Posted on 10/07/2002 9:47:54 AM PDT by snopercod
True, risk = reward. You got that right. The real reason some workers are higher paid than others is due to productivity. Now, before every statist on the board jumps me for using that word and unions, productivity means what you produce, not how hard you are working.
Who is getting paid more? An apple picker loading a fruit truck in the middle of the summer in Yakima, WA?
or
A longshoreman, sitting in an airconditioned crane, offloading a containership?
Who is working "harder?"
That's right! The longshoreman is moving more Chicom crap than the orchard worker is moving apples. He is getting paid more, even though the orchard worker is physically exhausted.
Education is a nice tool, but if the tool is not used properly, it makes no difference. I may have a PhD in astrophysics, but if I am a pilot for American Eagle, and fly the SAAB, I am making $16K/yr. I can be a HS grad, and if I am working at American Airlines, flying a 777, I'm making $17k/mo. Why? The 777 moves more crap than the SAAB turboprop.
I can buy an earthmover to dig ditches, but if the ditch that needs digging is only 10' long, the purchase of the earthmover is rather wasteful. Just because you spent a lot of years in education has nothing to do with what you make, other than your ability to exploit that education. There are plenty on this forum that believe their education entitles them to make more than a HS dropout. If they were liberals, we would call them elitests, but because we are FReepers, we usually avoid that nametag.
Now, the access to the job and the ability to leverage your employer also play into the scenario. Programmers had lots of leverage back in '98. Not so today. Yes, the union tilts the field toward the unskilled employee. Globalists, Pubbies, and corporate managers hate that idea. They think the only laws that are valid are those that tilt the bargaining table toward management. Incorporation laws come to mind. What would the PMA shareholders be without a "united" front to take on the pockets of the ILWU? Screwed, blued, and tattooed to the wall is my guess. They only have strength in numbers, just like their employees.
Many FReepers on this thread have said the longshoremen are not entitled to that pay, because they are "unskilled." I make less than an ILWU, but I bet 95% of those of you who believe the ILWU is overpaid would also say the same thing about me. My guess is the definition of "overpaid" is anyone who makes $1 more than you. The "advisors" to the POTUS are squeamish about the ILWU making $100k. Care to guess why? Two reasons - first, the "advisors" only approximate $100k on the gov't payroll, so we have the classic "I'm an overeducated, self-important blowhard, and you are nothing but a blue-collar stiff" dynamic at work, and the second is the ILWU probably supports Dems at the union level. In other words, "you didn't pay us protection money, so screw you." Clinton did it to Microsoft and the tobacco industry, and now this is "our" way of doing the very same thing.
One of these days, the pilots for a major airline will strike. 95% of the posters on this forum will say the very same things about them, that they do about the ILWU, or any other union for that matter. Overpaid, underworked, socialist, marxist, anti-American, Democrat sympathizing, economy trashing thugs. These things were said on FR about the AA flight attendants, and the AA pilots in their 20 minute strike which happened in the middle of the night.
It is a wonderment that FReepers want gov't to intervene to "save the economy" when the economy is not the gov'ts responsibility. These same FReepers will state that the pilot union is a bunch of thugs, yet they will never be able to point out any violence. They will call them socialists and marxists, when the overwhelming majority of pilots are Republican. They will call them anti-American, when 70% served their country in the most forward deployed manner possible, while most FReepers never served beyond watching Full Metal Jacket. Most that opine about the working conditions know nothing of how the airline contracts work.
It never fails. Mention "union" on FR and it is the same thing, over and over again. Perhaps if corporations did not try to have the Pubbies dismantle the labor laws, unions would not support the party that wants to tax the fruits of their negotiated labor.
Mabye statist Republicans can get over the politics of unions and corporations. Mabye not. Some things are just reflexive. It's easier to go through life having your talking points all layed out for you.
With that attitude you couldn't be opposed to foreign Tech. workers here with H1-B visas taking your job for less money either...The difference between you and unions is, though you may not like it, they're organized and know how to protect their own and now you're wishing you were them.
We have a winner!
Do you have any idea how many businesses are now hurting big time because their products are not arriving?
