Larry Bird, paid sick days and Work not loving you back

"I learned to be tough by watching my parents and the sacrifices they made for us," Bird told MacMullen. Bird also learned the virtue of hard work. 

The stories and myths surrounding Larry Bird are legendary, if you'll forgive the obvious pun.  In Bird Watching, Larry Legend recounted to Jackie MacMullen a story of his father, who by all accounts was not an agreeable man and who suffered personal demons which lead him to take his own life in 1975.  Bird's father worked construction, and the story goes, broke his ankle on a Friday and stuffed his swollen and discolored foot back into his boot on Monday to go to work.

Now, as a general rule we are taught to laud and nod approvingly about Joe Bird's dedication and work ethic.  The so-called Virtue of Hard Work.  And Bird in the 1980's played through numerous injuries which was an indication of his toughness and determination.  Bird also hurt his back putting in a driveway at his mom's house in Indiana.  Now... Bird later in life admitted that if he had won another title in the 1980's he would have retired probably in 1988.  Besides Bird, his Hall of Fame teammate Kevin McHale broke a bone in his foot during their 1987 Season and played the rest of the year because this was Celtics of the 1980's were a dynasty and the only thing which kept them from winning the Finals in 1987 were the Showtime Lakers.

Sticking with basketball, Michael Jordan famously played the "Flu Game" during the 1997 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz.  Rumors have always swirled that it was either a sabotaged Pizza from Utah Jazz fans or Jordan was hungover (which would have been difficult but, not impossible considering the strict liquor laws in Utah).  But, after the game bosses across the country were trying to shame workers/employees by pointing out Jordan wasn't calling in sick to work.  Of course, Jordan was being paid $30 Million to play for the Bulls that year (and probably made 10x that from his lucrative endorsements). 

I've had to come to grips with using my accrued time-off.  For the last 10 years Pre-Covid, I haven't taken many days off.  Fortunately, and with a little diligence and preventative care, I've avoided Covid these last 3 years.  But, before Covid it was still a badge of honor for many to come into work sick, even if the flu bug and the fluids you spewed in your work environment infected others.  Well... things are different now.

Paid Sick Days are a necessary and important part of any worker's lives and job.  But, companies chafe at giving them.  And that brings us to Dark Brandon getting it done again.  And once again don't expect the Corporate Media to cover this because the Corporate Media's job is to make Republicans palatable no matter what they do or whom they hurt and to diligently not mention anything which shows a Democratic President winning.  So, while Republicans members of Congress scream 'Bitch' at each other on the floor of the Capitol, President Biden and his diligent staff calmly and methodically gained a big win for Railroad workers,  

“We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers. 

“We know that many of our members weren’t happy with our original agreement,” Russo said, “but through it all, we had faith that our friends in the White House and Congress would keep up the pressure on our railroad employers to get us the sick day benefits we deserve. Until we negotiated these new individual agreements with these carriers, an IBEW member who called out sick was not compensated.”

Meanwhile, what do Republicans have to offer working Americans?  Nothing, other than Oklahoma stumblebum MarkWayne Mullin pretending he's a tough guy and challenging a Teamster leader You Wanna Go? while lying during a Senate hearing.  Of course, Mullin famously said this year he's "not interested in reality, he's asking the questions!"

Your work won't love you back and Republicans hate you.  Over the past few years Republicans, even ones who took millions in PPP loans from the Government and didn't have to pay back the money, are pissed that President Biden is forgiving student loans and aiding American workers in exerting their power to organize and gain benefits owed to them.  This infuriates Republican who hate the American Dream and want Americans re-shackled into Wage Slavery and perpetual Corporate Bondage.

Republicans long ago, agreed to an alliance with Big Business to undercut Americans at every turn.   American capitalists successfully convinced the Republican Party that they would be better served by the ability for capital to seek employment wherever it was convenient and cheaper.  The Pro-Labor platform of Young Republicans under Dwight D. Eisenhower was replaced with the off-shoring of jobs and the importing of cheaper labor.  Ronnie Raygun heard this clarion call.  Raygun hated powerful worker unions as far back as when he was Governor of California when Dolores Huerta (and Cesar Chavez) put up a struggle against the rapacious grape growers.

