• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Unions

RJKarl said:
Every one of your business posts can be summed up in protecting the rich and fuck the middle class and below.
Click to expand...

If only he was as articulate and level headed as you are concerning this subject.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Bacon makes great points. The part about companies HAVING to move jobs to stay competitive is a truth that many don't want to hear. There is a reason manufacturing is dead in the US. I think blaming unions entirely is a bit ridiculous because even without unions people aren't going to work for the $1.50/hour they pay people for creating the same product in China. To offset this, unions like to counter the "unfairness" of this by imposing tariffs and other things that drive up the cost to the consumer. There is a reason it's called protectionism-- to protect (union) jobs. In an increasingly global world run on rules of fair and free trade, the best thing to do is adapt. The song of this generation's auto worker needs to become next generation's computer programmer.
Click to expand...

Certainly, I'm not trying to blame the loss of manufacturing completely on unions, but unions make the problem worse. Unions can keep viable businesses from reorganizing and doing what they need do to compete.
As you said, some things are just destined to go off shore....mostly because they are low skill things that our supposedly advanced economy can't and shouldn't be allocating it's expensive resources to. It's like a person with a PhD cooking hamburgers at McDonalds. Sure, he can probably do it, but why would you want someone with that kind of potential and who is that expensive doing something that a high school kid can do? Let the high school kid (who can't do anything else) do that and the PhD live up to his potential/be as productive as he can be
 
Last edited:
Baconwfu said:
To fully understand why unions are bad, in general, you have to have a pretty solid understanding of business, economics and international trade/competition. Getting into the finer points of all that would take too long....those are college/graduate courses not internet postings....So in a sense, my efforts here will probably be futile, but I'll take a relatively brief stab at it anyway

Unions hurt the middle class. To use an off the cuff analogy, they hurt the middle class in the same way eating shitty food and being sedintary hurts fat people (or anyone for that matter). Sure it's easy and it's comfortable, but you get used to it and then you get to the point where you need it and can't change your ways.

Pro union people love to point to "this country was built on unions" and while that's not incorrect, the sentiment is misleading IMO. This country was built in a rapidly expanding environment in a vacuum, void of international competition. Until the last 30 years or the only real industrial nations were in Europe, which was war ravaged twice in 25 years during a time when lots of the US development was going on. So the US, with it's relatively pro business policies (everything is relative, remember that...ex: the dollar is strong right now, not because the dollar is fundamentally sound, but because everything else is a steaming pile of dog shit). Those pro business policies, along with a rapidly expanding country (booming population and plenty of room and resources to fuel that growth) allowed our country to excel. We were among the first to industrialize and weren't war ravaged and were able to produce and export goods to the rest of the world who was trying to catch up. The rest of the world posed little to no compeition to the American industrial machine....they just couldn't match our sophistication in anything...also remember that 1/2 of the world's population was mired in communism...shut off from the rest of the world. The US was a lone, shining beacon of capitalism and because of that no one could touch us...profits were easy....THAT IS WHY UNIONS COULD WORK. It was a two party negotiation between labor and management (it was still inefficient by the way, but not as devastating). Labor wanted things and that could drive the price up, but all that meant is that the price would be passed along to the customer and maybe a few less widgets would sell and the company wouldn't make as much, but would still be fine since they likely only had competition from other American companies (or european) who had union issues as well...so their costs were the same.


But as we all know....that's a far cry from the world we live in NOW

Because the US was so much better than the rest of the world for so long its industrial processes stagnated (that's why the "Made in the US" label had become such a joke). US companies didn't change because they didn't feel they needed to change. They had no competition, could afford their bloated union employees and made the same stuff with little improvement over the years. Without competition they were lazy and ill equiped to handle the foreign competition when it came...intially from Japan (a country with no resources who was bombed into oblivion, forced to be efficient or parrish and when they finally came around they had quality items that were cheap). With the competition from abroad, the US had to adjust, but they'd been so fat and happy that they struggled to do so all the while, other industries from other nations were catching up. It's like the kid who is 6'2 in the 6th grade....sure he's the king of the basketball court now, but if he doesn't get any taller or any better, eventually the other kids are going to grow and be able to take him down.
First we had Japan, then India, China, Southeast Asia, Russia, Mexico and eventually Africa or some other undeveloped place like that that will want their piece of the pie. Now we have international competition from countries who don't have "unions". They have developed to where their workforce is marginally educated and can give the American middle class a run for their money as far as productivity, yet because they live in developing countries (who don't have unions) they will work for less. All of a sudden those bloated unionized industries don't have the same cost structures as their international competition and the competition can price them out of business. Sure they may be able to limp along for a while, but why would you do that? If you have to pay the American unionized worker $20/hour but the chinese man will do the exact same thing for $3/hour and you're in a labor intensive industry you have to move to china to stay competitive....you just HAVE TO....it doesn't make any sense to do otherwise.

Unions, in general, destroy an organizations flexibility and in this global marketplace you have to be flexible to stay competitive.

