danivon wrote:PS: Ricky, DF, let's end the argument now. You both lose

danivon wrote:I'm not sure the ACLU are right to be standing up for the 'right' to hide what is really large-scale political funding. It's not 'private', it has an effect on the public sphere and so should be public. If you are going to remove limits on funding for 'free speech', at least people should be prepared to be open about what they are saying (and how much they are paying to say it).

Like all major Las Vegas hotel casinos, the Sands was a union hotel when Adelson bought it, but the Venetian was non-union. This sparked a singularly bitter war with the Culinary Union, which had for many years maintained good relations with most hotels on the Strip. (Adelson has said that the benefits he gives his employees are superior to union benefits.) After a rally in which a thousand union supporters picketed in front of the Venetian, Adelson tried to have them removed by the police, and when that failed he went to court, arguing that the sidewalks outside the Venetian were private property, and not subject to the First Amendment. The Venetian lost in the district court and the appellate court, and in 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Adelson, like other members of his family, had been a Democrat. But, as his wealth grew, he began to favor tax-averse Republican economic policies. He argued to an associate recently, “Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?” Three years ago, at an event in Washington, D.C., celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Adelson, who was being honored that evening, told the audience about the time he had spent with William Bush, the brother of George H. W. Bush, during the 1988 election. “He explained to me what Republicanism was all about . . . so I got to learn about it and I switched immediately!” Adelson said. But it was only after he went to war against the union that he became so partisan. He began donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National State Election Committee.

Purple wrote:Now change the scene just this little bit: same corner of the same public square, same soapbox, same speaker, same speech... but he's wearing a gorilla mask and refuses, when asked, to tell us his name. Does this activity now deserve less constitutional protection? Is he exercising a less fundamental right? I think not. Perhaps his political views differ from his employer's or his neighbors', and he fears discrimination. Or perhaps he fears some arm of the government he's criticizing.

Believe it or not, I'm not arguing against disclosure laws. I like full disclosure. Louis Brandeis: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Hurrah. But the USSC has ruled that political contribution is speech, and I agree with the basic philosophy of that ruling (though I admit there are devils residing in the details). So if the soapbox speaker deserves to exercise anonymity if he wishes, why shouldn't the contributor of money? Perhaps the contributor fears an employer, neighbor, or arm of the government!

But even then, Adelson still cared about the little guy. He fretted about why more African-Americans weren’t applying for jobs at the Needham-based company, according to Jason Chudnofsky, president of Comdex at the time.

During those early years, they would joke that - at bonus time - they’d throw all the money in the air. Whatever God wanted, God took, and the rest they divided fairly between themselves and their employees. When an employee died of cancer, they carried his widow on the payroll for years.

“They watched their fathers do a lot of manual labor in the food markets and the factories, and they said, ‘When we hire people we are never going to allow them to be treated the way our parents were treated,’ ’’ Chudnofsky said.

When they started Comdex in the 1970s, they were all Democrats, except for Shapiro, who had grown up in Brookline, where the Republican Party was popular. During their epic lunches at Chinese restaurants, Shapiro never managed to convince them to join the Republicans.

“We used to joke about it,’’ Shapiro said. “All our friends and neighbors were Democrats. But politics wasn’t that important to us.’’ ...

BY THE time the friends sold Comdex in 1995 for $862 million, Cutler and Adelson had become Republicans. Yet the four partners still remembered the little guy. When they sold the company, they distributed $24 million among several hundred employees, right down to the limo driver.

“All the partners thought we were blessed and had to share not only with our employees but through philanthropy,’’ said Chafetz, who remained a Democrat, “The danger always was that the wealthy wouldn’t take care of those who didn’t get a break.’’

... Press clippings from Las Vegas in 1996 reveal what his friends say was the real reason: his epic fight with the culinary union at the Sands. Adelson refused to promise that the new hotel would be a union shop, so the union tried to stop him from building the Venetian.

Adelson opposed the union, not because he didn’t want to pay people well, but because he didn’t want someone telling him how to run his hotel, Chudnofsky said. If he saw a waitress who wasn’t doing her job, he wanted to fire her, not go through a union arbitration.

The battle became bitter and personal. Adelson accused the union of wanting to line its own pockets.

“Gone are the days when union bosses were the protectors of working-class Americans,’’ he declared in a speech in 1997.

Now change the scene just this little bit: same corner of the same public square, same soapbox, same speaker, same speech... but he's wearing a gorilla mask and refuses, when asked, to tell us his name. Does this activity now deserve less constitutional protection? Is he exercising a less fundamental right? I think not. Perhaps his political views differ from his employer's or his neighbors', and he fears discrimination. Or perhaps he fears some arm of the government he's criticizing.

danivon wrote:Hmm. I can certainly see evidence that the company run by several people including Adelson was generous, which is not the same as noting that companies run by him alone are. It's also suggesting he was a Republican before the dispute in Vegas.

I do have a problem with arbitrary sacking of staff without the ability for redress. If someone is not doing their job (waitress or senior manager), it's often better to give them a chance to improve and go through a commonly understood process. Just firing them is actually not the best thing to do for all kind of reasons:

Firstly, you don't know yet whether their replacement will be better enough to be worth the additional hiring cost
Secondly, they may be open to change if they are told there's a problem and it's a fair process
Thirdly, there may be a temporary reason for failure that the employer is not aware of
Fourthly, other employees are more likely to be motivated by an open and 'fair' process than by top-down sackings.

As I always said to management at my company (which for years refused to recognise a union), if you are so good and your processes are so fair, the union won't make any difference at all, will it?

To be honest, I think it's a control thing. I can see how a company owner wants control over everything in it, but the people who work for it are people, not assets, and are not 'owned' so should not be subject to total control.

I know that unions in the USA are far from perfect (and hey, Vegas unions must be an example!), but I don't buy that he was a lovely nice fluffy left Democrat until some nasty union bullies picketed his lovely friendly casino. He was already well on the road towards the right, not just in an American context, but also an Israeli one.

Still, he thinks China is a really great place and run well. Can we both at least meet on common ground that he's wrong on that one?