How'd he win in the first place?

[Ziggurat]

But, of course, this is yet another point you have completely failed to prove. It's entirely possible, for example, that secret ballot elections actually INCREASE the incidents of intimidation and harassment from management. If the ballots were public, they could just retaliate against those that supported the union. Because it's secret, they retaliate against everyone.

Bwahahahahaha! Thanks for the laugh, TW.

Now, if I were the sort of person who thought that making **** up in front of a computer was the proper way to argue

You are exactly that sort of person. You're constantly inventing positions for me which I don't express. The kicker, of course, is that you can't even recognize when you do it without me holding your hand and walking through it in detail. It's just reflexive for you.

[TraneWreck]

Bwahahahahaha! Thanks for the laugh, TW.

I take it you can't provide any data. Incredible.

All you have to do is offer facts to rule out the possibility I offered. If it's so absurd, this shouldn't be difficult. Yet I predict you will never do this.


You are exactly that sort of person. You're constantly inventing positions for me which I don't express. The kicker, of course, is that you can't even recognize when you do it without me holding your hand and walking through it in detail. It's just reflexive for you.

Nice try. I've given you the actual studies, I've explained everything for as though you're a toddler, and it still escapes you. All you have are these pathetic attempts to say you're misunderstood.

Once again: state your position clearly and provide factual support.

Why do you go to such lengths to avoid such a simple request? Why are you on a skeptics forum if you're so averse to arguing like an adult?

If you just want to be patted on the back for ignorant, unsubstantiated opinions, head over to Fox News' page or start expressing this retarded crap on Michelle Malkin's site.

[Ziggurat]

I take it you can't provide any data.

Indeed, I cannot time-travel to a possible future to collect data on the effects of an event which has not happened yet.

Incredible.

What a funny definition for that word you must have.

Once again: state your position clearly and provide factual support.

Why do you go to such lengths to avoid such a simple request? Why are you on a skeptics forum if you're so averse to arguing like an adult?

The fact that you appeal to me to act like an adult after all the strawmen you've produced here is rich with irony. At this point, I'm sort of past any desire to be cooperative with you. If you can't figure out what I mean, well, I no longer care, to be honest.

[TraneWreck]

Indeed, I cannot time-travel to a possible future to collect data on the effects of an event which has not happened yet.

That's not the data requested. All you have to show is that secret ballots, which actually exist, are efficacious in eliminating management based harassment.

I provided you evidence to the contrary, surely you're not this inept.



What a funny definition for that word you must have.

More puffery.


The fact that you appeal to me to act like an adult after all the strawmen you've produced here is rich with irony. At this point, I'm sort of past any desire to be cooperative with you. If you can't figure out what I mean, well, I no longer care, to be honest.

This is all you have left?

For the third time, if you think I'm making strawmen (which I'm obviously not, but whatever), state you position clearly and provide factual support.

Why is that so hard for you?

[WildCat]

This is just pure fantasy on your part. If you read the NLRB procedures, employers have the ability to challenge petitions based on intimidation.
Right... if 30% of them organize while being intimidated by the union. :rolleyes:

But unless that happens the role of the NLRB is simply to verify that the signed signatures represent >50% of the workers.

So why not just have a secret ballot vote in every case?

[Ziggurat]

That's not the data requested. All you have to show is that secret ballots, which actually exist, are efficacious in eliminating management based harassment.

I provided you evidence to the contrary, surely you're not this inept.

No, you did not. You provided me with evidence that management harassment exists under current conditions. That evidence logically does not indicate what management harassment would be under different conditions which do not exist. It is the change in management harassment due to those conditions, and not simply the current level, which is at issue, and your evidence does not in fact provide evidence for that at all. So you have merely repeated your previous basic logic failure.

[WildCat]

Yes, I know your thoughtless bias. Are you allergic to factual argument?
If you ever get around to presenting factual argument...

The harm is that the elections give employers time to intimidate workers out of forming a union. In 2007 alone, there were 29,000 confirmed incidents of management intimidating and retaliating against their employees.
Are you still calling presenting their arguments "intimidating", and will you ever explain how a company can retaliate against an employee when they have no way of knowing how they voted because the ballot is secret?

I predict you'll once again link to a pro-union site which counts saying the plant will close/move if unionized as "employer intimidation".

This has been explained to you over and over, yet you repeat it with no evidence.

Find me the evidence that card check leads to union intimidation. A number of states have implimented card check.
Have any states implemented card check for the private sector? I'm guessing "no" since this is a federal issue.

