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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:36
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 You deserve it.
As I said, you don't know what you are talking about. I belong to a union; I was on strike less than four years ago. I have belonged to various unions, I still belong to the union; and your comments, and those of people like you are a joke. You endlessly pontificate about the vices of poor people and their institutions, without any real knowledge of the alternatives.
Of course unions are less than perfect, and some unions are a nuisance to their members; but unions serve an important function, like so many other imperfect institutions in our societies and working people would be worse off without them.
Listen to yourself: some unions are corrupt, therefore all unions suck. Forgive me if I laugh.
Unions exist as a form of insurance against being badly treated at work - that's what they do. The benefit of having a union official at a disciplinary hearing to make sure that your rights are not violated is a necessity for many working people, who lack the education to stand up verbally to their employees, and who can't afford lawyers. There are other benefits, like more bargaining power, etc. but they are basically there to empower employees in their disputes with their bosses.
The overwhelming reason for employers wanting to disempower unions is for them to screw their employees for their own benefit. We know this, because this is what mostly happens when union busting legislation gets passed.
Don't you conservatives have anything better to do than attacking the most vulnerable people in our society and thinking of ways to keep them in the dirt?
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Adam Smith
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Maryland, USA
Jan 1970
time: 00:36
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Tingkai:
Unionization in the US peaked at 25.4 percent of the workforce in 1954, and declined steadily to 19.7 percent of the workforce in 1978. Source: Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor Economics 1982, Table 12.1. The fact that wages were rising, hours declining, and workplace safety improving all at a time when unionization was declining suggests that factors other than unionization were responsible for the change.
UR, Agathon:
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Supply and demand doesn't work in real life |
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This has just confirmed my belief that contemporary economics has little to do with reality. |
Are we doing a little BAMing here?  The issue, as I recall it, was labor mobility. I provided numerous large-scale examples in the US. There are plenty of small-scale examples too. My father left a small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania to find a better job in the city. I left Chicago  in 1982 because there were better jobs for economists elsewhere. But in each case supply and demand does the job it is intended to do: move scarce resources to their highest valued use. The demand for labor increases at Henry Fords’ new assembly plants, so people move to Detroit and Chicago. The demand for labor falls in the Dustbowl, so people move to California. There are certainly human consequences when workers move, just as there are consequences to the owners when companies go bankrupt. While one can reasonably question whether the costs are worth the benefit of increased output, it is clear that supply and demand move scarce resources to their highest valued use.
Bonus questions: What evil free-market policy caused the drought? What utopian government policy would have prevented it?
Tingkai:
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Why does this bug you?
Isn't this is a good reason to join a union. |
Does it make any difference to consumers whether the union worker gets paid $120K or whether an evil monopolist port owner charges the same amount to unload containers? Does it make an difference if somebody like CALPERS (California Public Employee Retirement System, largest single stockowner in the US) owned stock in the port? The effect on consumers is the same regardless of who charges uncompetitive prices or who keeps the profits thereof.
edit: formatting
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Cruddy
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My opinion on unions is - on this side of the Atlantic their action has clearly resulted in positive benefits.
I was a member of the NUJ for a year - I decided not to rejoin after I attended my one and only branch meeting.
It was SO UNBELIEVABLY DULL...
My understanding is that unions on the other side of the Atlantic have served merely as targets for those wielding very big sticks... but I'm no expert on that subject.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
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Listen to yourself: some unions are corrupt, therefore all unions suck. |
Ah, the philosopher engages in a classic logical fallacy. Why am I not suprised?! He thinks that if I say some unions are corrupt, then I mean all unions suck. Isn't that like extrapolating the general from the specific or something? You're the philosopher, you should know what logical fallacy you are committing here.
And putting words in someone else's mouth (ie, you think all unions are bad and evil and should be abolished). Isn't that another logical fallacy?
Man, you must be a piss poor philosophy teacher with a track record for logical fallacies like this! |
Go back and read your own posts. You acknowledged the possibility that some unions may be OK and then went on to the typical one sided railing against the institution as stealing from workers blah blah blah blah. In short, all the usual misinformed tripe that substitutes for reasoning and evidence among too many of those on the political right.
