IMHO, unions have outlived their usefulness.
Who really cares what you consider a living wage? That is entirely subjective as it is. What if I don’t consider a billion dollars a living wage? After all, I wouldn’t be able to buy all the small islands and countries that I wanted to.
Fair huh? Again with the emotional subjectivism. Who decides what is fair? Certainly not anyone but the parties involved in a transaction. I frankly don’t care how much someone else makes. If they make enormous amounts of money, good for them. If they don’t, that’s their own tough luck. Does it trickle down to you? I don’t care one bit. I and everyone else deserve every single penny that I earn. I don’t owe anything to you or anybody. Why do you with some moral superiority claim that you earn your living, while the CEO who makes 20 million somehow did not? Hypocrisy much?
Again with the “fair” and “decent” huh? These things mean nothing. Until you have some independent way to quantify what these amounts are, the use of these terms is nothing more than a fallacious appeal to emotion.
No, you do not. You work to ensure that you make a wage that you are comfortable with. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as you understand that you do so largely at the expense of every other non-union member.
Have unions ever been that influential in effecting work condition changes as Stomp said in his post? Not really.
First, some facts. For most of history in the U.S., unions were of little importance. As late as 1900, only 3 percent of all workers were members of unions. Even in their heyday, less than one worker in three was a member of a union. (By 1970, it was down to less than one worker in four.)
Child labor laws the result of unions? Nope. Child labor laws were enacted mainly as a result of the National Child Labor Committee organized in 1904. This organization “combined moral outrage, new interpretations of the value of childhood, and dire warnings about racial and national decay to mobilize support for strict regulation of child labor.” If this was in 1904, when union membership was around 3%, can we really credit them for that?
The 40-hour workweek the result of unions? No way! This was first enacted into law using the New Deals’ National Recovery Administration guidelines. The NRA program was voluntary, but there was considerable pressure to conform. In 1935, the NRA was declared unconstitutional.
FDR’s Department of Labor then proposed other bills that attempted to establish 40-hour workweeks. One that passed was the Walsh Healey Public Contracts Act, which dealt with goods manufactured under governmental contracts. Another one was a “fair labor standards” bill that set the maximum work hours for most industrial workers. This one didn’t pass, partly due to the fact that it was opposed by Labor. (The American Federation of Labor, of AFL-CIO fame).
Finally, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) became law in 1938. The set the 40-hour workweek limit for all employees in manufacturing.
While you are quoting Friedman, let me do so as well. Friedman also said, (paraphrasing actually) “The benefits that union members receive are largely derived at the expense of non-union members.”
The fact that union membership has steadily declined over the past 50-75 years, combined with the above statement, demonstrates that the minority, in this case union members, are benefiting at the expense of the majority.
Collusion amongst employers to fix wages would be considered an anti-competitive practice, and therefore illegal IIRC. Unions however, are specifically exempted from the Sherman Anti-Trust act. Therefore, they are allowed to collude where businesses are not. This is how they derive their power, from government protection with the exemption from laws, and active laws such as the Davis-Bacon act. In all instances where applicable, the Davis-Bacon act fixes wages above a certain market rate, creating a price floor and a surplus of labor, and consequently an increase in unemployment. This is true for all price floors set above the market wage. This is why unions are the biggest supporters of minimum wage, when union members hardly ever earn minimum wage. By creating a price floor and a surplus on labor, unions are able to make their members more attractive candidates for employment.
If we say that a union worker is able to produce twice as much as an inexperienced worker then a company will satisfy its labor needs by either hiring one union employee or two novices. If the minimum wage is less than half of the union wage, then the company will hire the inexperienced workers. If it is more than half of the union wage, then the company will hire a union worker. Obviously, the higher the minimum wage, the more union jobs are protected and the less jobs are produced in the Economy.
This has to be some kind of appeal to logical fallacy. Appeal to authority perhaps?
“Shut your mouth … then we can talk?” That is about as reasoned and thought out as your entire post gets. Bravo.
Yes, the single mother making $7 is supposed to respect the picket line, just as the CEO making $700,000 is supposed to respect it. Why you equate how much one makes with respecting other worker’s rights to strike is beyond me.
How exactly does your second paragraph not answer your third? Where will that single mother ever go to earn more than $7? You’ve just stated the obvious that without a union, the company could get replacement workers for far less.
Get a better job is a fine answer, but what about when there aren’t any better-paying jobs available? Why aren’t there any? That single mother sorta has to be willing to work for whatever pittance is available, right?
You are confusing the workers’ right to strike and the public’s alleged obligation to respect the strike. These are not the same things. For one thing the former exists (and should exist); the latter doesn’t (and shouldn’t).