The harm is that the elections give employers time to intimidate workers out of forming a union. In 2007 alone, there were 29,000 confirmed incidents of management intimidating and retaliating against their employees.
So implement reforms in that area, strengthen the laws on employers and increase the penalties for violating them. Shorten the time for a secret vote to 1 day if you wish. My one and only issue here is the elimination of a secret ballot vote if >50% of the workers sign the union petition. And it is an issue with me because it gives great incentive to unions to get that 50% by any means necessary, where none exists now.

Make any damned reform you want within reason, but keep the secret ballot vote in every case.

[TraneWreck]

Right... if 30% of them organize while being intimidated by the union. :rolleyes:

But unless that happens the role of the NLRB is simply to verify that the signed signatures represent >50% of the workers.

So why not just have a secret ballot vote in every case?

No, that's just false. Read the manual.

[TraneWreck]

No, you did not. You provided me with evidence that management harassment exists under current conditions. That evidence logically does not indicate what management harassment would be under different conditions which do not exist. It is the change in management harassment due to those conditions, and not simply the current level, which is at issue, and your evidence does not in fact provide evidence for that at all. So you have merely repeated your previous basic logic failure.

Then prove your point. Show the data.

There was no logic failure, as I indicated the alternative possibility in my first post.

More pathetic nonsense from you.

[TraneWreck]

If you ever get around to presenting factual argument...

Childish.


Are you still calling presenting their arguments "intimidating", and will you ever explain how a company can retaliate against an employee when they have no way of knowing how they voted because the ballot is secret?

This has been explained to you multiple times and supported with data.


I predict you'll once again link to a pro-union site which counts saying the plant will close/move if unionized as "employer intimidation".

That would, you know, be intimidation, but you have been given resources, you choose to remain ignorant and talk out of your ass.


Have any states implemented card check for the private sector? I'm guessing "no" since this is a federal issue.

At this point 5 states have implimented card check like systems, all for the public sector. THey've worked very well and there are few, if any, incidents of union intimidation.

So? That allows us to study the way card check works, but obviously the plan hasn't been implimented universally. What's you point?

You're just making an argument from ignorance. Provide some factual support that the private sector would experience intimidation while the public sector has experienced none.

Just more of your ignorant bias. That's literally all you have.

[WildCat]

No, that's just false. Read the manual.
The part you quoted says nothing about an investigation into every signature. It says that someone must come forward "early on" in the process, and then present evidence to the NLRB. IOW, the person who feels he was intimidated has to do all the investigating himself.

Not to mention it requires someone who was intimidated enough into signing the card but brave enough to come forward with allegations, you don't see any issues here?'

This is why a secret ballot vote should be taken in every case. It's by far the best tool available wrt combating voter intimidation.

[Ziggurat]

Then prove your point. Show the data.

Sorry, I still can't time travel.

There was no logic failure, as I indicated the alternative possibility in my first post.

Aside from the absurdity of your alternate possibility, you have no data for it, and the data you do have doesn't support your contention. So yes, that's a continuing logic fail.

More pathetic nonsense from you.

:rolleyes:

[TraneWreck]

The part you quoted says nothing about an investigation into every signature. It says that someone must come forward "early on" in the process, and then present evidence to the NLRB. IOW, the person who feels he was intimidated has to do all the investigating himself.

Wrong. I'm not going to quote every word of a 100 page manual. At some point, if you actually about sounding ignorant, you're going to have to do some learning on your own.


Not to mention it requires someone who was intimidated enough into signing the card but brave enough to come forward with allegations, you don't see any issues here?'

They have to sign the card in front of these mythical union thugs, they can talk to management and the NLRB in confidence. They will investigate intimidation if management or other workers bring it up.


This is why a secret ballot vote should be taken in every case. It's by far the best tool available wrt combating voter intimidation.

Unless the intimidation comes from management. It doesn't seem to stop that at all, as is evidenced by the 29,000 confirmed cases of management harassment of workers in 2007 alone.

Another factless, witless post from you.

[TraneWreck]

Sorry, I still can't time travel.

This is low brow, even for you.

Do the study. Economists isolate variables all the time. I gave you a study that examined every NLRB secret ballot election over a 5 year period, why are you unable to provide similar support for your side?

Because it doesn't exist. You're just pulling nonsense out of your ass.



Aside from the absurdity of your alternate possibility, you have no data for it, and the data you do have doesn't support your contention. So yes, that's a continuing logic fail.

I do have data, that's not what we're arguing about. We're discussing the explanation of the data. Since you need baby steps, let's go over it again:

In 2007 alone, there were 29,000 confirmed incidents of management harassing and intimidating workers over union elections and membership.

