See a pattern developing here

Maxgoof · Post by **Maxgoof** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:22 pm

SirBob wrote:On the other hand, workers do need some means of collectively representing themselves. On an individual basis, the worst one can do is quit - and there will always be someone willing to tolerate horrible working conditions, soak up mental and even physical abuse, or simply work a hundred-hour week for a thirty-hour paycheck waiting to replace you.

And it is somehow a union's duty to save them from that because they won't?

See, right there is the flaw in your argument. If there are people who are willing to tolerate horrible working conditions, soak up mental and even physical abuse, or simply work a hundred-hour week for a thirty-hour paycheck, who are you to tell them they can't?

If businesses decided that they were sick and tired of having people shoplift in their stores, and decided, enmass, to install armed guards to the exits of every store--food, drug, gasoline, whatever--and then force all of the residents of the community to shop at their stores and pay higher prices to pay for those armed guards, and not allow them to shop elsewhere....just imagine the uproar that would cause.

What unions do is no different.

SirBob · Post by **SirBob** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:40 pm

maxgoof wrote:See, right there is the flaw in your argument. If there are people who are willing to tolerate horrible working conditions, soak up mental and even physical abuse, or simply work a hundred-hour week for a thirty-hour paycheck, who are you to tell them they can't?

There are people who are willing to give the boss a blowjob in exchange for that juicy promotion - who are we to tell them that they can't?

Seriously, tho'... you have a point, but I don't think you've thought it all the way through. Do you want to live in a country where the best anybody who's not a highly trained professional can hope for is a bare-subsistence lifestyle? That's what you'd be looking at if employers were entirely unregulated - a reinstitution of the peasant class, pretty much. Is that what you want?

This does not mean I'm in favour of labour unions. However, I'm not in favour of wholly unregulated business, either; relying on the inherent humanity and good will of employers to ensure that they treat their employees decently is... utopianist at best. And you know how we feel about utopianism around here, don't you?

In short, it's not the workers who are the issue; it's the employers. Somebody needs to have at least some measure of power to dictate to employers what they can and cannot do to their employees - and I do not think that the government is is the best entity to wield that power. Who, then? Again, this is not intended rhetorically - I'm still waiting for an answer to that question, and you haven't provided one.

I'm going to ignore the rest of your post, 'cause you seem to be arguing against an assetion I didn't actually make.

EdBecerra · Post by **EdBecerra** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:52 am

maxgoof wrote:If businesses decided that they were sick and tired of having people shoplift in their stores, and decided, enmass, to install armed guards to the exits of every store--food, drug, gasoline, whatever--and then force all of the residents of the community to shop at their stores and pay higher prices to pay for those armed guards, and not allow them to shop elsewhere....just imagine the uproar that would cause.

What unions do is no different.

Actually, with the use of RFID tags and the new "mantrap" entrances and exits that many of the larger chain stores are beginning to install, we're already pretty close to that as is, Max. We're already paying higher prices to subsidise the RFID tags (granted, one tag adds perhaps a few cents to the price, but still..). And a number of stores are already begining to use the armed tags that banks have been using, the tags that explode with dye packets and/or pepper spray.

Really, it's becoming an armed conflict between businesses and their "customers". The recent attempt by Sony to root-kit people's private computers with their booby-trapped music CD's wasn't exactly an act of loving kindness and respect, y'know.

I fear for our future.

Labrusca · Post by **Labrusca** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:40 am

In the 1970's, when Caesar Chavez was trying to unionize grape workers, I saw a very interesting confrontation between unionizers and grape workers at one of the larger commercial table grape growers. The workers were beating up the union people and trying to drive them out. Seems the vineyard owner paid MORE than the wage the union people were demanding, and he offered things like letting the workers swim in his swimming pool at the end of the workday. The workers were having none of the union because it would have been a reduction in their standard of living. At the same time, they were doing a better job than the union workers did at other vineyards.

Smart businessness keep good workers by offering them better wages and conditions than the competition. But when a standard is forced on them, they can't compete as employers and the business has to make do with workers who will do just enough to earn their pay, but won't go out of their way to try harder.

Unions are the welfare state of the labor force. They kill much of the incentive to try harder.

The JAM · Post by **The JAM** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 8:19 am

[...unWARP!]

Good evening.

Just a quick question, it has to do with terminology.

In English, is there an inherent difference between a guild, a union, and a syndicate? Down here, we have two terms for worker's organisations: gremio and sindicato, which I'll assume are synonymous, I'm just wondering if the first three are synonymous in English.

