Pro-Union Is Not Pro-Worker

American Thinker ^ | October 20, 2011 | Frank Ryan

[OwenKellogg]

A recurring theme from the current administration is that to be pro-organized labor is to be pro-worker. Concurrently, the administration has consistently refuted that it is using class warfare as a theme. A comment from Vice President Biden in March 2011 summed it up when he stated, "We don't see the value of collective bargaining; we see the absolute positive necessity of collective bargaining. Let's get something straight: the only people who have the capacity -- organizational capacity and muscle -- to keep, as they say, the barbarians from the gate, is organized labor. And make no mistake about it: the guys on the other team get it. They know if they cripple labor, the gate is open, man. The gate is wide open. And we know that, too." For Joe Biden to incorrectly and belligerently suggest that being pro-union means being pro-worker is pure flawed logic. He obviously has never worked as a supplier to a large union company or worked as an employee in a company supplying a union company. In my experiences helping groups avoid bankruptcy, the tier-1 and tier-2 suppliers to the auto industry and their employees, many of whom are UAW members as well, have suffered horribly at the hands of the big three (GM, Chrysler, and Ford) and the big one (the UAW).

...

The most recent labor negotiation with the UAW is concerning because of the impact it will have on workers at the suppliers to the big 3 or to the car buyers if prices are raised to pay for this contract. After a taxpayer-funded bailout and substantial write-off of debt by GM and Chrysler, the auto company employees will reap bonuses and benefits unheard of in the rest of America in this current economic climate. Class warfare at its finest!

[OwenKellogg]

" The sheer arrogance and abuse of power by the industry and its union reminds me of someone silly enough to fly to Washington, D.C. in a private jet to ask for a bailout -- not that anyone would be silly enough to do that."

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Frank Ryan, CPA specializes in corporate restructuring and lectures on ethics and corporate governance for National and State CPA Associations. He is on the boards of numerous non-profit and publicly traded companies.

Frank Ryan is also a retired Colonel from the USMC reserve

[Colonel Kangaroo]

And anti-union is not anti-worker. I think our side needs to be careful to emphasize that. But sometimes our side, in its understandable efforts to counter the leftist line that capitalists aren't productive, sometimes downplays the contribution of the wage workers. I cringe when I hear statements like the capitalist class are THE wealth producers as if they are the ONLY wealth producers. Workers need the capitalist, investing class, but the investors need the workers. Class warfare is invalid in both directions.

[OwenKellogg]

Class warfare is invalid in both directions.

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Great point, Colonel.

[algernonpj]

Unions came about because, human nature being what it is, there were owners and management that abused workers. Even Henry Hazlitt in Chapter XX of Economics in One Lesson states that unions can serve a useful and legitimate function.

Unfortunately unions have morphed from serving a useful and legitimate function into entities that ensure the good life for union upper management.

[Buckeye McFrog]

How true, how true.

My wife has a friend who spent 18 yrs. working in a unionized grocery store. She never made more than a quarter or so above the minimum wage. But the union thoughtfully helped itself to $40 dues out of every paycheck. The union contract provided for full employer paid health insurance, which precisely TWO out of 80 employees qualified for. (the rest were all considered “part time” because they did not work more than 36 hrs. on a consistent basis)

Oh, and the contract was a revision of a revision of one first written when Pennsylvania still had blue laws and the store was closed on Sunday. So for all practical purposes it was as if Sunday did not exist on the work schedule. So they could schedule you 32 hours during the week, and another 8 every Sunday, and still technically remain below the 36 hrs. required to qualify for benefits.

Oh, and the owner went broke and closed the store 2 yrs. before she qualified for a pension. The union did diddly-squat to find her a gig in another union shop to get her final 2 yrs. in. She is now working in a non-union retail job and living upstairs of a pizza shop.

[NoLibZone]

Unions are corporations.

And corporations are evil!