Thank you, labor unions ......

[MrFun]

There needs to be a different solution - one that serves to advocate for workers while not inhibiting corporate activities. Unions should not be anti-corporate; the larger the company is able to expand, the better it will generally be for the employees. Unions should be pro-business, while advocating for the workers to get a reasonable share of said expansion. That part Unions don't currently understand.

I agree. For instance, I would like to see unions actually held accountable for their workers' productivity and reliability but these days, unions allow lazy/unethical union workers to pretend to "work" alongside hard working union workers.

[Hauldren Collider]

I don't think union workers are overpaid. I think non-union workers are underpaid.

The good news is that it doesn't matter what you think or what I think or what anyone thinks.

[DaShi]

HC's underserved arrogance in this thread is amusing. I hope he never grows up.

[-Jrabbit]

There is no doubt that older unions in mature industries can be anti-business in the modern age. The role of unions in the decline of US heavy industry (e.g., auto, steel) is pretty well documented. Chicago used to be a huge convention town, but union costs got so out of control that it was only a matter of time before right-to-work locations like Vegas and Orlando stole the lion's share of that business. Not just because of costs, but because of poor performance as well.

But I object to the demonizing of all unions as a result. It's a simple-minded, pandering approach that ignores the very real, and often nuanced, issues of the modern workplace.

[regexcellent]

In my mind there has never been a purpose for unions; they are something that should never have existed. They should be treated as what they are: monopolies on labor, and should be attacked with anti-trust laws like they were back under the Sherman Act.

[BlackCat]

Aahahahahaha

We should ban all things that give the wealthy an advantage over the poor!

"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK FOR FREE!" Ridiculous.

I think that I remember that you have claimed that you just can leave a low paid job to get a better - bet that the same goes for an unpaid job

[Hauldren Collider]

Precisely.

[C0ckney]

In my mind there has never been a purpose for unions; they are something that should never have existed. They should be treated as what they are: monopolies on labor, and should be attacked with anti-trust laws like they were back under the Sherman Act.

that you are ignorant of history and of the circumstances which led to the foundations of unions, is a defect which you would do well to correct.

[BlackCat]

I don't think this is relevant, but I'll bite. I've worked four jobs, all over the summer. One minimum wage job as a cashier/bag boy at a grocery store, two software internships, and last summer I taught math and basic programming to little kids (3rd and 4th graders and sometimes 7th/8th graders).

Just a bit corious - was you living with a wife and a couple of children during that time ?

[Felch]

In my mind there has never been a purpose for unions; they are something that should never have existed. They should be treated as what they are: monopolies on labor, and should be attacked with anti-trust laws like they were back under the Sherman Act.

Something that you should watch:

Some unions have a legitimate purpose. The AFSCME does not represent any of these unions.

[MrFun]

In my mind there has never been a purpose for unions; they are something that should never have existed. They should be treated as what they are: monopolies on labor, and should be attacked with anti-trust laws like they were back under the Sherman Act.

Listen - go read on the history of labor and industrialism of the nineteenth century, okay?

[MrFun]

But I object to the demonizing of all unions as a result. It's a simple-minded, pandering approach that ignores the very real, and often nuanced, issues of the modern workplace.

QFT

[MrFun]

It'd be like saying that since some corporations are corrupt, that we should abolish all corporations and make them illegal.

[Zevico]

If we ban unpaid internships, how do we distinguish it from ordinary, run of the mill volunteering? Or unpaid overtime? Why not just ban volunteering altogether to be safe? Heck, ban unpaid overtime too. To prevent exploitation, you know.

[Zevico]

that seems pretty nebulous compared to having food or somewhere to live.

Well, if it was at all unclear to you what I meant, it's simple: look at HC's post. Now suppose every youth works at burger king for a year, or what have you. That means every youth gets into the habit of work--the habit of showing up on time, focusing on your work, prioritising, and playing some part in running a business. There is value to this: it means a more efficient, more experienced workforce. Spread that benefit over the entire economy and you get a more efficient, productive workforce. Every employer, and every employee, knows it.

You asked for empirical evidence to demonstrate that youth unemployment is higher in countries where there is an effective minimum wage, that is, one that actually has a role to play in stemming the demand for cheaper labour. The proof for this proposition lies in the high youth unemployment rates in any number of countries with an effective minimum wage. I refer you to this article by Thomas Sowell:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell080101.asp

Sowell's book, Basic Economics, is also an excellent resource.

Sowell also adds this example in another article:

It is not written in the stars that young black males must have astronomical rates of unemployment. It is written implicitly in the minimum wage laws.

We have gotten so used to seeing unemployment rates of 30 or 40 percent for black teenage males that it might come as a shock to many people to learn that the unemployment rate for sixteen- and seventeen-year-old black males was just under 10 percent back in 1948. Moreover, it was slightly lower than the unemployment rate for white males of the same age.

How could this be?

The economic reason is quite plain. The inflation of the 1940s had pushed money wages for even unskilled, entry-level labor above the level specified in the minimum wage law passed ten years earlier. In other words, there was in practical effect no national minimum wage law in the late 1940s.

My first full-time job, as a black teenage high-school dropout in 1946, was as a lowly messenger delivering telegrams. But my starting pay was more than 50 percent above the level specified in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Liberals were of course appalled that the federal minimum wage law had lagged so far behind inflation -- and, in 1950, they began a series of escalations of the minimum wage level over the years.

It was in the wake of these escalations that black teenage unemployment rose to levels that were three or four times the level in 1948. Even in the most prosperous years of later times, the unemployment rate for black teenage males was some multiple of what it was even in the recession year of 1949. And now it was often double the unemployment rate for white males of the same ages.

This was not the first or the last time that liberals did something that made them feel good about themselves, while leaving havoc in their wake, especially among the poor whom they were supposedly helping.

For those for whom "racism" is the explanation of all racial differences, let me assure them, from personal experience, that there was not less racism in the 1940s.

....
The economic reason is not complicated. When you set minimum wage levels higher than many inexperienced young people are worth, they don't get hired. It is not rocket science.

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/02/07/a_defining_moment/page/full/