For instance, the King Features Syndicate and the United Features Syndicate are comic artists unions, with strict rules for printing in newspapers, right?

Zacatepongolas!

Until next time, remember:

I

AM

THE

J.A.M. (a.k.a. Numbuh i: "Just because I'm imaginary doesn't mean I don't exist")

Good evening.

[WARP!!!]

SirBob · Post by **SirBob** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:05 am

labrusca wrote:Smart businessness keep good workers by offering them better wages and conditions than the competition.

That form of employer incentive only exists in the case of skilled labour, tho' - and not coincidentally, skilled professions are the least likely to have unions these days. In the case of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs, you can always be replaced by somebody who's willing to bust his ass for less than a living wage, should you rock the boat.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:04 am

SirBob wrote:
labrusca wrote:Smart businessness keep good workers by offering them better wages and conditions than the competition.
That form of employer incentive only exists in the case of skilled labour, tho' - and not coincidentally, skilled professions are the least likely to have unions these days. In the case of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs, you can always be replaced by somebody who's willing to bust his ass for less than a living wage, should you rock the boat.

What is wrong with that? You are not owed a job, if you made the choice to never get an education or skill set, don't cry about not getting good jobs. And what is this BS about "living wages?" If a part time college student or a trained monkey is willing to do your job for less, so be it. I do not recall seeing the phrase "living wage" in the Constitution. Personal Reasonability, you should not be paid 11 bucks an hour for stocking shelves at a grocery store. Why should I feel bad for the bums who spent their entire school life trying to get drunk, laid, or high all the time? They made their choice, now they have to pay for it. They are not owed an inflated wage.

SirBob · Post by **SirBob** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:20 am

SolidusRaccoon wrote:What is wrong with that?

People starving in the streets, mostly. The only reason it doesn't happen is because the government has stepped in and imposed concepts like the minimum wage to prevent it from happening. Incidentally, the same arguements that are leveled against unions can be leveled against government-mandated strictures like minimum wages and safety regulations. Do you also object to those?

SolidusRaccoon wrote:Why should I feel bad for the bums who spent their entire school life trying to get drunk, laid, or high all the time?

Do you honestly believe that everyone who performs unskilled labour does so because they are lazy? That's... novel.

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:24 am

It's there you're wrong, SirBob.

Employment is a capitalist exchange.... each participant seeking to obtain as much as he can for as little as he can spend. The employer is trying to purchase as much labor as he can get for as little money as possible. The employee is seeking to get as much money as he can for as little labor as possible.

In a free market, if either is dissatisfied, if either party demands too much for too little, they can seek a better bargain elsewhere.... and on both sides of the table the market will adjust accordingly. ALL businessmen must give their employees sufficient wages to retain them. Otherwise they cease to be productive, or leave entirely. Happy workers are good workers.Businessmen must compete even for unskilled labor, if they wish to produce a quality product.

This is precisely what Unions prevent. They use mob rule to hold a gun to the businessman's head, and use concessions obtained under duress to prevent him from even considering the competition for his employee dollar. This is the Entitlement Mentality. This is theft. This is wrong. And it hurts everyone--- the company, the customers, the employees, the economy as a whole.

I'm afraid you, like many people, are children of a generation that is long overdue for a brutal enlightenment: IT IS NOT THE BOSS'S JOB TO MAKE YOU RICH. If the boss doesn't pay you more, you either prove to him that you're WORTH more, or you go and find someone who will pay you what you think your labor is worth. And if noone will pay you the amount you demand, then your lily-painted backside isn't worth what you think it is.

It is a constant source of disgust to me that the segment of the population that rants and raves and huffs and snorts in outrage at monopolies that force the people to buy only THEIR product and crush all competition, is the same segment that goes out and SUPPORTS the most lawless, corrupt and outright violent monopolies in the nation--- the Unions. You rave and squeal about how evil Wal-Mart is, yet you don't see Wal-Mart out there using mobs, riots, and gunfire to scare off the competition, or physically barring the entrances to other stores with a wall of bodies. You don't see Wal-Mart forcing communities to sign contracts banning all other retail stores from the neighborhood. You SURE don't see Wal-Mart confiscating a portion of their employee's check to fund political campaigns and groups their workers wouldn't even spit on.

SirBob · Post by **SirBob** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:48 am

RHJunior wrote:It's there you're wrong, SirBob.

