"Those who tell you of trade unions bent on raising wages by moral suasion alone are like those who would tell you of tigers who live on oranges." Henry George, 1891.
There's nothing "moral" about the basic union idea that people be paid according to their greed, completely without any regard to the real value of the work that gets done.
What happens from these immoral and insane demands?
There's no way in hell that a situation of paying slovenly workers with a terrible work ethic $70 an hour to product dangerously shoddy product (the worst cars sold in North America) is sustainable.
The labor movement in this country has a bloody and violent history and, while I'm certainly not an expert on labor law, it also appears that the Wagner Act of 1935 decriminalized many disgusting aspects of it.
Yes... and the victims of this violence, most of the time, have been working-class people who have the temerity to try to make a living.
And currently, the unions' profit model is based on theft (taking money from people who don't even want to belong in the union). This is why I accurately label most unions as illegitimate organizations: this forced membership.
Say what you will about other political pressure groups such as the NRA, ACLU, and Sierra Club: they legitimately express the will of their members: not one single person is ever forced to give $$$$ or join any of these groups. That's a distinct contrast to unions.
A return to child labor, long grueling hours, no benefits, wages barely above slave labor... yep, unions are evil by definition. Look, I spent 40 years working with unions and yes in many ways they hindered productivity efforts and resulted in a loss of competitiveness. However, labor typically ran at 10% of TOTAL cost, a rather small amount. AND, in most cases the rank and file responded positively and increased productivity when treated with respect and honesty combined with just consideration with respect to wages.
Management bears a good deal of responsibitu for poor union management relations. Been there, in the trenches for management. Met more than a few shitheads with the management label. It always takes two to tango.
Les, I agree with you on the two to tango thing, but a lot of those positive advances that you just mentioned were happening well before the unions took over and the unions just jumped in front of the parade and took the credit for them. Same thing with agencies such as OSHA. Advocates of OSHA point to the fact that workplace safety has improved and then they show you a graph to prove it, but they don't show you the graph prior to OSHA when the trend was just as much of a downward one. No, unions aren't evil and, no, government isn't evil. You just have to be a little bit wary, that's all.
Unions wouldn't be "evil" if they stopped forcing people to join.
As for the child labor mention.... if unions could force child laborers to join and pay dues, they'd be for it. And about the "wages barely above slave labor"... look, some jobs have low value. Look at what paperboys are paid. Should this be eliminated? Not sure why Les mentioned that.
Les: do you see the situation of forced membership in unions to be a problem at all? Closed shop (government interference to force workers into unions) results in a situation where 50% of union members are in the union against their will.
Getting rid of this and returning membership decision to workers gets rid of an "evil" situation of coercion, illigitimacy, and theft of "dues", makes unions accountable to workers, and does not harm any good that they do.
I refuse to deny that stealing dues money is "evil". I wonder what Ayn Rand has said on this.
From the Ayn Rand Lexicon:
"The artificially high wages forced on the economy by compulsory unionism imposed economic hardships on other groups—particularly on non-union workers and on unskilled labor, which was being squeezed gradually out of the market. Today’s widespread unemployment is the result of organized labor’s privileges and of allied measures, such as minimum wage laws. For years, the unions supported these measures and sundry welfare legislation, apparently in the belief that the costs would be paid by taxes imposed on the rich. The growth of inflation has shown that the major victim of government spending and of taxation is the middle class. Organized labor is part of the middle class—and the actual value of labor’s forced “social gains” is now being wiped out."
There is one, and only one reason that unions are needed today given all the labor laws on the books. And I used to tell union leaders this all the time... it is to prevent management/ownership from becoming the shitheads they were before labor organized.
By the way, ever thought about what gets done when labor is on holiday? Imagine of labor decided to put down the tools of their individual trade or speciality and walked. Interestingt thought isn't it.
