Would you/do you submit to drug tests at work?

[two fingers]

We're probably getting close to crossing some lines here (forum rules and whatnot). On that note, I will leave you guys to it. Enjoy.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Please tell me what American job has someone who beats you, forces you to sleep in a barn and rations you minimal amounts of food without pay??
Slavery and unskilled workers receiving lousy pay and unfavorable conditions are far from the same. Slaves are forced into captivity, while low paid workers are free to do as they please, but choose to settle for mediocrity.

Prisoners and illegal alien farm workers come to mind. Over a billion dollars in revenue was generated from prison labor last year. Both prisoners and illegal aliens are paid less than minimum wage. How do you get around minimum wage? You make strict drug laws, and poorly regulate companies hiring illegal aliens. If you can't get CCA to make your product for you, and you don't want to pay minimum wage, you can just ship our jobs overseas, and have the Chinese and Vietnamese make our products. So there you go, you don't like laws regulating wages, then just skirt them.

http://www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor#

 

[DerHoggz]

I knew something was up when Greenboy was invoked. This thread is sure a doozy.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

I don't take talking points. I don't know what percentage is really accurate. However, it's getting closer and closer to half every day. That is, if you include everyone who is getting some sort of assistance (financial, healthcare, food, shelter, etc.) from a government agency. For the sake of conversation let's just say it's 29% and be done with it. Fair enough? My point is obviously invalid because I was off on the numbers, right?

And according to some estimates, (namely the non-partisan Tax Policy Center) in the years 2009-2011, the percentages of people who payed any Federal income taxes were 51%, 53%, and 54% respectively. Seems like pretty much half aren't paying any. N'est-ce pas?

Gimme' a break.

Included in the half are the majority of the wealthiest individuals in country as well as the corporations they run. This also includes companies we bailed out or subsidize. The poor and downtrodden might smell worse, and bring down the property values, but they aren't the biggest part of this problem you've identified, IMO.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

As for a strident point of view being pushed over and over, I agree. Over and over again, business is vilified in this country. Profit is vilified in this country. Wealth? Yep. Success? Yep. The assumption is quite often made that for anyone to have become successful and/or wealthy he must have done so "on the backs of the poor and middle class". He simply MUST have gotten a break because of the family he was born into. He MUST have screwed everyone he met on the way up. Either way, it just isn't "fair" that some are successful and others aren't. And the poor are every bit as smart as me and work even harder than me, so I must have found an "edge" somehow. And that means I cheated.

This is getting way off topic, but...

That's because businesses have proven time and time again throughout history that they can't be trusted on their own. The Gilded Age was a wonderful time for businesses and their owners, but the average day worker was getting the shaft hard. Child labor was abundant, few women had the right to work, people could be denied jobs because of the most ridiculous of reasons, workers comp didn't exist, pensions didn't exist, sick leave didn't exist, your work environment wasn't likely clean or safe, vacation time didn't exist, you probably didn't get any holidays off, pregnancy leave didn't exist, overtime wasn't a thing yet, etc...

People back in the day had to fight tooth and nail just to be treated humanely by their employers. The distribution of wealth was crazy skewed, most Americans lived in poverty, and most Americans had to subject themselves to outrageous working conditions just to survive. Businesses were not looking out for the best interests of US citizens. Fortunately, we saw unionized workforces and governmental regulations beginning to pop up more, and suddenly the average worker had the chance to fight back and get a larger share of their company's pie. And you know what, the middle class grew, businesses grew (even with the crazy high tax rates of the time), and the entire US economy blossomed wonderfully, and real wages were rising at a rate that matched very nicely with the rate of rising corporate profits. The entire US was entering prosperity together, and we truly did become a land of opportunity.

But then something happened. Deregulation starting to pop up more, unions began to decline in power and popularity, and corporations were beginning to get many tax deductions from the government. Businesses said this would allow them to become more competitive and help grow the US economy and the health of our workers, but what really ended up happening was that many of our jobs got shipped abroad, US workers were laid off, and these corporate CEOs pocketed the difference while also seeing their tax rates drop significantly from their previous levels.

