How to setup an Industrial maintenance team that works
Introduction:
In any industrial environment the primary goal of every department is to keep product moving in the direction of the customer. Yeah, we all know that, don’t we? It is repeated often in meetings and it is a driving factor in any decision made by anyone involved in the process. The more involved a person is in the decision making process, the more that person is aware of the need for production. Maintenance departments are indirect in the impact they have on the process flow – at least in the eyes of the direct production and planning groups. The maintenance manager is subject to the needs of the managers of the more direct departments. He has to make his decisions and manage his resources while maintaining a balance between defense of his department resources and response to other departments’ demands.
This is the view I have developed over nearly thirty years working in industrial maintenance. I have never felt the urge to become a manager so I spent all this time carrying a tool pouch and trying to keep things working. I have seen the many mistakes that contribute to maintenance department inefficiency. I have seen a few things that work well. My maintenance experience ranges from patching concrete floors and changing oil in forklifts all the way to programming robots. There’s not much I haven’t seen. I’m not an expert on any one subject but I know something about more different subjects than most people. I believe my insight into industrial maintenance management can improve American industry’s competitiveness in the world economy. It is one of the ways we can once again demonstrate our leadership in the progress of humanity.
I’m not going to focus on any one industry or technology level, although I may use specific examples. I am not going to pound on the same old ideas that every maintenance technician always complains about. I am going to recommend an overall concept that addresses the common failures I have witnessed. I have no idea how to make the production departments and bean counters accept these ideas. But, if a manager can put the concept in place and work it long enough for it to mature, the results could be spectacular.
Goals
The short term (daily) goals of the maintenance supervisor are: to keep his boss off his back; not allow things to happen he cannot explain and; don’t give anyone a reason or a means to cause him trouble. I hope to give him some tools to help him with these goals. Unfortunately, the first-level supervisor has no real power to implement changes in department operation beyond his own little part of the world. The people with the power to implement changes need to be convinced the changes are viable and valuable. Again, I don’t have the persuasive skills needed. I believe these ideas are mostly self-evident once they are understood. If a person is too closed-minded to see and understand, he or she is beyond my reach. Good luck dealing with this person.
The goals I hope to achieve with my concepts are:
• To eliminate excess equipment downtime.
• To keep maintenance personnel relatively happy.
• To make the maintenance group flexible and responsive to the company’s needs.
• To make the maintenance group an accepted part of company decisions.
• To make the maintenance group a valuable resource for the company – not just an expensive overhead item.
• To reduce the workload on maintenance personnel and allow time for training.
....more to come
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Is Industrial safety a joke?
Safety article two
Safety cannot be “Managed” or “Directed” by some overpaid executive. Safety cannot be a matter of convenience. Safety cannot be a random act or something you do only when someone is watching. Safety in an industrial environment should be a set of standards applied consistently and uniformly across the entire organization. When decisions about safety are based on the production needs of the machine or process the true intent of safety standards is compromised. The precedent thus established soon becomes common practice. The message heard by the employees is: safety is secondary to production and it is OK to bypass safety rules when production is needed.
Nearly all industrial employees know how to do their jobs safely. Each employee also knows how safety issues have been handled in the past. When a supervisor sets an example by putting production ahead of safety he can expect the same attitude from his workers. When a worker ignores a safety rule in order to make production (following a supervisor’s example) the supervisor is, in some degree, responsible for the employee’s actions.
The company safety manager (director, guru, czar, or some other title) is not nearly as concerned about your personal safety as he is about protecting the company from your lawyers and government agencies. His salary is justified by the potential losses he protects the company from. When the safety manager attends management team meetings nobody asks him about the condition of the most recent injured employee; instead he is asked, either directly or indirectly, what impact the injury will have on the company. There is discussion about disciplinary action against the injured worker in order to reduce the company’s possible liability. Disciplinary action for injuries is actually quite common because it helps reduce the company’s losses (the “safety manager’s primary function). The major shareholders in any organization are not worried about who gets harmed by their company’s pursuit of profit. There may be a few who could pass a lie detector exam while claiming to be interested in a low level employee’s well being. The majority would not even try to make the claim. The more paranoid about legal issues a company is, the more likely it is to actively keep track of how well the federal and state requirements are being met. Some companies do not even try.
