Labor Day Test

[DGS49]

Labor Day is a celebration of "organized" labor, which is to say Unions. So,

Would you be willing to pay more for a pair of boots if they were Union made?

Would you pay more for a hotel room that is serviced by SEIU staff?

Would you prefer an auto that is made by UAW workers over one made by non-union (e.g., Chevy Malibu vs. Toyota Camry)?

Would you buy a new house erected by union trades? (almost non-existent)

If getting some home repairs done, would you seek out a Union contractor?

Do you support the Davis-Bacon Act, and its State progeny, which, in effect, demand that all taxpayer-funded construction work be done by union workers?

Do you support public sector unions (which FDR roundly condemned)? Do you support legislative efforts to restrict the issues that can be bargained?

Would you be more inclined to pursue a job that would result in you being a union member?

If not a union member, do you believe that American unions have made employment in the U.S. generally BETTER than it would be otherwise, for all workers?

Happy Labor Day!

 

[Polishprince]

My shoes are manufactured at a unionized factory in Martin, Slovakia, and are more than satisfactory.

I don't think that unionized workers necessarily do worse than non-unionized ones.

 

[norwegen]

Labor Day is a celebration of "organized" labor, which is to say Unions. So,

Would you be willing to pay more for a pair of boots if they were Union made?

Would you pay more for a hotel room that is serviced by SEIU staff?

Would you prefer an auto that is made by UAW workers over one made by non-union (e.g., Chevy Malibu vs. Toyota Camry)?

Would you buy a new house erected by union trades? (almost non-existent)

If getting some home repairs done, would you seek out a Union contractor?

Do you support the Davis-Bacon Act, and its State progeny, which, in effect, demand that all taxpayer-funded construction work be done by union workers?

Do you support public sector unions (which FDR roundly condemned)? Do you support legislative efforts to restrict the issues that can be bargained?

Would you be more inclined to pursue a job that would result in you being a union member?

If not a union member, do you believe that American unions have made employment in the U.S. generally BETTER than it would be otherwise, for all workers?

Happy Labor Day!

Unions have never served any purpose in free-market economies, except to inflate prices.

Competition, not only for consumers but also for labor, forces improved working conditions. Free enterprise makes everything fair and right.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Real independent unions with a right to strike, a labor movement with its own newspapers and rights to free speech, rights to organize without retaliation by employers (state or private), rights to publish, petition, demonstrate, these are now more than ever necessary!

Here I speak not primarily of the U.S., but also of China, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and African and South American “banana republics” backed by the U.S. or American corporations. This is where so many goods consumed by U.S. consumers are made today.

The globalization of factory production (and automation) have made labor organizing more difficult and have accustomed American consumers to forget that they too (for the most part) are working people in need of protection. Workers since the New Deal not only have had substantial union-won rights (pensions and good wages) but they also won crucial “legal” and “welfare” rights like unemployment insurance, veterans benefits, social security, Medicare ... even as unions withered.

The U.S. became a service rather than an industrial economy, and unionization survived longest in government jobs and old industries and certain craft jobs. As union consciousness and power in society declined the salary difference between CEOs and workers increased, as did overall inequality. At the same time we saw anti-socialist propaganda go ballistic during the Cold War and really ignorant primitive forms of capitalist propaganda triumph, along with the spread of stock holding to the middle class and professionals. Of course there were very significant shared benefits from U.S. imperialism as well — everything from cheap gasoline and cheap bananas, to cheap raw materials and cheap foreign manufactured products of every type.

So today most “Americans” ridicule or attack the idea of labor solidarity on “Labor Day,” and many privilege military service abroad protecting our “Dollar and Wall Street Empire” as far more important and worthy of respect than hard work at home. Unions are seen as almost “communist,” and our statist military and police as the main guarantors of all our hard won “freedoms.”

 

[Uncensored2008]

The TRUTH about UNIONS.

What is a union? Generally unions are an evolved version of guilds. It is a collection of skilled or semi-skilled workers who collectivize to obtain better rates in the case of a guild, or better wages in the case of unions. Unions continue to use guild terminology such as "journeyman" even though union workers don't "journey" and sell their skills the way guildsmen did. Unions are most often associated with the trades, carpenters, blacksmiths, plumbers.

