I am puzzled by the actions of large, rich unions (like the UAW and Teamsters).
In their glory years, these unions were huge-the dues that their members paid enabled the union bosses to live like kings and emperors- guys like Jackie Presser (CEO of the Teamsters) were paid millions in salaries and benefits.
Since these organizations were set up (ostensibly) for the benefit and protection of their members, why didn’t they follow the (Marxist) dictum of the “workers owning the means of production”?
Suppose (in the 1950’s), that the UAW committed itself to buying up the shares of Chrysler, Ford, and GM-instead of spending millions on influencing politicians, the union actually would own the firms-then they could appoint their own CEOs and boards of directors, and have the income of the firms to themselves.
Why didn’t they do this? Then they really would be acting in their members interest-instead of squandering the money on bribes, conventions, and corrupt investments (like the Mafia-run resorts that the Teamsters were so fond of funding)? Wouldn’t this be the best thing for them to have done?:smack:
Lots of assumptions there. But the main one is that the firms would sell. Nearly every month you hear about a business buy-out or merger that was scuttled due to either money or not agreeing to the merger terms. For instance, the board of directors might not want to be taken over since they might be out of a job, and so would try to steer away from any deal.
Large takeovers of even public companies are usually not as easy as simply buying the stocks on the open market.
ETA another assumption of course is that the unions were rich enough to buy. But I’m not going to do your homework for you.
Umm, I think that the UAW does own a big chunk of Chrysler now.
Anyway, ever read Animal Farm?
“Marxist dictum”?
I think you’re way underestimating the amount of money a union has. The UAW has 390,000 members. The enterprise value of the Ford Motor Company alone is $115,410,000,000. So just to buy Ford, every member would have to come up with about $300,000.
First off, the unions weren’t Marxist. They followed the old capitalist dictum of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
Secondly, just to inject some facts into the thread, here’s the 1955 Annual Reportfrom General Motors. You’ll note the company made $12.5 billion in income that year. Its 410,022 wage earners made an average of $102.41 per week.
And according to this, GM stock was selling for $107 per share in 1955..
In other words, a single share of GM stock back in the good old days cost more than the average wage earner made in a week. Just how much do you think the unions were racking up in dues?
What are you doing introducing facts into one of Ralph’s threads? They get in the way of his ranting.
Why buy the company when they can simply bleed it dry and use their downfall to realign politicians to a more socialistic viewpoint? If you’re getting the milk for free, there’s no need to buy the cow. I think that’s part of Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Its in the back somewhere
Not according to GM. According to the report kunilou linked to, “Suppliers” took 48.5% of the money GM made. Employees only took 27%. So obviously GM was stabbed in the back by its fellow capitalists.
Sure, some might argue that those suppliers sold goods to GM and deserved to get paid. But those same fuzzy thinkers would claim that the employees were selling their labor to GM. They’re all just parasites sucking down GM’s life blood.
If the suppliers acted the same way unions do, they’d be committing a felony. They are expressly forbidden from forming cartels to monopolise the supply of a good.
You do not need to own 100% of a public company to have control.
Suppose the UAW decided to inest its assets in acquiring 30% of FORD Motor Co. stock.
Then they could pretty much appoint the board of directors. Then, they could direct the policy on diviends-which they could use to gradually acquire more stock.
And once they had total control, they could realize their dream.
Of course, they could always decide to strike against themselves.
As has been explained for you upthread, 30% of a ridiculous amount of money is still a ridiculous amount of money, and far beyond the means of workers.
Anyway, I don’t think you understand how hostile takeovers work. It’s not a matter of quietly accumulating shares until you have control. That would take forever. You have to purchase significant amounts, and it will be noticed that you’re attempting a hostile takeover. In order to make it work, you will have the very difficult task of telling the existing shareholders that they will somehow make more money by handing their dividends to the workers in the form of better wages. I trust that even you can see the problem with that.