# We Have a Robber Baron on the Board! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 24, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061 "2005-12-24T05:35:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/1 "2005-12-24T05:35:50Z")
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6931928#post6931928](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6931928#post6931928) Our esteemed member **Shagnasty** is 100% opposed to labor unions, collective bargaining, or any similar phenomenon. In case you don’t feel like looking up his post, here it is in all its sordid glory: > [@](#): > > Right. Socialism based on the lowest common denominator is right in our backyard. They are usually the uneducated and the hostage takers that they sometimes hold people and corporations to. > > I don’t think it is a very moral idea for one semi-skilled worker to bring down a family company that has been built up over 40 years. I think you can understand my opposition to unions. Contingency plans are already made based on union threats to remove the thread fully and take things internationally. In any case, the plans call for every blue collar worker being scrutinized and most being fired based on existing records. Everyone does something wrong and this is the time to use it. > > It isn’t me that has to deal with this, it is my FIL. Any infiltrations have to be absolutely crushed. There are a lot of legal ways of doing that and it has happened legally many times. > > To the OP. I don’t understand why they just don’t reject everything. They can if they want. Demands with no binding threats are ridiculous. I lose respect for any wimp that doesn’t crush, fire, destroy, and demand apologies. I can grasp the idea that unions can make excessive demands, and will sometimes refuse to consider the effect on the company of what they ask. And that they will from time to time defend employees that under any other circumstance would be fired post haste for failure to perform minimum job requirements. However, what he advocates here makes the Homestake Mine people look like bleeding-heart liberals. And personally, I would hope that anyone who has ever had to work for a living, as opposed to being paid a salary by his wife’s father, would give our **'nasty** member a piece of his mind. And I confess to wondering how **Shagnasty** would survive if everyone he came in contact with refused to provide him goods or services, at any cost. Clearly he doesn’t need anything from anyone worth paying money for! ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/2 "2005-12-24T06:06:32Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I can grasp the idea that unions can make excessive demands, and will sometimes refuse to consider the effect on the company of what they ask. And that they will from time to time defend employees that under any other circumstance would be fired post haste for failure to perform minimum job requirements. Well, it may not be common, and could be argued as rare, but if it happens to you it’s a certainty. What does it matter whom he works for? A businessman has every right to secure his employment as a union worker does, no? And of those two parties, who has more personally invested in it? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/3 "2005-12-24T06:22:20Z")
**Polycarp** : I don’t see how anything he said in that quote was so absurdly wrong as to provoke this pit thread. All he said is that unions are full of semiskilled workers, which plenty of them are, that they make unreasonable demands, something we’ve just seen a shining example of, that they can completely halt a whole company built up over the course of decades, which they have done numerous times in the past, and that companies have a vested interest in using legal methods to prevent them from forming in the first place, which they do. Unions were instrumental in the eight-hour day and maternity leave and other fundamental requirements expected by all American workers. They were also instrumental in ensuring industry went overseas to find less demanding workers the moment it was feasible for them to do so. Unions rant and rave about how people do not ‘Buy American’, and then make it essentially impossible to do so when their demands make it infeasible for American corporations to do business with American labor. And that is, in the final anaylsis, what this is: Business. It isn’t personal, it isn’t some Socialist pipe dream about Labor Destroying Capitalists in a fit of Marxist/Leninist pique, and it isn’t about giving _anyone_ undue control over the methods of production. The workers are just as capable of being tyrants as the managment is. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/4 "2005-12-24T06:23:29Z")
Collective bargaining _should_ carry the risk that the other party simply decides to not negotiate with _any_ member of your collective, essentially firing all members of a union. I work for a living, have never been a member of a union, and my opinions are closer to Shag’s than Carp’s. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/5 "2005-12-24T06:30:45Z")
