Union Membership Shrinks Again in 2016
- Thread starter DSmith21
- Start date
Hey Commie, "Trickle Down" economics created the greatest economy in the history of the world. Even more amazing is that it was able to do this with the marxist left trying to drag it down the whole way.
You Russian troll get off these boards and go back to slaving for Moscow Oligarchs.
State wage and labor boards do if they are doing their job. Workers need to make the boards aware if they are not being paid according to their job titles.
Your hatred of Trump has blinded your ability to see that Trump "is" doing what is best for Americans. You refuse to acknowledge that because you seem to enjoy corruption.
Keep drinking the unions are for the workers alcohol because you being obviously blind drunk to what they are really doing will keep you complicit.
We are still staggering from Obama and the lefts economy but, it is starting to get better.
I think it is just terrible that those nasty corporations are trying to make all the money they can for the stock holders......wait a second.....no I am not! We have done very well with investments this year......I didn't invest the money thinking, I sure hope they pay their employees a big salaries because..............they want it. If people want to make more money....change jobs, change careers or get another job. It is pretty simple, the more you work the more you make.
I heard it said one time that the value/benefits of a job is determined by the person who will do it for the lowest price. IF I can hire a grunt for $10 an hour why would I want to pay someone else $15? I had a boss tell me one time, "if you want more money learn some more skills".
Depends on the lens you're using. Maybe workers don't make more money. Granted, increased profits do not always lead to increased wages, but that's not the most significant issue. Increased profits usually provide increased job availability. People might not make more money, but at least they have jobs.
I heard a union person (not my employee) say something like, "If they want me to work harder, they will have to pay me more"... I thought if that had been my employee, I'd have fired him on the spot. Employees are paid to give 100% whether they make $2 an hour or $200 an hour.
In 1983 I was a republican, had voted for Reagan, gotten married and knew little of unions other than what I had heard. I found out most of that was BS. I voted for a union at my workplace because I knew how corrupt my employer was. I have never regretted that decision and my union was composed of very good hard working people. I soon learned on my own experience a lot of people simply do not know much if anything about unions and how they work. There is nothing cultist about the union I belong to and I have seen both good and bad about unions, but then I can honestly say I've seen far worse from people who have nothing to do with a union. Human beings tend to act badly due to greed and there is no greater example of greed than American bankers and global corporations. They simply spend a great deal of money making themselves look good to the public. A union gave me a much better life, earnings, education, insurance, pension, and concern for fellow human beings. However human frailty can be found everywhere and unions do not have a lot of money for a PR department.
Ram, the birth of WalMart into many small towns can be directly attributed to the economic collapse of many of those same small towns. Small business owners who were making "decent money" and hiring others at the same minimum wage WalMart paid were lost to the same net numbers of jobs all at those lower wages. The surrounding businesses that were built to serve a community with a spectrum of wages are slowly lost as the net spendable income of the community declines. People with the means and skills leave the community further depressing that local economy. Those "stuck" in the community be it because of family obligations or other factors watch their community slowly die.
More people working???
More two wage earner families because it becomes a necessity where there was once ample opportunities for single wage earner families to exist. This leads to greater family breakdowns...
How many small communities in Kentucky does this describe?
Meanwhile the Walton family counts their billions.
I understand what you are saying and there is some truth. Again, it's a matter of what lens you are looking through. Personally, I see nothing wrong with the Waltons counting their billions. They were smart, worked hard and sacrificed a lot. Those behaviors should be honored and respected. Not ridiculed.
As for Walmart's minimum wage: Their minimum wage is no different from the minimum wage locally owned stores were paying. The admins at Walmart are making as much or more than owners of Mom/Pops were making.
I do feel the pain of the death of small businesses...but exactly what did the Waltons do wrong?
As for the two earner income issue: I'm with you but that is a post WWII phenomenon. Once women saw they could hold "out of the house" jobs and have their own paycheck, they weren't about to go back to wearing dresses and washing dishes when their men came home from the war. They thought "We can live at a much higher level and have more stuff if both of us are working". Indeed, it worked for about 20 years until the economy corrected. Prices aligned themselves with the two income family. The house you could once afford with one income became the house that required two incomes. Of all the issues that harmed our economy AND our families, that is the A 1 issue. From that came a boat load of other, relationship issues that further resulted in the demise of the family.