Early Horror story:
In the early 70’s I worked at a factory producing shock absorbers. Several times someone would come around with a severed finger in a box (I’m NOT joking!) and tell us who it belonged to. There was discussion about how much a finger was worth in cash and the most recent payouts were brought up. (Would you sell an index finger for $1400?) I do not remember anyone trying to take the finger to the hospital or make any effort to prevent future incidents. One night (I worked third shift) I was sent to the area where the fingers were regularly cut off. Even at eighteen I worried about losing a finger. As I started working I discovered why fingers were being endangered. The operation required two push buttons to be pushed at the same time to start the cycle. The speed of the line was such that a second or two per part was the difference between staying behind and keeping up. Operators were tying a rubber bushing on top of one of the push buttons so that they could hit the button with an elbow and not wait to hit it with their hand. Occasionally the elbow hit the button before the hand was retracted. Another finger lost. I never heard of any effort to slow down the line or prevent overriding the intent of the two-hand safety. This was 30 years ago.
Here’s an example pointing to the lack of change over the years:
Recently an operator was injured by an unguarded pinch point. The machine had been hanging up at this point regularly and people were always having to un-hang it even as production continued. As one could easily anticipate, this finally leads to a significant injury. The line continued to run and the problem with the line was not corrected until the next shift so that production was not impacted. We even had to try to fix it during the ten minute break in production and we had to continue working on it as the line restarted after the break. A temporary patch made the situation better but we had to come back next break to further refine the solution. What is the message from this? What do the other people working in the area think is important? If you are a low wage worker on the line, being pressured to produce, would you feel empowered to shut down the line to address a safety concern. Of course not! You would do as this injured worker did. You would try to clear the jam quickly and keep on working.
Few of the people who work at this level of industry have access to articles like this and many immigrant workers do not understand their rights well enough to stand up to a production-oriented supervisor or team leader. If you are one of these supervisors or managers take some time to rethink your policies. Have some respect for people’s safety beyond the government requirements. Work to improve your attitude and the way your organization treats safety. Simply ending each daily shift meeting with “Work Safe” is not enough!
D. Page
Ps: If you work in manufacturing you must be aware of your rights. You do not have to work in unsafe conditions. More importantly you must watch out for yourself, no one around you can be counted on to watch out for you. If you can, after keeping you safe try to keep your co-workers safe too. Not one person in the company management, the state government or the federal government is watching out for you.
Safety cannot be “Managed” or “Directed” by some overpaid executive. Safety cannot be a matter of convenience. Safety cannot be a random act or something you do only when someone is watching. Safety in an industrial environment should be a set of standards applied consistently and uniformly across the entire organization. When decisions about safety are based on the production needs of the machine or process the true intent of safety standards is compromised. The precedent thus established soon becomes common practice. The message heard by the employees is: safety is secondary to production and it is OK to bypass safety rules when production is needed.
Nearly all industrial employees know how to do their jobs safely. Each employee also knows how safety issues have been handled in the past. When a supervisor sets an example by putting production ahead of safety he can expect the same attitude from his workers. When a worker ignores a safety rule in order to make production (following a supervisor’s example) the supervisor is, in some degree, responsible for the employee’s actions.
The company safety manager (director, guru, czar, or some other title) is not nearly as concerned about your personal safety as he is about protecting the company from your lawyers and government agencies. His salary is justified by the potential losses he protects the company from. When the safety manager attends management team meetings nobody asks him about the condition of the most recent injured employee; instead he is asked, either directly or indirectly, what impact the injury will have on the company. There is discussion about disciplinary action against the injured worker in order to reduce the company’s possible liability. Disciplinary action for injuries is actually quite common because it helps reduce the company’s losses (the “safety manager’s primary function). The major shareholders in any organization are not worried about who gets harmed by their company’s pursuit of profit. There may be a few who could pass a lie detector exam while claiming to be interested in a low level employee’s well being. The majority would not even try to make the claim. The more paranoid about legal issues a company is, the more likely it is to actively keep track of how well the federal and state requirements are being met. Some companies do not even try.
Early Horror story:
In the early 70’s I worked at a factory producing shock absorbers. Several times someone would come around with a severed finger in a box (I’m NOT joking!) and tell us who it belonged to. There was discussion about how much a finger was worth in cash and the most recent payouts were brought up. (Would you sell an index finger for $1400?) I do not remember anyone trying to take the finger to the hospital or make any effort to prevent future incidents. One night (I worked third shift) I was sent to the area where the fingers were regularly cut off. Even at eighteen I worried about losing a finger. As I started working I discovered why fingers were being endangered. The operation required two push buttons to be pushed at the same time to start the cycle. The speed of the line was such that a second or two per part was the difference between staying behind and keeping up. Operators were tying a rubber bushing on top of one of the push buttons so that they could hit the button with an elbow and not wait to hit it with their hand. Occasionally the elbow hit the button before the hand was retracted. Another finger lost. I never heard of any effort to slow down the line or prevent overriding the intent of the two-hand safety. This was 30 years ago.
