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No it's not.

It's only impractical so long as you deem that "fixing the problem" requires that you make no sacrifice in the process.

Can we assume that, when you say general strike, you assume what you've long assumed in the past, a less than 5% (or even less, but would we call it "general strike"?) turn out rate, enough to block economic traffic in most major city in the US?

It's a free country so people can organize in the private sector if they want to. Unfortunately, their demands always come before the product so they eventually pushed our biggest industries overseas. The products just got crappier and crappier so that most of them were on the way out by 1970 and then gone by 1980. They had to sell or merge or just stop doing business. Then again, those few remaining private sector unions currently have enough clout that we had to bail them out, like GM and their 'pension' company. It's so cheap to live in Detroit but we gotta pay for someone who makes $75 an hour, like they can't plan ahead with that kind of money? Most of these jobs you could probably train a monkey to do and I gotta feel sorry for them? The unions started the shift and the lawyers and the greenie weenies finished it all off (the government having it's hands in all of it). All the class action lawsuits, the employment regulations, taxation, the EPA and clean ups. No one complained when they were making the money. I'd at least prefer back in the 1970's when you could walk down the street and get a job anywhere, any time. Now what business wants the liability? I suppose my medical insurance just went up 20% to pay for government union employees to not have to pay more for their free health coverage. It's a dirty rotten shame. People complain about healthcare costs but somebody has to pay for all the free loaders. That's when the debt ponzi really began when all these industries left, most by the time Reagan got in. Then the defense and airline industries, heavily unionized. That's why they never seem to turn away any illegal, since the 1980's especially, because, hey, it makes more jobs for government union people and creates more demand in retail and housing, which did hide the problem, that is until now. We didn't have this in the Great Depression, so this is gonna be a lot different, it's going to be a lot worse. All this stuff we thought was beneficial to society is really what's going to kill us.

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...we still couldn't compete unless we also paid our workers less per day than it costs to buy a hamburger at McDonald's.

Exactly.

Dunno how often you read the forums, but there are people in here who blame the cost of minimum wage for our woes, and say we should abolish it, because if people want to earn more money, they'll either increase their skills or find a job that pays more. I think I've got that right.

Standby: +1000 good post!

Standby wrote..

Unions are the reason we lost the steel industry and auto industry.

Don't forget the railroads. While air travel and government-subsidized highways played a role, the railroad unions certainly had a lot to do with making rail travel uncompetitive. Which is quite ironic, considering how the greens of today prefer railroads over private automobiles.

/Flick, is that you? Are you "the" Flick? If so, nice to see you.

Hi Rickl.

Standby wrote..

Unfortunately, their demands always come before the product so they eventually pushed our biggest industries overseas. The products just got crappier and crappier so that most of them were on the way out by 1970 and then gone by 1980. They had to sell or merge or just stop doing business.

Horse**** from another Propagandist for Crony Capitalism, Off-shoring and Serfdom.

Workers don't define the specifications, or make choices about the quality of materials procured for producing a product, or have responsibility for maintaining quality control of a product; this is the providence of Management.

If the products got crappier and crappier and the Workers weren't getting pay raises but the Management and Shareholders were; -then what was really happening is that the managers and Shareholders were denuding the Product of Value and blaming the Workers.
One reason to do that is that it makes a good narrative for the Executives implementing Off-shoring plans when they are pitching to dumb-****s.

They did not have to stop production or merge.
If You actually look at mergers and acquisitions You will discover that the Reagan Era was when the GREED began to go into overdrive and M&A was done so that Companies could be asset stripped and laden with enormous amounts of debt as their manufacturing was bundled off to foreign shores to use cheap labor and regulatory conditions to make up for the plundered value and help to pay the crazy debt loads.

Why do you labor? That's a good question for our school fundraisers. Long story short due to an IA law, proceeds from school fund raisers can no longer be credited to individual accounts or expenses (unless the event takes place outside the school year). The proceeds instead must be credited to the group as a whole. An example is that in the past, each band member had to either pay or fund raise $100 to pay for their travel expense. Due to the same law, the school can no longer charge students to participate in school sponsored events. In the past, the kids were offered several opportunities to fund raise enough to cover the cost usually selling some items such as cookie dough or frozen food. Now, the kids can still fund raise, but all the proceeds have to go to the organization and we aren't allowed to keep individual accounts. Not that I'm a fan of fund raising but what's the incentive to any kid to go out and sell anything? How do you think that is going to turn out? I predict no more individual fund raising and it will all have to be group events such as car washes and meals.

Teach them communism young I say. No reward for a job well done, share your extra with the class.

Everyone should go back and read all of 2b|!2b:? posts.

He has nailed every leftist/union talking point in his long and tiresome screeds.

