union-busting

[KaiineTN]

If I was running a business and my workers decided to form/join a union, I would sooner fire them all and downsize the company than cave and do things their way.

I would pay people what I value them at, not what they value themselves at. If they don't like it, they're welcome to look for work elsewhere. If the government decides to force me to pay more than what makes sense, I would move part or all of the company outside of the country.

[Arlos]

Uh, in no way does the government force you to pay anyone anything, if you're a business owner, other than the federal minimum wage. (and if you're gonna bitch about THAT, I am fully prepared to laugh myself silly at you.)

The entire point of unions is to allow workers to bargain for wages/benefits as a GROUP as opposed to individuals. A group of people will have greater bargaining power than 1 person does. It also gives greater power to the workers in cases of unsafe working conditions. 1 guy refusing to work somewhere that's unsafe just gets fired. EVERYONE working there going on strike and refusing to work until the place is made safe, that gets results. Even just the threat of shutting the place down with a strike will get results. I repeat, look at the safety records of mines with unionized work forces vs non-unionized work forces, if you want an example. Non-union mines have 2-4 TIMES as many fatalities as union mines.

So lets see, from a miner's perspective... I can not join the union, probably get paid less, and have 4x the chance of getting killed. OR, I can join the miner's union, get better wages and benefits, and have a safer work environment.... Uh, gee, tough choice.

-Arlos

[Tuggan]

thank you kainne (or wtfever) for proving why unions are a needed.

[Zanchief]

If I was running a business and my workers decided to form/join a union, I would sooner fire them all and downsize the company than cave and do things their way.

I would pay people what I value them at, not what they value themselves at. If they don't like it, they're welcome to look for work elsewhere. If the government decides to force me to pay more than what makes sense, I would move part or all of the company outside of the country.

Thankfully the only thing your running is my bandwidth up with that ridiculous profile of yours.

[KaiineTN]

Actually, Arlos, I believe with the new health care bill, if I had greater than 50 employees, I would have to offer health insurance to all employees. That sure sounds like a good reason not to hire that extra employee.

And I am opposed to the minimum wage, I think it is about on the same level as financial aid in terms of the harm it causes. Both certainly had good intentions behind them, and still sound good on the surface, though.

[Spazz]

And I am opposed to the minimum wage, I think it is about on the same level as financial aid in terms of the harm it causes. Both certainly had good intentions behind them, and still sound good on the surface, though.

The stupid in the statement is off the chart. If everyone believed as you do we would live in a third world country. Can you not see what paying people shit has done to our country? Can you not see that if companies could pay whatever they wanted in no time at all people would make next to nothing. I think I have been asking you this for years now but what is it that you do for a living ? Please help me make sense of why it is that your a complete fucking idiot.

[KaiineTN]

Actually, having no minimum wage would open the doors to all sorts of employment opportunities that would allow people to actually gain the skills they need to demand higher wages. I don't believe that current jobs would suddenly start paying less, I believe that many, many new jobs would be created that pay less--and you could probably sit around texting your buddies or checking Facebook half the time in most of those jobs.

I think it is particularly absurd that you can either hire an unpaid intern, or a paid intern, but if you decide to pay them, you have to pay them >= minimum wage. That makes zero sense to me.

[Spazz]

Your fucking retarded.

[Gaazy]

One other area Unions have been essential for is in workplace safety. Hell, just look at mines NOW, unionized mines have 1/2 to 1/4 the casualty rate of non-unionized mines. If you want an example of what working conditions were like for some people before unions, just look up the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

Are there issues with unions? Sure, absolutely, no question. Is the way to fix them to do away with them altogether? Fuck no.

-Arlos

I didnt have time to read the read of the thread but I made it here so ill say something to this.

The unions saved the mining industry decades ago. God only knows how many lives. They are super abused though and like you said if they want to stay around they nee fixed. One reason union mines have less injuries or whatever is because the workers dont fucking do anything half the time. Theyre lazy as shit. They LOOK for a reason to file. THATS my problem with them. It promotes worthlessness too much of the time if that makes any sense. Mines also dont have shit for production when they are union, and theres the reason why. People like to say oh if that mine was union that wouldnt have happened, but thats usually news people and people who have never actually been remotely near a real mine before. There are just tons of issues that need fixed and updated

[KaiineTN]