In business, there are two contra-effective collectivist structures, unions and corporations Corporations are collectivist capital - ownership by the group. unions are collectivist labor. The collective power of each is greater than the sum of the parts. While contra-acting, the two groups are generally symbiotic as well. Unions and corporations depend on each other.

Neither corporations NOR unions are inherently evil or destructive - quite the opposite, both are effective means of organizing a free market. Which brings about the first issue, the free market. Unions exist to provide negotiation from strength in the market to offset the responsibility of management to maximize corporate profits. These are symbiotic - if a union exists without a corporation on the other side, it has no purpose and is predatory - basically racketeering. Hence "government union" is an oxymoron. There is no "management" team seeking to maximize profit in government, thus there is no legitimate basis for unions. All government unions, police, fire, bureaucrats, etc. are illegitimate by definition - and as we have seen, essentially criminal in nature.

The biggest issue that markets face is trusts, the agreement between companies to fix prices and engage in predatory behavior. Standard Oil in the early 20th was a clear example of this - AS IS THE AFL-CIO, which is a monopoly of unions. By definition, a carpenters union has no relation to the teamsters union, but under the monopoly and trust that the AFL-CIO operates under, all unions act as one monolithic and highly destructive whole.

What the union goon bosses didn't grasp during the 90's is that the same democrats they bought, Pelosi, Biden, Feinstein, were taking bribes from an even bigger monopoly of labor - Communist China. Soon manufacturing left our shores.

I promised the truth, which is that unions are a good and necessary structure, but monopolies of all sorts are destructive, including monopolies of unions. Also unions are comprised of skilled and semi-skilled workers, unskilled labor, such as SEUI has no place among unions and is simply preying on both workers and employers to enrich themselves. Government is not a corporation, there is no management, no board of directors, no shareholders and no profit. Unions are an abomination in government and openly criminal in nature. This includes the mal-educators unions.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Unions have never served any purpose in free-market economies, except to inflate prices.

Competition, not only for consumers but also for labor, forces improved working conditions. Free enterprise makes everything fair and right.

Unions, REAL unions, are a critical component of free enterprise.

 

[Mr Natural]

Yes to all.

Although I was never a Union member, whenever the Union people got a raise, we so called "Professional Staffers" also got a bump.

 

[DGS49]

Do many people consider that Craft/Trade Unions are different from labor unions? Indeed, many in craft unions FOUGHT the consolidation with labor when the AFL-CIO was formed. The craft unions had a long and proud history of preserving the craft, making sure the work was done right by people who were competent and conscientious. Not so for Labor Unions, where the standard is, do as little as possible to maximize the need for workers.

Two different worlds. The skilled vs the masses.

Which is why I abhor teachers' unions; they operate as LABOR unions, not craft unions. They do NOTHING to further the "craft" (sometimes falsely called a "profession"), but act the same way as a cutthroat labor union, doing everything possible to benefit the teachers - students be damned. Watch how they act when someone suggest that the school day be lengthened by 5 minutes, or that the school year add a day or two. This year, why did the Unions not ask for classes to be conducted over the summer, so that students would not lose a whole semester of learning due to the pandemic? Now it appears they will lose an entire year (in effect), due to self-serving policies and political posturing by the unions.

Having had some exposure to professional unions in Europe, I can see how harmful our U.S. adversarial union culture is. In Germany, when there is a problem employee the union and management work together to sort out the problem one way or another. Here, the union simply fights to keep that person on the job, while allowing the problem to fester.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The TRUTH about UNIONS.

What is a union? Generally unions are an evolved version of guilds. It is a collection of skilled or semi-skilled workers who collectivize to obtain better rates in the case of a guild, or better wages in the case of unions. Unions continue to use guild terminology such as "journeyman" even though union workers don't "journey" and sell their skills the way guildsmen did. Unions are most often associated with the trades, carpenters, blacksmiths, plumbers.

In business, there are two contra-effective collectivist structures, unions and corporations Corporations are collectivist capital - ownership by the group. unions are collectivist labor. The collective power of each is greater than the sum of the parts. While contra-acting, the two groups are generally symbiotic as well. Unions and corporations depend on each other.