Personally, I think unions are the cancer of the middle class. I'm sure many of you will vehemently disagree here (because it sounds like a contradictory statement).....People in unions might love them because they "help provide for their family" or some such line like that, and that's not untrue on the surface, but if you look at the real effect it's much darker. The days of graduating high school, getting a union card and being set for middle class life is over. The developing world has made sure of that (not "greedy" fat cats/corporation as some of you would love to think). Look at folks within a union....they've been doing the same shit for years and probably don't know how to do anything else....they've been too comfortable and likely haven't bettered themselves (professionally) in any real way so when layoffs happen, (and sooner or later it's going to happen) they are woefully unprepared...probably have a lifestyle that their skillset can't afford and are in a heap of trouble unless they can find another of the fewer and fewer union jobs that are available.
I understand why the working man wants to unionize, but it's short run gain and it's just not sustainable in the world we live in. You can't expect to just graduate high school, be a diligent worker for a company and live a comfortable life in the most economically advanced society in the world we live in today....there are just too many people globally that want what you have and will work to get it.

I don't even want to get into the finer points of trying to manage unionized labor and how disasterous that can be in and effort to effectively run a production floor.

There are many other points and reasons, but this is just a brief (it's very brief, despite it's relative length) overview of why unions don't work.
Click to expand...

Contrast the examples you laid out with the scores of non-union shops (not just auto) popping up all over the SE.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Bacon makes great points. The part about companies HAVING to move jobs to stay competitive is a truth that many don't want to hear. There is a reason manufacturing is dead in the US. I think blaming unions entirely is a bit ridiculous because even without unions people aren't going to work for the $1.50/hour they pay people for creating the same product in China. Unions like to counter the "unfairness" of this by imposing tariffs and other things that drive up the cost to the consumer, but the average consumer-- much like the average non-union worker-- is not willing to take money out of their pocket for the union's benefit (you also see this with the debate in WI over taxpayer funded perks for public union employees). There is a reason it's called protectionism-- to protect (union) jobs. In an increasingly global world run on rules of fair and free trade, the best thing to do is adapt. The song of this generation's auto worker needs to become next generation's computer programmer.
Click to expand...

Great post by Bacon.

And manufacturing isn't dead in the US. It's just not realistic to expect us to have such a high % of the world's manufacturing as we used to have. We are still the per capita leader by a longshot.
 
At $1.50/hour, it has nothing to do with unions.

Actually, our competitors do things to protect their labor forces.
 
Statements like these are absolute crap and show his real position is to screw the working man:

"Unions hurt the middle class. To use an off the cuff analogy, they hurt the middle class in the same way eating shitty food and being sedintary hurts fat people (or anyone for that matter). Sure it's easy and it's comfortable, but you get used to it and then you get to the point where you need it and can't change your ways."

"Personally, I think unions are the cancer of the middle class"

"Because the US was so much better than the rest of the world for so long its industrial processes stagnated (that's why the "Made in the US" label had become such a joke). US companies didn't change because they didn't feel they needed to change. They had no competition, could afford their bloated union employees and made the same stuff with little improvement over the years. Without competition they were lazy and ill equiped to handle the foreign competition when it came...intially from Japan (a country with no resources who was bombed into oblivion, forced to be efficient or parrish and when they finally came around they had quality items that were cheap). With the competition from abroad, the US had to adjust, but they'd been so fat and happy that they struggled to do so all the while, other industries from other nations were catching up. It's like the kid who is 6'2 in the 6th grade....sure he's the king of the basketball court now, but if he doesn't get any taller or any better, eventually the other kids are going to grow and be able to take him down.
First we had Japan, then India, China, Southeast Asia, Russia, Mexico and eventually Africa or some other undeveloped place like that that will want their piece of the pie. Now we have international competition from countries who don't have "unions"."

It's not about those countries not having unions. It's about them having wages Americans could never live on.
 
ChrisL68 said:
And manufacturing isn't dead in the US. It's just not realistic to expect us to have such a high % of the world's manufacturing as we used to have. We are still the per capita leader by a longshot.
Click to expand...

A point that shouldn't be overlooked as much as it is.
 
RJKarl said:
Statements like these are absolute crap and show his real position is to screw the working man:

"Unions hurt the middle class. To use an off the cuff analogy, they hurt the middle class in the same way eating shitty food and being sedintary hurts fat people (or anyone for that matter). Sure it's easy and it's comfortable, but you get used to it and then you get to the point where you need it and can't change your ways."

"Personally, I think unions are the cancer of the middle class"

"Because the US was so much better than the rest of the world for so long its industrial processes stagnated (that's why the "Made in the US" label had become such a joke). US companies didn't change because they didn't feel they needed to change. They had no competition, could afford their bloated union employees and made the same stuff with little improvement over the years. Without competition they were lazy and ill equiped to handle the foreign competition when it came...intially from Japan (a country with no resources who was bombed into oblivion, forced to be efficient or parrish and when they finally came around they had quality items that were cheap). With the competition from abroad, the US had to adjust, but they'd been so fat and happy that they struggled to do so all the while, other industries from other nations were catching up. It's like the kid who is 6'2 in the 6th grade....sure he's the king of the basketball court now, but if he doesn't get any taller or any better, eventually the other kids are going to grow and be able to take him down.
First we had Japan, then India, China, Southeast Asia, Russia, Mexico and eventually Africa or some other undeveloped place like that that will want their piece of the pie. Now we have international competition from countries who don't have "unions"."

