Thank you, labor unions ......

[giblets]

Why isn't there any talk of banning corporations since some corporations are corrupt?

Let's ban Congress too.

[Uncle Sparky]

Well, it is very obvious the US government is badly broken - are either parties proposing serious reform?

[MrFun]

Let's ban Congress too.

This is another example of why the position, "Some unions are hopelessly corrupt, so let's ban ALL unions," is sheer idiocy.

Thank you, gribbler.

[Zevico]

what you wrote was nothing like that. if that really was what you meant, then you failed to convey your message. don't blame others for your inability to write clearly.

Who said I was blaming "others"?

yes i did and what i got in return were two opinion pieces. the fact that you don't understand that opinion pieces aren't emperical evidence is a bit worryiny for someone who wants to be a lawyer.

Post 128. Also the opinion pieces cited those studies. No, I didn't look for those sources online direct.

See also one of the studied cited therein:

http://epionline.org/studies/even_5-2011.pdf

[molly bloom]

I'll qualify my remark by saying that illegal immigration will be substantially less without a minimum wage and that it is a key driver for illegal immigration.

Well that's a lovely opinion, but that's all it is.

Illegal immigrants from even poorer parts of Mexico are competing with formerly illegal Mexican immigrants who were part of the amnesty in 1986's Immigration Reform And Control Act. They were by and large mestizos who could at least speak Spanish. The newer immigrants are Mixtecs (among others) who can't even speak Spanish in many cases, but only one or more out of nearly a hundred dialects of Mixtec.

And there are other migrants speaking other languages indigenous to areas such as Oaxaca and Chiapas, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, et cetera.


Of course what is a rather salient and sanguine fact about the economies and societies of the Central American states is the deleterious effect that the involvement of American and multinational corporations had on them- from the military assistance (training, materiel) given to death squads and corrupt militaries and paramilitaries (who were given to killing those foolish enough to advocate land and social reform) to the public support given to those helpful 'anticommunist' kleptocrats who managed- or should that be mismanaged ?- to ruin their countries while filling their own pockets.

Perhaps the President's Commission On Migratory Labour put it best in its report in 1951:

We depend on misfortune to build up our force of migratory workers and when the supply is low because there is not enough misfortune at home, we rely on misfortune abroad to replenish the supply .

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Commission had discovered migrant workers living in orchards and irrigation ditches. Not in buildings, but actually in the ditches and under the fruit trees whose produce they picked.

They were always afraid of being discovered by the authorities, were customarily exploited by those employing them, had no job security, no holidays, social security, health plans, were frequently working in unsafe conditions and using pesticides without adequate protection- and as the Commission concluded, their life was equivalent to peonage.

Still, I suppose it beat being shot or tortured in Guatemala or El Salvador.


What I found most surprising about the Commission's findings was not that Congress chose to ignore them, but bizarrely that it was a crime to be an illegal immigrant in the United States in the twenty years following the report, but not a crime to employ an illegal immigrant.

Mmm, can't imagine who benefited most from that.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

This is another example of why the position, "Some unions are hopelessly corrupt, so let's ban ALL unions," is sheer idiocy.

Thank you, gribbler.

I'm at a loss here. Where did the "ban unions" point get raised in this thread?

[Zevico]

Well that's a lovely opinion, but that's all it is.

On reflection you may (or may not) be right. It was a remark made without knowledge of illegal immigration in the US and I withdraw it.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm at a loss here. Where did the "ban unions" point get raised in this thread?

Why shouldn't it be? I think we should ban unions, because the entire purpose of their existence--creating a labor monopoly--is corrupt.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Why shouldn't it be? I think we should ban unions, because the entire purpose of their existence--creating a labor monopoly--is corrupt.

Very much disagree. Why should people's rights to freely associate be infringed? The value (particularly the lack thereof) of that association should be up to the individuals to determine as much as possible. Laws compelling people to contribute or preventing them from leaving that association obviously are an issue.

The point I think you are stretching for is that business monopolies are policed by Sherman Anti-trust laws while no such provision exists for labor pooling. However the mere existience or potential of a monoply is not enough to warrant its abolishment. No one in their right mind argued at the time (unless you were a wackjob communist sympathizer) that corporations needed to be abolished without the existence of Sherman Anti trust due to the possibility of monopolies. Likewise the same for labor pooling.

To put a finer point on it, unions are dying. People by and large understand they offer little to no value. That should continue to be the case as people become more aware of the rank corruption. I see little reason to employ state police powers to prevent an organization from existing.

[Hauldren Collider]

Very much disagree. Why should people rights to associate be infringed? The value (particularly the lack therof) of that association should be up to the individuals as much as possible to determine. Laws compelling people to contribute or preventing them from leaving that association obviously are an issue.

Then why do we have anti-trust laws?

Furthermore, as you allude to, labor unions aren't free association. They are guilds, forcing membership and preventing people from freely selling their labor to whomever they wish.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Then why do we have anti-trust laws?

Um... to prevent businesses from screwing over consumers?

[Hauldren Collider]

Um... to prevent businesses from screwing over consumers?

Exactly! For the same reason, we shouldn't have unions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Exactly! For the same reason, we shouldn't have unions.

I didn't realize unions were businesses. I said businesses for a reason. It's purposely limited.

[Hauldren Collider]

Businesses are groups of people that produce something. At the individual level, everyone is a business selling one thing--their labor. Unions are a trust of these people working together to manipulate prices.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How utterly quaint. Buisnesses, being just groups of people that produce stuff, would never try to screw over other folks in horrible and oppresive ways requiring governments all over the world to step in.