If it is so damned important to open the docks, have these distressed businesses pressure the PMA to get the ILWU back to work, and pass the cost onto the business that benefit from the labor of the ILWU.
Of course, we could just get the FEDGOV to force them back to work at gunpoint. That's a lot cheaper, and looks good on TV.
First, how would my answers change anything I've said?
Secondly, I've never had tenure, and I think the concept of virtually guaranteed lifetime employment is repulsive.
Finally, in my lifetime, I've been a member of AFSCME, AFL-CIO, AND the NEA, and hated every one of them. Two of those three times, I did not have much of a choice about being a member. I certainly don't support them, and I'm rather sure that I would have earned more without their overwhelming interference. I despise pay-scales based on seniority rather than merit. I fought against every union I belonged to. I had to post the President's EO supporting Beck myself since my school's union reps would not.
Does tha answer your question?
striking is wrong and the more important your job is the more wrong striking is.
Perhaps you could put your money where your mouth is, and pay these "important" people enough that they would not get the "blue flu" or strike.
Or you could just have the gov't force them to work. It's cheaper and looks good on TV.
Everyone seems so worried about how much these guys make. Does anyone wonder how much the negotiator for the company representing the (mostly foreign) companies makes? Probably in the high seven figures. He never even has to get his hands dirty, and his job isn't dangerous either. I would say that he's paid pretty well.
I love to see American workers making a good salary, union or not. The foreign companies would love to have slave labor on the docks, and if they could, don't think for a minute that any of their savings would be passed along to us in any way.
Everyone seems so worried about how much these guys make. Does anyone wonder how much the negotiator for the company representing the (mostly foreign) companies makes? Probably in the high seven figures. He never even has to get his hands dirty, and his job isn't dangerous either. I would say that he's paid pretty well.
I love to see American workers making a good salary, union or not. The foreign companies would love to have slave labor on the docks, and if they could, don't think for a minute that any of their savings would be passed along to us in any way.
Let's say a Company 1 makes a product. The consumer needs this product.
The company wants to sell it for a certain amount, but the consumer doesn't want to pay that amount and wants to find another source for the product.
Company 2 determines that it can provide the same or better product for the amount that the consumer is wanting to pay. Both the producer and the consumer will benefit from this.
However, Company 1 sends a bunch of goons with pipes to stand in front of the store where Company 2 is trying to sell its product. Company 1's goons beat up consumers and the owners of Company 2. Company 1 uses the government to keep Company 2 from selling the product.
It's obvious that Company 1 is using physical force, threats, and the government to enforce its monopoly of selling the product. Would any of you union guys think this was wrong? Is this called a monopoly by some?
Now, what if this product was skills, talent, labor, and risk?
What if Company 1 was a Union and Company 2 was the free market labor force?
Your skills, talent, hard work, and risk are just another product for sale in the market. If someone else is willing to sell theirs for less, you have no right to disallow them from doing it.
They are pressuring the government and anyone else they can. What's wrong with Taft-Hartley being imposed in this emergency? Are you a union member? Do you make $80K to $150K per year plus bennies?
They are only pressuring the PMA. It is the PMA's responsibility to ensure the docks are open, not the ILWU's. If American Airlines shut its doors, because Goodyear tires raised their prices 30%, and then bitched about Goodyear ruining their business, we all would laugh. Management has one job - ensure the business runs. Sometimes you have to pay more for the components of your business to get just that.
The ones pressuring the gov't are the PMA and their customers. The ILWU wants nothing to do with the gov't.
What "emergency?" Does any disruption constitute an emergency? Is an emergency any condition the gov't does not like? A national emergency is when the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. If the govt' wants the ports open, have the PMA pay the ILWU what it takes to accomplish that, or replace the workers. After reading what you and many other FReepers posted, any stiff can do this job. So, deficate or get out of the outhouse. Tell me, is there a situation where pilots or longshoremen could withhold their services and it not be an emergency? If not, that makes them defacto gov't employees, and slaves of the state.
Does it make a difference if I am a union member? Do my arguments go for not if I am? Yes, I am.