By now, even Americans who pay only marginal attention to politics are well aware of the union disputes taking place in Wisconsin and across the country. And while protesters have been gathering at State Capitols for weeks, the issue of worker freedom has been around for decades. In fact, before FDR signed the Wagner Act into law as part of his "New Deal" in 1935, every American possessed the Right to Work. This simply meant that employees enjoyed the right to participate in a union, but could not be forced to join a union or pay dues to a union in order to get or keep a job. The right to collectively bargain and the Right to Work appropriately went hand in hand. As Tom Woods succinctly points out:

"Freedom of contract and association were essential principles... An employee was free to withhold his labor services if unsatisfied with his employer's terms; likewise, a group of laborers jointly exercising this individual right were permitted to do so. No one, however, was allowed to prevent individuals who wished to work from exercising their right to do so."

Yet under current federal law, if a majority of employees in a workforce vote to unionize, the entire workforce is consequently forced to join the union, pay costly union dues, and relinquish all of their bargaining rights to the union boss. This coercive power granted to unions by the federal government is most often called "collective bargaining", but more accurately referred to as forced unionism, compulsory unionism, or monopoly bargaining. Without the freedom to withhold dues or decline union representation, American workers are rendered powerless and union bosses remain completely unaccountable to their members. And to make matters worse, as Tom Woods notes, the unions are never subject to re-election:

"Once officially designated by a majority of workers as the exclusive bargaining agent for all workers, the union is never required to stand for re-election. Even after all the workers who originally voted for the union have died or retired, the union is simply assumed to have the support of a majority of workers. The new slate of workers has no say in the matter at all."

The most common misconception about Right to Work, being spread feverishly by Big Labor and its comrades in the mainstream media, is that employees would be denied their "collective bargaining rights." This could not be further from the truth. Last week, National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix sat down with Campaign for Liberty President John Tate in a two-part interview to clarify and articulate what the current debate is really over: a choice between worker freedom and the coercion of monopoly bargaining.

[brinstar]

flink, you're off-the-charts stupid. just completely and incontrovertibly idiotic. it's hard to fully imagine how moronic you are - i'm afraid of even trying.

[numatu]

I disagree that a union in concept is the problem.

The problem is, just as any sufficiently large business and government can become corrupt, so can unions. In addition, you can argue unions are more apt to become corrupt than their business counterparts, and just as likely as government. This is especially true in the case of public-sector unions, which by definition face no competition.

Unions (in their current implementation) are innately corrupt since their source of revenue is forced upon every worker in a particular industry. Once obtained, the majority of this money is spent keeping union officials in a lavish lifestyle, immune to free worker elections, campaign contributions to whomever can be counted upon to keep the union's power structure in tact, and of course the ever popular briefcases full of cash adjacent to a park bench on a brisk, autumn dusk.

The unions of yesteryear were the driving force of populism and ended brutal working conditions and child labor; a special iconic place those unions hold in our society as the catalyst of actual workers' rights.

The majority of today's unions play upon that tingling sensation as a shield against any criticism or backlash to their corrupt dealings.

You'll continue to see union-busting bills brought forth because people are tired of seeing corrupt union officials use their power and influence, gained through force, in a way counter to the ideals of their union forebears.

Unions need to be reformed to actually advance workers' rights.

[brinstar]

you know, i did a fair amount of thinking as to the nature of corruption this morning. i think there are three critical components:

1) desire to increase comfort level of oneself and those one cares about.

this is as genetically ingrained in us as "run from tiger!" at its most basal level, this instinct is both intrinsic to and causative of selective evolutionary forces. in a vacuum, this instinct is not (and cannot be) wrong. we do what we do to provide for our existence and that of our families (and sometimes friends) and afford us/them a certain comfort of which we feel we/they are worthy - often commensurate with our level of caring. almost invariably goes hand in hand with...

2) desire to increase the sustainability of comfort for oneself and those one cares about.

again, not an inherently "wrong" or morally suspect concept. all this means is that in addition to spending resources (of any kind) to effect an increase in comfort for oneself and one's family/friends, additional parameters are put in place to make sure such a situation of increased comfort persists as easily as possible. an easy way to explain this would be a tribe of native americans migrating from an arid region with few/scrawny game animals to a lush region with fertile soil and numerous healthy game animals.

if these two motivators are honestly your sole motivators, corruption is not yet recognizable. in fact, we have a better word: ambition. however, that changes once you add...