FWIW, what provoked me was the “over the top” attitudes he took, notably > [@](#): > > Any infiltrations have to be absolutely crushed. and > [@](#): > > I lose respect for any wimp that doesn’t crush, fire, destroy, and demand apologies. I’ve known good people who were opposed to unions. My own father, though a low-level white-collar worker, had no use for them. What I was getting from **Shagnasty** ’s post, though, was (in my perception, at least) so extreme a virulent hatred of them as to go beyond managerial distaste into a quite different level, a difference not merely of degree but of kind. And that’s what angered me enough to start a Pit thread. If I should find out he was indulging in hyperbole, I’d be happy to retract this and ask for its closure. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/6 "2005-12-24T06:38:23Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > What does it matter whom he works for? A businessman has every right to secure his employment as a union worker does, no? And of those two parties, who has more personally invested in it? I don’t know. How would you know? Maybe this business has been build on the general principle of screwing all the “semi-skilled” employees in every possible way for 40 years. If \*\* Shagnasty \*\* 's opinion is representative of his in-laws, that would be a safe assumption. In any case, securing your employment doesn’t necessarily means “crushing, firing, destroying, and demanding apologies” just because you can. Since when the law of the jungle is considered a moral imperative? (not just a moral option, according to \*\* Shagnasty \*\*, since he would despise anybody acting otherwise). He also somehow expect us to admit that he stands on the moral high ground in his first post seemingly because the company is 40 yo and the workers are only “semi-skilled”. I think we’ve found the poster child of the evil, blood-sucking, unethical, cold-hearted capitalist (with the added bonus of having inherited his position rather than having worked hard to reach it). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/7 "2005-12-24T06:40:25Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I think we’ve found the poster child of the evil, blood-sucking, unethical, cold-hearted capitalist (with the added bonus of having inherited his position rather than having worked hard to reach it). Heh, that paragraph could be dropped intact into any of the hundred or so Bush threads. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/8 "2005-12-24T06:45:13Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **Polycarp** : I don’t see how anything he said in that quote was so absurdly wrong as to provoke this pit thread. All he said is that unions are full of semiskilled workers, which plenty of them are, that they make unreasonable demands, He didn’t refer to unreasonnable demands. He states he doesn’t understand why someone who would have the power to do so would cave in any demand. > [@](#): > > something we’ve just seen a shining example of, that they can completely halt a whole company built up over the course of decades, which they have done numerous times in the past, and that companies have a vested interest in using legal methods to prevent them from forming in the first place, which they do. Legal, maybe, but unethical. Like searching for any error made that could be used to fire someone. Not because the mistake (and he freely admits that everybody make mistakes) deserves a firing, but because he can get away with it. It’s plainly a completely amoral stance. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/9 "2005-12-24T06:49:02Z")
Is anybody else picturing Montgomery Burns? “Call out the Pinkertons and release the rabid Rottweilers!” I have very mixed opinions of unions, pretty much dead even between Poly’s and Shag’s (ooh, Poly & Shag- it’s the 70s all over again). I’ve read enough histories of labor and business in America to know what companies did with impunity before they were organized and have no doubts they would again. Here in Alabama where unions aren’t that prevalent or powerful we keep companies in line by successfully suing them for $50 million every couple of years or so. I’m afraid though that the Transit Strike is going to do for unions what the Andrea Doria did for the cruise ship industry and have Shags coming out of the carpet. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/10 "2005-12-24T06:52:58Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Collective bargaining _should_ carry the risk that the other party simply decides to not negotiate with _any_ member of your collective, essentially firing all members of a union. > > I work for a living, have never been a member of a union, and my opinions are closer to Shag’s than Carp’s. Then, I hope you won’t criticize any tractic used by unions, regardless how unethical, either. We now know that anything goes as long as you can get away with it. It’s not about whether the unions or the bosses are the bad guys generally speaking. \*\* Shagnasty \*\* is arguing that whoever has the power not only can, but _should_ abuse of it as much as possible. ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/11 "2005-12-24T07:30:25Z")
Yep, unions’ excesses can be expensive. Management’s too. I’d be very interested in a comparison of what overreaching labor has cost our economy versus overreaching managment. Hmmmm, S&L Collapse, HUD Scandal, MCI, Enron. Just to mention a few. Not to mention the grossly inflated CEO/Executive Managment salaries we pay. I’m not trying to justify organized labor’s excesses. Far from it. I just think management doesn’t have clean hands. Far from it. I think most of our political distinctions miss the point. I think there are people who are honest and dishonest, straight and crooked, ruthless and scrupulous on both sides of each political issue. I wish there were a way to eliminate the assholes on both sides. They’re a tiny minority, yet they have a hugely disproportionate impact. I’d bet that something over 80% of us could be characterized as moderates. Yet we’re led around by the nose by these strident ideological extremists. Fuck them. Greedy people suck, whether they lust for money, power or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/12 "2005-12-24T07:39:07Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I don’t know. How would you know? Maybe this business has been build on the general principle of screwing all the “semi-skilled” employees in every possible way for 40 years. Maybe. And may the “Boss-Man” shoots flaming monkeys out of his ass at the peons. I’m neither attacking nor defending anyone in this thread so far. I’m offering an opinion that if a person risks all that he or she has in starting a business I can see how the threat of a union would make someone vehemently opposed. A union was able to severely damage the largest city in the US. It’s not much of a stretch for a restaurateur (sp?) to fear the same damage. Only he wouldn’t have the safeguard of the city coffers to buffet the damage. I think it’s more telling you seem more concerned with how a person got his job, though. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/13 "2005-12-24T07:41:34Z")