It's not about those countries not having unions. It's about them having wages Americans could never live on.
Click to expand...

I'd love (honestly) to hear, in a coherent, clear, logical, manner why you think I want to screw the american working man. You just call my statements crap and you're more than entitled to your opinion, but if you're going to criticize my thoughts then you have to back it up with coherent critique, not just arbitrary statements of disagreement.
I love Americans, I want nothing but the best for them, but if American's can't compete with the rest of the world we'll get steamrolled. I said in a later post that it's not necessarily about unions, because it's not the case that American's can't compete with cheap labor. They can a lot of the time, but a company that can pay $15/hour or whatever prevailing market wage is, may have a chance to reorganize and innovate in other ways in order to compete with $3/hour wages in China whereas a company mired in union contracts paying $30 an hour will have a very difficult time.
Wages are Wages, productivity is productivity. American's don't just get high wages because we're Americans....we can command high wages because we're more productive....but the rest of the world is catching up and unless American's get more productive to justify their higher wages then they will get dragged down or stagnate until the wages of the international community make the american worker competitive again. This is the world we live in and to think any different is delusional, that point isn't even debatable as far as I'm concerned.
IMO it's your way of thinking that is killing the American worker. Rabble Rousing and blaming the "boogie" men....rich people and big corporations. The average american will probably believe you because no one wants to hear the truth....the truth that they have to work smarter, harder and do more in order to keep their place....why do they have to do more, because they Chinese and Indians are and that's their competition. It's a big pill to swallow, but the sooner it gets through to people the better off all Americans will be
 
Last edited:
TheTwinAndreBen said:
Which was very relevant in 1920. Not so much today.



A simple google search will show you in most of the largest fortune 500 bankruptcies, as well as analysis of dying municipalities and federal agencies, that bloated union negotiated pensions were a major cause in the downfall of those enterprises. (See: Airline industry, USPS)
Click to expand...

So the union negotiates a good pension plan in lieu of a wage increase, the company doesn't fund the pension plan, and then declares bankruptcy when the workers start retiring because there is no money. So they blame the union for being greedy, reform the company, rinse and repeat.

It's incredible how these situations are being portrayed. There is a big pension reform battle going on in San Diego right now. The union gave up wage increases and opted out of social security because they were promised a great pension upon retirement. Guess what? We haven't been funding that great pension plan you were promised, and if you weren't so damn greedy, maybe our city wouldn't be broke!
 
Bacon was at $20/hr a page ago, Now he's at $15/hr (people making $15/hr would need about a raise of 33% to be at the 2011 per capita income).

These numbers about people treading water not succeeding in our nation.
 
RJKarl said:
Bacon was at $20/hr a page ago, Now he's at $15/hr (people making $15/hr would need about a raise of 33% to be at the 2011 per capita income).

These numbers about people treading water not succeeding in our nation.
Click to expand...

The numbers I used are just for illustration and are for all intents and purposes irrelevant
So your suggestion is to artificially pay people more so they can live comfortably even when they don't produce enough value to make it in our nation?
Can't you see how that's not sustainable? It's a short term fix...like it has over the last 30 years, somethings gotta give and it will eventually
 
Manufacturing has never been sustainable when you have basically slave labor. It's not about unions.

When I did some work on NAFTA, I tried to explain to the people who said we'd be losing millions of jobs to Mexico those jobs were already on their way to Asia.

Again it's not about unions.
 
RJKarl said:
Manufacturing has never been sustainable when you have basically slave labor. It's not about unions.

When I did some work on NAFTA, I tried to explain to the people who said we'd be losing millions of jobs to Mexico those jobs were already on their way to Asia.

Again it's not about unions.
Click to expand...

I would agree that it's not necessarily only about unions, for instance, textile mills would be gone with or without unions.
Again, I'm not saying all jobs lost are because of unions....some are just going to go the way of the dodo because they aren't worth the use of our resources....however, unions are a net negative.
 
Manufacturing loses more jobs to productivity increases than to outsourcing.

It's just the way of the world. As our economy matures, you aren't going to make a white collar wage doing a low skill blue collar manufacturing job. And the attempts to do this are just spitting into the wind.
 
My biggest beef with unions (among many) is that pay,promotion etc. is generally dependent on seniority, not performance. That is the most unamerican shit I've ever heard of. It creates mediocre-cracy not a meritocracy.
 
ChrisL68 said:
Manufacturing loses more jobs to productivity increases than to outsourcing.

It's just the way of the world. As our economy matures, you aren't going to make a white collar wage doing a low skill blue collar manufacturing job. And the attempts to do this are just spitting into the wind.
Click to expand...

ChrisL on point, again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top