3) disregard for the consequences of your actions taken to effect 1) and 2), particularly that of others outside your locus of caring.

for example: i start a company, build it up, and get to the point where i don't even know most of my employees. after a while, sales start to backslide and i am faced with a dilemma. do i shrink the entire company, top to bottom, to match the new levels? or do i what is necessary so that myself and my top brass and our families aren't affected? do i volunteer to take a $50,000/yr pay cut, or do i lay off one employee? do i yank brinstar jr. from top-notch prep school, or do i pull dental from the standard benefits package? do i axe a trusted lieutenant, or do i make the entire employee force work mandatory overtime one saturday a month?

for the few good honest folks out there, these are very hard questions. for everyone else, these aren't really questions at all, are they? Big Business and the GOP would tell me "you built that company from the ground up, you deserve what you want. workers' rights? pfft yeah, they have the "right" to work elsewhere if they don't like it" but the other side says "exploiting others for your own personal gain is unacceptable! you need to be fair to your employees, even if it costs you money"

of course, if you refer to point 2 above, you'll see why it is that so many captains of industry lean inevitably stray toward the conservative side. for a price, the GOP is always ready to tell you what you want to hear: that it's okay to do what you need to do in order to preserve your way of life. forget about all that equality and fairness rubbish!


heh sorry kinda rambled

[KaiineTN]

Market forces determine the cost of labor, and that is fair. There is nothing additional that *needs* to be considered for your employees. If the economy is shit and unemployment is high, there is a surplus of labor available, and the cost of it decreases. If I own a business and I have long time employees locked in on a compensation system that was created during an economic boom phase, they become a huge drag on the company during a bust phase. The business would be much better off getting rid of that employee (if they aren't willing to accept compensation more in line with the present cost of labor).

It's not personal. It's not immoral. It's simply what makes sense and is good for the business. Ultimately it is the consumer that allows executives to run wild with salaries, because they put up with a profit margin large enough to allow it. Don't attack a CEO for not spreading his millions around to his employees when he's already paying them what the market demands. Why should he?

[Drem]

self-centered bullshit

[Drem]

you also reinforce alex's points. bravo sir, you are a moral tragedy

[Arlos]

A-HAH! Flink obviously believes in the twinned fallacy:

1) That which is best for business is best for society.
2) That which most improves profits, regardless of other considerations, is best for business.

This results in a philosophy of: corporate profits are the single best thing for society.

The problem is, that entirely leaves out any sort of ethical considerations whatsoever.

OK, Flink, hypothetical for you.

You're a senior executive at a company that makes gas-powered widgets. Your latest widget model, however, has a design flaw. If it is accidentally dropped, and lands just wrong, it can cause a rupture of the gas tank, resulting in an explosion that will kill or maim the user and anyone in the remote vicinity.

Now, your financial people have run the numbers, and tell you that recalling the product and paying to fix all of the ones that have already been sold and redo the design is amazingly expensive, with a cost value of, well, lets just call it X (hundreds of millions, say). Not to mention the cost, though, there's the public embarrassment to the company by a public admission of an unsafe design.

They then tell you that they think that there won't be THAT many explosions, and they figure the cost of dealing with any lawsuits resulting from the deaths and maimings will only amount to about 1/3 of X in the long run. They also figure that they can get gag orders tied to the lawsuit settlements, and that overall you'll be able to keep things quiet.

So what do you do?

Do you:

A) Issue a recall order for your widget in order to prevent accidents and save lives, knowing it will damage the company's reputation and cost it 3x as much.

or

B) Order everyone to keep quiet, hide the problem, and just deal with the lawsuits quietly, thus saving 2/3 of X, which amounts to hundreds of millions in savings, and thus easily being the choice that far and away maximizes your company's profits, as best your advisers can tell you. However, obviously, some small set of people WILL die from the accidental explosions if you pick this choice.


So, which is it, A or B?

-Arlos

PS) No, I didn't make this situation up, it actually happened. No, I won't give the details right now, and if anyone else knows the reference, don't say anything until Flink answers the question.

[Zanchief]

Market forces determine the cost of labor, and that is fair. There is nothing additional that *needs* to be considered for your employees. If the economy is shit and unemployment is high, there is a surplus of labor available, and the cost of it decreases. If I own a business and I have long time employees locked in on a compensation system that was created during an economic boom phase, they become a huge drag on the company during a bust phase. The business would be much better off getting rid of that employee (if they aren't willing to accept compensation more in line with the present cost of labor).

