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Michelle Bernard on MSNBC: "Quite honestly, a lot of labor unions are what holds America back and keeps us from being as good as we can be"

August 19, 2009 11:31 am ET

From the August 19 edition of MSNBC's Morning Meeting:

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    • Author by mk3872 (August 19, 2009 11:38 am ET)
      10  
      That's right! We need more groups looking out for the rich and corporations instead of those pesky working people! Good grief, hearing this kind of stuff hurts ...
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Easy to refute wingnuts (August 19, 2009 11:41 am ET)
      7  
      Doesn't she have to be a member of AFTRA to have a regular spot on TV? Perhaps she would like to give back all the things that unions have won for her over the years.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by dmhack (August 19, 2009 11:41 am ET)
      8  
      Beavis and Butthead seem to contend that the best way for the Democrats to get the support of independents is to tell the unions to take a hike.

      That might sound like a plan were it not for the results of the last election. Guess they missed that.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by williaminny (August 19, 2009 11:44 am ET)
      1 2
      Michelle Bernard: speaking truth to power. Who would have
      thought it would be on MSNBC? You go girl!
      Report Abuse
      • Author by mescal (August 20, 2009 2:04 am ET)
        1 1
        Jeeeez, Billy... you really have no idea what the phrase 'speaking truth to power' means, do you?

        A little clue for you: power in this country is held by behemoth corporations. The lies and distortions that have come to dominate the health care "debate" should be your first tip off.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by epkklk851 (August 19, 2009 11:44 am ET)
      10  
      Sorry, but economic statistics show that when unions are strong, the average working man does better. Unions started loosing power in the 1970's and average real wages began to fall. There is a chart on the internet that shows wages from 1964-2004. This statistic is also validated by "The Wrecking Crew" by Thomas Frank and "The Predator State" by James K. Galbraith. Not to mention the fact that all major improvements done to the workplace over the last century have come either with or from unions-the 40 hour week, safety standards, etc.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by congero6189599 (August 19, 2009 12:35 pm ET)
        5  
        You are sooooooooooo right epk., and the Independent Womens Forum is neither independent nor a forum. MSNBC should disclose it's ties to its viewers, what they did in this segment is journalistic malpractice!
        Report Abuse
      • Author by congero6189599 (August 19, 2009 12:37 pm ET)
        7  
        Oh, and another thing when did the working man become a "special" interest and insurance companies become the voice of Americans?
        Report Abuse
        • Author by epkklk851 (August 19, 2009 1:03 pm ET)
          5  
          What an excellent point! It ticks me off to no end to hear Glenn Beck trash SEIU, a service employees union, as the source of all evil and corruption! This union is janitors, and maintence guys, and cashiers. They do a lot of work and they don't get much pay or respect, so what is wrong if they do have some access or influence with Congress or the President. They are much more useful to the nation and in touch with reality than the insurance and media executives that Becky shills for!
          Report Abuse
          • Author by Tbone Slickens (August 20, 2009 10:33 am ET)
              1
            Hey, anyone is useful if they can brandish baseball bats and lead pipes!

            SIEU thugs were arrested, six of them I think, for taking out a guy in a wheelchair. They're in tough with reality all right!
            Report Abuse
    • Author by NiceguyEddie (August 19, 2009 11:47 am ET)
      7 1
      Another idiot with no friggin' idea how markets funtion or economics works, spouting off about free markets, and supply-side economics.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by shaggles (August 19, 2009 11:47 am ET)
      7 1
      WHo the hell is Michelle Bernard and why should we listen to her?
      Report Abuse
      • Author by dmhack (August 19, 2009 11:54 am ET)
        7 1
        Shag, she's a (you better sit down for this) Bushie.
        I know, it's hard to believe based on her sound and impartial reasoning, but it's true.
        Report Abuse
        • Author by shaggles (August 19, 2009 12:05 pm ET)
          9 1
          OK. That explains who she is but not why we should listen to her. In fact it pretty much tells me not to listen to her. Or to listen to her and then invert everything she says to find the truth. Thanks.
          Report Abuse
    • Author by The_Cat (August 19, 2009 11:53 am ET)
      8 1
      Competition? You mean like the private insurance companies would face from a public option? Good question. Too bad you were too busy bashing unions to ask a question that was germane to the debate.

      Unions will never cease to exist, because management by default is not interested in the worker, only profits. The only voice the worker has is as a union member, and in the voting booth on election day.