I respect strikes when I think the unions are in the right. I do not respect strikes when I think the unions are in the wrong. Respecting a strike would include respecting a picket line. Not respecting a strike would include crossing a picket line, if I had reason to go where the strikers were asking me not to go.
You want me to respect the right on union workers to strike? I do. That’s their legal right.
I “respect” that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the legal right to cross their picket line. They need to RESPECT my rights too. And I have the RIGHT to cross the damn picket line. There is no law whatsoever against crossing a picket line, so you’re way offbase in suggesting or implying there is. There isn’t.
Why doesn’t the union try to “respect” the right of the business owners to hire labor at whatever rates they can get it? Just like everyone else? Instead the union thugs resort to extortion.
Of course in the union dreamworld, they should be able to knock anyone out of business (anyone that won’t give them everything they want) at the drop of a hat. “We want $50 an hour…you won’t give it to us? Fine we’ll shut you down!”. Sounds fair.
As for the woman making $7 an hour. She will have to improve her skills and make herself more marketable so that she can earn more. What do you suggest she do? Hold a gun to her employers head and demand her “fair share”. Why not just declare a living wage to be $50 an hour?
When I was a teenager I made minimum wage. Now I make quite a bit more. And I’m not in a scum bag union. Why do I earn more? Obviously b/c I worked; I was disciplined enough to gain skills and knowledge. Why don’t the union bums try that sometime if they don’t like their jobs? Instead they demand $20 an hour for $5 an hour jobs…and if the employer wants to exercise HIS right to hire new people at $10 an hour, then he’s a bad guy. Get a life. You don’t have a constitutional right to above market wages.
What would happen if everyone joined a union and had their wages doubled? Prices would double, that’s what! And demand for labor would go down. So unemployment would be high.
The union scum are just ripping off people who aren’t in unions and don’t resort to thuggery and extortion, it’s that simple. Then they start wrapping their gold-bricking selves in the flag. It’s enough to make me puke. I will never buy union if I can help it. I can’t wait until all union scum are out on the asses.
Finally, finally someone made this point. I haven’t seen any anti-Union people say that they’d cross any picket line no matter what. I have seen pro-Union people say they’d never cross a picket no matter what. If I agree with the specific cause, I’ll join the boycott. I think that this particular one is bullshit and I’ll buy my groceries where and when I choose to do so.
Here’s my little story about this particular Union. The newspapers mentioned that their last strike was 25 years ago. I remember it well. I was a High School kid working fast food and a few months away from being old enough for a bagger job. I desperately wanted a Supermarket job because they paid so well. The strike ended when the Union and Management came to an agreement. Everybody currently employed got what they were striking for in exchange for all future Union employees getting way, way less in terms of pay and bennies. Employees under the old pay structure would always get priority in hiring too (which is reasonable.)
This particular Union fucked me and everyone my age who wanted a Supermarket job in order to get better pay for themselves. So much for the Brotherhood of Workers. Why should I respect this strike again?
Haj
And yet Union Spokeswoman Ellen Anreder feels comfortable saying that “The three dominant chains, taken together, have seen profits increase 91 percent over the past five years”.
-lv
So what if they’ve seen profit increases? Groceries are inherently low margin businesses, so it’s probably over an artifically low base anyway. LIke they took charges to close some stores or “retire” some union goldbrickers early.
Profits belong to the shareholders. They are the ones who took the risk. Employees get paid through thick and thin. They deserve none of the “profit increases” if they’re even are any.
Every time I hear the word “union” it reminds me of the time I swam in a river and a leech attached itself to me and started sucking blood. They are parasites. At least theives are honest enough to tell you they’re robbing you and don’t kid themselves. These union people want you to thank them for sticking you with their extortion wages. Gee, thanks!
Don’t hold back, bri.
Tell us how you really feel.
OK, Shayna, one more time. I know what I said, and I did not call you a liar. Saying you do not believe someone’s interpretation of events is **not **equal to calling them a liar. I suggested that you may have been mistaken in interpreting the situation as “threatening”. Got that? MISTAKEN, not LYING. Sheesh.
Unfortunately, no one will ever know for sure whether you were mistaken because you still won’t answer my question. What, specifically, did these people say or do to you that was threatening? Did they ever personally address you at all? Once again: CALL THE POLICE if you’ve been threatened.
“Bigass sticks”??! You mean those thin pieces of plywood that hold up picket signs? Those are pretty standard for a protest. You act as if you’ve never seen a picket or protest before. However, sometimes the cops have been known to make protesters remove the sticks from their signs and discard them if they feel their sticks are too large. Call the police!
You are also continuing to show that you have not read my posts thoroughly or carefully. That’s why you keep saying that I haven’t made reasonable arguments when I have made them – not “just because.” Go back and read them again, especially the part about free markets and corporations and coercion and stuff.