Corporate profits continued to rise, but real wages began to become stagnant. Now we're seeing even more businesses come forward saying they need more breaks and deregulation, but history has shown that if you give a business an inch they'll take a mile. One could argue that's slippery slope, but history paints a pretty clear picture of what happens. So can you blame people for vilifying businesses? Can you see why people would be ticked off that they're making the same wages now that they were making a decade ago while executive pay rates have gone up sometimes by factors as high as 300%? All the while these corporations continue lobbying tooth and nail for for things that serve their interests, while simultaneously hurting the average citizen, even though many of these businesses are already seeing record profits and don't need help.

What boggles my mind is that people on your side of the fence like to claim people more akin to my side of thinking as being uneducated, unpatriotic, ego-driven, entitled, spoiled, and a whole splash of other nasty things, but sometimes I wonder if anyone on your side has actually had a history lesson or two about business in America and how it has evolved over time. And this isn't me being anti-business or anti-capitalism, but rather anti-corporatism. Businesses have simply become too big to fail, to big to take to trial, and too influential in the everyday lives of people and our government. The idea that we need to be protecting the interests of businesses, at the sake of our own interests, when they have historically done little to protect the interests of us, is astoundingly poor. It's not that businesses owe us anything, it's that they'll try to take more than what they need at the cost of the well-being or rights of others. They've done it before, and they're slowly doing it again, and people are willingly trying to set us back (literally) a century's worth of social/economical progress. It is outrageous.

I should not have to piss in a cup for someone to determine whether or not I am fit to perform at their business. My work history, referrals, and education should be enough to let someone know I'm dependable, reliable, and able to do my share. If I could make it that far in life being high as a kite or drunk as a sailor then that probably says something about just how damn good I am at what I do, or that I might *gasp* be able to control my personal life enough that it won't affect my ability to gain an education or to work a job. If at sometime during my tenure my ability to perform changes or my behavior becomes suspicious then yes, test me til I die from dehydration from pissing out every drop of fluid in my body, but until then keep your nose out of my personal business.

 

[blue4]

^^ I agree with much of this.

 

[knumbskull]

I should not have to piss in a cup for someone to determine whether or not I am fit to perform at their business.

[quote cut for brevity ] - anyway, /\/\/\ couldn't agree more with this.

It amazes me how readily people will give up the right not to be treated like a felon just because a company says so.

 

[4dog]

If the govmnt wants me to pay for your healthcare, then i have to, but you will pee in this lil cup first, and if anything is in the cup besides pee, you will be fired.

 

[spade2you]

When I was a pharmacy tech you were required to get drug tested more frequently and not getting one was also an admission of guilt that came with a criminal charge. So yes, I would get screened immediately.

Was that a state or company policy? I never specifically heard this type of rule discussed in my pharmacy law class.

 

[1958Bassman]

A simple option like school vouchers would save millions of children from a life of ignorance. And save this nation from third world status.

I am so disappointing that the system works so hard to throw children under the bus to provide protection for "Adults".

We have a voucher system in WI and it's the main reason so many kids are being pulled from the MKE Public School system. That's why it's so absurd that the dropout rate is so high and the test scores so low. You'd think that the amount of money available/student would pay for them to be educated better than ever, but the budget still increases. The population of the city was as high as 813K in the '70s and it's below 600K, now. Somehow, the teenage pregnancy rate has dropped.

The one t hing I never hear the leaders mention here is any effort to reverse this trend and acknowledge the fact that kids won't learn if they don't want to be there in the first place. I think they spend too much time talking to the students, instead of talking with them.

I go to an auto parts store and during summer, I see kids walking around, all wearing similar clothing. The only reason I can think of for this is so they can't be accurately identified after a crime has been committed because they're all wearing the same thing.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Education is a tricky one, simply because it isn't all about what happens in the classroom. Motivation and work ethic need to be promoted at home as much, if not more, than at school for the students to actually get into it (i.e., simply pumping money into education alone isn't going to improve it).

 

[Pacman]

Yeah, we're done here.