*shrugs* It's a thorny issue. Unions suck, but many employers do, too. Sure, in an ideal, closed system, employers would have to compete even for unskilled labour, but that's not what we have these days. If an American corporation is dissatisfied with the demands of American workers, they can just outsource to India or another developing nation and pick up some poor, starving schlubs who are all too willing to pull sixteen-hour days for twenty bucks a week.

As it stands, employers have far greater latitude to tell workers to go whistle than vice versa. Perhaps this will change some day, but in the meantime, what recourse do we have?

(As an aside, it's interesting that you'd bring up Wal Mart, 'cause they're currently under criminal investigation for - get this - importing illegal immigrants to perform menial labour. These guys are actually living in the backs of the stores and working for dollars a day. Kinda illustrates my point, no?)

As for those last two paragraphs where you turn to attacking me personally: no. Actually read what I'm saying, rather than projecting your own issues onto my words. When have I suggested that I'm entitled to anything? I'm a freelance software developer, dude - I pull down a bigger paycheck in a month than most here do in a year, and I've never worked union in my life. I have no vested interest here.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:10 am

SirBob wrote: Do you honestly believe that everyone who performs unskilled labour does so because they are lazy? That's... novel.

Why? There are many opportunities out there for all. And not everyone will take them, so those unskilled labor jobs are meant for them. And most of those people in the unskilled labor jobs need to live within their means. I don

SirBob · Post by **SirBob** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:12 am

SolidusRaccoon wrote:Why? There are many opportunities out there for all.

Point is, regardless of how many "opportunities" there are out there, we still need somebody to dig ditches, drive trucks, and - yes - flip burgers for us. The army of tireless robot workers who will perform all our menial labour for us is still on back-order, sadly.

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:43 am

And we didn't have people "starving in the streets" because we didn't have minimum wage, SirBob.

(That's a socialist, European thing.)

What we GOT with minimum wage was runaway inflation and higher unemployment. Can you guess why? (Most of you, probably not--- hardly your fault as basic economics isn't taught anymore. )

Because part of the cost of every product is the cost of the employees.

And that means ALL the cost. Take your paycheck. Add the taxes back in. double the social security, medicare, etc, and add those back in. Add back in all the other bennies you may have. Add in unemployment, too.

Got that down?

Okay, when government raises minimum wage, that cost goes UP for every single company.

That sum is how much the company pays for your labor (take note of how much of that money you never see, by the way--- and ask yourself how much more efficiently you could invest it if the US government wasn't flushing it down the toilet with both hands.) And that cost goes into everything the company produces.

Do you understand? Every time the government comes in and raises the minimum wage, the cost of every single product on the market goes up by that much. Food, clothing, shelter, household products.

Worse is that the cost amplifies as you go up the ladder.... The oil company which provides the gasoline for the gas station which fuels up the delivery truck for the bakery that delivers the loaf of bread to the grocery store which you shop at. Every one of those intermediaries has to raise their wages-- and hence their prices--- adding to the end cost of that loaf of pumpernickel in your grocery cart. Of course a company could refuse to raise its price--- hacking into its profits, and deflating the value of its stock, hurting all its stockholders directly and the entire economy at large.

Congratulations, you got the government to steal an extra dollar an hour for you--- raising your cost of living by a few hundred dollars a month.

Here's some more math for you.

****
What cost you $1 in 1871 would cost you $1.13 in 1938. A thirteen percent increase due to inflation.

Minimum wage was introduced in 1938.

What cost $1 in 1938 now costs $12.78 today..... a ONE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT PERCENT increase, in as many years as it took for inflation to increase a mere thirteen percent before.

****

Which wouldn't be so bad, if the spending power had kept pace. It hasn't.

For perspective, the minimum wage in 1968 was $1.15 an hour, and had the equivalent spending power of $9.13 an hour. Minimum wage been raised about 500 percent in the past 40 years, and has a spending power of less than half what it had when the government started....

In 68 you could buy eleven loaves of bread for an hour's pay at minimum wage . In '05, an hour's minimum wage will get you five loaves--- if you're lucky--- precisely because wages have been artificially forced up.

You can't get out of the mud by lifting yourself by the bootstraps. And you can't improve the economy by forcing wages up artificially.

