"LOOK! IKEA HAS MADE THE U.S. ITS THIRD-WORLD SWEATSHOP!

Thats good thats a normal responce. I just laughed. Thats bad :(

No, that's just you.

really i may not be a bad person?

Ain't it tho?

In America $8 an hour is a sweatshop. You go live on $8 an hour in a country where you spend $4.50 on a gallon of gas.

Hey why don't you try living on two dollars a day and pay ten dollars a gallon for gas. Thats what Most countries have.

Apparently this is a stretch for you, but there is a thing called standard of living. That means that a dollar in one place gets you a lot less or a lot more than in another place. So $8 an hour in most US places is equivalent to 5 cents in some countries. It has the same value in terms of what you can buy with it.

Furthermore, there are plenty of people in Ameria who make $2 a day, and much less. Walk down any city street. In LA there are something near to 100,000 homeless.

To say that making $8 is something wonderful, compared to making $2 is obtuse oblivion. It's like having the ability to choose between living in a cardboard box or wooden crate.

I'll take the wooden crate

It's all a matter of context.

In general, fish do well with 5 parts per milliion of dissolved oxygen (oxygen available to fish to use) in the water.

The air we breathe has about 21% oxygen.

What you are saying, by not taking into consideration the context of the society where the $8/hour is paid, is, metaphorically, this:

"5 parts per million of oxygen is not so low that humans cannot survive."

$12/hour for a PLANNING ENGINEER?!?!

Get thee to another state.

Well, I'm limiting my search to the NW US, mainly UT, WA, OR, and possibly CO. There's lots of jobs out east, but I have no desire to move that direction. If this deal falls thru in N Utah, I may be looking at the Seattle area. Already have my application in on a few entry level engineering potions with Boeing, but their site has had my application "under consideration" for months now... Basically if I don't get the treadmill manuf engr job, I'll start another round of applications hitting mostly SLC and Seattle, maybe the Portland area too...

My buddy in Seattle has offered me a backup plan to come be an Apple Genius (tech) for 50% more than I'm making now, but I want to stick to engineering if I can...

Admittedly Utah is slightly different than California but I pay the lad who mows my grass $15 an hour.
It couldn't be that much different in other costs in Utah to justify that low a wage for a entry level professional. Or maybe, you're really competing with on-line workers from India as the viable alternative for this company.
It's a wide, weird,world. We found probably the best addition to my family ever originally working for 15 cents an hour in a far off land several years ago.

Aerospace can't be outsourced, it's classified information how we make our planes, we only compete with other US companies. They are just taking advantage of being the only machining/metalworking shops in the area... I'm sure the owners are well paid...

$12 an hour for an engineer? My high school son makes that ($9.50 plus tips) busing tables.

I know, pathetic huh? I've known I need to get out of here for a while now. At least I've gotten some good experience in my year as a planner that will be worth more to me in future positions than they were willing to pay me while I was here. I'd have left earlier, but the several job leads I've been waiting on keep dragging out. Down to one now, should know by Friday. At least they're willing to keep me working even though they know I'm looking for work elsewhere. When it comes down to it, it's not a terrible job and it does pay the bills... barely.

Experience counts for something if you can build on it.

Dude, get the fuck out of dodge.

Bullshit. That's what they tell you. In reality the same company makes planes in other countries with those countries' trademarks on them.

You have no idea what your talking about.

Give a man a job and He will bitch about having to work. take His job and give it to someone that wants it and they will say your slave driver.

I'm know you're right about the higher (graduated) tax rates, and higher cost of living in many respects in Sweden, compared to most regions of the US. (Although Sweden does,of course, have an extensive social safety net that US workers completely lack.)
In truth, though,I can't see any US worker really surviving on $8 an hour.
You'd have to have a rare combination of free housing and public transport to even survive month-to-month on that salary in the US and those conditions aren't likely to be found anywhere in the US outside of a teenager's support at home, or a being a member of monastic order.

Folks live on a lot less sometimes. I know a lot of grown people that make eight to ten bucks an hour and live a decent life are they getting rich? hell no but they are getting ahead little by little.

I wonder are you living in that part of the world?

Really? Well, they also have to SHIP the IKEA products produced in Sweden to America. So IKEA should decrease the Swedish workers' pay by the shipping costs, using your logic.

If IKEA has honest reasons for the poor treatment and pathetic wages they are paying workers in Danville, they wouldn't be investing in union-busting attorneys to stop the formation of a union. IKEA PROMOTES union activities in Sweden.

You hang out with the wrong men.