We could talk for days on this subject.
I'm sure my lens in tinted but experiences I've seen family and friends have had to deal with.
For instance a family member working a job that use to have 4 people now had just himself due to injury and other matters.
Having to do the extra work, no extra bonus and vacation time suspended and lost is utter BS.
He then gets hurt on job, told to go home to be placed on workers comp. Workman comp strings this out for 3 months and denied by the employer.
Denied unemployment since it's now called a leave of absence. Can come back to work if restrictions are lifted with the sever bulged disk.
After a decade working for a company, this is what you get.
So I can see why unions are helpful , especially when protecting benefits and worker safety.
It's when you have to go through arbitration to fire a bad employee is the problem.
It's not the world of your fathers and grandfathers. They had the American dream of having knowing they could have a decent job for 30 years and be proud of your place of work.
Today huge corporations seem to have a Machiavellian outlook of maximizing profits over people and country.
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If you artificially eliminate the marketplace by ******** policies like "RTW" then you sure as **** can get quality labor at a price below what the market believes is the value of that labor.
False as ****. The greatest economy in the history of the world took place post WW2 when taxation was outrageous.
And when they aren't rewarded for giving 100%, what incentive do they have to keep giving 100%?
A) the waltons that are currently collecting billions didn't have *** to do with Wal-Mart growing from a mom and pop store to the most profitable business in America.
B) Wal-Mart's profits are subsidized by tax payer dollars because virtually their entire labor base has to draw benefits because of how low their wages are. Wal-Mart has also been documented trying to break labor laws by having people work off the clock, etc.
The waltons are building their already obscene wealth on the backs of all working Americans and taxpayers.
Of course, viewpoints on every issue are dependent upon the lens through which you view that issue.
Nowhere have I said that the Walton family did anything wrong. I've just pointed out their ability to monopolize the economies of small communities and the effects of that monopolization. The admins at Walmart are in Bentonville, AR. A Walmart store manager earns about $90K, their assistant managers about $45K. I know in the small town where I grew up the store owners who were all eventually put out of business were earning very good livings. They were the sponsors of our Little League teams and community events. They lived in the best neighborhoods...
Was John D Rockefeller doing anything wrong when he built Standard Oil into a company that controlled 90% of the oil industry? I mean JDR did a lot of great things with his money...he was also a ruthless businessman that crushed his competition and strong-armed and dictated terms to those with whom he did business. What choice did they have?
It comes down to if you think monopolies are good or bad. If they are bad, what constitutes a monopoly?
The same issues that are caused by monopolies are present when income distribution in a community or a nation reaches the point where the few are powerful enough to dictate policy for the many.
The question isn't if it is "right or wrong" but whether or not public policy should incentivize that divide or attempt to buffer it.
Relating back to the original topic of this thread it is the same with labor unions. They exist to give labor some leverage in negotiating its worth. They are far from perfect but neither are the corporations for which they work. Perhaps if more businesses were like COSTCO then they wouldn't be necessary. It's amazing that COSTCO can pay its workers $25+/hr and offer very generous benefits and still reward its investors with a better ROI than WalMart. In fact, over the last 15 years COSTCO's return has been more than double that of Walmart.
ram, there are plenty of "**** jobs" available.
Going back to my Costco theme... Costco has an annual turnover rate of less than 6%...their executive staff turnover is less than 1%...the industry average is 66%.
If you value your workers they will return value to the company. If you treat workers like commodities then don't be surprised when they treat their jobs the same way.
It doesn't eliminate the marketplace but removes any leverage labor has in negotiating for better wages.
