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To: billbears
This is "good" because the grossly overpaid union workers won't be allowed to strangle the entire US economy in their drive to appropriate more money for themselves at the expense of the general public (through higher prices). I would bet that there are many people who would be overjoyed to do the work for only $70,000 plus benefits, but of course the employer won't be allowed to hire them... unions have this cute little habit of getting the laws changed to favor them in every battle.
17 posted on 10/07/2002 10:14:02 AM PDT by Teacher317
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To: Teacher317
It doesn't matter. In a free market economy, the workers have the right to negotiate for the best salary they can get--conversely, the owners have the right to choose to pay that salary or attempt to find and train substitute workers.

From a purely economic standpoint, it creates economic waste when Big Government interferes in the free market and orders a "resolution" to a conflict. Since the resolution won't be at the "proper" market level, there will always be some waste, whether it is on the supply side or the demand side.

From a political standpoint, do you actually favor Big Government telling businesses who they can hire and how much they have to pay them?

There might well be people "overjoyed" at making $70,000 a year plus benefits, but hey, they aren't in that position. That doesn't change the right of the workers to negotiate their salary. I'd be "overjoyed" to make a million dollars a year playing baseball, but I'm not in that sort of position. Does that mean I'm in favor of Big Government stepping in and imposing salary restrictions on the players? Of course not--it is bad policy and creates waste.
23 posted on 10/07/2002 10:20:41 AM PDT by Viva Le Dissention
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To: Teacher317
This is "good" because the grossly overpaid union workers won't be allowed to strangle the entire US economy in their drive to appropriate more money for themselves at the expense of the general public (through higher prices).

And I say, let them. Let them run it into the ground if need be. Let the blame lie where it should, the unions' feet. If Bush steps in now, he releases some of the blame from the unions politically and gives the Democrats one more rallying cry. I thought this nation was based on capitalism, free enterprise. This is negotiation. Doesn't seem very free to me if the government has the right to step into any domestic agreement it seems fit to 'fix'. This is not a power guaranteed to the federal government under the Constitution. Now as we are under a national government currently, that's another story. How is what Bush is doing (stepping into a private industry issue) different than what Truman suggested doing in the late 40s? No military involved yet, but what if it came to that? Surely you aren't suggesting Truman was a conservative now are you?

25 posted on 10/07/2002 10:26:32 AM PDT by billbears
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To: Teacher317
Given your screen name my guess is that you are or were a union member with tenure to boot! Did the union help you?
107 posted on 10/07/2002 3:56:54 PM PDT by UnBlinkingEye
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