwhile the American Society of Software Engineers is protesting that they do not want any handouts from the government. All they want is a 100% tariff on code that originates overseas. What might you suggest?