SirBob · Post by **SirBob** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:04 pm

It's an argument that has some merit, yes. And I'm not saying that a minimum wage is an ideal - or even a particularly effective - solution to our problems. However, you haven't addressed the thrust of my previous post: what's our recourse when employers don't have to compete for unskilled labour? Because as it stands, they don't. In some places I've done freelance work for, I've seen menial employees sleeping in their cubicles and subsisting on crap from the company vending machines down the hall because they're so overworked, they don't even have time to go home. Why do they put up with it? Because they're terrified that if they don't, the head honchos will just fire them and outsource their jobs to India. And they're probably right.

You're awfully good at pointing out flaws in the current paradigm, so here's a new challenge for you: how do we fix it? Just for the sake of argument, let's say that your solution has to explicitly avoid turning menial labourers into indentured servants, like our cubicle-dwelling friends mentioned above.

UncleMonty · Post by **UncleMonty** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:20 pm

SirBob wrote:Hmmm.

On the one hand, I agree that most unions these days are corrupt, ineffectual, or both. I hesitate to say "all", 'cause there's always the odd bunch of folks who actually believe the line they're selling, but the overwhelming trend is not a positive one.

On the other hand, workers do need some means of collectively representing themselves. On an individual basis, the worst one can do is quit - and there will always be someone willing to tolerate horrible working conditions, soak up mental and even physical abuse, or simply work a hundred-hour week for a thirty-hour paycheck waiting to replace you.

To a certain extent, legislation attempts to address these issues; f'rex, it's illegal for an employer to demand sexual favours, assign lethally dangerous tasks, pay less than a certain number of dollars per hour, and so forth.

However, the argument can be made that these basic provisions are not sufficient - and yet, I think we can all agree that legislation is not the appropriate tool to implement what remains needful.

What's the alternative?

(That's not a rhetorical question - I honestly want to know if anybody here has a better idea.)

Well, I'd guess that in the long run a truly bad corporation gradually loses its good workers, and replaces them with fools and incompetents. Then that company stops making money, which is to say... It dies.
If the corporation continues to function, that means the workers there are satisfied with their situation. They may not be gleefully happy, but they're satisfied enough that they haven't left. That sounds like Democracy to me.
You just vote with your feet...
The TV station where I used to work, about 20 years ago, led me to that decision.
I had gradually saved up enough for a reliable truck and a few month's living expenses, so I turned in my resignation and drove halfway across the USA to find work.
The corporation most recently owning that station has just recently sold it and is getting out of the TV business entirely... They couldn't figure out how to make a profit...
Maybe the new owners will have a clue, maybe not. Life is like that.

EdBecerra · Post by **EdBecerra** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 12:15 pm

UncleMonty wrote:If the corporation continues to function, that means the workers there are satisfied with their situation. They may not be gleefully happy, but they're satisfied enough that they haven't left. That sounds like Democracy to me.
You just vote with your feet...
The TV station where I used to work, about 20 years ago, led me to that decision.
I had gradually saved up enough for a reliable truck and a few month's living expenses, so I turned in my resignation and drove halfway across the USA to find work.
The corporation most recently owning that station has just recently sold it and is getting out of the TV business entirely... They couldn't figure out how to make a profit...
Maybe the new owners will have a clue, maybe not. Life is like that.

Good choice, and good action. But sometimes, all too often, it's not available. Many companies are aware people vote with their feet and try to take that option away. They don't want employees, they want indentured servants. Serfs, bound to the land - or in this case, bound to the corporation.

There's a reason for the song "Sixteen Tons"...

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

TMLutas · Post by **TMLutas** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:36 pm

SirBob wrote:
labrusca wrote:Smart businessness keep good workers by offering them better wages and conditions than the competition.
That form of employer incentive only exists in the case of skilled labour, tho' - and not coincidentally, skilled professions are the least likely to have unions these days. In the case of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs, you can always be replaced by somebody who's willing to bust his ass for less than a living wage, should you rock the boat.

The number of people who are willing to work for less than a living wage (you may want to define that) is actually not that big. It's essentially people using the job as a training spot and are going to move on in 6-12 months and are willing to put up with lower wages while they gain skills. The problem is the people who want that job, don't want to move up the skills ladder to do something else, and want to be paid more than market rate for it. Any way you look at it, the only way that works is applying some sort of coercion on the employer to pay more than he has to for the high school kids that can do the job just fine for pocket money.

Right now, we're going through a great rebalancing where huge numbers of new workers who have been artificially kept off the market by bad government (Soviet bloc, PRC, and India) are all driving down wages. This is as bad as it's ever going to get. Even Africa isn't going to be this bad. The good news is that wage inflation is hitting the PRC, has been hitting India for awhile, and the Soviet states are stabilizing. We're at or near the peak of downward wage pressure. If we don't lose our heads, a decade from now we'll realize that we've survived it.

