We Have a Robber Baron on the Board!

The BBQ Pit
21

Why is it unethical for management to decide that a union’s demands are unreasonable and that they will no longer recognize the authority of or negotiate with said union? Frankly, I can see a lot of positives to such a tough stance, especially if it’s clear the union leadership has a political or criminal agenda not shared by its members.

And give me some example of unethical union tactics, since you imply I have no right to criticize them. I’m certainly against illegal union tactics, including harassing/assaulting “scab” workers, vandalism, and libel/slander of the employer.

22

clairobscur: OK, on review the tone was a bit over-the-top. I still would not have pitted him for it, myself.

You seem to know something about the history of shitty management in America, so let me allude to the history of shitty unions. The Molly Maguires were a criminal organization that used very violent tactics to ensure they got what they wanted in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. The unions of Chicago in the 1960s were pretty much indistinguishable from the organized crime of Chicago, which is why we still haven’t found Jimmy Hoffa in four decades of looking. In fact, one of the common themes of truly ‘strong’ unions has been the union becoming a facet of a larger criminal organization. Feeding your family by being a scab has often been a quick way to leaving your family by being a murder victim.

It is true that management has also employed organized crime to its own ends in the past, and it could be argued that neither is cleaner than the other. That is a reason to treat them both the same, which, incidentally, was my argument before you entered this thread.

23

Ye gods, does he keep serfs at that eighteenth century house of his?

24

Unions really aren’t even that big of a deal in the United States. We’re one of the least unionized countries in the world. When our manual laborers were being worked to death for a pittance, with no safety regulations or benefits of any kind, our workers were damn ready to organize.

However, Americans aren’t culturally the same as Europeans. Once we had certain fairnesses that ultimately became guaranteed by law (in large part due to the work of labor) the labor movement started dying off here. By and large Americans do not want nor do they ask for the employment conditions in Europe. Most Americans, even unskilled manual laborers, are of the opinion that employment should be at will, that an employer, as the owner, has the right to terminate it for virtually any reason, at any time.

Outside of the public sector unions are really a dying breed here. I think under 15% of our workforce is unionized these days.

This primarily borne out of two reasons, one being lack of interest, and two being outright dislike of unions. Most workers just see the union as a bunch of fat cats who tax their wages and give them virtually nothing in return. The fact that during the 50-70s many unions were successfully infiltrated by various organized crime groups didn’t help them out much either.

Anyways, I think the right to collectively bargain is important, and we have that right in the United States. I also think the right to fire strikers is important, and employers have that right as well.

I’m probably mildly opposed to unions, just because they are the biggest barrier to free trade in the United States today (well, behind the farmers, but farmers in the Western world are notoriously unreasonable people.) The steel tariff we enacted was purely the result of demands from a union.

And I can understand the desire to crush any attempts at unionization. There’s no way I’d allow employees in any of my business ventures to unionize. At the same time, mistreating workers isn’t sound management policy. Bad management, just creates workers who will do the bare minimum in order not to get fire. In general the nicer the compensation, benefits, and working environment, the more productive and happy your employees will be, and that’s a win-win situation from both an ownership and an employee perspective.

25

No, the Molly Maguires were a violent organization that formed after the unions had been completely crushed, and it was apparent that the workers would never get what they wanted. The group was composed of fired workers who were blackballed for life for their union activities. The mine owners responded by hiring more Pinkertons, and having a lot of people arrested and executed. Similiarly, the Redneck War followed Matewan.

It’s also important to understand that firing someone for union activity is illegal, under the Wagner Act. Not just unethical, but illegal.

26

Basically what I said should be taken at face value. However, there are some misinterpretations:

  1. I don’t own a business. I am a consultant and I get paid an hour’s pay for an hour worked. There is no vacation pay, benefits, sick pay etc. I get paid enough so that I can afford these things if I choose. It is pure, straightforward capitalism and I love it. The instability can be a little nerve wracking at times but then again, so is life in general. Why should anyone ever be scared to test their monetary worth against an open market?