It mystifies me as to why you are personalizing this issue so much. I am trying to have a discussion , and you are trying to have a fight. This is not an all-or-nothing struggle of good vs. evil. It is an economic dispute. Your way of life is not under threat. You are perfectly capable of continuing to shop at your favorite market – which, in fact, you have done. It’s your own problem if you feel “threatened” by doing so.
Glad to know you would support and even participate in a labor picket if you felt the cause were justified. But, wouldn’t their signs be sporting “bigass sticks” as well? What if someone who disagreed with the protest felt threatened by those “bigass sticks”? Then you would be the one who’s threatening others! 
OK, it’s true you haven’t described yourself as “anti-union” in this thread. But that doesn’t make sense. If you are so strongly opposed to the unions’ number one weapon, the legal picket, how is that not anti-union? The strike that you support will also be picketing in front of the entrance, and people will have to cross that picket line, too.
And by the way, I did not call anyone un-American – but bri did. Stop putting other people’s words in my mouth.
Bill H., I referred to specific chapters in those books that you so sniffily disdain. In particular, the chapter I recommended in Franken’s book is powerfully written and well-documented. But you’ll never know that if you refuse to even look at it. So why not swallow your pride, read it and then tell me if you think it is not powerfully written and well-documented. There’s nothing like reading a book before you criticize it.
Authors like Moore and Franken are important in the current political scene because they writepopular books. People who would not normally read a doctoral thesis on politics do read Moore and Franken, and like it or not, they are having an impact. And it helps that they back up their facts with cites and endnotes. (Also, nobody ever refers to Howard Zinn, a respected historian, or Barbara Ehrenreich, a respected journalist, as “comedians.”)
So tell me, Bill H., what do you prefer to read, doctoral theses or popular books? Read any Ann Coulter lately? She’s one of my favorite comedians. 
And you want me to look up the Business Week and New York Times websites for you??! Look them up yourself!!! My cite stands.
And by the way – Dude, where are **your **cites?
Bone, your 3% union membership figure tends to reinforce what I have been saying all along: that the influence of unions in society has far exceeded their actual membership. In 1900, there were certainly plenty of workers who sympathized with unions but were not able to join them because of yellow-dog contracts and other employer tactics. There were even times when the workers walked out and struck without any union at all.
Practically every bit of humane legislation that has benefited society as a whole, including the legislation you mentioned, has been fought for by unions. It’s no accident that a lot of it was enacted in the FDR era – FDR was only the second labor-friendly President. (Teddy Roosevelt was the first, but he couldn’t do much because the Supreme Court, in the early 20th century, had a habit of striking progressive legislation on grounds that neither the federal government nor the states could regulate those things – the infamous “gray area”.)
I do not believe child labor was outlawed in 1904. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that also had to wait until the FDR era.
I also seem to remember that unions in this era were continually under legal threat from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, so any exemption must have been a later amendment.
bri, your language is abusive and your generalizations are sweepingly inaccurate. To agree with you, one would have to believe that no union members ever work harder than the absolute required minimum – which would mean, also, that no unionized teacher ever stays after hours grading papers and planning for the next day, or ever volunteers to coach or run a club or rehearse a performance after school, or ever visits parents’ homes, or ever fills the classroom with books bought with his/her own money. Hell no, we don’t do that, because we don’t have to and we’re such cheap lazy selfish bastards. :rolleyes: And to agree with you, one would also have to believe that unions always make the most exorbitant, unreal demands and don’t care if they drive the employer into the ground. I guess that’s why my union is always asking for a thousand bucks an hour and unlimited vacation days. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Gosh, bri, I’m so sorry that you have evidently met such pitiful specimens of union members in your lifetime, without meeting a single good one. On behalf of the entire labor movement, let me apologize.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Oh, one another thing, bri. When, exactly did I say that crossing a picket line should be illegal??? Did anybody say that in this thread? Well, did they?
Do ANY of you anti-union posters remember that I said I myself might cross the picket line if I ran out of food and needed to shop? It’s there, look for it. Read stuff before you respond to it, OK?
The polls are in! Tonight’s Eyewitness News showed a poll: 60% of people in LA say they will stop going to the struck supermarket chains as a result of the strike, and only 37% say their buying habits will not be affected. They also interviewed plenty of sympathetic shoppers who were going to Trader Joe’s instead. So, it seems you anti-union posters are waaaaaay out of the mainstream.
In all of the hue and cry here, nobody seems to notice that I never stated my opinion as to whether this particular strike is justified; so now I’m declaring my sympathies. I hope the UFCW wins, because I’m opposed to givebacks on principle. However, if it’s true that the companies are taking a financial beating, the union should compromise.