For the extra taxes, however, the Swedish workers get health care benefits, etc.

I mean, come on. No one can apologize for IKEA on this issue.

For god's sake, they "give" the IKEA workers 12 days a year vacation (compared to the 5067, or whatever, they give the Swedish workers) AND IKEA gets to choose the actual dates that 10 of those vacation dates are taken as vacation.

I don't hang out with anyone. I just know folks. I used to have a life at one time. Not so much now days.well I have a life but it's diffrent than it was. Not better not worst just diffrent.

I don't know anyone who can live on that amount of money, unless they live in one of the Obamaville homeless camps.

rents cheap around here.

The Wife and I bought our first home making seven and eight bucks an hour. paid it off early even. Now we have seven acres. all on low income.Jobs that pay 8&10 bucks an hour. If my back had not given out I would be well on my way to being a land baron. AHA HA HA.

I have lived there, and paid 90% income tax on income from overtime, and about 50% on my normal income. Food and rent were very expensive, too, as were cigarettes - gas for cars was at least six times what Americans paid per gallon, and utilities were expensive too. Things haven't changed much since I lived there - they are perhaps even more difficult today. On the other hand, medical coverage was free and medical care is state-of-the-art.

Many Americans live on less than that (about $23k a year), and food is much, much cheaper in the US than in Sweden, as is gas and rent. Gas in Sweden costs $9.20/gallon.

Sounds like a land for the rich to rest during the off season. Is it beautiful??

The IKEA products produced by American workers in America are sold in America. Swedes pay about 50% income tax, and pay 90% income tax on income earned in overtime, your faulty logic notwithstanding. Union activitie and unions in Sweden don't need promotion from any company, they are rights set in the law.

Me, too.

I know. I look at the world every day from my desk. Most Americans have no idea what the rest of the world goes through just to get food and water just for the day. I see what is out there and I know just how good I have it here. But even my world can crash like a ton of bricks.

It is a very beautiful country, sparsely populated, with wonderful nature.

With all due respect, Bailey, I'd have to see your figures on that. "Getting ahead" on $8 to $10 a hour doesn't seem plausible to me in any contemporary developed area of the United States.

I hope you don't hink I was apologizing or IKEA. They have managed the biggest non-profit tax avoidance scheme in their corporate structure I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few.

I will sit down and figure it out one day this week.

Go work there and then I'll believe you.

Damned right. These Americans are just lazy. True Americans are enterprising enough to know the ropes of dumpster diving, pan handling, pawning, begging, stealing and robbery. There's no excuse.

Name one.

Spare me the "faulty logic" comments. From someone who justifies IKEA paying wages so low that few people could live anywhere but in a homeless camp on those wages, when they treat their workers like shit, and pull a bait-and-switch on the pay they promised, AND hire union-busting attorneys to keep the Danville workers under the IKEA masta's thumb---"faulty logic" is actually a compliment.

I lived and worked in Sweden for five years, my daughter and grand-daughter live there.

Maria Bellizzi, my niece and mother of two teenage boys.

What are you babbling about? Do you have anything to say besides gibberish

I believe She has now Go away the Adults are try to talk.

I'd only demur with your statement about the US merely "LOOKING like a banana republic."
The contemporary US has been very aptly described by some of my friends in the US government as: " a banana republic with nukes.."

You are correct. I was just trying to be nice.

We became a banana republic when the SCOTUS facilitated the theft of the 2000 election by GWBush, his famly, and the rest of his junta.

It doesn't work, anyway, because the politicians we elect to office immediately break the promises they made to us and, instead, serve the best interests of corporations....then doormat voters sheeple on up to the polls in the next election and reelect the assholes who screwed us over in their last term of office.

When you make a broad statement about an entire country's citizenry, you are bound to be wrong...and, frankly, it's like the "you people" red flag. You know, when someone says "well, it is because of YOU PEOPLE that..." you have to expect a bigoted remark to follow.

The old silence is golden argument. It is a nice thought, but, has it's limits.

"The old silence is golden argument." No. People Blaming others for their situation. It is not The President Fault that the pickup got reposed. We are kidding our-selfs if we think posting about people making disposable furniture for a low wage in the middle of unemploymentville is the end of America. That is America. Turn off the Television Folks. Make yourselves useful. And don't use a credit card to obtain disposal furniture. Slavery is an option.

Credit enslaves many who believe themselves to be free.

