Organized labor is a form of Socialism. That's not my opinion, it is a fact. In a union, all workers are paid the same, whether they produce prolifically or do everything possible to avoid producing. Excluding the skilled trades, people who want to strive to be the best avoid unions, because they know that their employment will bring nothing but discouragement, as their peers give them bullshit for not just going with the flow.
Unions are most useful in a very limited set of circumstances: a very competitive market, coupled with a labor surplus. In such an environment employers will exploit workers as much as legally allowable, and workers have essentially no recourse but to take it...because if they don't they will be fired and replaced in the proverbial, "New York minute."
Usually, unions are a cancer on any business enterprise, inevitably leading to bankruptcy and/or business failure. Consider two major industries in the U.S.: Autos and Steel. Both are characterized by two very different groups of competitors, one unionized and one not. In both cases, the unions have led their companies to bankruptcy or its equivalent, while the non-union segment thrives. Look at the transplant auto makers (Toyota, Nissan, BMW, etc); they didn't need no bailout, and none of them has ever been organized (except for a short-lived joint venture between GM and Toyota). In Steel, there are only a couple unionized steelmakers around anymore, while the non-union producers (the "mini-mills like NUCOR), do fine.
The worst abuse of collective bargaining is in our Public Sector. There is absolutely no justification for granting public employees the right to strike. In essence, their unions are negotiating with elected officials (o their designees) and managers who will benefit from a "generous" settlement and contract. The conflict of interest is palpable, and the results speak for themselves.
Virtually every new dollar devoted to "public education" for the next 20 years will go to funding teacher pensions and benefits, while elected officials lack the balls to admit this massive theft, which means that it will never be confronted, except POSSIBLY by bankruptcy of the governments involved. And even in those cases, compliant state and federal courts will step in and find "constitutional" reasons why public employee compensation and benefits cannot be "adjusted."
Organized labor steals your money on government construction projects, where "prevailing wage" laws in effect mandate inflated union compensation and benefits, even where union employers are scarce.
Less than 10% of America's private sector workforce is "organized," and it's not because of business antagonism toward unions. Unions simply make the employer uncompetitive, and they inevitably go out of business.
But beware. Unions are making great inroads in HEALTHCARE of late. Yes, that's all we need is a doubling of the pay of orderlies who clean out the poop buckets...because our health insurance premiums are getting too, you know, affordable.
Glad i'm retired and relatively out of the game.
Labor Day. Bah, humbug!
Unions are most useful in a very limited set of circumstances: a very competitive market, coupled with a labor surplus. In such an environment employers will exploit workers as much as legally allowable, and workers have essentially no recourse but to take it...because if they don't they will be fired and replaced in the proverbial, "New York minute."
Usually, unions are a cancer on any business enterprise, inevitably leading to bankruptcy and/or business failure. Consider two major industries in the U.S.: Autos and Steel. Both are characterized by two very different groups of competitors, one unionized and one not. In both cases, the unions have led their companies to bankruptcy or its equivalent, while the non-union segment thrives. Look at the transplant auto makers (Toyota, Nissan, BMW, etc); they didn't need no bailout, and none of them has ever been organized (except for a short-lived joint venture between GM and Toyota). In Steel, there are only a couple unionized steelmakers around anymore, while the non-union producers (the "mini-mills like NUCOR), do fine.
The worst abuse of collective bargaining is in our Public Sector. There is absolutely no justification for granting public employees the right to strike. In essence, their unions are negotiating with elected officials (o their designees) and managers who will benefit from a "generous" settlement and contract. The conflict of interest is palpable, and the results speak for themselves.
Virtually every new dollar devoted to "public education" for the next 20 years will go to funding teacher pensions and benefits, while elected officials lack the balls to admit this massive theft, which means that it will never be confronted, except POSSIBLY by bankruptcy of the governments involved. And even in those cases, compliant state and federal courts will step in and find "constitutional" reasons why public employee compensation and benefits cannot be "adjusted."
Organized labor steals your money on government construction projects, where "prevailing wage" laws in effect mandate inflated union compensation and benefits, even where union employers are scarce.
Less than 10% of America's private sector workforce is "organized," and it's not because of business antagonism toward unions. Unions simply make the employer uncompetitive, and they inevitably go out of business.
But beware. Unions are making great inroads in HEALTHCARE of late. Yes, that's all we need is a doubling of the pay of orderlies who clean out the poop buckets...because our health insurance premiums are getting too, you know, affordable.
Glad i'm retired and relatively out of the game.
Labor Day. Bah, humbug!
