Thread: Unions vs. Big Government

Many who hate big government also despise unions.

The only recourse the people have against corporate wrongdoing is to increase regulation (create more government) or to unionize.

How can you possibly despise both? What then do you propose as a system of checks and balances?

The Free Market fixes every wrong.


Seriously: The people who claim to be against Big Government are against unions because those people are the GOP in disguise.

Unions have been a traditional democratic base so is it any wonder that these against big Gov. people hate unions?

A union worker is a lazy worker with a sense of entitlement.

A government worker is an even lazier worker with even more entitlement.

As soon as the unions get so weak that healh, safety, child labor, work days/hours/conditions put folks at risk,then I will be a big fan.

Unions are a historical success, and I thank them for what they did centuries ago.

Unions suck.

Government unions should be illegal. Like they were before JFK opened the can of worms.

At least in the private sector the unions pilaging of a company is limited by the companies ability to pay.

Public unions have no such limit. Not only that, a governmennt union is like the employer owning the company and negotiationg with itself. There are NO market forces involved.

It's pure rape and pilliage of the tax payer at the federal, state and local level.

Under Obama, the "stimulus" was nothing but a Trillion dollar payoff to unions. What % of that payoff goes back to the union in the form of dues? What % of those dues go to political contributions. What % of those contributions go to Republicans vs Democrats?

Tax payers are being forced to pay taxes to fuck themselves.

Originally Posted by Core Shot

As soon as the unions get so weak that health, safety, child labor, work days/hours/conditions put folks at risk,then I will be a big fan.

Already happened, you musta missed it.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

Unions suck.
It's pure rape and pilliage of the tax payer at the federal, state and local level.

It's rape and pillage of the average joe by the corporations without any kind of checks and balances in the system. Without gov't regulation, unions provide a very primitive (allbeit typically inneffective) defense mechanism for the average non-CEO.

Point being, you need regulation or unions. You can't bitch about both. Unless all you care about is corporate profits.

You likely hate on minimum wage as well?

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

Under Obama, blah blah blah blah blah.

Playing politics is an easy way to dodge questions. Under Reagan and H.W. Bush taxes were raised. Under W the entire global economy collapsed and we lost more troops than we have since Nam. Look! I can site inane irrelevant shit too!

Yep...min wage blows as well.

Originally Posted by shaft

It's rape and pillage of the average joe by the corporations without any kind of checks and balances in the system. Without gov't regulation, unions provide a very primitive (allbeit typically inneffective) defense mechanism for the average non-CEO.

Point being, you need regulation or unions. You can't bitch about both. Unless all you care about is corporate profits.

You likely hate on minimum wage as well?



Playing politics is an easy way to dodge questions. Under Reagan and H.W. Bush taxes were raised. Under W the entire global economy collapsed and we lost more troops than we have since Nam. Look! I can site inane irrelevant shit too!

Private sector unions suck but they are an agreement between two private entities. If companies like GM want to bankrupt themselves and send all our jobs over seas, that's their choice. That's not my beef.

Public unions.....TOTAL BULLSHIT that should be illegal!!!!

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

If companies like GM want to bankrupt the US economy and send all our jobs over seas, that's their choice. That's not my beef.

Yeah, we don't need jobs here. And I'll be damned if the gov't takes the freedom of GM to send our jobs to India under the guise of insuring American employment over the coming decades!

Unions and governement be damned! Immediate profit margins for a small group of investors are the most important part of the US long-term plan for a sustainable economy!

Unions arose because of the need to protect the employees from the abuse of large monolithic businesses. I think most unions have run their course as far as being worthwhile entities, we really don't have that type of abuse going on anymore and people can find other jobs if they don't like the one they have (for the most part). They may be useful in other parts of the world like China, but not very necessary in USA.

I don't think they replace or mitigate the need for regulation much at all, so regulation is still needed to deal with externalities.

Anyways I agree with DBT, they often make things inefficient and expensive.

Originally Posted by shaft

Yeah, we don't need jobs here. And I'll be damned if the gov't takes the freedom of GM to send our jobs to India under the guise of insuring American employment over the coming decades!

Unions and governement be damned! Immediate profit margins for a small group of investors are the most important part of the US long-term plan for a sustainable economy!

It's not GM costing us jobs. Why would GM take the time and expense of setting up shop half way around the world instead of in Detroit? Really why would they bother? Two reasons. Unions and Government.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

Why would GM take the time and expense of setting up shop half way around the world instead of in Detroit? Really why would they bother? Two reasons. Unions and Government.

Nobody with any credibility is denying that GM has issues with legacy costs but at the same time nobody with any credibility is suggesting that the only reason GM bothers to manufacturers cars oversees is because of unions and the U.S. government.

It's absurd because there are lots of reasons why GM manufactures cars in places like China, Canada, Europe, and Mexico like: protecting itself from currency fluctuations, saving on shipping costs, saving on labor costs apart from the additional costs associated with unions, addressing regional consumers tastes, and the list goes on.

All of the above are also among the reasons why GM, Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes and soon Audi & VW manufacture cars in America.

Unions? I thought this was about Unicorns.

My fault, carry on.

^^^ or stool pigeons...

The UAW has seen a dramatic decline in membership since the 1970s. Membership topped 1.5 million in 1979, falling to 540,000 in 2006. Then the Great Recession hit, with GM and Chrysler going bankrupt. Membership fell to 390,000 active members in 2010, with more than 600,000 retired members covered by pension and medical care plans.

One perception is that the UAW is to be blamed for the automotive industry crisis of 2008-2009. This viewpoint cites union workers' higher wages and more generous benefits compared to those working at non-union Japanese auto plants in the U.S. as one of the primary reasons for the poor competitiveness of the Big Three.