What is someone supposed to think? That deep down you have a fair minded, balanced opinion about unions? Give me a break...
Call me what you like, but I'd never in a million years hire you as a lawyer, nor allow you anywhere near legislation.
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Adam Smith
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Maryland, USA
Jan 1970
time: 00:36
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Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Whether it's in the interests of the employer is highly debateable, and a lot of employers would disagree. |
Depends on the type of skill. If you had a software system that was unique, or almost unique, to one company, then it would certainly be in the company's interest to provide training. If the software were commonly used (e.g., any standard Microsoft application), then the company would have much less incntive to train, since the employee could take the learned skills elsewhere.
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Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
No they weren't. |
Since I posted some data on the US, I presume this comment refers to the UK. Data would be more convincing than assertion, though I realize that not everyone has data at their fingertips.
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Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Incidentally, how were better working conditions due to rising worker incomes? Am I missing something? |
Economic studies have found that safety, leisure, and environmental protection are "normal" goods. I.e., as people's incomes increase they demand more of these, all else equal. For example, the more a worker earns, the more he or she stands to lose from an accident, hence the greater demand for safety. Therefore, as workers incomes increase, we would expect to see lower accident rates, shorter hours, and better environmental protection.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Adam Smith
Economic studies have found that safety, leisure, and environmental protection are "normal" goods. I.e., as people's incomes increase they demand more of these, all else equal. For example, the more a worker earns, the more he or she stands to lose from an accident, hence the greater demand for safety. Therefore, as workers incomes increase, we would expect to see lower accident rates, shorter hours, and better environmental protection. |
In an industrial economy, were labor was very interchangeable, why would wages rise (I assume rising above the rate of inflation, not just rising) without any pressure?
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Bereta_Eder
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quote:
Originally posted by Azazel
A story from Israel; I am left scratching my head at this:
A tape surfaced that showed a govt. minister plotting to dig up mud against another minister with a PI that worked with the electrical company union. that's because Minister B attacked the free electricity rights the workers were getting. All of that happened 2 years ago, when both the ministers were simple members of parliament, from the same party.
Now, minister A has been moving to privatization of electricity, as the minister of infrastructure. The union fiercly opposes this ( and so do I ). So the PI, supposedly because of the unions, let out the tape of this, supposedly to take out minister A.
What do you people think about this? |
privatizaion of electricity is bad and will lead to huge price hikes. so good thing you're against. EU directive calls for opening up the electricity market. there are ways around it. hopefully we'll manage to avoid it.
if you want an example of why pirvatization is bad look at california.
incidently mass transport must remain public, if you want an example of why look at the UK
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Bereta_Eder
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or at greece for the 3 years it privatized busses
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shawnmmcc
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Ozzie, you didn't read my post - they (managment) can't do it that way. The Union will always get pay at least as high as the first offer. Management cannot offer less during negotiations, that would be considered bad faith negotiating/targeting union members (one or both) and is a violation of labor law, and should be enforced by the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board). Unfortunately it has become a rubber stamp for management under the Bush administration. Instead today they just fire the pro-union workers (who try to organize - look at Walmart and some hospitals), or stage a lockout (union refuses a new last-offer contract, continues to work under the old with no strike thread) and break the union, hiring all non-union "replacement" workers.
Imran, workers can already negotiate on their own, it's called getting promoted into management, or productivity bonuses. However, what often happens when the company doesn't bother with hard metrics is that syncophants instead get the promotions and bonuses while hard workers get squat. Management can easily set up those programs BEFORE they get the union, treating workers fairly by verifiable metrics. When they do, funny thing, the workers usually don't vote for a union. Look at Ben and Gerry's Ice Cream. We have a friend in GE's sale force, which has the same thing (and no union). Most companies don't bother, and when the rest of the people get pissed over unfair treatment or favoritism, they act shocked when a union gets elected.