  2. My Father-in-law owns an international gourmet foods importing and distribution company that he has built up over 40 years. It started as a butcher shop in Quincy market in Boston. He doesn’t have a college degree. All he has is hard work that he put in over the years and has risked everything he had on pushing forward many times. The company is doing well at the moment but it hasn’t always been that way. It has been on the verge of bankruptcy roughly once a decade. Financial advisers have made it clear that his business cannot survive a union. His three major competitors from all over the country aren’t unionized and unionization would take any one of them out. MY FIL is 71 years old now and it is my wife that is set to take over the company. A successful unionization requires that the company be shut down and assets shifted to another plan. It is a lose-lose proposition for everyone and simply cannot be allowed to occur. Unionizing the warehouse or trucking divisions means that everyone loses their jobs: simple. Why should someone watch their assets wain and their business fail if they have an exit strategy? Why should anyone stand by and let unionization occur when they have inside knowledge that everyone will be unemployed?

  3. I don’t understand the philosophy of unions in general. Don’t get me wrong, I understand fully why people want to do it just as I understand why people rob stores. I just don’t understand why it is allowed. To me, each person is their own business where they buy or sell skills on the open market. They may need to adjust their strategy if they aren’t successful, move geographically where those skills are in demand, or require new skills.

What if you went to your dry cleaner to pick up your clothes and you were told that you couldn’t get your clothes back until you signed a contract agreeing to only send your clothes to that dry cleaner, pay 30% over comparable dry cleaners, and only pick up during a small window of time? Any problems with the dry cleaning would have to go through an arbitration board and you were only allowed a certain number of complaints a year. Employees at the dry cleaner would be designated strictly by function. If you get there and need to pick up your clothes, you will need the “clothes retrieval person”. The cashier cannot do that type of thing by contract. Likewise, buttons can only be sewn on by one person at certain times.

  1. Unions destroy businesses and hurt everyone except themselves. I admit that I am a little extremist why it comes to eliminating threats. The comment about killing an intruder ties into that. If you are an innocent bystander who is aggressively threatened by another person or group, I advocate eliminating that threat as swiftly and definitively as possible. The Soviets and U.S. had a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction during the cold war. It probably saved millions of lives.

Some people believe in an “eye for an eye”. I believe that just gets you back to equal which is no good. I believe in “an eye, both hands, and a tongue for an eye.” That is never imposed on anyone against their will and is meant to stop the problem from hurting others in the first place.

I am not the type of person that takes half a series of antibiotics, or runs an anti-virus program just for a little while. If something is truly a threat and you have the means to eliminate that threat, it is in everyone’s best interest if you do so.

27

I’m no friend of organized labor.

But I think that Shagnasty goes too far. It seems to me obvious that if I have the right to freely negotiate salary with my employer, I also have the right to join up with a buddy and tell my employer: “You take both of us, or take neither of us.” And if two can legitimately do that, then so can twenty or 200. I see no ethical problem with collective bargaining.

I believe that where unions cross the line is their active attempts to intimidate strike-breakers - “scabs”. The same aspect of freddom that drives the principle I mention above applies there: if someone else is willing to come do your jobs for less, then you have no right to throw things at them for crossing the picket line, no right to slash their tires, no right to physically threaten them, no right to vandalize their homes.

But you have every right to tell your employer that you’re collectively bargaining.

28

If all employers had that attitude, there would never have been a reason for unions. Unions began, first and foremost, to protect employees from the abuses of less enlightened employers. Not only would your way ensure a more loyal and motivated work force, it would also be a way to entice the better people away from your competitors. But, not everyone sees it that way. Hence, the unions.

29

Isn’t that enough justification for their existence right there? In fact, according to your moral philosophy, they should command your highest respect. You have just attributed to them the ability to “crush, . . . destroy, and demand apologies”, an ability the lack of which you consider despicable.

30

Is there a moral bankruptcy court?

31

And this, i think, is what many people who love to slam unions conveniently forget. If, indeed, they were well educated enough to know their history in the first place. There seems to be a belief among some sections of the population that an absence of unions would automatically lead to a blissful business utopia where benevolent employers showered their largesse upon a smiling and enthusiastic workforce. Those people need to remove their heads from their asses.

