To be brief:
All unions are not created equal. Sure, some of them are horrible and damaging and destructive, but to paint them all with the same bad, broad brush is ridiculous.
The one I’m in, at a college campus, is a pretty good one, especially for the hundreds of part-timers employed there.
I worked in IT for many years, for a large defense contractor. We were not union. When the IT market took a dive, our company was still making an assload of money (bubble burst or no, there were still brown people who needed blown up and they could sell planes to do it), but they figured out that since we were all salary they could let a bunch of us go and make the others work unpaid overtime. With the job market completely screwed, nobody would quit so that is just what they did.
I found myself, after years of being in demand and an employee folder full of letters of commendations and certs, being escorted out with about 30 other people by security. My friends who got to stay were working 60-80 hour weeks and didn’t dare complain because they still talked to those of us looking for work and not finding it. My career was over and I lost my house and everything else that could be sold to feed my family. I wish we had a union, so do the people who were left at the job.
After ayear or two, as the job market improved, they had to hire more people back or risk losing the ones they were taking advantage of. They wouldn’t hire me back because I hadn’t been working in the industry recently.
I didn’t think it could happen to me, and I’m sure you don’t think it could happen to you. I remember one of the admins I worked with saying that the good people would always be able to find work. She wound up int he same boat I was in.
And the investors are perfectly at liberty to go down in the mine and dig the coal themselves if they don’t offer a high enough wage for the miners to want to do it.
Why is it, again, that it is okay for capital to organize but not labor?
Its the Golden Rule. The guy who’s got the gold, makes the rules.
Alright I was being a bit of a flip smartass. But really, which part isn’t true?
If I want to be plumber, electrician, carpenter, teacher, car maker, professional musician…shucks, even a ramp service guy for a major airline, I gotta be a member of a union. So yeah, if I don’t choose the right profession, it IS compulsory. Sure, it’s not really compulsory because working isn’t. But it definitely restricts my options.
And I’ve not heard of a union that actually sends an annual bill to it’s beneficiaries. I’ve only ever heard of them taking their dues out of payroll deductions just like SSI, group insurance premiums and federal income tax witholding–the worker just “gets used to it” and isn’t ever prompted to reflect on the value of the union vs. the value of his money. But I’ll admit my experience is limited.
As for free market–hey, I can work for an abusive employer or not. If enough people choose to put up with the abuse, then the employer wins. If not, then the employer needs to become marketable to workers.
As for Agnostic Pagan’s observation of freelancers = free riders, so what? Is a union worker’s product necessarily any better than a non-union? It’s my personal opinion that a consumer should get the quality he pays for, not pay for something based on an organization his contractor subscribes to. And it’s not the same as forcing a lawyer to join a bar, or enforcing building codes–I don’t see unions enforcing ethical, qualified work as much as I see them as self-protecting trusts who work together to keep their benefits high and work quality average.
I know this is the pit and all, and that a certain degree of snark and fire is to be expected, but pretend for a moment that I’m not a raving lunatic and that my questions and opinions are sincere. If you want. Or you’re more than welcome to flame me for showing up.
Are you saying that they have the free reign to hire replacement workers should the union members decide they do not want to work at that rate anymore? Without intimidation?
Almost certainly he is saying no such thing. But I suspect you already know that.
Times are different than they were in 1900. We have many more laws to protect employees.
Unions cause more good than problems.
Unions cause more problems than good.
It just depends if you are an overacheiver or an underacheiver which statement you side with.
My personal experience has been there are a multitude of people perfectly willing, and capable of doing the job at the rate refused by the union members.
Especially in the last couple years.
I wish all my dollars only when to pay for quality too, and not executives’ million dollar salaries and benefit packages, along with all the PACs they support. When it comes to inflating costs and raping the consumer, the worst unions are still amateurs.
Where did I put that flamethrower? Fwoom!
My personal experience was in the mid 90s, but I would imagine that is even more true recently
You have to admit that union members are really good at protesting.
God must be on their side too, because they all get sick at the same time.
Those brave souls battle sickness to get to their doctors, who happen to be outside…in Wisconsin…in February.
And there always will be. ANd there will be people willing to do the job at a rate refused by those people, and on and on and on. How far down do you want to go? At what point do desperate people doing the job cheaper and cheaper do we hit bottom. Who buys the products once wages are driven down so low nobody has any money?
My personal experience over 30 years is that in bad times, crappy managers are able to sell the job done by those people who in fact aren’t capable of doing the job because they’re getting the labor cheaply.
You can get people to work under their value because there is a concerted effort on the part of the wealthy/Capital to drive down compensation. All you have to do is look at the income growth by quintile over the last couple of decades. The top quintile pays the next quintile a nominal piece of the action to squeeze the bottom 3 for "productivity.
Sure there are plenty of exceptions. But it’s far easier to attack costs than to actually improve productivity. Because by and large, Capital doesn’t know how to do that. Capital feeds on labor and small business, just like any good over-sized predator.
How many people will have to be laid off before public unions realize they’re running tax payers out of money?
How many jobs will go overseas before private unions realize that there comes a point where you make business unprofitable?
That’s why I said, “and capable”
Of course there is a point where you lose that capable ability. BTW - my personal experience was with private, not public, unions. And yes, the plant operated very well, without quality issues without the union members for about 18 months, until they decided they best get back to work.
You say that a lot, and while it is technically correct, it is only so in the sense that no human-constructed model of the real world “exists”. But it’s the best model we have for how people, in a free society, interact economically. A better term, though, would simply be “market economy”. But people generally mean the same thing when they use those terms.
What is the proper pay for those professions and how do we determine that?
Have their unions bargain for wages?
I guess you didn’t read the message I was responding to (which, by the way, I quoted). You know, where **dbaFred **said that we don’t need unions anymore because we’ve got government regulations. If we don’t need unions… and regulation is bad… where does that leave us?
Back at the start of the Industrial Revolution, seems to me. Company store, ownage of soul thereof, etc. YMMV, of course.
I’ve never been in a union. I’ve always worked in industries which have no unionization, so I’ve never had first-hand experience with the excesses of business *or *unions. However, it seems to me that businesses, when allowed to run amok, will do their best to treat employees as nothing more than (replaceable) cogs in a great big money machine. Unions have provided a necessary rein on that power- a rein which is, I admit, arguably replaced by regulation. But we either have to have regulation or unions. If we get rid of unions, then I’d be perfectly happy to let regulation provide that security- but we’re also constantly seeing attacks from the Right and Libertarians upon regulation.
Personally, I’d rather have regulation. But that’s Big Government, and therefore scary to non-Liberals. Would you rather we just let businesses regulate themselves?
