Unions. Whats Your Opinion?

[Imran Siddiqui]

What about the unions which are corrupt, paiktis? Not controlled by the owners, but the leaders of the union exercise dictatorial control over the finances? How are they to be taken apart with the system of corruption and patronage built into it? And some unions, at least in the Eastern US, are run by the mafia. Take those apart?

[Agathon]

All the unions are corrupt... how working people yearn for the conditions of Victorian industrialism... how dare bargained for safety measures prevent corporations from maiming and dismembering their employees.

Imran, I'm really sorry, but you don't strike me as having a working class background and thus, like most others, you have no idea of what you are talking about.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh yes, since I didn't slave away in a factory, I can't talk about unions! Seeing how you are a philosophy prof in your comfy job, I guess you can't either!! Though you think for some reason your comfy position gives you the ability to say that no unions are corrupt or have ever been corrupt!

Of course, seeing that I work for the federal government and have to deal with the corruptness of unions (we just opened a massive case on a union which has stolen the health care premiums of hundreds of employees), I have no frame of reference for saying that some unions are corrupt .

You are such a tool.

[Agathon]

You deserve it.

As I said, you don't know what you are talking about. I belong to a union; I was on strike less than four years ago. I have belonged to various unions, I still belong to the union; and your comments, and those of people like you are a joke. You endlessly pontificate about the vices of poor people and their institutions, without any real knowledge of the alternatives.

Of course unions are less than perfect, and some unions are a nuisance to their members; but unions serve an important function, like so many other imperfect institutions in our societies and working people would be worse off without them.

Listen to yourself: some unions are corrupt, therefore all unions suck. Forgive me if I laugh.

Unions exist as a form of insurance against being badly treated at work - that's what they do. The benefit of having a union official at a disciplinary hearing to make sure that your rights are not violated is a necessity for many working people, who lack the education to stand up verbally to their employees, and who can't afford lawyers. There are other benefits, like more bargaining power, etc. but they are basically there to empower employees in their disputes with their bosses.

The overwhelming reason for employers wanting to disempower unions is for them to screw their employees for their own benefit. We know this, because this is what mostly happens when union busting legislation gets passed.

Don't you conservatives have anything better to do than attacking the most vulnerable people in our society and thinking of ways to keep them in the dirt?

[MosesPresley]

Unions.

I can't believe Che hasn't posted in this thread yet.

[Agathon]

He's too busy nuptialising.

[Adam Smith]

Tingkai:

Unionization in the US peaked at 25.4 percent of the workforce in 1954, and declined steadily to 19.7 percent of the workforce in 1978. Source: Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor Economics 1982, Table 12.1. The fact that wages were rising, hours declining, and workplace safety improving all at a time when unionization was declining suggests that factors other than unionization were responsible for the change.

UR, Agathon:

Supply and demand doesn't work in real life

This has just confirmed my belief that contemporary economics has little to do with reality.

Are we doing a little BAMing here? The issue, as I recall it, was labor mobility. I provided numerous large-scale examples in the US. There are plenty of small-scale examples too. My father left a small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania to find a better job in the city. I left Chicago in 1982 because there were better jobs for economists elsewhere. But in each case supply and demand does the job it is intended to do: move scarce resources to their highest valued use. The demand for labor increases at Henry Fords’ new assembly plants, so people move to Detroit and Chicago. The demand for labor falls in the Dustbowl, so people move to California. There are certainly human consequences when workers move, just as there are consequences to the owners when companies go bankrupt. While one can reasonably question whether the costs are worth the benefit of increased output, it is clear that supply and demand move scarce resources to their highest valued use.

Bonus questions: What evil free-market policy caused the drought? What utopian government policy would have prevented it?

Tingkai:

Why does this bug you?
Isn't this is a good reason to join a union.

Does it make any difference to consumers whether the union worker gets paid $120K or whether an evil monopolist port owner charges the same amount to unload containers? Does it make an difference if somebody like CALPERS (California Public Employee Retirement System, largest single stockowner in the US) owned stock in the port? The effect on consumers is the same regardless of who charges uncompetitive prices or who keeps the profits thereof.

edit: formatting

[Agathon]

Are we doing a little BAMing here?

Not really, I just take it that anyone who's read The Grapes of Wrath would realize that although it might be nice to move labour to its highest value use, ignoring the effects on people and their families is akin to thinking of ethnic cleansing as: "just moving people to somewhere where they won't cause so many problems".

There are certainly human consequences when workers move, just as there are consequences to the owners when companies go bankrupt.

Sure, but given that in most cases the owners of large companies don't have their homes bulldozed and end up in refugee camps.

And I don't think utopian policies were needed, just proper disaster relief. Of course the wildboy capitalism which caused the Great Depression effectively prevented that from happening.

[Agathon]

Adam, Woody Guthrie had his own ideas about a solution. I don't know if I agree, but I like his style:

"Shows the dam bankers men that broke us and the dust that choked us, and comes right out in plain old English and says what to do about it.

It says you got to get together and have some meetins, and stick together, and raise old billy hell till you get youre job, and get your farm back, and your house and your chickens and your groceries and your clothes, and your money back."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Listen to yourself: some unions are corrupt, therefore all unions suck.

Ah, the philosopher engages in a classic logical fallacy. Why am I not suprised?! He thinks that if I say some unions are corrupt, then I mean all unions suck. Isn't that like extrapolating the general from the specific or something? You're the philosopher, you should know what logical fallacy you are committing here.

And putting words in someone else's mouth (ie, you think all unions are bad and evil and should be abolished). Isn't that another logical fallacy?

Man, you must be a piss poor philosophy teacher with a track record for logical fallacies like this!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Adam Smith


This is essentially the “Exit Voicing” theory put forward by Freeman and Medoff. Critics of the “Exit Voicing” theory ask why a union is needed to do this. Wouldn’t it be in the interest of employees or employers to undertake such actions, depending on who would benefit from most them?

It's certainly in the interest of the employee, but going it solo isn't easy. Isn't it better to get experienced and well-informed help?

Whether it's in the interests of the employer is highly debateable, and a lot of employers would disagree.

[Cruddy]

My opinion on unions is - on this side of the Atlantic their action has clearly resulted in positive benefits.

I was a member of the NUJ for a year - I decided not to rejoin after I attended my one and only branch meeting.

It was SO UNBELIEVABLY DULL...

My understanding is that unions on the other side of the Atlantic have served merely as targets for those wielding very big sticks... but I'm no expert on that subject.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
While there have certainly been progressive unions, I don’t think the data bear this out in the US. Up through the 1920’s, wages (adjusted for inflation) were generally rising, and unionism was generally too small to matter much. By the 1950’s and 1960’s US unions were starting to decline, but wages were still rising. Its only from about 1935 to 1955 that you see unionism rising and wages rising. This suggests that other factors, such as greater literacy, better education, and more capital per worker, were responsible for rising wages. Shorter hours and better working conditions were then a consequence of the rising incomes. I wonder if the effects might be the same in the UK.

No they weren't. Incidentally, how were better working conditions due to rising worker incomes? Am I missing something?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Why does this bug you?

Isn't this is a good reason to join a union.

Which would you prefer: a non-union job that pays peanuts or a union job that pays good money?

Why does it bug you that there are CEO's who make millions a year? I mean, wouldn't you prefer to be one of those?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by paiktis22
unions are good because owners only care about profits, the worker might as well die. not their business.

The unions only care about their wages, even if it bankrupts the state.