Here’s an example pointing to the lack of change over the years:
Recently an operator was injured by an unguarded pinch point. The machine had been hanging up at this point regularly and people were always having to un-hang it even as production continued. As one could easily anticipate, this finally leads to a significant injury. The line continued to run and the problem with the line was not corrected until the next shift so that production was not impacted. We even had to try to fix it during the ten minute break in production and we had to continue working on it as the line restarted after the break. A temporary patch made the situation better but we had to come back next break to further refine the solution. What is the message from this? What do the other people working in the area think is important? If you are a low wage worker on the line, being pressured to produce, would you feel empowered to shut down the line to address a safety concern. Of course not! You would do as this injured worker did. You would try to clear the jam quickly and keep on working.
Few of the people who work at this level of industry have access to articles like this and many immigrant workers do not understand their rights well enough to stand up to a production-oriented supervisor or team leader. If you are one of these supervisors or managers take some time to rethink your policies. Have some respect for people’s safety beyond the government requirements. Work to improve your attitude and the way your organization treats safety. Simply ending each daily shift meeting with “Work Safe” is not enough!
D. Page
Ps: If you work in manufacturing you must be aware of your rights. You do not have to work in unsafe conditions. More importantly you must watch out for yourself, no one around you can be counted on to watch out for you. If you can, after keeping you safe try to keep your co-workers safe too. Not one person in the company management, the state government or the federal government is watching out for you.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The reality of industrial safety
The reality of industrial safety
We’ve all been exposed to it: The incessant repetition of safety videos, safety handouts, and presentations by some member of the corporate safety team. If you’ve worked for the same company for a few years you can probably recite the video. If you’re like me you have seen the same concepts presented in several different ways and signed innumerable attendance sheets showing you have been trained in safety.
Then, you left the conference room and returned to work doing things the same way you always have. I can demonstrate this with a personal story. I was required to attend the annual reinforcement class about safety, particularly the lock-out/tag-out process. As I descended the stairs from the conference room I noticed the large machining center across the aisle was stopped and the operator was trying to get it running again. I went to see what the problem was and quickly realized one of the major components of the machine had failed to complete its function. A proximity switch in the machine was being activated by a large metal chip and preventing the completion of the move. I climbed up into the machine and cleared out the metal chip. The machine abruptly returned to operation - moving to complete the current function. I had to perform some fancy dance moves to escape the machine before it included me in the process. I had barely reached the floor when my supervisor arrived, looked around, and said “I hope I didn’t see what I just thought I saw”. I indicated negative. He was not fooled but was willing to accept my denial rather than admit his safety class was that ineffective. This was not the first time I ignored a safety rule; it was not the last; and I suspect I will continue to ignore rules when the pressures of the job outweigh the potential dangers. I am not proud of this but it is the truth.
If anything, I am sometimes more worried about getting caught ignoring the rules than worrying about my safety. Some companies strictly enforce safety rules while others ignore the enforcement except as a response when someone gets hurt. The reality is that a company’s enforcement and application is most often driven by the legal department, not by any real concern about people’s safety. I’m not saying the safety director (or whatever title he/she holds) doesn’t care on a personal basis; just that any personal feelings take a back seat to the responsibilities of the position.
The safety director has the responsibility of preventing losses due to industrial health and safety issues. He has to put processes in place to protect the company from liability in cases of worker injury. (I’m concentrating on employee injury issues here but the same person may also be the environmental guru as well.) He must first be sure the company follows all state and federal requirements for training – thus the boring and repetitive annual classes. He makes inspections and documents places where safety improvements are needed. Documenting the inspections and documenting the instances where safety-based work is performed proves to the government agencies that he is being conscientious in his job. This provides loss prevention by eliminating fines that might be imposed by government agencies for non-compliance.
