Labor Unions

[Londo_Jowo]

We have OSHA and similar BECAUSE of unions, and we have get-out-the-vote campaigns that stop the Mitt Romneys of the world from revoking OSHA, equal pay for equal work, and other union-won laws BECAUSE of unions today. They're an absolutely vital counterpoint to the massive power of the 1% who own 40% of America.

Funny how the Mitt Romneys (corporate leadership) of the world are placing restraints on businesses that don't meet certain safety standards. If your company doesn't have a TRIR of less than 0.50 you can't provide services/service personnel in many refineries and chemical plants.

http://www.six-sigma-material.com/Health-and-Safety.html
Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR)

 

[desura]

Makes sense on paper, but often doesn't work that way in reality.


Walmart is bankrupt, then?

I actually posted a thread in OT about how lousy I'm finding Walmart recently, and how that might be a good reason to short Walmart stock.

Walmart is getting by, obviously, but their reputation for being jerks does harm them in hiring good employees. They do lose business this way.

But besides Walmart, Costco and Whole Foods are doing well and they pay their employees decently. My OP is saying that Costco and Whole Foods are essentially the same as unions in the retail space compared to Walmart.

Maybe unions were necessary when entire sectors of the US economy were dominated by one or a handful of player. It might explain public sector unionism

 

[Moonbeam]

So I was talking to an old timer the other day. He used to work at a glass-blower factory.

He said that when he got up to management, what he saw was that management and the labor union rep would take a look at the worker complaints and then decide which ones the union would win and which ones the company would win.

In other words, at that company, union conflict became some sort of mirage that management and the union foisted on the workers. It seems to me that unions often are justified in their creation stories, but then they justify their existence as long as they can even when the crisis has passed.

Theoretically, unions shouldn't be necessary, no? For instance, in the retail space, one business model could be the Costco model of high pay for workers, vs the Walmart model of low pay for workers, and then see which company succeeds. There shouldn't be a need to unionize either store and have workers fight against management.

This is a false way to judge. Assume that the Costco model is a healthy one the builds the economy and the Walmart model is parasitic. The parasite will be able to parasitize so long as the economy doesn't completely collapse. The community notion that high wages promote self interest as a business by creating a population that can afford to buy things vs. a pure profit for owners and shareholders now in the present must be understood by the general population before a potential collapse. If the parasite is really destruction to society generally, no matter the few it enriches, it must be prevented from applying it's parasitic model. Profit as the only motivation may cause societies to die. So what we want to know is the truth but find it in a way that doesn't kill us as part of the test. Maybe game theory and computer modeling can answer that if not pure intuition.

 

[nightspydk]

Just recently I watched about them 33$ security gurads the us hired in Iraq and they went home some of them without any labor union representation with scars for life. Is that what you want?

PS - They where from Peru.

 

[unokitty]

So I was talking to an old timer the other day. He used to work at a glass-blower factory.

He said that when he got up to management, what he saw was that management and the labor union rep would take a look at the worker complaints and then decide which ones the union would win and which ones the company would win.

In other words, at that company, union conflict became some sort of mirage that management and the union foisted on the workers. It seems to me that unions often are justified in their creation stories, but then they justify their existence as long as they can even when the crisis has passed.

Theoretically, unions shouldn't be necessary, no? For instance, in the retail space, one business model could be the Costco model of high pay for workers, vs the Walmart model of low pay for workers, and then see which company succeeds. There shouldn't be a need to unionize either store and have workers fight against management.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1210985


Only a sample size of one. But the perspective that I developed while carrying a Teamsters card indicates that Mr. Hoffer was correct.

Times change. Teamsters didn't. I don't miss them.

Uno

 

[werepossum]

So I was talking to an old timer the other day. He used to work at a glass-blower factory.

He said that when he got up to management, what he saw was that management and the labor union rep would take a look at the worker complaints and then decide which ones the union would win and which ones the company would win.

In other words, at that company, union conflict became some sort of mirage that management and the union foisted on the workers. It seems to me that unions often are justified in their creation stories, but then they justify their existence as long as they can even when the crisis has passed.

Theoretically, unions shouldn't be necessary, no? For instance, in the retail space, one business model could be the Costco model of high pay for workers, vs the Walmart model of low pay for workers, and then see which company succeeds. There shouldn't be a need to unionize either store and have workers fight against management.

I really don't see the problem here. Certainly not all worker complaints are valid. Essentially, management and the labor representative decide which complaints are valid behind closed doors, which allows the labor representative to present a united front of supporting all worker complaints, no matter how stupid, without bringing the company to the point of breaking the union. Everybody wins, except people who make stupid complaints. I literally know a guy who sued his employer for failing to provide a safe workplace because a wasp flew in the window of his employer-provided truck on his way home and stung him. Should he win that suite?

As far as whether unions are still needed, one must first break out trade unions and labor unions. Trade unions can bring value to the party by mandating training and safety rules that benefit the members, but also benefit the end users by preserving quality of work and benefit society by discouraging preventable deaths. Labor unions are tricker, but unskilled and semi-skilled labor generally has very little power compared to the employer. Unless government steps in to empower labor unions with unwarranted power, they have only the added power of forcing the employer to replace them all at the same time - this drives up wages and costs, but is inherently limited by competition. As we saw with Hostess and many other companies, if the union gets too powerful, demanding, and unreasonable, the company will fail and its place in the marketplace will be filled by competitors. Unless there is some unbalancing factor such as governmental action, labor unions probably provide a net positive effect. Only where there is little or no inherent adversarial relationship between management and labor, such as government unions, is real damage done to the economy and society as a whole.