Posted on 08/06/2010 8:27:25 AM PDT by NetRight Nation
Under your example, why would anyone take that job? People have the ability to vote with their feet. Some other farmer would offer a better job and squash his competition. A labor union isn’t needed to correct that problem.
Article One, Section 10, Paragraph 1:
Section 10.
[1] No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
Ax yourself: why in the world would teachers need to be unionized? What it is about their jobs, their workplaces, their work environments that require them to COLLECTIVELY bargain with management?
What in the world?
What Howie said.
Good question.
Unions love to paint the picture that they are the only thing standing between the worker and Armageddon. But their side of the story is the only one being told in most of our left-wing media.
Having spend 11 of my working years in a closed-shop union position, I can say with honesty that the union itself was a major obstacle for employers, and not for the benefit of productive workers. They continually stood behind the deadbeats and lazy, while mocking the productive workers (”you’re killing the job, man”). They insisted that everybody should earn the same money, regardless of their value to the employer or to the customer.
They tried to use gang-style intimidation to get more money for less work, regardless of the outcome for the company. And if the union “leadership” didn’t like a supervisor or manager, they instructed union members to “go after” that person, filing countless nuisance grievances and slowing productivity deliberately to make that manager look bad.
The union was a thorn in my side, and I, being the bullheaded type, chose to be a thorn in their side as well. I can count a couple of instances where things got physical between me and a union “brother” or two. Fortunately, I had many more friends than enemies and the union could never get a full gang-style movement against me.
The highlight of my union years when when I ran for steward for the sole purpose of antagonizing the vice president of the union with whom I worked at the time. I had quite an ad campaign, and might have won if I hadn’t backed down near election day. I didn’t want the position, and I ultimately voted for someone else, but it was fun getting his feathers in a bunch. Oh, my motto was “It’s time for a change”. Seems that change approach is sometimes successful.
Unions are communism.
[1] No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility
This is a prohibition from States doing so. Not Congress.
Wow, presser from union HQ with all the usual arguments in absurdity.
Unions were not necessary to the development of child labor laws. Cultural evolution was. That is all.
The only reason for labor unions is/was to promote socialism/communism!
The industrial revolution did not create horrid working conditions, did not create rapacious owners, nor did it create child labor. It simply brought those same practices from the country to the newly created cities.
Unions did NOT improve anything. It was the increase in wealth, from greater productivity, which allowed a politically stronger middle class to form, allowed greater leisure and choice, more opportunities for education, and allowed the creation of the concept of “childhood” (invented by the Victorians)
Are you really that ignorant?
People took jobs like that because there were no other jobs to be taken. Where else would they get work? There were no other farmers. There was no competition.
You know those anti-monopoly laws? They weren’t around when the Unions started.
Good point. Unions are indeed communism. The free market corrects problems. Unions seek to institutionalize the problems under the auspices of creating fairness. This has never worked.
I’m not going to argue that their were poor working conditions at points in our history. But we assume that unions were the only correction available for these conditions. What happened to letting the free market fix this?
We can now see that the unions were in it for themselves, just as they alleged the companies were.
I was thinking of coal mines too. You’d have to be an ideologue not to sympathize with coal miners around 1900. Mine companies had an indifference to safety, they short counted the coal mined, and ran a retail monopoly with compulsory company stores. It was like feudalism.
“we can work on dumping some of those pesky child labor laws.”
They should never have been enacted!!
I ignored them and worked illegally ,BY CHOICE, but was smart enough to keep my mouth shut so they couldn’t stop me!!!
There is no such thing as a job too dangerous because of age!
Find the section that authorizes congress to do so. Congress has only the ennumerated powers.
The states, on the other hand, have the power to do all but what they are prohibited to do.
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Capitalism works great when there is fairness in the marketplace. A level playing field where the law is impartial and everybody has the opportunity to succeed or fail.
We are not talking about a time period where that concept even existed.
In many cases, there was de facto slavery of workers, sometimes for generations. Being paid with company scrip, being forced to work hours without pay, being forced to live on company ground with armed company guards to enforce company rules. Sound like a situation that you can just walk away from?
Some of those "pesky" child labor laws are just that - pesky. Children need to learn a work ethic, but in today's society, they cannot.
When was the last time you've seen a paper boy or paper girl? It was common when I was a kid, and I had a successful paper route for 4 years. But today, it's illegal in some places due to these child labor laws.
I don't disagree that we don't need children working in factories for $4 per hour, displacing adults in the same positions. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with apprenticing a 14-year old to assist in some of these jobs so that they can actually learn the value of money and labor, and so that they can learn how to do something useful. They won't get that vocational training in today's government education system.
Thank you for the lovely family photo, Commissar!
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The original assertion was that the Constitution prohibited it. I just wanted to know where I had missed that specific prohibition.
The 14th amendment does outlaw slavery and child labor during the turn of the 20th century was slavery.
Article One is a tough read, with much accomplished in each lengthy sentence.
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I wouldn't agree with that either. I strongly disagree with the concept of the "closed-shop" union, where membership is mandatory for holding a given position. Such is the case at Ford, GM, Chrysler, and numerous other places. The USW had its lock on the steel industry for decades, before foreign competition busted that monopoly. Electric utility workers are generally bound to be union members in many places - if you want to work as an electrician or lineman, you have to be a member of the IBEW or UWUA.
Closed shops are even law in some states.
What we need is a national "right to work" law that outlaws closed-shop union contracts, and allows people the freedom of association as outlined in the constitution. That is, people should be free to associate as they see fit, and to join a union or NOT join a union as they see fit. It's time for the union monopoly to finally be busted.
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