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"Corporate America would be very happy to have us living in slums and our children wearing rags in the winter snows. History has proven that from the founding of the union movement when union founders were targeted for murder by the auto and mining companies."

Oh yeah, those evil corporations that only are propped up by that evil capatilist economic system. They are only out to make money off the backs of the little guy and steal the little guys money. Yeah, the owners of these evil corporations would love to see us all so poor that we would not be able to afford their products so they could join us in the poor house!

The inception must have been necessary, I mean it wasn't like the auto workers were being paid a great wage that attracted many people. It's not like it was the first industry that paid $5 a day. It wasn't as if Henry wanted to make sure that his product was affordable to his own workers.

"What confounds me about union issues on FR is the frequent claim that union workers are over paid. At what point is a person over paid? Is it when someone makes more per hour than the person posting; is it when a lineman makes twenty four dollars an hour or is it when Michael Isner makes over two hundred million dollars in a year?"

A person is overpaid when the market is held hostage and free competition is not allowed. The market would not bear paying a person $24 to start for turning a screw. The difference in the two positions you use as an example is that Disney is free to hire anyone they would like for less than two hundred million a year, but the union member can not be replaced for someone at less than $24 an hour.

How do you determine the value of labor? I define it by the fruit produced. In other words, the most productive labor is the most valuable labor. The productivity of labor is determined by it's ability to use all tools, capitol and technologies most efficiently. The value of labor only changes when some other advance is allowed to increase its output. The value of labor has only increased because of inventive individuals and other individual willing to invest their money in those investments. Imagine, how much steel could a blacksmith produce in the colonial days and compare that with the current output of a smelter. The labor didn't change to become efficient, the technology did.

Unions fight efficiency, therefore inherintly they bring harm to the value of labor, yet they are allowed to hold the producers hostage and receive blackmail payments in the form of falsly inflated wages.

"Unions fight efficiency, therefore inherintly they bring harm to the value of labor, yet they are allowed to hold the producers hostage and receive blackmail payments in the form of falsly inflated wages."
Bull s*%t smell better than this claim. Replacement workers are fully able to be called in during a strike or the more likely occurrence, a lock out.
In the matter of Disney, it is clear with the current manner in which BOAs are constituted that a CEO is insulated from nearly everything except criminal action or gross malfeacanse.
Your example of Ford motor company is partially correct. Henry did as you said only after attempts on Walter Ruther's life. Attacks upon Ruther and union members by private detectives and local police as well as state police and Nation Guardsmen.
I think Henry did indeed show business genius after the fact and after the loss innocent life.
I think you are experiencing crano-rectal inversion if you think I am against the American Captalist system. I ain't perfect but it is the best system ever devised. I am against kicking the fetters off of business so that it is free to do as it wishes without concern for national and societal repercussions.