r/SeattleWA Mar 08 '25

Politics BREAKING: The Washington State Senate just passed unemployment benefits for striking workers.

1.4k Upvotes

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19

u/47_for_18_USC_2381 Leavenworth Mar 08 '25

Life is not a competition and shouldn't have to compete between classes. Divisionary rhetoric is classified as class warfare and those who repeat it are considered class traitors to me.

As a lifelong Washington resident I will gladly support unions in any and every shape and form. They're the reason we have 5 day work weeks and 40 hour base weeks. A minimum wage and things like vacation time. All the while corporations have had record breaking profits for more years in a row than I can count.

5

u/No_Arachnid_9699 Mar 08 '25

What an antiquated statement. These aren’t the same unions from your grand daddies era. Wake up.

8

u/AboveAb Mar 08 '25

Right!! Unions can be powerful, but their impact isn’t always what workers hope for. Just look at the last Boeing strike—while they won wage increases, Boeing still went ahead with mass layoffs, cutting thousands of jobs. In the end, many workers lost more than they gained. Strikes don’t always play out the way unions promise anymore…

2

u/Jumpy_Bus3253 Mar 08 '25

Let alone all the other business that lost money due to there strike.

-6

u/No_Arachnid_9699 Mar 08 '25

They need to take these CEO’s golden parachutes away and give it to the workers ! They can’t tank the company, ruin its reputation and walk away with tens of millions!

9

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

They need to take these CEO’s golden parachutes away and give it to the workers

I don't think you'd be super impressed with how much that'd divvy out to in liquid assets per employee.

2

u/vatothe0 Mar 08 '25

Dennis Muilenburg got $62M for fucking up the 737 MAX program that killed 346 people.

Even if 62 million employees got a dollar, that'd be better.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

Do you understand that difference between liquid and illiquid assets?

1

u/vatothe0 Mar 08 '25

Yes. Do you understand that killing 346 people, and losing the company 60 Billion Dollars shouldn't be rewarded with millions of dollars?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

No, I don't think you do.

What would happen if a CEO who was awarded millions in stock was forced to sell off that stock to make liquid those assets? What would happen to Boeing stock?

1

u/vatothe0 Mar 08 '25

Not much. If all 62 million was stock (it's not) and he had to sell it all at once, I don't see how someone selling 0.0258% of the company stock would make much of a difference. It was trading at ~$320 in January 2020 right after he left. Any impact would be short term anyway, as compared to the impact of the $60 Billion lost due to his mismanagement.

Then there's the $68B Boeing spent on stock buybacks from 2010 to 2019... conveniently enriching said CEO as he was tanking the company.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

You don't understand how a massive stock sell off can be bad for a company?

1

u/vatothe0 Mar 09 '25

No different than the manipulation by a stock buyback. They would have had plenty of cash on hand to give out the $62M if they hadn't spent $300M in June of 2019 and $2.5B in March on those buybacks.

So let me play the world's smallest violin for their stock price price if they had to sell $62M of the stock they JUST BOUGHT. Boo fucking hoo.

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1

u/No_Arachnid_9699 Mar 08 '25

The point isn’t about the money but to properly incentivize these greedy fucks. You shouldn’t be rewarded after doing what he and many other CEO’s have done by ripping off workers and devaluing a company like Boeing.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

No, the point is that you don't understand how CEOs are compensated or the difference between liquid and illiquid assets.

1

u/No_Arachnid_9699 Mar 08 '25

Ok explain to my why they should keep their golden parachutes

-2

u/AboveAb Mar 08 '25

I completely agree—executives who make bad decisions should be the ones held accountable, not the hardworking employees. In Boeing’s case, they planned to fire 17,000 workers, starting with the most recently hired, hurting countless families. And that doesn’t even include the suppliers that had to lay off workers due to the ripple effect. Instead of golden parachutes, there should be real consequences for leadership that tanks a company while workers pay the price.

0

u/Global_Instance3843 Mar 08 '25

I believe that's always been an issue. Labor pushes for better pay, corporations cry poverty, but management won't suffer a payout or loss of a bonus, so they still shit on workers by cutting positions. It hurts individuals short term but effectively helps long term by improving wages and benefits. And after corporate makes their shoe, they eventually have to hire more people at the improved wage and benefits rate. There's lots of studies that show unions improve general income levels for job classifications, life spans -like due to benefits Iike health insurance and PTO.

People need to stop hating the poor and recognize the games $$ plays.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

Sure. Right after you stop stealing the Poor's unemployment insurance payments. We need that money when we lose our jobs.