Thanks for being their comrade. :eyeroll:

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Workers don't define the specifications, or make choices about the quality of materials procured for producing a product, or have responsibility for maintaining quality control of a product; this is the providence of Management.

No matter what the specifications call for, how high the quality of the materials is, or how hard management tries to do QC, it is impossible to consistently produce high quality products if the workers don't want to. There are an almost infinite number of ways the workers can sabotage product quality if they are so inclined.

-Uwe-

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Workers don't define the specifications, or make choices about the quality of materials procured for producing a product, or have responsibility for maintaining quality control of a product; this is the providence of Management.

Don't blame the workers, and don't blame management. The management has no choice but to cut features and quality, because the management is trying to compete on cost basis against foreign imports that were produced with virtual slave labor in environmentally destructive factories.

Free enterprise, no matter how innovative or motivated, CANNOT COMPETE AGAINST SLAVE LABOR. That's really the root of all our problems. We actually fought a Civil War because of this, back in the day. But nowadays, that old backbone is long since sold down the river.

We have allowed slave labor to compete against us, by dropping tariffs and imagining that somehow magically there would be trade parity. THERE IS NO TRADE PARITY. We are collectively bleeding our wealth out like a stuck pig -- exchanging it for expendables imported from other countries, while exporting less and less in return, and producing less and less wealth internally.

We've been completely screwed over by the free trade ideologues. I just can't help but wonder, WHEN this country will FINALLY wake up and smell its own decaying corpse...

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Workers don't define the specifications, or make choices about the quality of materials procured for producing a product, or have responsibility for maintaining quality control of a product; this is the providence of Management.


No matter what the specifications call for, how high the quality of the materials is, or how hard management tries to do QC, it is impossible to consistently produce high quality products if the workers don't want to. There are an almost infinite number of ways the workers can sabotage product quality if they are so inclined.

Actually - increased cost of Union labor causes OTHER product specs to become cheaper. This happens beacuse the level of profit margin stays relatively the same OR at least every single corporation does everything it can do TO make the profit margin stay the same OR increase. THUS - when UNION labor costs a whole lot more other costs to making the widgets goes down and thus quality goes down a lot of the time. HENCE, decrease labor costs which are usually ~70% of total coasts, via recent past & current off-shore-outsourcing - increases profit margins greatly. THUS the major push to offshore-outsourcing.

BIG question - WHY DON'T UNIONS BECOME INTERNATIONAL?!?!?!?! This would help eliminate the wage-abitrage. It also would truly HELP LABOR across the GLOBE! INSTEAD UNIONS just ask for more benefits in the Western Developed World locations. IF Labor costs were similar world-wide THEN QUALITY becomes the major selling point not price! IF the Polish Union "SOLIDARITY" can happen with Lech Walesa(sp?) why NOT in CHINA? or INDIA? or MEXICO? or South America? or Middle East? or AFRICA? or any other Third-World continent or country?

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IF the Polish Union "SOLIDARITY" can happen with Lech Walesa(sp?) why NOT in CHINA? or INDIA? or MEXICO? or South America? or Middle East? or AFRICA? or any other Third-World continent or country?

Because in those countries unemployment and poverty are so sky-high, that people are overjoyed just to have a job -- any job, at any level of compensation. They are not about to go on strike, or form unions. And that's beside the fact that in most of those countries, unionization is illegal -- so any attempt to form a union would be brutally repressed via police and military means. Which means it would take some real motivation and perseverance, to stand up such a level of resistance that the entire system is forced to change. I'm talking Gandhi-level movement. It's not impossible, but very difficult to get off the ground, particularly when people are utterly demoralized.

Moreover, unless the movement is truly global, unionizing one third-world country to the exclusion of all others, will only end up damaging that country: employers will simply move to other third-world countries, leaving this one with even fewer jobs.

That's why the only real solution here, is to abolish the WTO and in its place establish a global tariff-based trade-balancing scheme. The tariffs should be predicated on the difference in minimum working wage, and the quality of environmental regulations, between the country where a given product (or product part) was made vs. the country importing the product. For products assembled from variously-sourced parts, the total tariff should be a sum of tariffs for all the individual parts, plus tariff on the assembly facility.

In this way, and ONLY in this way, can trade parity be achieved in practice. Then we can indeed start to compete on the basis of quality and innovation, rather than a race to the bottom in terms of living standards.

So in case it's not clear, yes, I'm arguing for PROTECTIONISM. The "free trade" experiment has run its course, and is manifestly an abject and ruinous failure for the developed world (though the developing world has obviously benefited tremendously from absorbing all the industries that formerly belonged to us.) The sooner this is recognized, the better; until then, we're living up to Einstein's definition of insanity.

Interesting 2b2b just created his own argument for eliminating unions in the USA!

2b2b wrote..

