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Killing The Goose (Sowell on Unions)
Creators Syndicate ^ | November 20, 2012 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 11/19/2012 10:51:01 AM PST by jazusamo

Killing the goose that lays the golden egg is one of those old fairy tales for children which has a heavy message that a lot of adults should listen to. The labor unions which have driven the makers of Twinkies into bankruptcy, potentially destroying 18,500 jobs, could have learned a lot from that old children's fairy tale.

Many people think of labor unions as organizations to benefit workers, and think of employers who are opposed to unions as just people who don't want to pay their employees more money. But some employers have made it a point to pay their employees more than the union wages, just to keep them from joining a union.

Why would they do that, if it is just a question of not wanting to pay union wages? The Twinkies bankruptcy is a classic example of costs created by labor unions that are not confined to paychecks.

The work rules imposed in union contracts required the company that makes Twinkies, which also makes Wonder Bread, to deliver these two products to stores in separate trucks. Moreover, truck drivers were not allowed to load either of these products into their trucks. And the people who did load Twinkies into trucks were not allowed to load Wonder Bread, and vice versa.

All of this was obviously intended to create more jobs for the unions' members. But the needless additional costs that these make-work rules created ended up driving the company into bankruptcy, which can cost 18,500 jobs. The union is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Not only are there reasons for employers to pay their workers enough to keep them from joining unions, there are reasons why workers in the private sector have increasingly voted against joining unions...

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: hostess; jcsbthinktank; sowell; thomassowell; unions
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To: re_nortex

You busted a union! I bow in admiration, dude. Good work.

And thanks for the kind words.


21 posted on 11/19/2012 11:51:06 AM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: re_nortex; Doctor 2Brains
IMO, private sector unions are little more than criminal organizations run by the likes of true criminals such as Trumka.

Obama’s NLRB has probably done more for their criminal enterprises than most any other president in the last 60 or 70 years. One more reason that the reelection of Obama will hurt our country tremendously in the future.

22 posted on 11/19/2012 12:02:44 PM PST by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: Doctor 2Brains
You busted a union! I bow in admiration, dude. Good work.

Thank you. Unfortunately, it was just one union that I and a group of Patriots were able to get decertified.

It was my reaction to how the evil forces allied around Big Labor busted an entire region. Western Pennsylvania once was the arsenal of the world, with steel mills and coal mines working 'round the clock. Both employees and employers prospered. Then, inevitably, unionists (under the control of anti-American, anti-growth socialists) killed that goose of prosperity. The alphabet soup regimes of the USWA (Iorwith Wilbur Abel), UMW (Tony Boyle), IBEW ( Gordy Freeman) and numerous others put ridiculous workplace rules as well as obscene salaries and benefits into action. This crippled not only the steel and mining companies but the dependent industries. What remains today of Wheeling, Steubenville, Weirton, Pittsburgh, Johnstown and the entire Mon Valley is a testament to the destructive nature of unions.

23 posted on 11/19/2012 12:10:35 PM PST by re_nortex (DP...that's what I like about Texas.)
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To: jazusamo

There is no “problem” on Earth (some still insist that there were “problems” that unions helped fix) that justifies the creation of these monstrosities that funnel 100 BAZILLION FREAKIN’ DOLLARS TO THE DEMS EVER 10 MINUTES. Dems are in office and they get literally BILLIONS from unions — now THAT’s a PROBLEM!


24 posted on 11/19/2012 12:12:46 PM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: jazusamo; Doctor 2Brains
IMO, private sector unions are little more than criminal organizations run by the likes of true criminals such as Trumka.

That's not merely an opinion, it's an undeniable fact!

We're all in agreement about the nature of unionism and my hope is that this reaches a broader audience of FReepers who may still remain moderate on the issue of Big Labor (as Doctor 2Brains made clear in his post).

The names associated with the labor movement in the past and present constitute a rogue's gallery of evil.

None of them were or are pro-American. Instead they all sought (and most were, unfortunately, successful) to stifle America's economic might through absurd regulation (giving rise to OHSA and the EPA to name but two) and confiscatory wages. La Cosa Nostra has been neutralized for the most part but the far more powerful and richer organized crime consortium known as Big Labor continues to drain our nation of wealth.

25 posted on 11/19/2012 12:23:59 PM PST by re_nortex (DP...that's what I like about Texas.)
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To: Doctor 2Brains
What has ManPower and ADP got to do with unions? I don’t see any connection.

Everything, they are equivalent to what unions would be without monopoly power.

Santa Clara, 14th amendment, civil cases, NRLA, unions = competing corporations???? Smokescreens.

Two brains is inverted. If you had half a brain you would realize the those historic robber barons only existed because of collectivism. They are not and never should have been PRIVATE because they are not equivalent to people, and do not possess unalienable rights of human beings. In fact, that corporations are allotted human rights at all is due to an historical act of monstrous corruption. I don't suppose you'd like to know it was done by a communist lawyer on behalf of progressivist Republicans. That's why I referred to the headnote on Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific. Your hand-waving in reply merely exposes your ignorance. Unions are nothing more than a contract among equals. Where that breaks down is that, as corporations, they are afforded an unqual degree of protection under the NRLA granting them exemption from monopoly laws. That should be changed.

How’s this for a solution — If I am on your private property, your rules apply. Period.

Oh, so I can take your money, rape your wife, and kill you just because you are on my property?