Also look at what various racial and sex, especially the latter, discrimination suits have revealed reference when workers "negotiate their own salary", i.e. salaried positions. People routinely offer higher salaries to those of the same sex/race. As a previous poster commented, the problem is asymetric information.
Imran, since your posts deal with 90% plus with what's wrong with unions, and your examples are almost all about corrupt and/or bad union practices, it is reasonable for Agathon to interpt you as anti-union. Try googling recent coal field related deaths in Appalachia and tell me that we don't need unions. The Federal mine safety people have neither enough inspectors and the upper levels of management are mostly appointed from the industry. We had the case of one older manager try to fight a new rule that would kill more miners, as written by the coal company lobbyists and implemented by Bush adminstration. He was demoted/hastled till he left. Deaths per worker are up, and we've gotten largely unpunished fraud on coal dust sampling, etc. Which evil is worse? Your corrupt unions, or the dead miners? While I realize that you may argue that is not the choice you are implying, that is what your scenario boils down to. You are talking pro-management versus simply cleaning up the unions, which is not so easily done but possible via electing a new union. 50% per cent of the workers within it's either 60 or 90 days of a new contract. If the union is that bad, that is all it takes.
Adam, same thing for you. Coal field deaths are up, and OSHA has been badly damaged by this adminstration. We are having increasing cases of toxic exposure (look at reports on migrant farm workers for one area that I have read about). While I only have those two cases, they in themselves are pretty potent example of why your premise on safety, etc. has some flaws. Get me a model that includes the coal field deaths. Hint, hint and for Whoha to - maybe the government has some primary function concerning safety, and that unions may indeed provide a buffer enhancing that issue.
Go back to the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. Go read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, an expose on the meat packing industry of the time, which you could make some minor change's to and apply it to today's chicken packing industry - oops, there my third example on repetive motion injuries. Wait, the new rules on those injuries, a DECADE in the making, were gutted by the Bush adminstration with the help of my representative Ann Northup! Wait, they don't have union! Wait, they have minimal regulations in other areas too! And we are getting increasing cases of listeria poisoning and have streams and rivers that are unsafe for human CONTACT (not just drinking) in NW Arkansas (FYI that was by Clinton/Tyson, it's not just Bush). And because we are using Cipro (an antibiotic) to help produce cheap chickens in a factory farm type situation, children are now going deaf due to untreatable ear infections (Cipro was an antibiotic of choice for those back in the 90's, and was the last of the easy to administer/low side effect ones/inexpensive ones for children). That is a free market at work. Tell the kids who have lost their hearing how it helps them.
Lastly, on the deregulation of electricity. Adam Smith, go ahead and rebut this.   A purely free market solution with minimal, actually very close to no regulation, led to rampant corruption. You have traders on the energy exchanges tapes bragging about how they'd get the money from grandmother's as they shut down plants to spike the charges - I've heard the actual conversation. Unfettered capitalism results in monopolistic behavior and, due to the access of money to politics, semi-free market laws that result in the protection of markets via a corporate state or cartels and monoplies. So unregulated free markets are a fantasy, per se, something that typically exists for a transient time period unless there is government regulation preventing monopolistic and other similiar behavior (look at the price-fixing worldwide on vitamin additives). Like most real world things, it is a constant balance, and requires fiddling and fine-tuning to keep it working. Extremist free marketers produce the California energy fiasco - which by any account was an UNREGULATED free market (after all, it is the energy producer's choice if he shuts down his plant to create a shortage - right?). Give the Unions too much power and you end up like Great Britian between WW2 and Thatcher as the Unions help freeze the economy (or look at France right now). However, looking at the historical record - I think if I have to go to either extreme, I'll choose unions.edited for spelling
Last edited by shawnmmcc on 09-07-2004 at 04:04
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08-07-2004 19:02
Oh yes, since I didn't slave away in a factory, I can't talk about unions! Seeing how you are a philosophy prof in your comfy job, I guess you can't either!! Though you think for some reason your comfy position gives you the ability to say that no unions are corrupt or have ever been corrupt!
Unions.
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