There is something to be said about mutual respect and the power and synergies it can and does create. But, there still remains too many stupid business leaders/managers as well as too many intransigent labor leaders for this nation to recognize the real potential for competitiveness.
Just glad that after 40 years I'm out of it. There are just too many BIG lies.
To answer your interesting thought, if all those people decided to loaf off, it would make room for the go-getters who wanted to do something productive.
And, now this is a big and, if management/ownership played by just and rational rules I would agree. To a large extent they don't. Like I said, I was management for 37 of my 40 years in manufacturing. Damn glad I'm out of it. Got tired of figuring out how to carry out the tops edicts and make the workers... you know the ones who do the work, the ones when they are all on holiday NOTHING gets produced..., feel good about getting smoke blown up their asses and like it.
Been around too long and have seen to much to accept that unions are the undoing of American productivity and competitiveness.
I am glad you are reading Rand, lots and lots of good stuff. Rational too. But, like with every human being she was not not 100% right. I agree with the unjustness of forcibly requiring imdividuals to become members of any damn thing, and on this Rand is/was correct. Having said this the concept of unions as a mechanism to represent the interests of the working class is a good one. Business, thinking it is acting in it's own self interest will, left to their own design by and large SCREW the workers to enrich their own coffers. I don't have the time here to go into detail on what rational self interest means and how it should be interpreted by society. Suffice to say it is the most misunderstood as well as abused concept in the English language, IMNHO. I wish Rand were alive today so I might be able to discuss it with her.
Keep reading Rand, its worth the time.
Oh, and government should not be involved with the doing of business. Other than to insure worker safety, seeing how business will cut corners to reduce costs to maximize profits even at the expense of worker safety if they can get away with it.
I do not mean ALL businesses or companies naturally. But there are enough the government had to step in. Again a subject for another time.
" Having said this the concept of unions as a mechanism to represent the interests of the working class is a good one."
I agree certainly. But this is not happening where unions are forcing people to join. Anyway, you might tend to agree. The part I chose to emphasize in the Rand quotation is one you said was correct.
I agree strongly on what you said about worker safety and government...
11 comments:
There's nothing "moral" about the basic union idea that people be paid according to their greed, completely without any regard to the real value of the work that gets done.
What happens from these immoral and insane demands?
This.
There's no way in hell that a situation of paying slovenly workers with a terrible work ethic $70 an hour to product dangerously shoddy product (the worst cars sold in North America) is sustainable.
The labor movement in this country has a bloody and violent history and, while I'm certainly not an expert on labor law, it also appears that the Wagner Act of 1935 decriminalized many disgusting aspects of it.
Yes... and the victims of this violence, most of the time, have been working-class people who have the temerity to try to make a living.
And currently, the unions' profit model is based on theft (taking money from people who don't even want to belong in the union). This is why I accurately label most unions as illegitimate organizations: this forced membership.
Say what you will about other political pressure groups such as the NRA, ACLU, and Sierra Club: they legitimately express the will of their members: not one single person is ever forced to give $$$$ or join any of these groups. That's a distinct contrast to unions.
A return to child labor, long grueling hours, no benefits, wages barely above slave labor... yep, unions are evil by definition. Look, I spent 40 years working with unions and yes in many ways they hindered productivity efforts and resulted in a loss of competitiveness. However, labor typically ran at 10% of TOTAL cost, a rather small amount. AND, in most cases the rank and file responded positively and increased productivity when treated with respect and honesty combined with just consideration with respect to wages.
Management bears a good deal of responsibitu for poor union management relations. Been there, in the trenches for management. Met more than a few shitheads with the management label. It always takes two to tango.
Les, I agree with you on the two to tango thing, but a lot of those positive advances that you just mentioned were happening well before the unions took over and the unions just jumped in front of the parade and took the credit for them. Same thing with agencies such as OSHA. Advocates of OSHA point to the fact that workplace safety has improved and then they show you a graph to prove it, but they don't show you the graph prior to OSHA when the trend was just as much of a downward one. No, unions aren't evil and, no, government isn't evil. You just have to be a little bit wary, that's all.