Almost all employers have some insurance-type company that is supposed to help offset the losses from injury-driven lawsuits. The costs for this coverage can be significant and anything a company can do to reduce the insurance company’s fees is part of the loss prevention process. The insurance company makes inspections and points out areas where improvements are needed. Failure to make the suggested changes will often result in increased fees (a type of loss). This is often where the seemingly silly changes to processes come from. Insurance company inspectors rarely have the technical understanding of processes to grasp the real impact of the changes they require. The result can some change to a process that makes the operator’s job much more difficult without providing any real safety improvement. Operators and technicians complain but are reminded this is a safety issue and they’ll just have to live with it. It won’t be long until someone finds a way around the impediment (ties back a switch…etc) to make the job easier. Such actions are overlooked by management using “selective blindness” where the production quotas heavily outweigh the safety of people – especially when a safety device slows down production while providing no real protection. This is what is really happening in industry today and has always been part of any manufacturing environment. It is not going to change. The costs of enforcing rules will be part of the manufacturing overhead as long as people work around machinery. When the rules and implementation of engineering measures get in the way of people doing their job, there will be ways found to get around the limits. It may well be that when a complicated safety measure is defeated the exposure to danger may be worse than the danger the measure sought to eliminate.
There is a complex interaction between all parties involved. Some companies are very strict with rules enforcement but they have to absorb the added production costs caused by safety measures and the inspection and enforcement process. Other companies only meet the government requirements and look at enforcement and implementation of safety measures only in response to a significant injury or lawsuit. I’ve worked for both types but most employers fall somewhere between – usually nearer the latter than the former.
In the end, if you work in manufacturing, you must be aware of your own risks and take the personal measures required to protect yourself. Don’t expect the safety director to watch out for you; he is more interested in making sure neither he nor the company gets blamed if you get hurt. Your supervisor may be your friend but his job is not to worry about your fingers and toes, he has a production quota to meet and he has to be sure he is protected from liability if you do get hurt. I can tell you from a maintenance technician point of view that supervisors will quickly ask me to override a safety process if it is going to impact his production. I can say that more often than not I do what I’m asked to do. It is simpler than arguing sometimes. I have noticed safety problems and tried to report them only to be brushed aside. I have even known at least one person hurt by a machine after I tried to report a safety problem with it. I was told “yes, we’re aware of that and we’ll work on a solution once we’ve got the machine running full production.” It was two weeks later when a person was significantly injured by the machine - exactly as I had predicted. (I feel guilty for not being more assertive, even though I was just a contactor at the plant.) After the injury, the machine was shut down for a couple of days while the safety devices were installed. The supervisor made a point to tell everyone “I told him not to put his hand in there…he knew better”).
The point I am trying to make is this: You must watch out for yourself. No one but you truly cares about your personal health and safety. Do not simply accept that your company is interested in your safety. It is not! The person working beside you has more concern for your safety than anyone else in the company. Stop and think before doing anything beyond your normal work process. Remember: some emotional wimp of a maintenance person like me may have caved to a supervisor’s pressure and bypassed a safety device. Some engineer might have decided that safety was secondary to getting a new process implemented. The safety director has all the documented training he needs to keep the company from being liable so he doesn’t care what you do – he can blame it on you if you get hurt.
You are the only person responsible for your safety!
If you care about people, help your co-workers be safe and remind them when they are about to be careless. Once you’ve reminded them you may not feel guilty if they get hurt – just like the company you work for.
No matter how fast you think you are you are not faster than that machine. It will not bleed if it gets hurt…you will.
The company’s CEO is not going to tell the stockholders that your products cost 10% more than the competition’s because he is worried about the safety of the guys on the assembly line.
Donald Page
We’ve all been exposed to it: The incessant repetition of safety videos, safety handouts, and presentations by some member of the corporate safety team. If you’ve worked for the same company for a few years you can probably recite the video. If you’re like me you have seen the same concepts presented in several different ways and signed innumerable attendance sheets showing you have been trained in safety.
Then, you left the conference room and returned to work doing things the same way you always have. I can demonstrate this with a personal story. I was required to attend the annual reinforcement class about safety, particularly the lock-out/tag-out process. As I descended the stairs from the conference room I noticed the large machining center across the aisle was stopped and the operator was trying to get it running again. I went to see what the problem was and quickly realized one of the major components of the machine had failed to complete its function. A proximity switch in the machine was being activated by a large metal chip and preventing the completion of the move. I climbed up into the machine and cleared out the metal chip. The machine abruptly returned to operation - moving to complete the current function. I had to perform some fancy dance moves to escape the machine before it included me in the process. I had barely reached the floor when my supervisor arrived, looked around, and said “I hope I didn’t see what I just thought I saw”. I indicated negative. He was not fooled but was willing to accept my denial rather than admit his safety class was that ineffective. This was not the first time I ignored a safety rule; it was not the last; and I suspect I will continue to ignore rules when the pressures of the job outweigh the potential dangers. I am not proud of this but it is the truth.
