Asked About Auto Walkout, Tim Scott Praises Reagan’s Firing of Workers

yahoo ^ | 09/19/2023 | Maggie Astor

[ChicagoConservative27]

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina took a harsher stance toward striking autoworkers Monday than many of his fellow Republican presidential candidates, saying it did not make sense for workers to want higher pay for shorter workweeks and noting approvingly that President Ronald Reagan had fired federal employees for striking.

“I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike,” Scott said at a campaign event in Iowa, in response to a voter who had asked whether he would “insert” himself into the United Auto Workers talks as president. “He said, ‘You strike, you’re fired.’ Simple concept to me, to the extent that we can use that once again.”

[LS]

Reagan was responding to a national security threat, namely all air traffic controllers being out.

The auto workers are not a national security threat. However, Bankster Scott shows his absolute tone-deafness to the real issue, which is, the auto companies are cow-towing to Rutabaga for green crap that no one wants plowing millions into that while not paying employees more.

[cowboyusa]

Byron Donalds is what Tim Scott should be, and isn’t.

[cowboyusa]

Unions are necessary, but bad when they get too powerful. My Great- Grandfather co- founded a steel workers Union in NYC.

[Dr. Sivana]

To determine if a firm has “monopoly power,” the lower courts generally require that a firm has a minimum market share of between 70% and 80%, according to the Justice Department.

In 1997, the Staples/Office Depot merger was blocked, and given that OfficeMax was a major player, and local vendors still were a force, I doubt that threshold was met. Blocked again in 2016, even though by then Amazon was a major force, and there was NO CHANCE that Staples and Office Depot had that kind of market share. Now, it might have to do with how you define a market. If you consider "big box chain office supplies stores" to be discrete, with local and online vendors being a different category, maybe the numbers could be jiggered. Or, it could be that as there is no hard number written into the law (and how you calculate the number could also be argued), that politics entered into the mix.

Regarding cars, many of us remember when the Big Three had 70%+ easily. Nowhere close, now. I am not even sure why Stellantis/Chrysler is considered part of the Big Three anymore.

[econjack]

There are different laws for prosecuting monopoly power versus a merger. Also, this is different in that the auto companies are buyers of labor, not sellers. I don't think there would be any antitrust laws that could stop the auto companies from shutting down if they wanted to.