Neither corporations NOR unions are inherently evil or destructive - quite the opposite, both are effective means of organizing a free market. Which brings about the first issue, the free market. Unions exist to provide negotiation from strength in the market to offset the responsibility of management to maximize corporate profits. These are symbiotic - if a union exists without a corporation on the other side, it has no purpose and is predatory - basically racketeering. Hence "government union" is an oxymoron. There is no "management" team seeking to maximize profit in government, thus there is no legitimate basis for unions. All government unions, police, fire, bureaucrats, etc. are illegitimate by definition - and as we have seen, essentially criminal in nature.

The biggest issue that markets face is trusts, the agreement between companies to fix prices and engage in predatory behavior. Standard Oil in the early 20th was a clear example of this - AS IS THE AFL-CIO, which is a monopoly of unions. By definition, a carpenters union has no relation to the teamsters union, but under the monopoly and trust that the AFL-CIO operates under, all unions act as one monolithic and highly destructive whole.

What the union goon bosses didn't grasp during the 90's is that the same democrats they bought, Pelosi, Biden, Feinstein, were taking bribes from an even bigger monopoly of labor - Communist China. Soon manufacturing left our shores.

I promised the truth, which is that unions are a good and necessary structure, but monopolies of all sorts are destructive, including monopolies of unions. Also unions are comprised of skilled and semi-skilled workers, unskilled labor, such as SEUI has no place among unions and is simply preying on both workers and employers to enrich themselves. Government is not a corporation, there is no management, no board of directors, no shareholders and no profit. Unions are an abomination in government and openly criminal in nature. This includes the mal-educators unions.

Your “TRUTH about UNIONS” offers some reasonable insights in its first two paragraphs, but then goes increasingly off the rails, at least in my opinion. The idea in your third paragraph that unions can only be predatory racketeering organizations outside of the corporate context is repudiated by the very history you outline in the first two paragraphs.

Craft guilds and unions have a long history and one closely associated with advances in technology, science, and city life in the Middle Ages. If we study Masonry in different periods, guild and fraternal and professional organizations participating in old cities like Paris or London, or if we concern ourselves with the passing on of skills, the maintenance of standards, traditions of craftsmanship (from shipbuilding to architecture), or just simple self-help organizing as in funeral societies and cultural societies ... then we must also discuss the roll of gilds and unions. “Corporations” themselves sometimes started as little more than chartered commercial guilds. Many of the traditional roles of “unions” evolved and exist up to the present, even as great industries employing great numbers of workers came into being and then declined in more recent times in this country.

You want to “criminalize” government unions? This is preposterous. You don’t understand what government is, so you can’t imagine a role — any role — for government unions. Your view of the structure and power of the AFL-CIO is ridiculous: you say, for example, “under the monopoly and trust that the AFL-CIO operates under, all unions act as one monolithic and highly destructive whole.” This only shows how little you know about the labor movement. You particularly pick on “unskilled workers” who are often the most vulnerable and have the most to gain, and sometimes are the most active.

Of course not all government unions (or private industry unions)
are truly progresssive — there are unions of cops, of teachers, of garbage men, of bus drivers and office cleaners — they usually serve to keep wages and conditions just a bit higher and better than they would otherwise be and protect their members in other ways too. They are good and bad locals. Democratic and corrupt unions. But they almost all are worth keeping, and nobody but the workers themselves should make decisions about their very existence.

Your view of the Democratic Party, whose leaders you claim (unlike Republicans) were somehow “bought” directly by both “union goon bosses” (who wanted to “Buy American”) and “that even bigger monopoly of labor - Communist China,” is also exceptionally false ... and idiotically ultra-partisan.

Your whole idea that “free trade” is threatened in the modern world primarily by “monopoly” is an ideological construct from an earlier time before the onset of world-straddling and competing corporations tied to nation-states and blocs, and you show no understanding of how trade, in particular international trade, can and should be made more free through international organization and treaties.

How could you understand these when you do not discuss or understand the inevitable rise of “state capitalism” or the role of “nationalism”? Your talk of defending “free trade” — while in fact advocating “union busting” of one of the few areas where independent unions still exist — especially at this time of renewed interimperialist conflict and U.S. unilateral attacks on WTO norms, is just playing into the hands of Wall Street, the MIC, and crony capitalists seeking to smash popular opposition at home. These forces are moving to mobilize our citizens for trade war, Cold War, and soon likely real wars overseas.