In a November 18, 2008, New York Times editorial, Andrew Ross Sorkin clamed that the average UAW worker was paid $70 per hour, including health and pension costs, while Toyota workers in the US receive $10 to $20 less.[17]

The UAW asserts that most of this labor cost disparity comes from legacy pension and healthcare benefits to retired members, of which the Japanese automakers have none. Nor is it clear that labor costs, which are approximately 10%[18] of a car's total cost, were the decisive factor in the decline of American automakers.

The Big Three already sold their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say.[19]

According to the 2007 GM Annual Report, typical autoworkers earn a base wage of approximately $28 per hour. Following the 2007 National Agreement, the base starting wage was lowered to about $15 per hour.[20] A second-tier wage of $14.50 an hour, which applies only to newly-hired workers, is lower than the average wage in nonunion auto companies in the Deep South.[21]

One of the benefits negotiated by the United Auto Workers was the jobs bank program, under which laid-off members received 95 percent of their take-home pay and benefits. More than 12,000 UAW members were paid this benefit in 2005.[22] In December 2008, the UAW agreed to suspend the program as a concession to help U.S. automakers during the auto industry crisis.[23]

UAW Management granted concessions to its unions in order to win labor peace, a benefit not calculated by the UAW's many critics.[24] The UAW has claimed that the primary cause of the automotive sector's weakness was substantially more expensive fuel costs[25] linked to the 2003-2008 oil crisis which caused customers to turn away from large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickup trucks,[26] the main market of the American "Big Three" (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler). In 2008, the situation became critical because the global financial crisis and the related credit crunch significantly impaired the ability of consumers to purchase automobiles.[27] The Big Three also based their respective market strategies on fuel-inefficient SUVs, and suffered from lower quality perception (vis-a-vis automobiles manufactured by Japanese or European car makers). The Big Three neglected development of passenger cars and instead focused on light trucks (which had better profit margins) in order to offset the considerably higher labor costs, falling considerably behind in these market segments to Japanese and European automakers.[28]

Ha ha....I read the title wrong. I thought it said "unicorns vs. Big Government". I LOVE unicorns. Any horse that flies is cool in my book.

I'm guessing you LOVE the other things unicorns are known for.... rainbows and whatnot...

Rainbows ARE great, that's true...both the trout and the chromatic aberration in the sky. As for whatnot, I've had both good and bad, so it depends.

^^^If u and I met on Gods river thowing Mepps (single hook non barbed) I wonder if we would get along. I think not. But I wonder?

It seems to me that the decline in union membership has been followed by the decline in real wages of working people. Just like the absence of trade and industrial policy has enabled companies to exploit cheap labor at the expense of the US economy. With the decline in wages should have come a decline in lifestyle but instead what happened was a resurgence of credit not seen since the late 1920's. Workers whose wages decline buy on credit to maintain the lifestyle standard they're sold on tv.

Lower wages should mean lower demand in a stable economy but in our economy that's designed to profit the rich, lower wages mean more debt enslavement.

Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/06/la...#ixzz1ioFpmSXK

Originally Posted by Rip'nStick

Unions arose because of the need to protect the employees from the abuse of large monolithic businesses. I think most unions have run their course as far as being worthwhile entities, we really don't have that type of abuse going on anymore and people can find other jobs if they don't like the one they have (for the most part). They may be useful in other parts of the world like China, but not very necessary in USA.

I don't think they replace or mitigate the need for regulation much at all, so regulation is still needed to deal with externalities.

Anyways I agree with DBT, they often make things inefficient and expensive.

I think, perhaps, you have left your logic down the highway somewhere. Perhaps you left it on your car roof. I've done the same...except with my tool bag. You might have luck like I did and find if it you backtrack your path. I'd be remiss not to add that you should be a little more careful with your logic and don't leave it where it might be trampled upon.

Originally Posted by Rip'nStick

we really don't have that type of abuse going on anymore and people can find other jobs if they don't like the one they have (for the most part). They may be useful in other parts of the world like China, but not very necessary in USA.

You totally and rather sophomorically overlook the fact that one of the reasons we don't have that type of Boss Tweed/Taminy Hall abuse anymore is BECAUSE unions gave the workers power and voice to stand up for rights that were being deftly swept under the carpet by their employers. Simply stating that they've run their course does not negate their continued need. It is simple physics...take away a pressure force, and the fluid being thus withheld will tend to expand beyond its previous borders...sometimes becoming a quagmire.

The principle tenet of a corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders...if said profit can be increased by limiting wages and increasing hours, while preventing worker loss by threatening loss of their company-derived portion of their incentive program, then we will see a slippery-slope slide back to the days of Boss Tweed and Taminy Hall.

Originally Posted by Rip'nStick

They may be useful in other parts of the world like China, but not very necessary in USA..

Notice that China has really no working unions whatsoever...they MIGHT have 'unions' that are simply empty facades...but they are farcical at best. In fact, China is well known for putting corporate dissenters in prison for doing nothing more pointing out employment discrepencies. The fact is, the U.S. and England, before the advent of employment unions, nearly mirrored the China of today in terms of worker's rights.

When power and profit is the order of the day then what was once...(the belittlement of the worker)... can once more be.

Originally Posted by Rip'nStick

I don't think they replace or mitigate the need for regulation much at all, so regulation is still needed to deal with externalities.

With that point, I lodge no disagreement whatsover. Although to paint graft, and corruption as mere 'externalities' is to paint them with a brush devoid of depth and empathy.

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Pretty funny that people here consider voter ID to be a poll tax and unacceptable, but have no problem with the requirement in many states that you have to pay a tax to democrats just to be able work in certain trades/industries