Unions wouldn't be "evil" if they stopped forcing people to join.
As for the child labor mention.... if unions could force child laborers to join and pay dues, they'd be for it. And about the "wages barely above slave labor"... look, some jobs have low value. Look at what paperboys are paid. Should this be eliminated? Not sure why Les mentioned that.
Les: do you see the situation of forced membership in unions to be a problem at all? Closed shop (government interference to force workers into unions) results in a situation where 50% of union members are in the union against their will.
Getting rid of this and returning membership decision to workers gets rid of an "evil" situation of coercion, illigitimacy, and theft of "dues", makes unions accountable to workers, and does not harm any good that they do.
I refuse to deny that stealing dues money is "evil". I wonder what Ayn Rand has said on this.
From the Ayn Rand Lexicon:
"The artificially high wages forced on the economy by compulsory unionism imposed economic hardships on other groups—particularly on non-union workers and on unskilled labor, which was being squeezed gradually out of the market. Today’s widespread unemployment is the result of organized labor’s privileges and of allied measures, such as minimum wage laws. For years, the unions supported these measures and sundry welfare legislation, apparently in the belief that the costs would be paid by taxes imposed on the rich. The growth of inflation has shown that the major victim of government spending and of taxation is the middle class. Organized labor is part of the middle class—and the actual value of labor’s forced “social gains” is now being wiped out."
There is one, and only one reason that unions are needed today given all the labor laws on the books. And I used to tell union leaders this all the time... it is to prevent management/ownership from becoming the shitheads they were before labor organized.
By the way, ever thought about what gets done when labor is on holiday? Imagine of labor decided to put down the tools of their individual trade or speciality and walked. Interestingt thought isn't it.
There is something to be said about mutual respect and the power and synergies it can and does create. But, there still remains too many stupid business leaders/managers as well as too many intransigent labor leaders for this nation to recognize the real potential for competitiveness.
Just glad that after 40 years I'm out of it. There are just too many BIG lies.
To answer your interesting thought, if all those people decided to loaf off, it would make room for the go-getters who wanted to do something productive.
And, now this is a big and, if management/ownership played by just and rational rules I would agree. To a large extent they don't. Like I said, I was management for 37 of my 40 years in manufacturing. Damn glad I'm out of it. Got tired of figuring out how to carry out the tops edicts and make the workers... you know the ones who do the work, the ones when they are all on holiday NOTHING gets produced..., feel good about getting smoke blown up their asses and like it.
Been around too long and have seen to much to accept that unions are the undoing of American productivity and competitiveness.
I am glad you are reading Rand, lots and lots of good stuff. Rational too. But, like with every human being she was not not 100% right. I agree with the unjustness of forcibly requiring imdividuals to become members of any damn thing, and on this Rand is/was correct. Having said this the concept of unions as a mechanism to represent the interests of the working class is a good one. Business, thinking it is acting in it's own self interest will, left to their own design by and large SCREW the workers to enrich their own coffers. I don't have the time here to go into detail on what rational self interest means and how it should be interpreted by society. Suffice to say it is the most misunderstood as well as abused concept in the English language, IMNHO. I wish Rand were alive today so I might be able to discuss it with her.
Keep reading Rand, its worth the time.
Oh, and government should not be involved with the doing of business. Other than to insure worker safety, seeing how business will cut corners to reduce costs to maximize profits even at the expense of worker safety if they can get away with it.
I do not mean ALL businesses or companies naturally. But there are enough the government had to step in. Again a subject for another time.
" Having said this the concept of unions as a mechanism to represent the interests of the working class is a good one."
I agree certainly. But this is not happening where unions are forcing people to join. Anyway, you might tend to agree. The part I chose to emphasize in the Rand quotation is one you said was correct.
I agree strongly on what you said about worker safety and government...
Post a Comment