[Viva Le Dissention]

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.

[mrs9x]

The problem, buddy, is that you are assuming a free market to begin with. It's not. Federal law requires negotiations with unions. In a free market, if the longshoremen don't show up for work, the businesses can fire those guys and hire new works. But federal law doesn't allow that. So it's not even a free market to begin with.