Posted on 01/26/2015 7:12:55 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
New information from the federal government suggests workers’ interest in unions continues to fall, with union membership reaching its lowest rate in 100 years.
According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, the union membership rate fell to 11.1 percent, with just 14.6 million wage and salaried workers maintaining membership.
In 2013, the union membership rate was 0.2 percentage points higher, at 11.3 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
1. There is nothing wrong with private unions working with private companies (except when they get unlawful obama bailouts)
2. There is everything wrong with public unions that are bankrupting nearly every city/county/state they infest.
And FYI:
Economic News Release
Union Members Summary - January 23, 2015 - http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
Highlights from the 2014 data:
—Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (35.7 percent), more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.6 percent).
How many union members are there in the manufacturing sector of the economy?
GloBULLists supposedly off shored to “fight” unions when in fact the factory jobs sent to Asia were 85% non-union. What a sham.
You are mistaken. There is EVERYTHING wrong with private sector unions. They exist only through government force and exist to take money from humans who have earned it and give it to democrat pols and workers who have not earned it. Read on...
I’m distressed by the fact that the emerging narrative on unions, (even among conservatives, and this is horrifying for what it means for the future of the country) seems to run like this,
“Public sector unions are REALLY bad. There are some bad things in private sector unions, too, but they aren’t pure evil like public sector unions. Private sector unions, especially at the turn of the century, were actually pretty good.”
This is pure BS! It is very, very, very scary when, even here on FR for Pete’s sake, people do not recognize the following two things:
Unions can ONLY!!!! exist because of government force applied selectively against private property owners (evil rich people),
ALL UNIONS REPRESENT GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED THEFT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY FOR THE PURPOSE OF BUYING DEMOCRAT VOTES.
I expect ignorance of this fact elsewhere, but here on FR??????????????????????
Here’s how the purely evil, anti-American, communistic, welfare-begging private sector unions work…..
I set up a business, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY (my capital and/or cash money).
I pay for the space, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay the taxes using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I supply the parts and inventory, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay for the insurance, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay the labor, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I recruit, hire, and advertise, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Oftentimes an entire life’s savings (MY PRIVATE PROPERTY) is at stake.
My future, my standing in the community, my credit, and MY PRIVATE PROPERTY are all at stake.
If I fail, I stand a good chance of being economically crippled for life.
One day, on MY PRIVATE PROPERTY that I own and acquired using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, one of my employees, who is only in my presence because of the risk of MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, comes to me and says, “Here’s the story, Bub. From this moment forward I am going to begin organizing YOUR OTHER EMPLOYEES, to work AGAINST YOUR PRIVATE INTERESTS and do everything in our power to TAKE BY FORCE AS MUCH OF YOUR PRIVATE PROPERTY AS WE CAN GET OUR HANDS ON. We are going to spend a great deal of time and effort ORGANIZING AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO GROW STRONGER AT YOUR EXPENSE, IN ORDER TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. You might as well have your business competitors working here on the shop floor. If you do not agree to our demands, we will go on strike, make your life miserable, harass and threaten and/or MURDER IN COLD BLOOD anybody you may want to hire in our place.”
Now the one and ONLY way that such a thing could EVER take place is for the government to step in and say, “Mr. Employer (rich, white, capitalist, male), if you fire this union man, you are going to jail.”
Plainly and simply, no union could ever exist in a free society. Yes, in a free society, you should be able to form and join a union of any type at any time for any purpose whatsoever. AND YOUR EMPLOYER SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIRE YOUR HAPPY ASS IN A HEARTBEAT FOR DOING SO.
FREEDOM IS A TWO WAY STREET.
I find this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Truly. A man strolls onto the PRIVATE PROPERTY of another man and tells him how he will employ his PRIVATE PROPERTY going forward, OR ELSE!, and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people the world over think that the first man is not only somehow better than sub-human filth, they actually see him as a hero! To me, this is one of the most perverse and mystifying examples of twisted human thinking the world has ever seen. I can’t say it enough; you come onto my PRIVATE PROPERTY, and bargain with me, using the THREAT OF GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED FORCE, about how much of my PRIVATE PROPERTY you will allow me to keep! And this is somehow acceptable?
As I say, even conservatives, (who have escaped the liberal brainwashing that begins when we are still in the womb on guns, race, US history, etc., etc., and do not subscribe to the easy notions that are so readily picked up by the unthinking) seem to fall for this trap. Seem to believe that…
“The work place is filled with mean managers and mean bosses who were/are really mean to kids and women and workers and paid them pennies instead of the legitimate millions that they were REALLY worth, making evil white male capitalists even richer, and they enslaved them and coerced them and made them work real hard and were really, really mean. THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the government stepping in and saving women and children from mean bosses and really mean white capitalist men.”
Needless to say, each and every single word of that narrative is as totally false and ridiculous as the liberal narrative on US history, or bad guns, or evil white men. If you know people who believe that stuff, you cannot help them. DO NOT waste your breath on them, DO NOT do their research for them; have them read Sowell or Williams or von Hayek, or von Mises, or Friedman, or even Stossel when they write of “sweatshops” either in today’s 3rd world or in America at the turn of the century.