If anything, I am sometimes more worried about getting caught ignoring the rules than worrying about my safety. Some companies strictly enforce safety rules while others ignore the enforcement except as a response when someone gets hurt. The reality is that a company’s enforcement and application is most often driven by the legal department, not by any real concern about people’s safety. I’m not saying the safety director (or whatever title he/she holds) doesn’t care on a personal basis; just that any personal feelings take a back seat to the responsibilities of the position.
The safety director has the responsibility of preventing losses due to industrial health and safety issues. He has to put processes in place to protect the company from liability in cases of worker injury. (I’m concentrating on employee injury issues here but the same person may also be the environmental guru as well.) He must first be sure the company follows all state and federal requirements for training – thus the boring and repetitive annual classes. He makes inspections and documents places where safety improvements are needed. Documenting the inspections and documenting the instances where safety-based work is performed proves to the government agencies that he is being conscientious in his job. This provides loss prevention by eliminating fines that might be imposed by government agencies for non-compliance.
Almost all employers have some insurance-type company that is supposed to help offset the losses from injury-driven lawsuits. The costs for this coverage can be significant and anything a company can do to reduce the insurance company’s fees is part of the loss prevention process. The insurance company makes inspections and points out areas where improvements are needed. Failure to make the suggested changes will often result in increased fees (a type of loss). This is often where the seemingly silly changes to processes come from. Insurance company inspectors rarely have the technical understanding of processes to grasp the real impact of the changes they require. The result can some change to a process that makes the operator’s job much more difficult without providing any real safety improvement. Operators and technicians complain but are reminded this is a safety issue and they’ll just have to live with it. It won’t be long until someone finds a way around the impediment (ties back a switch…etc) to make the job easier. Such actions are overlooked by management using “selective blindness” where the production quotas heavily outweigh the safety of people – especially when a safety device slows down production while providing no real protection. This is what is really happening in industry today and has always been part of any manufacturing environment. It is not going to change. The costs of enforcing rules will be part of the manufacturing overhead as long as people work around machinery. When the rules and implementation of engineering measures get in the way of people doing their job, there will be ways found to get around the limits. It may well be that when a complicated safety measure is defeated the exposure to danger may be worse than the danger the measure sought to eliminate.
There is a complex interaction between all parties involved. Some companies are very strict with rules enforcement but they have to absorb the added production costs caused by safety measures and the inspection and enforcement process. Other companies only meet the government requirements and look at enforcement and implementation of safety measures only in response to a significant injury or lawsuit. I’ve worked for both types but most employers fall somewhere between – usually nearer the latter than the former.
In the end, if you work in manufacturing, you must be aware of your own risks and take the personal measures required to protect yourself. Don’t expect the safety director to watch out for you; he is more interested in making sure neither he nor the company gets blamed if you get hurt. Your supervisor may be your friend but his job is not to worry about your fingers and toes, he has a production quota to meet and he has to be sure he is protected from liability if you do get hurt. I can tell you from a maintenance technician point of view that supervisors will quickly ask me to override a safety process if it is going to impact his production. I can say that more often than not I do what I’m asked to do. It is simpler than arguing sometimes. I have noticed safety problems and tried to report them only to be brushed aside. I have even known at least one person hurt by a machine after I tried to report a safety problem with it. I was told “yes, we’re aware of that and we’ll work on a solution once we’ve got the machine running full production.” It was two weeks later when a person was significantly injured by the machine - exactly as I had predicted. (I feel guilty for not being more assertive, even though I was just a contactor at the plant.) After the injury, the machine was shut down for a couple of days while the safety devices were installed. The supervisor made a point to tell everyone “I told him not to put his hand in there…he knew better”).
The point I am trying to make is this: You must watch out for yourself. No one but you truly cares about your personal health and safety. Do not simply accept that your company is interested in your safety. It is not! The person working beside you has more concern for your safety than anyone else in the company. Stop and think before doing anything beyond your normal work process. Remember: some emotional wimp of a maintenance person like me may have caved to a supervisor’s pressure and bypassed a safety device. Some engineer might have decided that safety was secondary to getting a new process implemented. The safety director has all the documented training he needs to keep the company from being liable so he doesn’t care what you do – he can blame it on you if you get hurt.