Oh, and if anybody’s interested, [this site](http://ufcw324.org/altshop.html#Los Angeles) shows which markets are not being struck, all over California. Hie thee hence and shoppe ye without fearre.
One more thing, I think the “skilled workers” versus “unskilled workers” argument is a red herring. Most workers work hard and give up a substantial portion of their daylight hours to do it; they should all get a living wage. Ditch-diggers deserve a living wage no less than clerks. Also, “unskilled workers” who do physical labor, like supermarket boxboys, put themselves in danger of life and limb. Their work is no less important, and they themselves are no less important.
As a matter of fact, some of the most notable labor struggles of recent years have involved workers traditionally regarded as “unskilled”: for example, farmworkers, janitors and drywallers. During the janitors’ strike in L.A. a few years ago, popular support ran so high that yuppie commuters were actually running out to the picketers and putting money in their hands! (According to the LA Weekly.) It’s just too bad a few of those supporters can’t be posting here.
A question for the pro-union posters in this thread.
Are all strikes worthy of respect automatically, or do you weigh the pros and cons of what the strikers are demanding and decide whether you support a particular strike ? Because it sounds like a lot of you think that any strike, or any union action is automatically good and worthy of support.
tclouie, it looks to me like it’s you “personalizing this issue” not Shayna. I don’t see where you are “trying to have a discussion” either. It looks to me like you are the one trying to “have a fight”.
Have you noticed you are in IMHO not GD or the Pit???
Kathy
A fair question, Goo, and one deserving of an honest answer.
I can’t speak for the, uh, one other pro-union poster here, but my point of view is this: on hearing of a strike, my tendency is to support it. This is because of my sympathy for the underdog and the likelihood that, in today’s political climate, the dispute will involve givebacks, which I oppose on principle. If information comes out indicating that the employer is in dire financial straits, I would recommend that the union compromise on its demands, but I would still hope that the workers get the best deal they possibly can. And I always respect and support unions, period.
I can only remember opposing one strike: the gardeners in Los Angeles. They were upset that the City Council had banned leaf blowers, and I opposed the gardeners on environmental grounds. But, I later changed my mind.
I would also oppose a strike if the union were mob-influenced, or if the union were known to be reactionary. I probably would not be too sympathetic to a strike of the prison guards union, for example.
“Pro-union posters”??? Where???
Kathy, I am well aware that this is not the Pit, and that is why I have not called anyone a “liar” or anything like it. I have not personally insulted anyone here, although I have ridiculed their arguments (permitted), defended myself (permitted) and had words attributed to me that I did not say (dishonest). I do regard the false “liar” accusation as a personal attack.
If you think I’ve indulged in pit-worthy behavior, then go call the mods.
As for “this is not GD” – this was a debate long before I got here. Totally up to the mods as to whether they want to move it, although the OP did request that it be moved and they haven’t responded so far.
If someone wants to debate me, I’ll give them debate.
Thanks for the answer, tclouie. It was obvious you tried to answer honestly, based on your life experiences.
Not trying to be pedantic or pushy, but I would really like to know if you choose to support certain strikes or not, or if you feel all strikes/union actions warrant support.
In the first quote, it seems to me that you support union actions no matter what, but in subsequent sentences, you say that you actually do pick and choose those you wish to support. Which is it ?
Well, I guess it would be the latter, Goo.
I always respect and support unions, as an institution, although not necessarily everything they do.
My own union makes political endorsements that make me want to retch.
tclouie you’re off mark again. He DID NOT request it as you said. He could see the direction it was taking and made the suggestion.
Perhaps this one non threatening item you’ve missed the mark on will stand to open your mind to the idea you might be missing the mark on other items in this thread.
Kathy
YMMV, of course, tclouie, but it appears to me that most people in this thread (accepting the rabid anti-unionists) do the same as you do. They respect unions for what they’ve contributed to employees rights in the past. They listen to what today’s strikers are demanding, and make a decision on whether or not they support them, in this particular circumstance.
I don’t think the whole “what unions have done in the past” (from either side, good or bad), what constitutes a “living wage” (there’s a GD just in that point alone) etc is really pertinent to this thread. This is more of a IYHO, would you cross this particular picket line or not, and why or why not ?
Myself, I’ve never seen a picket line IRL, though I have seen one on a wharf, televised very negatively. I joined a union when I worked as a grocery scanner as a teen, and promptly forgot about the whole union thing shortly thereafter. Those two instances are the sum total of my union experiences
Requested, suggested, what the big diff? A matter of interpreting intent, I suppose.
Unless you’re totally partisan, why don’t you talk to some of these other posters about “missing the mark”? Attributing to me things I did not say is most definitely missing the mark, as well as really infuriating.
Everyone else involved in this thread at this point seems to be open to allowing other people their opinions.
Kathy