 

[22lcidw]

With Unions I demand quality. Not indifference. Fair wages and benefits. If we get a large return her to our nation, a repeat of what we had in the real privileged unions must not happen. Then there are work rules and days off for personal issues that need to be dealt with. Paying more for quality and the survival of our nation with borders would be in the right direction and provide foundation.

 

[jasonnfree]

Labor Day is a celebration of "organized" labor, which is to say Unions. So,

Would you be willing to pay more for a pair of boots if they were Union made?

Would you pay more for a hotel room that is serviced by SEIU staff?

Would you prefer an auto that is made by UAW workers over one made by non-union (e.g., Chevy Malibu vs. Toyota Camry)?

Would you buy a new house erected by union trades? (almost non-existent)

If getting some home repairs done, would you seek out a Union contractor?

Do you support the Davis-Bacon Act, and its State progeny, which, in effect, demand that all taxpayer-funded construction work be done by union workers?

Do you support public sector unions (which FDR roundly condemned)? Do you support legislative efforts to restrict the issues that can be bargained?

Would you be more inclined to pursue a job that would result in you being a union member?

If not a union member, do you believe that American unions have made employment in the U.S. generally BETTER than it would be otherwise, for all workers?

Happy Labor Day!

We have serious wealth inequality today and the death of the unions is one reason why. Unions kept wages high by threat of a strike.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Your “TRUTH about UNIONS” offers some reasonable insights in its first two paragraphs, but then goes increasingly off the rails, at least in my opinion. The idea in your third paragraph that unions can only be predatory racketeering organizations outside of the corporate context is repudiated by the very history you outline in the first two paragraphs.

In fact, the riots raging across America support the facts I laid out. The presence of so many "bad cops" is a result of police unions, which have no reason to exist and justify their existence by interfering with the proper discipline of police. The same is true of teachers unions.

In both cases, there is no management, the unions bargain against the people with bureaucrats acting as middlemen.

Craft guilds and unions have a long history and one closely associated with advances in technology, science, and city life in the Middle Ages. If we study Masonry in different periods, guild and fraternal and professional organizations participating in old cities like Paris or London, or if we concern ourselves with the passing on of skills, the maintenance of standards, traditions of craftsmanship (from shipbuilding to architecture), or just simple self-help organizing as in funeral societies and cultural societies ... then we must also discuss the roll of gilds and unions. “Corporations” themselves sometimes started as little more than chartered commercial guilds. Many of the traditional roles of “unions” evolved and exist up to the present, even as great industries employing great numbers of workers came into being and then declined in more recent times in this country.

As I stated.

You want to “criminalize” government unions?

Government unions are already criminal. "government union" is an oxymoron. You cannot have a union in government - there is no management, there are no share holders, no owner.

This is preposterous. You don’t understand what government is, so you can’t imagine a role — any role — for government unions. Your view of the structure and power of the AFL-CIO is ridiculous: you say, for example, “under the monopoly and trust that the AFL-CIO operates under, all unions act as one monolithic and highly destructive whole.” This only shows how little you know about the labor movement. You particularly pick on “unskilled workers” who are often the most vulnerable and have the most to gain, and sometimes are the most active.

The AFL-CIO is a monopoly. The turning against unions by the American people is based on the abusive monopoly which is George Meany and so many other organized crime figures who ran the AFL-CIO.

Grocery store clerks have no relation to plumbers, yet plumbers stopped work to support the 2005 grocery strike - the monopoly in action.

BTW, at least in California, the unions cut their own throat with their greed and the hostile monopoly. Where once the union chains dominated, now Walmart, Aldi, Sprouts, Target, etc. dominate.

Of course not all government unions (or private industry unions)
are truly progresssive — there are unions of cops, of teachers, of garbage men, of bus drivers and office cleaners — they usually serve to keep wages and conditions just a bit higher and better than they would otherwise be and protect their members in other ways too. They are good and bad locals. Democratic and corrupt unions. But they almost all are worth keeping, and nobody but the woarkers themselves should make decisions about their very existence.[/qutoe]

And who do they "negotiate" with? Themselves? Again, there is no "other side."