Shirogitsune · Post by **Shirogitsune** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:09 pm

The JAM wrote:In English, is there an inherent difference between a guild, a union, and a syndicate? Down here, we have two terms for worker's organisations: gremio and sindicato, which I'll assume are synonymous, I'm just wondering if the first three are synonymous in English.

Guild and Union are almost the same thing in terms of labor unions and the Screen Actor's Guild.

A syndicate is a little different, according to the definition.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.a ... =syndicate

The syndicates you mention fit definition 4 in the page above. Basically, the artist is payed by the agency for their work and the agency then takes the strips and sells the publishing rights to various newspapers and magazines.

TMLutas · Post by **TMLutas** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:33 pm

SirBob wrote:
RHJunior wrote:It's there you're wrong, SirBob.
*shrugs* It's a thorny issue. Unions suck, but many employers do, too. Sure, in an ideal, closed system, employers would have to compete even for unskilled labour, but that's not what we have these days. If an American corporation is dissatisfied with the demands of American workers, they can just outsource to India or another developing nation and pick up some poor, starving schlubs who are all too willing to pull sixteen-hour days for twenty bucks a week.

As it stands, employers have far greater latitude to tell workers to go whistle than vice versa. Perhaps this will change some day, but in the meantime, what recourse do we have?

Actually, outsourcing is not quite the bed of roses so many people make out. The company that I work for has a production facility in Dubai, UAE. I was up @ 1AM this morning debugging TN5250 connection and why the darned thing wouldn't print. I expect to be leaving this company and reasonably soon because they aren't willing to do the basic things necessary for me to fix this stuff and not be up at odd hours of the night doing unrecompensed work.

This production facility lost a week's work when the prime minister of the UAE died. They can't work late because transportation to and from the office shuts down pretty early. They have a high turnover because the relatively low wages they pay these people means they leave for better work. Having "US experience", working for a US company is something that other companies look for and they'll pay for it.

Moving down the ladder, did you know that CompUSA, when they open a store, send the new store's management team to the local Staples to steal away their best workers for $0.50-$1.00 an hour extra. I found that out many years ago when I got a job at CompUSA and the guys that got hired that way explained it to me. I exited CompUSA when somebody hired me away from that job with the same scheme. People try to weaken their competition by hiring away their best workers. This causes wages to rise.

Some companies drive to the bottom. There's no question of that. They're not the only kind of companies, even at the bottom of the labor skills ladder. Others pay premiums for honesty, good work habits, and other low level skills. Customers decide whether they want rock bottom prices and lousy service or better service and somewhat higher prices.

WalMart tries to break the tradeoff by trying to offer both but it's something of a myth. They got very, very efficient, gaining an advantage over everybody else but that's eroding away as other companies imitate their efficiency but offer better service and wages to their employees.

Over time labor and capital struggle over who is going to have more negotiating power. It's not a monolithic situation. Different parts of labor will have differing leverage at any given moment. If you don't like the powerlessness you get in your current segment, retrain and move. Especially at the lower levels, its pretty easy.

UncleMonty · Post by **UncleMonty** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:28 pm

EdBecerra wrote:
UncleMonty wrote:If the corporation continues to function, that means the workers there are satisfied with their situation. They may not be gleefully happy, but they're satisfied enough that they haven't left. That sounds like Democracy to me.
You just vote with your feet...
The TV station where I used to work, about 20 years ago, led me to that decision.
I had gradually saved up enough for a reliable truck and a few month's living expenses, so I turned in my resignation and drove halfway across the USA to find work.
The corporation most recently owning that station has just recently sold it and is getting out of the TV business entirely... They couldn't figure out how to make a profit...
Maybe the new owners will have a clue, maybe not. Life is like that.
Good choice, and good action. But sometimes, all too often, it's not available. Many companies are aware people vote with their feet and try to take that option away. They don't want employees, they want indentured servants. Serfs, bound to the land - or in this case, bound to the corporation.

There's a reason for the song "Sixteen Tons"...

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Would you expect a folksong written to support the union labor movement to say anything else? I won't claim the owners of those mines were saints, but I reject the union propaganda that coal miners of the 1800's were slaves and their employers slave-owners. Anyone with a few day's food and clothes on his back could have left the mine and found work elsewhere. If they instead chose to marry and raise families while working as miners, that tells me they were satisfied with their situation.