As President Reagan (besides war crimes) famously destroyed Unions and began the Republican assault on Worker's lives by shipping manufacturing and heavy industry off-shore, as Big Business instructed him to do so.  Raygun of course also granted amnesty to undocumented people in America, something which modern Republican orthodoxy claims is The Great Replacement Conspiracy and which Republicans have brain-washed their rightwing domestic terrorists to massacre when possible. 

George W(orst POTUS Ever). Bush never saw an American he didn't want working 3 jobs.  Donald John Traitor Trump infamously never paid people who did work for him, including James Comey who won the him the 2016 Election.    

Republicans have long sought to undermine the American worker and reduce the standard of living, and quality of life in America for 90% of society who they deem to lazy and too well-compensated.  Republicans want you hungry and desperate ready to accept any job at any pay with no benefits and no social security or medicare to look forward to;  Republicans want you working by 10 and dead by 65.

Trump set to institute Wage Slavery via the NLRB and his Department of Forced Labor

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

More people getting paid for overtime work sounds great, but... Speaker Paul Ryan illustrates how more money for American Workers is bad because when Americans are financially secure they vote for a Democratic Socialist Government but, when reduced to penury by Republican policies they elect reactionary Republicans.

One of the most pernicious lies promulgated about President Obama's tenure was he did nothing for the working class. President Obama's National Labor Relations Board and head of the Department of Labor Tom Perez, increased protections and aggressively defended workers while punishing employers who conducted wage theft.

President Obama and his Labor Department passed regulations changing the ceiling mandating overtime pay but, a Federal Judge in Texas held up the overtime rule back in December. Now, traitor Trump and his Department of Forced Labor will undo it completely as well as undercutting American workers on several other avenues.

Under the President Obama's Department of Labor rules, salaried employees earning less than $47,476 annually would have automatically received overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week, double the current $23,660 ceiling. More than 4 million workers would have earned an estimated extra $12 billion over the next decade. As Vice President Joe Biden correctly noted last year, "It is based on a simple proposition. If you work overtime, you should actually get paid for working overtime."

This, of course, enraged Republicans, who responded with predictable Pavlovian frothing at the mouth fury. Actually, paying workers is antithetical to the Republican Party.  Trump especially doesn't pay people who work for him, as thousands of contractors and former FBI head James Comey found out.

In many ways Traitor Trump, is a bog standard Republican, he hates paying workers and uses the awesome power of the Federal Government to ensure he doesn't have to. The Republican Plan to screw over workers works like this; an employee works 60 hours (20 hours overtime) but instead of being paid time-and-a-half, the 20 hours goes into a bank of compensated time (CT), which theoretically the worker could use as paid time off or as pay at the end of the fiscal year. What really happens is the CT builds up for years and the employee never gets time off and never gets paid.

But, Trump and his Forced Labor Department are just getting started.  In addition, to making overtime an unpaid "benefit" of working in the U.S.  The Department of Forced Labor is also set to do the following:

• Trump's proposed budget includes a 20 percent cut to Labor Department funding, but not all areas as the Office of Labor-Management Standards, which investigates conducts witch hunts against in private-sector unions is set to receive a 22 percent increase.
• Eliminating the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which barred companies from receiving federal contracts if they had a history of violating wage, labor or workplace safety laws. 
• Rescinding the Persuader rule, which would have required law firms to publicly disclose any work they do for employers surrounding union busting and anti-union organization efforts.
• Curtailing OSHA efforts to improve worker safety by delaying tightened exposure standards for silica, which is often breathed in by certain construction workers and linked to lung disease; and lower workplace exposure limits for beryllium, an industrial mineral linked to lung cancer.

And they are just getting started.  Traitor Trump and the Respublikanskaya Partiya have a message to 99% of Americans; You have No Friend in Government.  Welcome back to the Era of Forced Labor and Slavery.

Joe Biden was right as usual when, in 2012,  he stated, "We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it.  They're going to put y'all back in chains."

Lazy Millenials, unreciprocated work ethic, and the right-wing race-to-the-bottom

Listening to Mighty House on WCPT-820 Saturday morning, the discussion turned to how the millenials entering the workforce expect a good job and benefits to be handed to them and are unwilling to pay their dues. Callers and Hosts lamented the lazy, entitled attitude of the younger generation.

This feeling about how the modern American worker is unwilling to do the menial tasks, or expects to much, or doesn't work hard enough is nothing new. Plato expressed dismay at how the young greeks weren't as industrious or studious as the young egyptians.