Your view of the Democratic Party, whose leaders you claim (unlike Republicans) were somehow “bought” directly by both “union goon bosses” (who wanted to “Buy American”) and “that even bigger monopoly of labor - Communist China,” is also exceptionally false ... and idiotically ultra-partisan.

You are a socialist, you will always defend your party. Mitch McConnell is indicated in the Burisma kickback scheme. There are some dirty Republicans.

I mentioned Pelosi, Biden, and Feinstein because they rightly DEFINE corruption.

Your whole idea that “free trade” is threatened in the modern world primarily by “monopoly” is an ideological construct from an earlier time before the onset of world-straddling and competing corporations tied to nation-states and blocs, and you show no understanding of how trade, in particular international trade, can and should be made more free through international organization and treaties.

Perhaps, as we see the flexing of monopoly power by the AFL-CIO has done more to damage unions and closed shops than it has to achieve the goals of the unions. Again, the grocery clerks cut their own greedy throats.

How could you understand these when you do not discuss or understand the inevitable rise of “state capitalism” or the role of “nationalism”? Your talk of defending “free trade” — while in fact advocating “union busting” of one of the few areas where independent unions still exist — especially at this time of renewed interimperialist conflict and U.S. unilateral attacks on WTO norms, is just playing into the hands of Wall Street, the MIC, and crony capitalists seeking to smash popular opposition at home. These forces are moving to mobilize our citizens for trade war, Cold War, and soon likely real wars overseas.

Again, you are a Marxist. There is nothing "inevitable" about managed economies. You desire Chinese style Communism (state capitalism? ) but that in no way indicates it is "inevitable."

BTW, your beloved China is the most imperialist nation on earth. Explain the "Belt and Road" initiative?

 

[martybegan]

The TRUTH about UNIONS.

What is a union? Generally unions are an evolved version of guilds. It is a collection of skilled or semi-skilled workers who collectivize to obtain better rates in the case of a guild, or better wages in the case of unions. Unions continue to use guild terminology such as "journeyman" even though union workers don't "journey" and sell their skills the way guildsmen did. Unions are most often associated with the trades, carpenters, blacksmiths, plumbers.

In business, there are two contra-effective collectivist structures, unions and corporations Corporations are collectivist capital - ownership by the group. unions are collectivist labor. The collective power of each is greater than the sum of the parts. While contra-acting, the two groups are generally symbiotic as well. Unions and corporations depend on each other.

Neither corporations NOR unions are inherently evil or destructive - quite the opposite, both are effective means of organizing a free market. Which brings about the first issue, the free market. Unions exist to provide negotiation from strength in the market to offset the responsibility of management to maximize corporate profits. These are symbiotic - if a union exists without a corporation on the other side, it has no purpose and is predatory - basically racketeering. Hence "government union" is an oxymoron. There is no "management" team seeking to maximize profit in government, thus there is no legitimate basis for unions. All government unions, police, fire, bureaucrats, etc. are illegitimate by definition - and as we have seen, essentially criminal in nature.

The biggest issue that markets face is trusts, the agreement between companies to fix prices and engage in predatory behavior. Standard Oil in the early 20th was a clear example of this - AS IS THE AFL-CIO, which is a monopoly of unions. By definition, a carpenters union has no relation to the teamsters union, but under the monopoly and trust that the AFL-CIO operates under, all unions act as one monolithic and highly destructive whole.

What the union goon bosses didn't grasp during the 90's is that the same democrats they bought, Pelosi, Biden, Feinstein, were taking bribes from an even bigger monopoly of labor - Communist China. Soon manufacturing left our shores.

I promised the truth, which is that unions are a good and necessary structure, but monopolies of all sorts are destructive, including monopolies of unions. Also unions are comprised of skilled and semi-skilled workers, unskilled labor, such as SEUI has no place among unions and is simply preying on both workers and employers to enrich themselves. Government is not a corporation, there is no management, no board of directors, no shareholders and no profit. Unions are an abomination in government and openly criminal in nature. This includes the mal-educators unions.

Trade Unions are also something companies should embrace because they often remove the largest liability a company can have, fringe benefits.

In construction unions the company hiring the workers pay the worker their salary, and then union a set amount for fringe benefits. After that the company has no liability for any of the fringes, it's all handled by the Union.