Because in those countries unemployment and poverty are so sky-high, that people are overjoyed just to have a job -- any job, at any level of compensation. They are not about to go on strike, or form unions. And that's beside the fact that in most of those countries, unionization is illegal -- so any attempt to form a union would be brutally repressed via police and military means. Which means it would take some real motivation and perseverance, to stand up such a level of resistance that the entire system is forced to change. I'm talking Gandhi-level movement. It's not impossible, but very difficult to get off the ground, particularly when people are utterly demoralized.

Moreover, unless the movement is truly global, unionizing one third-world country to the exclusion of all others, will only end up damaging that country: employers will simply move to other third-world countries, leaving this one with even fewer jobs.

Obviously - with the above argument - UNIONS in the Western World are now useless. They should be eliminated here in the USA and the rest of the Western World! The ONLY way UNIONS work in the modern world & into the future for GOOD is by being GLOBAL! If they can't be GLOBAL then they should be eliminated! So, we are all in agreement that UNIONS are bad for the USA currently & in the future and should be dissolved immediately!

I'm all for the wage arbitrage idea BUT if we could have INTERNATIONAL Unions then that would work just as well since labor costs would then become equivalent world-wide.

Funny how 2b|!2b:? hasn't answered my question about him being a union shill.

FWIW - I was once a union steward.

Kwl88 wrote..

Interesting 2b2b just created his own argument for eliminating unions in the USA!

Let's think what positive change will occur as we eliminate unions in the USA.

... thinking ...

Got it! The answer is, none.

The fundamental facts of wage and environmental arbitrage remain, and they will continue to destroy our collective prosperity until we equalize with the Third World in terms of working wages and living standards. Do you want to live in a third-world nation?

On the other hand, if appropriate tariffs are put in place (which is the REAL solution), then American worker unions cease to be a problem. Indeed, the primary utility of unions is that they function as a check and balance on the otherwise natural tendency to usurp the wealth of any company toward upper management and investors, instead of the people who actually produce that wealth. If you want high levels of production, you need to actually reward production -- that means, rewarding the employees. That's where unions come in. Without unions, the wealth gap will continue to widen, and as a direct consequence overall consumption and therefore demand will continue to fall -- which is the definition of a deflationary spiral.

Well well well.

I agree that the wage arbitrage must end.

But I suspect for a different reason than that of a union shill.

Wis/min wrote..

Funny how 2b|!2b:? hasn't answered my question about him being a union shill.

As a software engineer in the private sector, I've never belonged to a union, nor am I likely to join one any time soon: I am in an industry that does not have any unions, period. It's also an industry (just another one of many) that is severely impacted by ongoing wage arbitrage and off-shoring.

I apologize for getting it wrong sir.

You have made many arguments from a union perspective.

Wis/min wrote..

You have made many arguments from a union perspective.

I do not argue from any perspective, other than my own. I base my arguments on my understanding of the economy, and the facts on the ground. I'll grant the possibility that I may be wrong on the facts or on understanding. If so, show me where I'm wrong.

But deflecting arguments by assignment to a group, is argumentum ad hominem plain and simple -- and in my book, a sign of intellectual bankruptcy.

I only find it odd that your arguments could all have been made by a union organizer.

IMHO unions are what killed the auto industry in this country.

That along with lousy management and designs for decades.

Anybody know where I can join a union? My working conditions are terrible!

Wis/min wrote..

I only find it odd that your arguments could all have been made by a union organizer.

Implying by this, that no argument made by a union organizer could possibly be correct?

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IMHO unions are what killed the auto industry in this country.

That along with lousy management and designs for decades.

What really started the demise of the auto industry in this country, is cheap Japanese imports. The "tin cans" of '70s and '80s. American auto industry couldn't compete with that on cost basis, so had to drop the quality of its product. In fact, it had to drop quality LOWER than the imports, because costs of labor and living in this country are higher, and because workers here refuse to labor under Gulag-like conditions imposed at the time on Japanese workers (and imposed today on Chinese workers.) So costs had to be cut to the bone, and without any meat left on the skeleton, the organism can no longer function.

You can't blame the unions for the fact that costs of labor and living are lesser in other countries: it's because other countries are not as prosperous as we are. The only way to bring our costs of labor and living in line with other countries, is to drop our prosperity to match theirs. If that's what you want, then you are a domestic enemy of your own country. However, whether this is your deliberate and conscious agenda or not, the policies you champion have indeed had the long-predicted and -measured effect of destroying the wealth of our nation.

Unions make convenient scapegoats for the billionaires who are naturally at odds with union agendas, and yet who at the same time actually champion and directly benefit from the very policies that put the rest of us in the poor house. Follow the money.

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Anybody know where I can join a union? My working conditions are terrible!

Get a job with government.