      What actually happened to winning? Well, the board rooms of America decided to outsource that to China and Korea and Mexico. Turns out it was cheaper to win there.

      "Against any health reform even at the expense of the nation" is a good definition of current conservative thought on this subject.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by draftedin68 (August 19, 2009 12:13 pm ET)
      7 2
      Change the name - she'll be a perfect fit...

      I used to start my breakfast watching MSNBC, but since they shoveled out the Moron Meeting show, I just click around for a while, stopping briefly at what the CCM (Corporate-Controlled Media) claims are "news" programs to see what the ball chasing puppies have caught up with lately.

      Michelle is an example of the "well at least she's got dark skin" mentality in the CCM's hardwood suites that decides which babble-spewer will pass for a person of substance.

      As is often the case, the suits are wrong, very wrong.

      Report Abuse
      • Author by blk-in-alabam (August 19, 2009 1:23 pm ET)
        2 1
        Cow patties sell better when times are hard.The reason the suits will probably be more wrong this than any time ever.The reason is they refuse to acknowledge even with the kicking and screaming of thr republicans,measures have been put in place for the US economy to boom and people prosper.They are going to be setting up soup kitchens while people getting their pay check going to the steak house
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    • Author by riverdog (August 19, 2009 12:32 pm ET)
      2 11
      she does have a point. unions are a double edged sword, they can help the labor with better pay and bennys but can cripple business compatition and increase outsourcing. i have seen a union close a hospital and put hundreds out of work.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by congero6189599 (August 19, 2009 12:40 pm ET)
        5 1
        You have seen no such thing! Prove it!
        Report Abuse
      • Author by congero6189599 (August 19, 2009 12:44 pm ET)
        6  
        It was the Union and not the company that threw the workers out? If only the union had asked and accepted less right! You made the statement now back it up!
        Report Abuse
        • Author by foghornleghorn (August 19, 2009 12:53 pm ET)
          4 1
          Don't forget, it was the unions not accecpting ENOUGH concessions that doomed the U.S. auto industry.
          Report Abuse
          • Author by blk-in-alabam (August 19, 2009 1:05 pm ET)
            2  
            And some of that money and some of the union workers pension money paid bonuses to non-union employees in the auto industry
            Report Abuse
        • Author by jml (August 19, 2009 12:57 pm ET)
          2 3
          I can't speak for craig98607271's claim, but I used to work for the USPS and saw the union prevent the firing of completely worthless employees, who their own members wanted fired because they slacked off and everyone else had to pick up their work. One guy was fired for repeatedly coming in late, calling out, picking fights with other employees, all citable violations of the rules. The union went to work and a year later, got him reinstated with a year's back pay. He was basically rewarded for being a jackass and making other people's jobs harder. There were union employees sleeping in bathrooms through their shift, and if the other union employees complained the unions told them they' "speak to them", and that was the end of it. Sometimes union can be very helpful, sometimes they're abusive and as she said, exist solely to collect dues and give their officers jobs.
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          • Author by John Paradox (August 19, 2009 3:24 pm ET)
            2  
            The problem is that SOME unions have had a split between the workers and their own (ironically using the term) management. When the Union Officers become as much 'politicians' as workers, they can move from doing what's best for the workers to what's best to keep their own managerial style jobs... thus becoming another layer of Management, rather than being answerable to their actual constituency, the workers.

            A properly run (the workers keep an eye on their officials) Union can do wonders for the worker... but remember that things don't always work that way.
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      • Author by blk-in-alabam (August 19, 2009 1:01 pm ET)
        3  
        And if you are honest and post the wingnut web site or talking head you heard this from will be accepted.Otherwise you really need to ask yourself where do the ideas of whats good what's bad for me,come from.And what makes you know something is good or bad for you.Look at what is in your best intrest.Anytime a person listens to conservative(republican) talk radio and they come outright and say LET ME THINK FOR YOU I TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW" And you screem out to the world on the worldwide Repeating lines like a parrot,and say you are one of the people a voice of democracy??Look here,I just got to ask the way you go about this,Where do YOU get represented in this??
        Report Abuse
        • Author by congero6189599 (August 19, 2009 1:27 pm ET)
          2  
          "...Where do YOU get represented in this??" I want to hear an answer to that myself!
          Report Abuse
      • Author by hisroyalmattness (August 19, 2009 2:27 pm ET)
        3  
        It is amazing CEO and top-level management being paid astronomical salaries and amazing perks, yet it is the union fault. We have lopsided trade agreements which countries are allowed to import easier into this country than we can into theirs, yet it is the union fault. We have our companies pay for health care yet other industrial countries use a government health care system to help keep down the operating cost for all companies, , yet it is the union fault. The reward system for the CEO and other top-level management is gear for short term success instead of long term viability, yet it is the union fault.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by williaminny (August 19, 2009 12:42 pm ET)
      1 2
      Michelle Bernard telling truth to power. Who would have thought
      it would be on MSNBC? You go girl!
      Report Abuse
      • Author by mescal (August 20, 2009 2:11 am ET)
        1 1
        You consider mindlessly spewing lies and reich wing talking points supporting monstrous multinational corporations to be 'telling truth to power'?