According g to BLS manufacturing union participation is about 10.5%.
Freedom of association.
If workers want to associate together - that is their right.
They also own their own labor - that is THEIR PRIVATE PROPERTY.
It is very much a two way street in the private sector.
-——How many union members are there in the manufacturing sector-——
It is my experience traveling around that the remaining industries with union workers are the large, forbes 400 types with facilities dispersed widely. Down south, the union plants don’t seem to be a great deal different than non union. The unions are not militant and there is not the animosity there might have been. There is not the former union take over of all bulletin boards and blatant propaganda.
It is also my observation that the bathrooms of union shops are less clean and even trashed.
In large measure, the manufacturing unions have learned to keep a low profile
This is my finding as a result of lots a observation but might be totally wrong
You are VERY confused about freedom of association. VERY CONFUSED. Yes, workers may associate with other workers all they want.
THE PERSON WHO OWNS THE WORKSPACE ALSO HAS FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION, AND MAY FIRE WORKERS WHO DISPLEASE HIM BY FORMING A UNION TO WORK AGAINST HIS INTEREST.
And yet, unions still siphon MILLION$ from their members and give to Democrat pols. One reason why all need to work toward establishing Right to Work laws in their respective states. And Republican pols need to wake up to the fact that union bosses will NEVER be their friends. Never. Smiling faces tell lies.
Just means they are REALLY going to light a fire under Democrats to do Card Check this time.
Two things need to happen in the USA for the labor unions to grow again, one, the “industrial” unions need to become Conservative Republicans and work in unison with the manufacturing, technical & transportation sectors, etc., protecting their memberships and insuring vigorous growth of private business & enterprise...and, all public service, government unions should be outlawed, across the entire country, with the exception of First Responders, Police, Firemen, EMTs/AMTs, Sanitation Workers, etc. If that does not happen, unions will disapppear, entirely!!!
I’m guessing that the majority of union membership is in the public sector. Outlaw those unions and that communist dinosaur is effectively dead.
You WANT unions to grow? Why?
If unions could “insuring (ENsuring)vigorous growth of private business & enterprise” they would grow spontaneously, be promoted by management, would be ubiquitous, and would be as unnoticed, unremarkable, and as expected as sweat in July.
Why should all those people you list get to form public sector unions? Do you know the argument against public sector unions? How is it that those on your list are exempt from the evils described by the argument against public sector unions?
So they are effectively partners in the success of your business, just as you are a partner in their economic viability. The myth isn't that unions are harmless, it's that they HAVE to be adversarial to management/ownership. At the end of the day, you're both working for the same thing: the rampant success of your business. It does little good for the union to milk the cow dry, even though in their shortsightedness, many have done just that (Detroit anyone?).
A management that treats its employees well needn't fear a collective bargaining unit (a union). But there is little need for one if the workers are treated right without it.
THAT is the 21st century model of labor relations. Not the antiquated We-They mentality promoted by the union activists, who in truth are nothing more than communist frontmen.
NOTHING you say begins to address my point: nobody has a right to form a union on my private property period.
Of course, they “rate some consideration”: a market wage and anything else agreed to in a conversation free of government coercion, and it is only government coercion that allows unions to exist.
I don’t know if unions MUST be adversarial, I only know that they ALWAYS are, and they don’t care about my business; they think I’m rich and I’m stealing from them, and they want to use government force to seize my property. THAT is the UNDENIABLE LONG HISTORY of unions.
ANYBODY has a right to form a union on your private property. The right to free association doesn't stop at your fence.
I agree that you should also have the right to fire anyone who tries to form a union in your shop. And those employees have a right to picket you as a tyrant and a bully.
Your paranoia about government and unions has some basis in fact, but is so over-the-top as to be pathological.
to bad so sad. snicker snicker.
Boo hoo...
You are a very confused man. Let me count the ways of your confusion.
“I wouldn’t work for at gunpoint. And it’s likely that you deserve the people who would.”
This has nothing to do with what we are talking about. If you WANT to talk about working for me, that’s fine, but that’s another conversation.
ANYBODY has a right to form a union on your private property. The right to free association doesn’t stop at your fence.
100% WRONG!!! You clearly do NOT understand what a “right” is, and you do not understand the rights of private property.
On MY PRIVATE PROPERTY you do NOT have the right to free association. PERIOD. If you truly DID have this right, then my retaliating against you would be clearly immoral.
And those employees have a right to picket you as a tyrant and a bully.
Define “picket.” Block access to my private property?
Your paranoia about government and unions has some basis in fact, but is so over-the-top as to be pathological.
Here is where you really go off the rails, Al Franken, and demonstrate that your grasp of history is simply nonexistent.
Unions have given 500 quadrillion dollars to dems in the last 100 years and 10 dollars to republicans. They exist through force and use force and violence to steal money, and they destroy trillion dollar industries. They have been the tools of Moscow and riddles with soviet agents. They are PURE EVIL, THEY EXIST ONLY BY FORCE, AND ALL THEY DO IS STEAL MONEY AND KILL AMERICA AND ELECT AL FRANKEN AND HIS BUDDIES.
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