Thank-you. I’m here to help wherever I can!
When I was in my twenties, I organized a union at my workplace. It seemed like a good idea at the time. (Our certification was overturned because of a totally bogus community-of-interest claim, and everyone got the sack.)
My feelings about unions (largely influenced by Woody Guthrie and Utah Phillips, etc.) have largely reversed. Collective bargaining can still make sense when workers are completely interchangeable and easily replaceable, but I generally don’t want to be in that situation.
My last union job (and my current non-union job) really changed my perception. The job was no great shakes – just order assembly in a warehouse. (Designer clothes.) A slightly different position opened up- basically the exact same thing, except exclusively for Hudson’s Bay orders – slightly different inventory in a separate area, and large volume orders with a bit more time pressure. Nobody wanted to do it, at all, at all. (More work!) I was mainly looking for something (anything) to make my resume a little more attractive for the next gig, so I volunteered – but I talked my into a fifty cent (wow!) raise as an incentive. Of course, that’s a grievance. Stop work, meetings to be had. “Not fair! He’s doing the same work and earning more than me.” The same work now, but of course it wasn’t the same work when the manager had to do it himself for a week because it was obviously more work, which is why nobody was in a hurry to do it. I eventually got to keep the controversial $40 a month extra I earned for stepping up to bust my hump for 160 hours, but I had to fight for it.
This contrasts starkly with my current job, where I was hired as a file clerk, but took every opportunity to take more responsibility and point out how I might improve on current methods. Four years on, my salary has nearly doubled. I prefer not to be Harrison Bergeron’d, if I can avoid it.
Excellent! When do you plan on starting?
You need to pay me a living wage first.
I asked the Free Market, and it said “No.”
Sorry.
I hate it when that happens!!
I’m all for the Living Wage for myself, if I get to pick the neighborhood the standards are set by 
The true cause of the budget crisis.
Total corporate profits for 2009 were $1.258 trillion, and total taxes, state and federal, were $254 billion, a brutal 20%. While the average tax burden for households is over $20,000 and average incomes only around $40,000. Even with all the attendant issues caused by using averages, citizens are getting bit far more than the average corporation.
And as to who this economy is hurting, compare the 3rd quarter figures for 2009 and 2010. (Table F.7 Distribution of National Income)
Wages increased 2.8%. Corporate profits increased 27.8%
The complaint that public sector compensation is the cause, or even a major factor is unfounded.
Is that something like a Magic 8 Ball?
Progressives would love a living wage, but we are too busy fighting to keep the minimum wage.
GOP lawmaker Crowell tries to limit Missouri minimum wage.
He is trying to overturn an initiative that was approved by over 70% of the voters that allowed the state’s minimum to rise above the federal limit.
I am not sure why we even bother with initiatives in this state. The legislature loves to ignore them.
I love the complaints about such measures affecting ‘job creation’ or distorting the labor market. I might buy it if not for the fact that these same companies have no problem paying management far more than the living wage and oppose any limits on the high end.
Somehow limiting pay to less than $1 million a year destroys their incentive to do good work. Considering what those ‘best and brightest’ did over the last decade, I’ll take my chances with those who would be willing to work for less.
And in a world where I can trust business to not collude itself, we won’t need unions any more. I, however, do not trust business in general to give me a fair deal when they can screw me–a lesson I learned at my daddy’s knee, mind you, watching him run his general store and fighting every step of the way to get treated fairly by suppliers.
So as long as the possibility exists for companies in the same field and geographic area to collude to drive wages down, I see no reason to not have unionization available to push wages up–management is, after all, just as free to not accept union wages. I think you’ll find that in places where unions are truly unreasonable, people will quit the union and go to work if union unreasonableness is what’s really causing wage negotiations to stall.
And here you hit on the problem of unions that are too overzealous–throwing the merit pay for meritorious work baby out with the treat everyone fairly bathwater.
My sources say no.
I love the idea of a mutually agreed to wage. In the real world, the owner can pay you what he wants Without a minimum wage or absent a union, your input is weak. He has the power. If you don’t like it, he will hire someone else who will work for less. As long as they can keep unemployment high, you are powerless. In case you have not noticed offshoring has created an educated and experience, desperate work force. It was not an accident. Wages will drop in America to meet the wages in 3rd world countries. We are going there rapidly.
What about your principles of morality and justice, which don’t exist but must be obeyed?
The difference between the free market and your ideas of morality and justice is nothing more than the difference between society choosing its own way and conforming to your ideas of how it should be. I like freedom and choice, and you don’t–you just want to get your way, like an ignorant petulent child.
Choices like using child labor ?Does that hit your radar for morality or have you sold that value too? Unsafe working conditions are a union focus point. Does that have moral ramifications of is it just Business?
You can not divorce morality from the relationship, unless you have none. then it makes sense for you.
I’m not really taking a position on putting an upper limit on pay based on economics. I’m not sure what the result would be, although I would certainly object to it on principles of, well… living in a free society? Let’s just say that has nothing to do with the (bad) economics of mandating a living wage because it doesn’t.
But what does it say about us as a people, John? What do we value, what values do we live by? I think that valuing a businessman a thousand times above a firefighter or a teacher is an absurdity. We don’t honor virtue and service, we honor grasping greed.
We’d like to change that, John. We could use your help, if you’ve nothing better to do.
Well, that’s a very different kind of argument. Now you’re talking about what people actually value as opposed to having a system that allows them to express that value freely.
“Businessman” is a very broad term. I can think of quite a few of those whom I value more than your average teacher.
Just out of curiosity…