You really are hung up on what unions make. IF they make $10K or $1M per year, the arguments would be the same. I think jealousy plays a big portion of what we all think of pilots, athletes, or the ILWU. Perhaps you should concentrate on what you make. I make less than the reported wages of the ILWU. I have a generous benefits package.
In 2000, I went to work for the highest paid airline in the world. I made $26k my first year on the job. My in-laws were living the good life in Silicon Valley, and disparaging my wife and me because I "work with my hands" and will never be "rich." No stock options, no 6 figure salary, no lavish parties, none of that. I was stupid for taking a union job. I made less than most Mexicans in the Valley.
Fast forward three years...While I still work for the same company, and do work with my hands, my salary has risen to $90k. My in-laws have lost 90% on their stock portfolios, their stock options, once worth $11M if you ask my sis-in-law, are worth less than the paper I wipe my anus with, bro is out of work, they will be upside-down on their $500k townhouse when interest rates tick up, sis-in-law went back to work. Guess what has not changed. I am being disparaged for having a union job, and not feeling their pain. We went to Hawaii 2x this year, bought a new van for cash, and are buying a new house within a few months. Our kids are in private school, and my stock portfolio is busting at the seams for shorting all the tech crap the in-laws owned and getting in on the ground floor of the precious metal boom of the early part of the year.
Moral to the story...some people will always be "wrong." There are those that believe they are so smart, that all of us in blue-collar jobs have a Constitutional duty to be subservient to those who "manage" things.
Things aren't that way. When times were good for the macro economy, they sucked for me. I didn't bitch, and quietly shorted all of the excess I saw. Now that times are "bad," I am doing pretty well. Again, I really don't want to hear all of the perma-bulls and self-reliant egomaniacs bitch about thier plight, nor do I want them to cast their green-eyes my way.
We all make choices. Some are good, and some are bad.
As it always has because unions are bad for business.
Funny how the most unionized airline in the nation is also the most consistantly profitable - Southwest. I guess management found that if you don't try to screw your unions, your unions will return the favor. When asked why they give management so much flexibility, the SWA unions will all say "because management has NEVER screwed us, even when they had the chance."
Not so at Delta, American, and United. Management at those airlines are always trying to sharpshoot the contract for advantages. The result, the unions are more recalcitrant and paranoid, and it drives their costs up.
I'm sure most on this forum would believe that the RATS are secretly running the unions at the bigger airlines, and that is why management has problems. It fits the statist Pubbie template better than reality.
Now all groups, regardless of how much I normally sympathize, lose my support when they strike; they lose more support when they "semi-strike" (work slowdowns, blue flu, stuff like that), if you're gonna strike have the balls to actually strike.
What happens if the gov't won't allow a strike? What happens if the statists of the world unite, and have the gov't outlaw strikes? That is what is happening in the airline industry, and what is at stake in this year's elections. The Pubbies have stated that they will outlaw strikes if they get the Senate. While the Pubbies will likely win, their efforts will be on the wrong side of the law of unintended consequences.
Slow downs, sick outs, and the blue flu are the only way around this, other than the atom bomb that many pilots have been talking about. Allow me to explain...
What would all the statist Pubbies do when the mother of all sickouts occurs when "binding arbitration" is the law of the land? When 5% of the pilots sick out on day one, 10% on day two, the news reports it and then the ball really gets rolling, until you have 60-70% of the airline pilots sitting at home collecting sick leave, you will have a mess on your hands.
Most of us have enough sick leave to stay away from work for 9-12 months before we miss a cent. Could you operate with less than 1/3 of the pilots at work? The airlines would shut down, and the country would be constipated.
Believe me, the majority of captains I fly with support the idea. My ex-USN buddies at other airlines report the very same.
Now what? Have the gov't "force" us back to work? How? Revoke our licenses for being "sick?" We all will get doctor notes, or start quoting the Federal Aviation Regs about how the pilot determines if he is sick, not the FAA or the company. Revoking the licenses would only compound the problem. Would the MIB show up in the middle of the night with bayonettes and have us fly at knife point? How long before Congress recinds the law? A week? Two weeks? Could you wait that long?
Then, you would have a union really show its muscle, and they will likely use it more often to get other things they like.
Sometimes, statism does not work. The gov't needs the people more than the people need the gov't.
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