Wow… Shag is absolutely disgusting there. The “its just a game” comment in that thread makes me lean more towards why we need unions more than anything. The attitude that destroying peoples lives is just a game…wow. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/14 "2005-12-24T08:09:15Z")
> [@bdgr](#): > > Wow… > Shag is absolutely disgusting there. The “its just a game” comment in that thread makes me lean more towards why we need unions more than anything. The attitude that destroying peoples lives is just a game…wow. Yes, because forcing people to retire at (god forbid!) 62 instead of 55 is destroying lives even if maintaining the 55 age will prove profoundly expensive and possibly bankrupt the city or pension plans. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/15 "2005-12-24T08:17:25Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Maybe. And may the “Boss-Man” shoots flaming monkeys out of his ass at the peons. I assume you mean it’s unlikely? How so? We don’t know anything about the situation, except that one side (the management) do not intend to play fair. Why would you assume that the other side is faulty? > [@](#): > > I’m offering an opinion that if a person risks all that he or she has in starting a business […] I think it’s more telling you seem more concerned with how a person got his job, though. It seems you’re concerned too about how someone came to be Da Boss. You’re making the assumption that a business owner “risked all he had” and use this assumption to justify his stance. OK, let’s play the game : how about this poor worker, who has worked very hard for 40 years in the company, always been loyal to it, despite being paid peanuts and screwed in every possible way, is too old to find another job, just learnt he had a cancer which means that his termination, leaving him without health insurance, will result in him filling bankrupcy and having his house seized and become a homeless with his 17 starving children, 3 of them handicaped, etc, etc…? I’m offering an opinion that he shouldn’t be fired on flimpsy pretenses. There are plenty of bosses who didn’t risk everything they had, and \*\* Shagnasty \*\* in particular doesn’t fit this definition. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/16 "2005-12-24T08:21:33Z")
> [@bdgr](#): > > Wow… > Shag is absolutely disgusting there. The “its just a game” comment in that thread . Ah, yes! I had forgotten this one. I’m not sure why people are all worked up about bosses victimized by unions or workers screwed up by bosses, since anyway it’s just a game. Let’s relax people. It’s all good fun, and it’s not like it has any real-life consequence for anybody. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/17 "2005-12-24T08:32:17Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > Yes, because forcing people to retire at (god forbid!) 62 instead of 55 is destroying lives even if maintaining the 55 age will prove profoundly expensive and possibly bankrupt the city or pension plans. You have inside informations about \*\* Shagnasty \*\*'s employees age of retirement? Because the thread is about him, you know, there’s another one about New York workers. Anyway, he told us that if you have the means to achieve a goal advantageous to you anything goes. So, I’ve no doubt he fully supports the New-York strikers if they can get away with this, or anything else for that matter. He probably has a lot of respect for them, at least, since he has none for people who don’t do everything they can get away with. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/18 "2005-12-24T09:41:56Z")
While we’re at it, I found the following gem in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=351017) (and I wasn’t searching for it. I was reading the thread, noticed the comment, and looked up, wondering “who’s the moron…?” ) > [@Shagnasty](#): > > I have always wanted to kill someone and that is a good way to get a freebie. So, besides his practices with his workers, we now know what kind of achievments he dreams about… ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/19 "2005-12-24T10:33:18Z")
I think **Shagnasty** needs to read some Charles Dickens to understand why unions exist. Given the season, I expect ‘A Christmas Carol’ would be an excellent place to begin. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061/20 "2005-12-24T15:24:59Z")
I am not management and I have never been part of a union. I work white-collar salary now, but I worked blue-collar for years. I have witnessed Unions refusing to yield in times of trouble and destroy small companies and force the closure or 100’s of no longer profitable plants in NJ alone. Concessions would have kept the plants running and may have inspired capitol investment. I have on the other side seen companies pay executive huge bonuses for the genius act of firing 20% of the work force and yet still not improving the business at all. I have seen a company without a union cry poverty and cut employee Benefits, while buying new Lexuses for company cars for executives to replace 2-year-old cars. They basically cut dental to pay for executive perks. Cut Uniforms for new overpriced AC units in private offices. Somehow a balance needs to be struck between union power and corporate power and neither side usually shows itself to be fair. Jim [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-have-a-robber-baron-on-the-board/337061.md?page=2)