You are the only person responsible for your safety!
If you care about people, help your co-workers be safe and remind them when they are about to be careless. Once you’ve reminded them you may not feel guilty if they get hurt – just like the company you work for.
No matter how fast you think you are you are not faster than that machine. It will not bleed if it gets hurt…you will.
The company’s CEO is not going to tell the stockholders that your products cost 10% more than the competition’s because he is worried about the safety of the guys on the assembly line.
Donald Page
Saturday, November 1, 2008
My Ideal Job
Maintenance Engineer / Trainer:
This is the job I would create for myself based on my experience, skills, and abilities. I would work in an industrial maintenance department, reporting to maintenance manager. I would help solve on going technical problems that have defeated the frontline maintenance technicians. I would be a major part of the team developing PM processes for the plant. Using my advanced computer skills, I would administer the maintenance management software and work to make the maintenance parts database user-friendly for the techs. Process downtime is often multiplied when techs spend more time searching for parts than they spend on actual repairs. This is correctable if approached with understanding of the needs of the techs instead of the clerks.
I would produce documentation (both print and online) that would help the technicians be more accurate and effective when diagnosing problems. I would promote safety in the work place with specific real-world rules and real classes (not “canned” meet-the-requirements videos). I would hold classes to expand technicians’ knowledge about the specific equipment in the plant and how to use the troubleshooting skills they don’t realize they have. As part of the ongoing training I would use my web design skills to build web-based troubleshooting aids and web based manuals available at all times to technicians. I would be available to step in as a team leader on temporary basis when needed.
Along with administration of the maintenance management software I could produce regular reports showing the improvement in the team’s effectiveness.
I would be available in a consulting role to engineering and purchasing departments to help write specifications for purchases of supplies and equipment as well as capital investments.
If you have a place in your organization for this type of person, contact me and let’s discuss it.
Wyo_Knott
This is the job I would create for myself based on my experience, skills, and abilities. I would work in an industrial maintenance department, reporting to maintenance manager. I would help solve on going technical problems that have defeated the frontline maintenance technicians. I would be a major part of the team developing PM processes for the plant. Using my advanced computer skills, I would administer the maintenance management software and work to make the maintenance parts database user-friendly for the techs. Process downtime is often multiplied when techs spend more time searching for parts than they spend on actual repairs. This is correctable if approached with understanding of the needs of the techs instead of the clerks.
I would produce documentation (both print and online) that would help the technicians be more accurate and effective when diagnosing problems. I would promote safety in the work place with specific real-world rules and real classes (not “canned” meet-the-requirements videos). I would hold classes to expand technicians’ knowledge about the specific equipment in the plant and how to use the troubleshooting skills they don’t realize they have. As part of the ongoing training I would use my web design skills to build web-based troubleshooting aids and web based manuals available at all times to technicians. I would be available to step in as a team leader on temporary basis when needed.
Along with administration of the maintenance management software I could produce regular reports showing the improvement in the team’s effectiveness.
I would be available in a consulting role to engineering and purchasing departments to help write specifications for purchases of supplies and equipment as well as capital investments.
If you have a place in your organization for this type of person, contact me and let’s discuss it.
Wyo_Knott
Votes
The important thing to remember when you are exposed to any political ad or hear comments made by political analyst tied to either party is the way any statistic or fact s works. One recent ad declares that John McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. What is not reported is that any vote in congress is part of some negotiation, deal, or compromise. Republican senators are pressured by can be presented in a way to promote a particular point of view.
I admit I am a Barak Obama supporter but I am going to use an Obama campaign to demonstrate the way lawmakers are encouraged to vote along party lines and not vote their conscience or the perspective of their constituents. Votes on a particular bill may be the result of a behind-the-scenes bargain with another voting block for support for another bill.
In an ideal world McCain would have the chance to explain honestly and in detail any vote that is considered “with Bush”. We would likely find that most of these votes were driven by pressure from the party as well as by McCain’s own opinions. If his opinions were truly inline with Bush’s then the point of the ad is valid, otherwise the ad is misleading.
Naturally, as humans we all try to put a positive spin when explaining our actions and politicians are more experienced at this than common citizens. At least if you ever hear a politician speak frankly you can analyze his words by determining his personal spin. Thirty-second spots on TV are designed for maximum impact requiring no thought on the part of the viewer. We must all use our own minds and not rely on someone else to do our thinking.