So you believe a company should have no responsibility to, say, woman on maternity leave, and should be able to terminate their employ as soon as they get pregnant. Same with those on disability. Why should a company have to fit the financial burden of a woman like Leah getting herself knocked up. Likewise why should a company make any effort to have racially ethical hiring practices. We all know black people aren't viable workers. We should encourage a workforce that maintains unequal hiring practices and maintains a racial class deviation.

It's not personal. It's not immoral. It's simply what makes sense and is good for the business. Ultimately it is the consumer that allows executives to run wild with salaries, because they put up with a profit margin large enough to allow it. Don't attack a CEO for not spreading his millions around to his employees when he's already paying them what the market demands. Why should he?

I don't attack a CEO for trying to make money, that's his job. He should try and make money any way possible and has no concern for the moral or social welfare of the people under his employ or the citizens of his country. This is why the government exists. If companies aren't going to make decision that are in the best interest of the population they will dictate guidelines that need to be followed. If the government did not exist there would be no effort to do anything morally just that had no profit in it.

A CBA is a contract like any other, Flink. Do you think CEOs should be permitted to ignore a signed contract only when it serves their bottom line the best? They have the right not hire anyone in a union and hire unskilled labour as long they follow labour laws.

I don't understand why these basic things need to be explained to you, as you've obviously made an effort to watch a lot of tea party YouTube clips about the economy, but you still don't seem to understand any of it. You just want a completely free market and think that would solve everything. Why?

[brinstar]

zan, what do you mean "why" - it's quite obvious to me that no one with any sort of work experience in the real world could possibly hold those sorts of ridiculous beliefs

in fact i am willing to bet that if you could look inside the minds of the vast majority of tea party idiots, you'd see that they either a) never suffered the inconvenience of working a shitty job just to get by or b) have been financially comfortable for so long they can't remember what it's like


PS arlos not that i disagree with your hypothetical situation on any particular point but it did immediately remind me of the scene in fight club where ed norton explained his job to a random lady on a flight - take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. if X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one

[KaiineTN]

Race should not be of any consideration regarding employment, though, a business owner certainly should have the right to discriminate based on race if he wants. After all, it is his company, and he should be able to choose who works for him and who doesn't. Now, if you think that his company is racially discriminating, you can boycott their products and put pressure on him. Let society punish poor business decisions. This is really only applicable to small companies, because when we're talking on a corporate level and ownership is distributed among many people, no one really has that right to discriminate any more.

With maternity leave, personally I believe a company should allow the leave to take place and guarantee her job is there for her when she is able to return, but I don't think that is necessarily a right for a woman. It is more of a perk offered by the company (one that may not be tolerated if it wasn't there, but a perk nonetheless). Even more so if it is a paid maternity leave. The same goes with any sort of disability leave. Obviously if the company is responsible for the disability, things are different, but if not, they should not need to wait on the employee to get better and keep his position available for him.

As far as contracts go, they must be honored. Providing a court system and enforcing contracts is one of the primary responsibilities of government. If previous contract obligations are driving the company into the ground, and parties can't agree on reworking the contract, it will be the death of the company, and whoever picks up the pieces after bankruptcy court can start fresh.

The product recall dilemma is a difficult choice from a business perspective. Many recalls work in favor of the company though because it acts as a major publicity stunt. It generates a ton of free press, and makes your brand seem more trustworthy in the long run. It all comes down to cost, and whether your company can afford the recall. If not, are you willing to sell off or borrow against assets to fund the recall, even if it causes you to go under? The ownership of the company probably plays a big role in the decision as well. It's much more difficult for a corporation to hide the problem under the rug than it is for a small business. I'd like to say that you are responsible for the products you provide, and that if defects exist, you should correct it, or at the very least, publicly announce it. If you become aware of a defect and do nothing, and continue to sell the product as if nothing is wrong, then to me it seems to border on fraud.

[Tikker]

so

what do you do for a living Flink

[10sun]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto ... ontroversy

A Union made that car.

[Arlos]

Ah, but it wasn't the union that hid the fatal defect or conducted that cost-benefit analysis that said they should hide it and pay the lawsuits instead.... Assembly-line workers don't design the car or effect the design in any way.

[Drem]

why in thee fuck can't flink answer the "what do you do" question? it's retarded. he only posts in political threads and is basically a robot. stop responding to his stupid ass posts

[Tossica]

Without government intervention on some level, eventually the haves figure out a way to enslave the have nots. Read some history, Flink. The market does not police itself.