32

Maybe we need to unionize the people fighting the unions?

33

anyone that is anti union is a капиталиста свинья (sp?) . i’ve read a bit here and there where people blame unions for “outsourcing” and all sorts of other problems. did they factor in the ridiculous salaries that the people at the top always pay themselves? no. it seems that when we discuss economics the disproportionate salaries at the top are some how justified and taken for granted. people at the top do less and get more, and thats just fine by me, let’s go to walmart and blow all our money so we can talk about how much we saved by shopping there.
капиталиста свинья (sp? my russian isn’t that good)

34

There’s already an organization in place—it’s called the Republican Party.

35

Where did I see a comedy sketch about just that? Was it in Monty Python, or Kids in the Hall, or something like that? Anyway, the plot was as follows: you have a group of hired goons congratulating themselves on the last group of striking workers they beat up. Then one of them mentions that they should start negociating collectively to try to get better wages and conditions. All of them agree, including one who keeps saying “Yeah, go union!” or something like that, and gets promptly beaten up each time. I’m not telling it right, but it was funny at the time.

This said, I’m also curious how someone as libertarian as Shagnasty can be so against unions that he thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to exist, or at least allowed to try to negociate what they can get away with. To paraphrase John Mace, who once presented what I think is a good argument for the existence of unions from a conservative or libertarian perspective, unions are as much part of the free market as corporations are. Workers are allowed to get together to try to negociate better working conditions, and they employer will then decide if it wants to negociate with the union or do something else. I happen to believe that it is a good idea to have some laws favouring unions (laws forbidding or restricting the hiring of scabs, for example), so this is where I will disagree with John Mace, but I still agree that his position makes a lot of sense. Shagnasty’s, on the other side… not so much.

36

Actually, a lot of union activity is an attempt to establish a monopoly on the labor market, which is more or less the opposite of the free market. Hence the hostility to scabs and replacement workers.

With the rise of outsourcing and globalism, even a union that has established a monopoly on its national labor force loses power. Maybe “in Harlan County, there are no neutrals there”, but much less so in India or the Third World.

Regards,
Shodan

37

I have the first season of it on DVD.

38

You almost have a point here. I am very libertarian. However, it is just an odd collection of laws that created union rights in the U.S. It is like a set of arbitrary socialist laws slapped right on top of a perfectly good and efficient system. I am sure that unions have done good things at one point or another. The laws of probabilities basically ensure that everyone gets something right now and then.

If unions consisted of in demand workers truly free-assocaiting, I would be all for it. Instead, it is an artificial system set up to simply shunt the free-market. Free-associating unions would depend on the fact that others wouldn’t step up with the same skills and fewer demands. Unions currently resist replacement workers vehemently and that is proof that the worth of their members isn’t what they demand. That is a core problem with existing unions.

Unions offer little except demands to business and the economy as a whole. One would think that if it were a fair system, concessions would go both ways. Instead, the idea of a union compromise is to concede to 15% extortion instead of 30%.

Their very existence is basically proof of the problem. Workers aren’t worth as much on the open market as some would like. That isn’t a value judgment of their worth as humans. It is a simple economic fact. If the labor market has too many drill press operators in a given area for example, some need to get out, not be protected against economic realities. Everyone can develop new skills that the dynamic economy we have and depend on is dictating. My own livelihood is completely dependent on presenting on in demand skill set to business at any given time. That is my responsibility only and the way the economy works most efficiently. An efficient economy benefits virtually everyone (except union henchmen) and should be an important societal value.

39

So, if I understand correctly, contrarily to other, more coward people, you’re proud of facing the instability and the risks involved in testing your worth in the open market and pure capitalism. The open market and capitalism being in this case your wife.

Indeed, you’re in a position to lecture others about risk-taking…

40

The perfectly good and efficient system that naturally devalued labour so much that the proceeds of production were skewed so heavily in favour of capital over labour that working people couldn’t afford to buy anything, resulting in the catastrophic period we fondly remember as the Global Economic Depression?

That perfectly good and efficient system?