Do you understand the meaning of the phrase, “Constructive termination?”
Labor does not gain training or skills “intrinsically” because “intrinsic” is a value of singular entities, whereas labor is a collective entity - in other words, a laborer may gain training or skills, but labor does not. On average, perhaps labor has grown more skilled over the period 1979-2007, but that belies the trend in wages, and therefore cannot explain the observed trend Human Action mentioned.
Increased automation and expert systems are, again, only implementable by labor. Machines are operated by people, and experts are people. (Note: to clear up confusion, I am using the term “labor” as the counterpart to the term “capital,” not the term “management.”
Because of this, in the abstract sense, labor is a multiplier of capital and not additive to capital. That’s why I do not understand why you apply the “should” question to ask “why SHOULD they [labor] be paid more” but not “why SHOULD they [capital] be paid more.”
As far as I can tell the two questions are equivalent, and only asking one question doesn’t make sense. It’s also odd because there’s no “should” about it. Economic agents, as I’m glad to see you observe, don’t do things because they “should” do them, they do things because they profit by it.
Since economic agents don’t do things because they “should.” Society’s structuring of economic relationships likewise does not occur because it “should.” Take land ownership. No one owns land because they “should.” They own land because the law recognizes their claim and (in recent decades at least) that they paid for it, sometimes the wrong person (think indigenous people that didn’t even live on the land they sold to Europeans,) or sometimes the people with more political power than the owner (think Kelo v. City of New London.) That doesn’t mean we give all the land to whichever people of Native American descent are alive right now, it means we should be skeptical of people saying they “should” own this land and even the legal framework around land ownership.
Speaking in broad terms, the society we live in has too frequently favored the rich and powerful over the middle-class, the poor, and the powerless. The moral justification for doing is exactly what you mentioned, and I believe that is related to the trend of wealth consolidation and, generally speaking, the increasing power of employers over employees.
Whenever you see a change in the law that increases the power of the employer relative to the employees, asking the question of how the employee should justify having any power in the relationship but not the question of how the employer should justify having additional power in the relationship raises the possibility that once more the wealthy and powerful are changing the rules of the system in their favor at the expense of others.
No one should be forced to join a union, but changes to the law that increase power of the employer relative to the power of the employee reduce the chances of a fair negotiation between the two. The value of a free and fair negotiation between employer and employee must be considered. Some parts of our society have achieved such negotiations, but not all. I wonder if there is a fashion in which such free and fair negotiations can be extended to more of society, rather than to less. Balance of power is important, but politicians see little to no value in doing the hard work of attempting to achieve that balance of power, rather they only act in the interests of whomever they perceive as their strongest constituency.
Take the example of the garment industry on Saipan. The Coconut Garment Company decides that it should move from Missouri to Saipan based on the lower cost of labor in Saipan. The law of comparative advantage describes the incentive and increased economic efficiency of moving to Saipan. As an economic agent, the Coconut Garment Company has every justification for moving to Saipan, there’s no “should” or “should not” about it.
The externality is that the civil and human rights of workers on Saipan are violated. In society, if we’re going to ask the “should” question, then “shoulds” need to come from aspects of society outside economics as well as inside economics. How are human and civil rights balanced with comparative advantage? And what is the practical impact of that? Even if there is disagreement on these issues, the conversation does not stop with comparative advantage.
I’m hoping that helps explain my view on this at greater length. Do you see what I mean?
[QUOTE=wevets]
I’m hoping that helps explain my view on this at greater length. Do you see what I mean?
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I do, and while I disagree with some of what you are saying there I appreciate you going through your thinking in detail instead of just dismissing what I was saying or handwaving it away as seems to often happen in these threads, especially on potentially touchy subjects like this one and the tangents we are discussing.
Ok, ‘intrinsically’ was probably a bad way to put it. I see what you are saying here, but my point is that labor is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If it has a value add…say, specific training or some other enhanced skill that makes it better or more efficient…then it will be worth more than it was without that training or other specific skill sets. Basically, anyone can be trained to do a low skill or no skill task, if it’s the machines, process or expert systems that are doing the heavy lifting. If a machine is doing the welds and you are using a human to inspect (after having machines inspect them as well), then it’s a matter of what it took to train that human to do that task…and how replaceable they are and how much that labor to do that task is really worth to the company.
I disagree…labor is interchangeable if it’s the technology or process that is increasing the productivity. Pretty obviously so, since companies can move to some place where labor is less, invest the capital in rebuilding their production and facilities/process, and produce at levels where they are able to make a profit doing it.