        Not in the English language it doesn't.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by safire (August 19, 2009 12:51 pm ET)
      2  
      Labor Unions do not hold America back! Greed from insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and their lobbyists who purchase congressional votes hold America back!

      Michelle Bernard admires Sara Palin. That says it all for me.

      She is just another useless right wing shill.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by MNmommy (August 19, 2009 1:00 pm ET)
      2  
      She was even worse about a half hour before this nonsense.

      Making statements about how all women (Republican, Independent, Libertarian and Democratic) that have been in contact with IWF are against the Public Option.

      I say contact her at http://iwf.org/contact and let her know what you think of that assertion.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Indy (August 19, 2009 1:13 pm ET)
      4  
      Oh yeah and all the class actions suits from middle management filed against companies that are exempting them from overtime because their "management". She forgot about that.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by fishergirlusmc (August 19, 2009 2:16 pm ET)
        2 4
        The Unions are destroying our country and causing many companies to leave. Here in NY we had a teacher who was a member of NAMBLA. He had done a few untoward things to his students, it took SEVEN years to fire him because the union fought for him. We have pictures of MTA employees sleeping on the job in there token booths, watching a woman getting raped and not even calling the police and union members drinking shots of whiskey while doing construction work on the World Trade Center. The union memebers had even set up a bar in Duetche Bank where they had disconnected an important water pipe that led to the deaths of several firefighters. If someone is a lazy slob who does not do there work they still get paid. The auto industry was partially destroyed by the UAW. We have mobsters like Jimmy Hoffa Jr. who run a gigantic mob run union and that does not even count how many unions that have ripped off there members pension funds. They certainly in the past have served a purpose, but for some unions the pendulum has swung way too far.
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        • Author by John Paradox (August 19, 2009 3:27 pm ET)
          2  
          So, if SOME Unions have swung too far, ALL Unions are to blame?

          Okay.. since Bernie Madoff ran a scam, ALL investors are scammer?

          Fallacy... Generalization

          0 points.
          Report Abuse
        • Author by fairliberal (August 19, 2009 5:10 pm ET)
            2
          Well said, I recall a friend who worked as an electrician for the TA in NY. He told me there was a limit to the amount of work he could do in a day. If he was finished by 11AM, he read for the rest of the day. Union rules.

          There was a day when unions were absolutely necessary to protect workers from management, no doubt. Those days are long gone. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.
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          • Author by mescal (August 20, 2009 2:24 am ET)
            1  
            Right, Fauxliberal, because this is becoming such a worker's paradise, huh? While it may be true that Americans are, on the average, working longer hours for less inflation adjusted pay... and more and more Americans are losing their health care, or having their co-payments jacked up... and are falling further into debt, simply in order to try and slow the amount of economic ground that they're inexorably losing... still, unions are no longer really all that necessary, because now they have multinational corporations (like News Corpse looking out for their best interests.

            You know, if you're going to try and sell us on a lie, the least you could do id make it a plausible one.

            By the way, Insannity needs his dry cleaning picked up, so chop chop.
            Report Abuse
    • Author by mitchny (August 20, 2009 11:05 am ET)
         
      Ms. Bernard is not a member of AFTRA, nor is MSNBC signed to a union deal....NBC has been fighting with AFTRA for years to get them out of the way.

      Ms. Bernard is obviously misinformed about unionism and listens to the wrong folks. As she ages at MSNBC she will be pushed aside like the rest of them that think that the company is watching out for them. Some lessons are only learned the hard way.
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