I worked for a company that treated workers like this one. Sometimes they would tell me 1 hour before quitting time that I had to work late. Then after working an exhausting 50 hrs. that week they might tell me an hour before quitting time on Friday to come in Saturday. Again and again weekend plans with my wife and children had to be cancelled at the last minute. Yes, they paid me for my work but they could care less that I had a family to spend time with too and that I may be too exhausted to keep working after a 50 hour week. Unfortunately I didn't have a union to protect me from this abuse.

What abuse? If you don't want to work don't go. if they want you to work the weekend say you have plans it's that easy.

I have never had to stay some place I didn't want to be. I quit jobs that I felt didn't treat me right. When I was working I would quit a job just because I didn't want to work that day. But then again I don't have kids to feed and take care of. I have never had a problem finding a job when I wanted to work. But there are a lot of jobs around here. I live close to the water so there are always jobs of some kind.

Easy my ass! They'll just tell you too bad, change em ! You don't like it, There's the door!
I am always amazed at how easily some people will embrace their own slavery, and make no mistake about it. If your company can treat you like livestock, then YOU are a slave!

LOL...the uninformed are so cute.

Not having a family was the key to your freedom. Some large companies that operate in depressed areas with the less educated take advantage of that by treating their employees with no respect. That's why unions came into being in the first place. Your attitude is the same as management. I suppose you would tell miners in coal country to simply not go to work when they don't feel like it even though they would get fired.

No i just don't believe that every job has to be union. they do help a lot of folks but that does not mean that it's right for every one.

I guess you believe that all work should be union? Oh! an i am no ones slave.

If management is willing to treat their employees with respect they have nothing to fear from a union. It's the worker who makes the company prosperous. A union serves as the collective voice of the worker. What's wrong with every worker having a voice? I see nothing wrong with every worker having a union to protect him from mistreatment and bargain for decent wages. Why should management have all of the power?

I see it as a man that wants to work should be able to work when and where he wants. I see the Employer being able to hire and fire as He wish's. if he wants to work his crew to the breaking point then they can quit or stay as they want. But to say that an employer has to do as He is told just doesn't work in every feild of work. I have had My own small business. I would have hated for someone to say I could not fire some guy or I had to hire some body just because I didn't already have an ________ on the crew. I am neither for nor againest unions. They have their place. But every job doesn't need to be union. That would take away the Employers rights.

Most proponents of unions would tell you the same thing. No one is forcing anyone to unionize. The Republicans are threating peoples basic right to even think about having a union. This is the issue at hand. The right for Union to even exist..

indecisiveh and bailey78, I'm talking about the RIGHT to unionize decided by the workers vote. Workers in big companies need that option. Sometimes a union may become too demanding and so can management. If it was up to most management child labor laws, the 40 hour week, vacations, overtime and etc would for the most part be nonexistent. It has to do with quality of life in a civil world. Small businesses usually do not need many labor laws because they tend to know their employees on a more personal basis so protection isn't necessary.

I can see both the pros and cons of the Unions.

I don't think you're being unreasonable. I understand your position as a small business owner.

I just don't think that every job has to be a Union job.

I agree.

Do you believe that The unions are trying to re-emerge as a social movement ? If so do you know what that is called?

Less than 20% 0f the workforce is unionized. Republicans want to destroy unions because they are big contributors to the Democratic Party which has always watched out for the lower working class. It's natural for unions to expand because they are a protector of the workers right to bargain. They have an important function in our society just as business does. Many conservative Republicans think it should be nobody's business if they operate a sweatshop full of young workers at low wages but society begs to differ and unions and labor laws are the way to make that clear.

Then you are either in managment, or serious denial.

the only change that is going to happen in 2012 is the faces in the white house

Well, that would be change, wouldn't it?

I'm just sick to death of having a president I worked to elect being such a fucking Bush-clone liar and cheat.

If an elected politician is going to lie us into war, break his promises, and use the power the voters gave him to serve corporate masters, I'd just as soon it NOT be a Democrat.

It's bad enough to be so totally disrespected--I don't need to have it come from someone in my own goddamned political party.

Oh yes i have a little egg on my face also. I told every body that I knew to Vote Obama. Pointed out what He would do and what He was to change. But he not only hasn't done what He said but He has done just what He said He won't do.

Clone? you aren't paying enough attention. Bush and Obama having virtually nothing in common besides the garbage heap bush left on the lawn before he left.

and meanwhile you have not moved from this spot. How do you expect Obama to do anything new if you haven't?

Sufferin' Jesus, I agree with you. +^'ed

I am disabled. I have a hard time doing anything that requires me to move much. I do sign petitions and write to some of the folks in office

Oh and i vote every chance i get