Idiot, you clearly don't have half a brain much less two. You cannot commit murder on your property. You cannot steal my money on your property. You cannot rape my wife on your property. You cannot.

That's what laws are for, as enforced by the people or their agents. People associate to exert power as an unalienable right, as the essence of 'governments instituted among men.' Liberty is expressed individually, but it is enforced collectively. Deal with it.

26 posted on 11/19/2012 12:26:27 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
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To: Carry_Okie

You’re an idiot liberal. Deal with it.


27 posted on 11/19/2012 12:43:50 PM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: jazusamo

Unions are like fire. A very useful servent, a very dangerous master.

And the bigger they get, the harder it is to control.


28 posted on 11/19/2012 1:07:56 PM PST by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: Doctor 2Brains
You’re an idiot liberal.

Oooo... aren't you smart! Can't think outside the Hegelian box the socialists made for you.

I'm no liberal. I never said I opposed right to work laws. I don't. It's you who's the collectivist here: You want the public to protect collectivized investments with minimized accountability, while refusing workers the very same right to a free association no different than among stockholders. You want to socialize the risks and privatize the benefits of your investments. A classic double standard.

I don't want EITHER side to have monopoly or even oligopoly power. I prefer FULLY private free enterprise, in other words, with real accountability via laws governed by natural law competition among the several States and not by the Feds, the latter being effectively one stop shopping for corruption. I want human beings to have rights superior to any association, union or corporate. You simply lack the vision to understand the distinctions or the solutions I posited, stuck in your bull-headed rut labeling anyone who disagrees with you a "liberal." Well here's reality turkey, your corporate game was instituted by a communist, John Chandler Bancroft Davis, Clerk of the Supreme Court, a Republican, and a Marxist when he added a bogus headnote to the decision of the Court in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific.

Yeah, I know, you don't get it, Hegel's got your brain by the lobes. Yet corporate socialism and Marxism both comprise a system devised and funded by some of the richest bankers in Europe. Hence, you are the leftist here, you just don't know it.

29 posted on 11/19/2012 1:09:28 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
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To: Doctor 2Brains
Oops, wrong link. This is the discussion that exposits on the doings of Mr. Davis.
30 posted on 11/19/2012 1:11:49 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
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To: Carry_Okie

You’re an idiot liberal. Deal with it.


31 posted on 11/19/2012 1:12:45 PM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: Carry_Okie

You’re an idiot liberal. Deal with it.


32 posted on 11/19/2012 1:13:49 PM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: Doctor 2Brains

THAT WAS AWESOME! I hope you don’t mind, but I reposted the majority of that on my FB page. Should probably get some panties in a bunch, and start some fur a flyin!


33 posted on 11/19/2012 1:40:34 PM PST by Mama Shawna
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To: redgolum

No Unions are like disease...... never useful...


34 posted on 11/19/2012 1:47:46 PM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: Mama Shawna

Well! I am flattered. Thank you.


35 posted on 11/19/2012 1:52:18 PM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: Carry_Okie; Doctor 2Brains
Unions can ONLY!!!! exist because of government force applied selectively against private property owners (evil rich people),

This is simply not true. There is reason for collective bargaining, even from the perspective of the employer; else companies like ManPower and ADP would not exist. The factory owner would rather not deal with personnel details.

Unions in their current form would not exist without government force applied against property owners. That does not imply that there would not be any form of collective bargaining. Trade guilds could engage in collective bargaining to the benefit of both workers and employers, if such guilds were in a position where their continued existence relied upon their ability to do so. If a trade guild refuses to accept or retain members who are not good workers, employers who hire workers from the guild would likely pay extra for doing so, but might find it easier to get quality workers than if they search for workers outside the guild. Of course, the more tolerant the guild is of bad workers, the less advantage employers would see to hiring them, and the less money the guild would be able to demand for its workforce.

One thing that I wish more people would realize is that the real battle isn't between workers and employers, whose interest substantially overlap. The real battle is between union workers and non-union (actual or prospective) workers.

36 posted on 11/19/2012 3:54:22 PM PST by supercat (Renounce Covetousness.)
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To: BipolarBob
"In nature as in our lives, parasites can kill the host(ess)."

Well played!!

37 posted on 11/19/2012 4:00:02 PM PST by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias... "Barack": Allah's current ally...)
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To: Doctor 2Brains

He busted a union and all the jobs went to communist China.


38 posted on 11/19/2012 4:06:25 PM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: supercat
One thing that I wish more people would realize is that the real battle isn't between workers and employers, whose interest substantially overlap. The real battle is between union workers and non-union (actual or prospective) workers.

Disagree there. I think the unions have done a fabulous job of serving the interests of the international banking interests that spawned them. They have forced exportation of our nation's manufacturing infrastructure (essentially a form of intellectual property) for fun and profit. Our enemies now possess the latest information to make everything from screw machines to plastic resin synthesis. Unions have facilitated taking America into socialist dictatorship from the top down. In that respect they are almost as damaging as environmental and safety regulations.

Hence, the real battle is between collectivism and private enterprise.

39 posted on 11/19/2012 4:46:45 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
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To: jazusamo

Free trade in labor markets is a human right. Unions never got the memo.


40 posted on 11/19/2012 5:42:12 PM PST by 4Liberty (Some on our "Roads & Bridges" head to the beach. Others head to their offices, farms, libraries....)
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