But, why should any American Worker exhibit unquestioning loyalty to Corporations? Why should a young worker bust his ass, put in his dues with the expectation of reward after achieving a level of seniority? Why would any worker give his time and life over to an American Company? Long ago Employers and Companies broke their end of the deal. Over the last 45 years, "American" Companies have turned their backs on the American Worker and actively sought to undermine the standard of living for every American.

Over at Fortune, Gene Marks tells employers what to do with a long-time, loyal, hard-working, dedicated, 20-year employee; Fire his Ass! Why You're Not a Jerk for Firing a Longtime Employee

So why should millenials or any American Worker break their backs, work overtime, miss holidays, weekends, family get-togethers, when it is incontrovertible that companies will dump that worker, raid their 401k, and off-shore their job as soon as a "Free Trade Deal" allows them too?

This false nostalgia and back-in-my-day bullshit of how American workers used to have can-do spirit and were willing to work-your-way-up-the-ladder should go the way of the private union. When Labor had a more equal footing with business in the mid-20th century, after bloody battles in the 19th and the efforts of America's Greatest President FDR, workers knew their sacrifice and hard work meant they would be rewarded. But, since then the Republican Party allowed itself to become the lapdog guardians of the 1% and began to crush Labor laws and protections.

Before his ousting for being insufficiently orthodox, Republican Eric Cantor was leading the effort by Republicans to ensure Companies could work employees hundreds of overtime hours and then never pay them for that work. Fortunately, that scheme failed and under Obama's NLRB and Department of Labor, other Conservative machinations, like Wage Theft and classifying hourly employees as management, have been severely punished.

This is why Republicans are furious with President Obama. For years the right-wing efforts to get Americans used to less benefits, lower pay, longer hours, and less employment security, while abolishing Unions and worker's rights had been progressing nicely under the direction of the Republican Party. And here comes Obama, ensuring employees get paid for overtime, expanding SSI coverage, increasing wages, and undercutting the right-wing dream of reducing the American worker to mercenary status pitting their time against any other worker in the world in a worldwide race to the bottom.

In 2016, Jeb! Bush would like Women and Old People to go away while Republicans hope to bring back Slavery

Jeb! is very angry his brother, forever known as the Worst President in American History, only destroyed a few hundred thousand American Families. So, John Ellis Bush is going to do to Millions of Americans what his brother did to Millions of Iraqis.

Jeb! like all Republicans, is mad the Government helps the Sick and Old, "as it relates to Medicare" Jeb! believes "we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system"...

Now, Jeb! as the heir apparent is setting his Party's sights on hurting Women as well, because he and the Republican Party are "not sure we need half a billion dollars for women's health issues".

2016 is their chance. A Republican President can secure the Supreme Court for another 25 years. Add in their gerrymandered Congressional Districts securing them more Representatives with less votes, they can enshrine unfair voting practices. And the stage will be set.

Because Republicans see 2016 as the time when they can finally murder the New Deal and grind Working Class Americans into crushing Poverty and Wage Slavery. With Jeb! or some other Plutocratic Drone in the White House, the Republicans will transition Social Security into Wall Street hands, were it will be slowly siphoned off until one day there will be no more SSI, at least for old and disabled people, Vulture Capitalists like Mitt Romney will enjoy the Billions swindled from Americans.

Jeb! or the other Right-Wing hatchet man elected President will phase out Medicare until one day Republicans can simply tell sick and dying elderly people to clip coupons and line up for discount healthcare coverage day while, Americans are denied medical coverage every other day of the year.

The meager food assistance and medicaid provided currently for Poor Americans? Eliminated completely. Sick Days? FMLA? Holidays? Weekends? Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone...

A Republican President in 2016 will turn back America 200 years, to those glorious days of Bondage. American Workers will be crushed into Penury, worked harder than Medieval Serfs and treated as poorly as Chattel. 

Republicans are always screaming Slavery! Slavery! Slavery! during election ads and debates. The reason it so readily comes to their mouths, is because it is on the forefront of their minds. The Republican Party's goal is nothing less than recreation of Slavery. 

When Republicans talk about taking America Back, the America they want to take us back to is one in which a group of insanely wealthy individuals made vast fortunes by stealing generations of labor and years of wealth.