In 2007 secret ballot elections were held in all such cases. Thus, even with secret ballots, management still violates the law constantly. There are at least three causal explanations:

1) Secret Ballots don't inhibit management from intimidating and harassing workers at all.
2) Secret Ballots do inhibit that harassment on some level. Thus, in a world without secret ballot elections, there would be at least 29,001 incidents of management harassing workers, and there could be many more.
3) Secret Ballots actually cause more intimidation. In a world without secret ballots, management would retaliate against the workers who supported the union, but because they can't isolate those people, they retaliate against all workers causing incidents numbers to inflate.

Now, just using the horeshit lazy-ass reasoning style that you employ, arguments for all of those can be made. In a world of pure reason, there's no way to distinguish between them. We need to look at actual data to make a determination of what's going on.

Now, whatever argument you want to make, make it and provide the data to support. Stop whining like a child.



:rolleyes:

Another post from you, still nothing resembling substantiation. It's almost like all of the data shows your opinion to be wrong.

[The Darkest One]

Do you know anything at all about the history of labor unions? Some of them can't even manage a scandal-free vote for their own leadership. Some are full-blown partners with organized crime.

In the OP butthurt union guys went to a state Senator's house to "talk to him".

I can't imagine why anyone would think unions would engage in such behavior! :boggled:

Where did it say "Union" in the OP? I read "protesters', or are they one and the same now? Not everyone who is disgusted by Walker's tactics are union members.
I will say this though, the "divide and conquer" maneuver is working very well. Middle class vs. middle class, fighting over peanuts while the millionaires laugh all the way to the bank.

[Ziggurat]

This is low brow, even for you.

Do the study. Economists isolate variables all the time.

Indeed they do. But this isn't a variable: we don't have non-secret ballots for unionization. You can't isolate a variable if it isn't variable. Granted, doing that wouldn't be as spectacular a feat as time travel, but it's still impossible.

[TraneWreck]

Indeed they do. But this isn't a variable: we don't have non-secret ballots for unionization. You can't isolate a variable if it isn't variable. Granted, doing that wouldn't be as spectacular a feat as time travel, but it's still impossible.

So, your argument is essentially that 1) you have no idea how secret ballots effect union voting and 2) There's no possible way to find out what effect secret ballots have on union voting, and from these two facts you're able to conclude that secret ballots limit management's ability to intimidate and harass workers, and you don't need to provide any evidence to support this.

Hilarous.

I can't wait for you to whine about strawmen. If that's not your argument, explain what the hell you're saying.

[Ziggurat]

So, your argument is essentially that 1) you have no idea how secret ballots effect union voting and 2) There's no possible way to find out what effect secret ballots have on union voting

Nope. I think I have a decent idea. But your argument reminds me of this journal article (http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459.full.pdf).

[TraneWreck]

Nope. I think I have a decent idea. But your argument reminds me of this journal article (http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459.full.pdf).

If you actual have a decent idea, it's about time you shared it. So far it hasn't been pretty.

[Ziggurat]

If you actual have a decent idea, it's about time you shared it. So far it hasn't been pretty.

I already did (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=6989455#post6989455). You proved incapable of understanding or addressing that clear and concise statement then, and I see no reason to expect any change from you now.

[TraneWreck]

I already did (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=6989455#post6989455). You proved incapable of understanding or addressing that clear and concise statement then, and I see no reason to expect any change from you now.

That link just took to one of the pages on this thread.

So far you've offered nothing but your own ignorant opinion. Did I miss the one post where you actually substantiated your claims?

[Ziggurat]

That link just took to one of the pages on this thread.

Well, yes. You expressed confusion about what my position is. Since I already stated my position, a link to that statement is sufficient to clarify it.

[TraneWreck]

Well, yes. You expressed confusion about what my position is. Since I already stated my position, a link to that statement is sufficient to clarify it.

Ah, the link worked now. Here's your claim:

I never claimed secret ballots stopped any employer misbehavior. I claimed it reduces employer misbehavior compared to what it would be without a secret ballot. That this is so should be obvious...Your statistics do nothing to invalidate my claim.

That you think this suffices as an argument explains how miserably you've failed throughout this post.

I don't even really disagree with the claim, it seems reasonable, but that wasn't the point. You haven't proven your claim. There are other options that are consistent with the data, and you are too lazy and/or inept to make the actual argument. And then, stunningly, you've claimed there is no possible way to ever empirically study this issue, to isolate the variable, so how in the hell do you know? We stopped relying on pure reason in the 19th century. It's not a respectable way to argue.

This is all tangential to the issue of card check, because even with secret ballot management harasses and intimidates workers at a stunning rate. Even if that secret ballot stops some abuse (though you haven't proven that it does nor shown how much--and yes, not retarded people analyzing this issue can isolate causation), they don't stop nearly enough.

You've now spent pages ducking and weaving the duty of substantiating this claim of yours. As pathetic as it is, you chose this as an example of a well-articulated version of your position. Hilarious.