As for ‘should’, it was a question to you…I wasn’t meaning for the word to be parsed quite the way you are parsing it. I agree with you here…there is no ‘should’. There is only what is…reality.
Yes, I agree with you here.
Certainly…it’s more of that reality stuff. I think that a lot of the imbalance we are currently seeing is backlash from earlier instances of labor pushing their value envelop beyond what their actual value was…and the implosion of US manufacturing when we no longer had an effective monopoly on exported goods, and when our goods were no longer perceived as having an extra value add, like the Germans and Japanese enjoy today.
But what struck me in your article was that the workers volunteered for those hardships. Presumably that is because the wages they were paid were better than they could have gotten by staying at home and working locally.
Here’s my take on the article, FWIW. Squalid and horrible as those conditions are related in the article, would the workers appreciate it if, instead of those conditions and the pay they didn’t have the opportunity at all? Would they be better off if the companies mentioned were forced to increase their wages and working conditions, but by doing so the companies expanded automation and process so that they needed far fewer laborers? Or simply moved somewhere else? I’d say that the workers would be MORE unhappy if that was the case. The only other alternative would be for those companies to charge more for their products (it’s unrealistic to think they would cut their profits substantially, though obviously if they raised their prices it would cut into their profits since it would reduce sales by a non-zero amount)…which has other negative to the buying public as well.
Yes, I do. I also know that it doesn’t really apply as anything legally actionable unless some sort of discrimination or violation of employment contract or employer policy occurred.
With the exception, apparently, of Montana employees are “at will” and can be fired for no reason at all, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out. And heck, even in Montana, the WDEA provides that a discharge is wrongful only if [
](At-will employment - Wikipedia)
So if the employer’s probationary period is 10 years, then during that 10 years they can still let an employee go for no, or any, reason at all as long as doing so doesn’t violate their own written policies.
wevets, I wanted to chime in with XT and say that that was a terrific post.
If the unions are doing what is best, why wouldn’t people choose to join?
I guess that is what unions fear…not being able to make people pay for something they feel is not working for them.
The problem with a race to the bottom is, eventually, you get there. And it’s shit all the way down, for workers. So … not an acceptable framework for how society handles the economy, for most folks. Works for the 1 percent, sure.
You did not respond adequately. How much cash in hand does health insurance produce? Granted, it prevents people from being bankrupted by ordinary illnesses (though it does not prevent medical costs from being the most common cause of bankruptcy in the US) but it’s just not the same thing as income you can spend any way you want. And for the 47 million Americans who have no access to health insurance, it’s less than nothing. Just not buying it, HA.
I don’t see it as a race to the bottom. Just the opposite in fact. I see it as an adjustment, much needed, to the labor market, and my own thought is that the result will be the better utilization of an under used resource…American labor. If more reasonably priced I don’t see why it wouldn’t be more heavily utilized.
Coercion is the worst solution to a free-rider problem. Furthermore, union shops introduce their own problem: diffuse costs and concentrated benefits. They impose a negative externality on everyone outside the union.
Somewhat. In NLRB vs. Mackay Radio & Telegraph, the Supreme Court ruled that striking workers continued to be workers under the NLRA. There are various restrictions on the use of strikebreakers both during and after strikes.
I provided cites with differing viewpoints, but what they agree on is that the effects of right-to-work laws are difficult to isolate and measure. Rather than “good for business owners, bad for workers,” that should read “good for business owners and nonunion labor, bad for union labor.” The goal isn’t to harm unions, it’s to apply market forces to labor. Harming unions only becomes a goal when they block this process, against the interests of the greater public. I’d prefer more negotiation to legislation, but I’m not in the Michigan legislature.
Probably not, but like anything else, unions grow to the largest size their members can support. Over time, they exist to perpetuate their existance beyond all other goals.
Within the broader context of U.S. labor law, yes, it is greater liberty. RTW works shouldn’t be examined in a vacuum.
As mentioned above, if one of your employees were to quit the union, it is illegal to terminate them for that cause. It is also illegal, as a federal matter, to fire employees for not joining a union. Fair’s fair.
Taft-Hartley outlawed closed shops, but not union shops. The Act, section 14(b) made union shops a state matter. A closed shop is under a union security agreement to only hire union members. A union shop is under a union security agreement that employees must belong to the union, and new hires must join within a specified time period.
You’re free to argue that non-cash income doesn’t “count”, but that right-wing outfit the Internal Revenue Service takes it very seriously. The Social Security Administration does too.