Wyo_Knott
I admit I am a Barak Obama supporter but I am going to use an Obama campaign to demonstrate the way lawmakers are encouraged to vote along party lines and not vote their conscience or the perspective of their constituents. Votes on a particular bill may be the result of a behind-the-scenes bargain with another voting block for support for another bill.
In an ideal world McCain would have the chance to explain honestly and in detail any vote that is considered “with Bush”. We would likely find that most of these votes were driven by pressure from the party as well as by McCain’s own opinions. If his opinions were truly inline with Bush’s then the point of the ad is valid, otherwise the ad is misleading.
Naturally, as humans we all try to put a positive spin when explaining our actions and politicians are more experienced at this than common citizens. At least if you ever hear a politician speak frankly you can analyze his words by determining his personal spin. Thirty-second spots on TV are designed for maximum impact requiring no thought on the part of the viewer. We must all use our own minds and not rely on someone else to do our thinking.
Wyo_Knott
Small businesses hire the people in the lowest level of the economic structure. The person making less then $10.00 per hour does not have any income to put into economic growth. The small business owner (My definition of small business is a business with <$100000 per year net income for the owner). It is these people who most need to protection of the government to assure the businesses do not fall back on slave-like employee treatment and abuse.
Small and medium businesses have a certain responsibility to the citizens of this country who provide them with the opportunity to be business owners. The business owner with the lawn service business and three employees is out there working hard with his crew. He doesn’t need oppressive taxation but the three employees must be protected from the tendency of business men to make maximum profit at the expense of others. The influx of Mexican-born general laborers for these low-level jobs and the hesitation of the government to control this influx serves to prove the tendency toward employee abuse and the government’s intentional blindness toward it.
We have the minimal employee protections in place already. We must be sure the government has the means and the will to help when needed. The business owner can pay a small tax if his employees’ average income is below a certain level. This helps the government pay for the support for the people who cannot afford their own health insurance at the wage they’re paid. There is a wage level where the ability of a person to save a portion of his income into a 401-K plan does not exist. What if a business pays well enough that the employees as a group save a certain percentage into retirement plans? The company part of the Social Security tax could be reduced. A novel idea: rewarding businesses for being fair to employees.
Even poor people have a right to a minimal level of life. They don’t have a right to a private beach house or a 55-foot yacht but they have the same rights as the business owner to pursue these things. Keeping people in their place by underpaying them for their work could be construed as a rights violation. I do not think it is but there is a very thin line that must be patrolled by socially conscious people.
Here’s a thought: If the annual net income of a business owner exceeds ten times the average wage and benefits package of his employees he should pay a small excess profits tax. This same rule could apply to the top executives of larger companies. It is just the cost of supporting the American Government that empowers the business to exist and grow.
Wy0_Knott
Small and medium businesses have a certain responsibility to the citizens of this country who provide them with the opportunity to be business owners. The business owner with the lawn service business and three employees is out there working hard with his crew. He doesn’t need oppressive taxation but the three employees must be protected from the tendency of business men to make maximum profit at the expense of others. The influx of Mexican-born general laborers for these low-level jobs and the hesitation of the government to control this influx serves to prove the tendency toward employee abuse and the government’s intentional blindness toward it.
We have the minimal employee protections in place already. We must be sure the government has the means and the will to help when needed. The business owner can pay a small tax if his employees’ average income is below a certain level. This helps the government pay for the support for the people who cannot afford their own health insurance at the wage they’re paid. There is a wage level where the ability of a person to save a portion of his income into a 401-K plan does not exist. What if a business pays well enough that the employees as a group save a certain percentage into retirement plans? The company part of the Social Security tax could be reduced. A novel idea: rewarding businesses for being fair to employees.
Even poor people have a right to a minimal level of life. They don’t have a right to a private beach house or a 55-foot yacht but they have the same rights as the business owner to pursue these things. Keeping people in their place by underpaying them for their work could be construed as a rights violation. I do not think it is but there is a very thin line that must be patrolled by socially conscious people.
Here’s a thought: If the annual net income of a business owner exceeds ten times the average wage and benefits package of his employees he should pay a small excess profits tax. This same rule could apply to the top executives of larger companies. It is just the cost of supporting the American Government that empowers the business to exist and grow.
Wy0_Knott
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