Unions What Are They Good For? (Disgusting Vanity)

self | 2/21/2011 | Self

[Little Bill]

I have been following , as we all have , the events in WI.

I find this interestng because a branch of my family helped found the Typographers Union in 1858. We were printers under Licience fron the Crown from about 1640 in Dublin, Anglo-Irish.

The Union was organized to obtain tolerable working conditions in print shops, Money was also a factor.

I was active in seveal unions, as were many of my relitives, until the AFL-CIO drove us out when Meany was Prez

[Ronin]

The problem is not with the idea of unions, per-se, it’s just that they always seem to outlive their usefulness and become parasites.

Almost always, as far as I can tell, the problem begins when a union becomes large enough to need a paid staff. Well, look for clues. Whenever you have people who are paid to “fight” on behalf of union members, you will have people who will not be paid if there is nothing to “fight” for — so they will always find something.

And there it begins. Better working conditions, more time off, better health care packages, more vacation time, higher paid overtime, etc., etc., etc. — and nobody seems to notice the the price of whatever they are producing has to go up to pay for all that, or that fewer people are buying the product because imports are cheaper, until of course the business fails or leaves.

The problem is not unique to unions. Many years ago the NAACP actually did good work. There are any number of charities out there now that spend more than 80% of what they collect in donations on fancy salaries and perks for the staff, leaving just a pittance for the benefit of those the charity is ostensibly supposed to be helping.

[Alberta's Child]

I don't think that's necessarily true at all. In fact, over the years that have been some serious disagreements withint he AFL-CIO about whether organized labor should focus on organization efforts or political lobbying.

Why organized labor, for example, would get into bed with a Democrat Party establishment that is hell-bent on pursuing political goals that adversely affect union members in the long run (I'll cite amnesty for illegal aliens and pro-abortion policies as two in particular) is beyond me.

[CSM]

“Early on Unions were for the workers. I read about the Pullman and Ford strikes in history. Back then they served a purpose. Child labor, kids working in mines, spinning mills.”

I’m not so sure about any of these “needs.” The reality is that each step of the way, the worker (child or miner or miller or whatever) only chose to work in those conditions because it was an improvement to his life. The child would not have left the meager farm for the smoke filled dangerous factory, if it was not a chance for him to provide a better life for himself and his family.

Just look at China today. The starving rice farmers today are migrating by droves to these factories that we call slave labor. Is it better for this farmer to starve on his 1/4 acre rice farm?

We didn’t round up children, miners, millers or whatever by gunpoint (for the most part) and force them to work in these conditions. So people voluntarily entered the workforce and improved their lot in life. If anything, the union involvement stunted the natural progression of things. Either labor is a market and I am allowed to better my own life, or I will be stunted by the union collectivism.

People like to say, “look how the unions brought everyone up” well I say prove it. How much better might things be today if left to the markets. People were already chosing to improve their lives by changing from farming to industry, why would the later generations have not done the same without union involvement?

Now, due to unions we have a generation that will be stepping backwards from their predecessors. Is that the first time in history?

[sbark]

There are bad unions, and then there are abhorent unions-—and those are public Govt employee unions....

There cannot be collective barganing on the table with Govt Unions-—politicians ultimatly want to gain by giving public unions more money.......

the politicians are on the same side of the table as the union reps-———as always follow the money.

The best thing that can be done is for Walker & Christie to bust, totally bust up Govt public employee unions.

[bfree]

How true.

[ez]

Totally agree about unions not being a political action committee. They are in bed with the Democrat Party and the cash passes both ways.

[Let's Roll]

DITTO!

[Chode]

if ya have to ask...

[supercat]

Unions can work to the benefit of workers, and sometimes even companies, when they have no power beyond what workers give them. For example, if a company needs 500 workers, but it treats its workers so poorly that there are only a total of 600 people who would be willing to work there for that compensation, a decision by 101 or more workers that they'd be unwilling to work without a better deal would compel the company to either accept the demands or scale back operations. Note that the workers wouldn't need any government-recognize authority to assert this power--the fact that the company's compensation wasn't sufficient to attract an adequate supply of replacement workers would suffice.

Even if workers are plentiful, a union could work to the benefit of good workers and employers if it restricted membership to quality workers. An employer who wanted the best workmanship on a job might be willing to pay a premium to avoid the risk of hiring an unknown. There'd be a limit to how much of a premium unions could demand, though, as well as to their ability to protect mediocre workers.

IMHO, one of the biggest problems with unions today is that they're sheltered from factors that would otherwise limit their abuses. If a company could replace an entire workforce of union laborers more cheaply than it could comply with the union demands, that should limit the union's demands. Under today's rules, however, it doesn't.