I did not argue that the existence of employer-paid health insurance proves that all Americans are thriving economically. I argued that calculations of increases in income over time must include non-cash income, because it is a very real class of income. I cited three studies on the matter that used the same methodology for the same reason. The lack of health insurance for 47 million Americans has no bearing whatsoever on using non-cash income as part of a calculation of change in income for all Americans over a 28-year period.
Yes, and now we have to add Michigan’s law – “some sort of discrimination” in Michigan includes union membership or lack thereof. You seem to acknowledge that a racial motive for dismissal is one that can be redressed through the law, but at the same time you resist the notion that Michigan can add another category.
I don’t know why this flummoxes you – we can easily imagine some states that protect sexual preference, and others that don’t. In the ones that do, a claim of dismissal for being gay has traction; in ones that don’t, it wouldn’t.
I find it amusing that at the same time they’re doing this, the GOP-controlled, allegedly careful-with-your-money legislature is agreeing to spend millions of taxpayer dollars building a hockey arena for a billionaire.
It’s always worth remembering: the alternative to bad jobs isn’t good jobs, it’s no jobs. Just like agricultural workers in America’s past fleeing farms for urban factories, these folks in Saipan are taking advantage of an opportunity to better their lives. Well-meaning people can fret over their lot in life, but if you were to shut down the Saipan textile industry, the result would be that these workers are poorer, with fewer choices or opportunities. This does not excuse actual violations of law, of course.
That is true, it doesn’t. But if its actions cause the automakers that employ UAW members to go bankrupt, it’s hard to say the UAW management did their job well.
They will. Southwest Airlines of Texas, a right-to-work state, is 95% unionized, for example. All unions are different. If, as BobLibDem claims of Michigan:
Then there’s no reason unions and employers can’t continue to work productively together.
That is exactly what they feel, the loss of coercive power.
It’s not a race to the bottom, it’s a race to market rates for labor. Market prices for everything is something we should be striving for.
This is another thread, in all likelihood, but if you’re going to be that way about it, then the UNDISTORTED market prices are the actual idealist target.
It’s the apparent opinion of many on this thread that preventing unions from negotiating contract terms with employers is itself a distortion of the market price that causes it to artificially drop.
All these “right-to-work” laws do is interfere with the ability of free people and free associations of people to contract with employers. Managers don’t have to sign contracts with unions if they don’t want to, and they never have–so the only actual purposes to right-to-work laws are twofold:
- Enable companies to get out of union contracts they freely negotiated.
- Enable companies to pay a lower-than-market-price for labor by taking away a valid negotiating term (“None of our club will work for you if you don’t hire from our club exclusively”) from labor unions.
Regarding point two–if there were enough available non-union laborers in (for example) auto work to do the jobs and the UAW is as bad as it is claimed, why on earth does any manager ever renew a UAW contract? Something does not add up.
Southwest is headquartered and incorporated in Texas. Very few of its non-management personnel actually work in Texas.
Yes, your life is worth what you can sell it for. And the Free Market, blessings and peace be upon it’s Name, will decide.
Sadly, public funding of stadiums and arenas seems to enjoy bipartisan support.
This is why RTW laws must be understood in the broader context of U.S. labor law and history. They are a reaction against union practices, supported by law and courts, which made union contracts anything but “freely negotiated.”
Are RTW laws are currently formulated the best way to achieve a free labor market? Probably not, no, but they exist for a good reason. I gave my proposed labor law earlier, so I won’t repeat it, except to say that the government’s role in labor negotiations should be slim to none. But since that hasn’t been the case for decades, RTW laws are one step toward freer labor, though I do concede that in some facets for some actors they are restrictive. They are a practical means to get closer to those undistorted market prices, not a means to achieve them alone. In other words: much more work is needed.
They are heavily unionized, in both right-to-work and union shop states, and have had 1 strike in their history, a minor mechanic’s strike in 1980. They are thus an example of union-management cooperation and mutual prosperity, without coercive laws. Agreed?
Not sure what you’re driving at here. Shouldn’t all products and services be available at the market rate? Human life isn’t a product or service, but human labor is.
Here is another study with some actual research behind it. Long story short, instituting right to work increases profits and reduces wages (no surprise), but has no significant effect on the states overall economy. All else being equal I personally would prefer a more even distribution of wealth and a closing of the rich/poor income gap, and so find the right two work laws counter productive but YMMV.
I wasn’t aware that being a union member was something that a person was born as and could not change. Is that your contention? That being a union member is the equivalent of being born black or gay?