Exactly. A marketplace is many buyers and sellers reaching agreements through arms length transactions. The culmination of those transactions determine the value of a good or service. Unions are the opposite of a marketplace. Unions are a legalized form of collusion to give labor more negotiating strength against companies. In a free market, companies would offer a certain amount of compensation for a given job. If the compensation offered is below market prices, then they would not expect to get enough qualified candidates to fill their needs. If the compensation offered is above market prices, then they would expect to get more qualified applicants than they need. This works well to establish the true market value of labor when companies do not collude to fix prices and labor does not collude to fix supply. When either buyers (companies in this case) or sellers (labor in this case) collude, it distorts the true value of the good or service.
Why should labor not have more negotiating strength?
They are not able to individually negotiate wages like management does, they are treated as a single component. The company simply has to negotiate labor rates the same as they have to do with their raw materials and other components.
We have a pretty well documented history of the end game when all the power resides on one side of the ledger.
We will have to agree to disagree. That was a different time. Today the population is much more mobile and the labor market is much more national than it was a hundred years ago. I don't believe collusion is necessary to be able to sell your labor at a fair price.
That mobility applies to companies as well.
We can look at what has happened the past couple of decades as RTW has spread. Wages have declined as productivity as increased while management has enjoyed all the fruits of those gains.
The people who work labor jobs are the least mobile and the lower they sink on the economic ladder the less powerful and mobile they become.
Mark my words, there will be a revival of the labor movement not totally unlike what occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. With the likes of Bernie Sanders it has already started.
To quote Bruce Springsteen; "Poor man wanna be rich. Rich man wanna be king. King ain't satisfied until he rules everything". Once the king rules everything then we are all powerless to sell anything. There is only one buyer and he controls the market. If you're the only employer in town then you rule the market. That is the danger of allowing more and more wealth to accumulate in fewer and fewer hands.
Those who fail to learn history are damned to repeat it.
Lol. The only thing that artificially eliminates the marketplace is unions . RTW doesn't change that. True market values can't be obtained under unions.
Some people need to reconcile themselves to the reality that working a regular job is not the secret to getting ahead. Working at Walmart, a factory, even a profession is not the recipe for mo
I agree. IMO, there is no longer such a thing as loyalty on either side of the fence. Both sides are out to get (and keep) as much as they can get and keep.
I agree. IMO, there is no longer such a thing as loyalty on either side of the fence. Both sides are out to get (and keep) as much as they can get and keep.
While I enjoy Springsteen's music, he is a far cry from being a rocket scientist, lol. I certainly don't trust his intellect over my own.
Wages decline in RTW states because the union has less ability to collude to keep wages artificially high. You can't assume union wages are equivalent to market wages. Just because they decline doesn't mean that it's not appropriate in terms of how the market values the work. I do agree that boards do sometimes pay the management team far more than they are really worth. Unfortunately, some board members are subject to being courted by CEOs and end up being in bed with them, so to speak, instead of objectively doing their job. That is not a universal truth though. Not all corporations fit into this category. Owners of those companies should vote out the current board and correct the problem if they feel it is costing them income. Keep in mind, so called corporate greed is you and me. If you own mutual funds and stock, you are benefiting from so called corporate greed, and those management teams have an obligation to you and me, as owners, to enrich us as much as practicable.
The biggest problem with US wages is the standard of living differences between us and other developing countries. I am a free trade guy by and large, but there is a part of me that wonders if there should be tariffs that adjust the price of goods to a point that equalizes standard of living differences between the trading countries. As it stands today, our standard of living means that we can't pay a wage that allows us to manufacture many things in this country. Of course, the flip side of that would be higher prices for goods and services for consumers in this country. I'm just not sure whether having access to cheap goods is a bigger win for the country compared with higher costs but also more manufacturing jobs. It's an interesting question that I'm sure some economist has tried to answer at some point.
So then you can't possibly disagree with the fact that those who start with more...orders of magnitude more, have an overwhelming strategic advantage.
Like respect, loyalty is earned, not given. American workers were once very loyal until that loyalty was betrayed by corporate greed and jobs were shipped to Mexico and China, pension plans were raided and promises broken. I believe that workers would have gladly accepted shared sacrifice and made concessions if those at the top sacrificed as well. But the opposite happened.
I remember paying a 100 dollar entry fee to UFACW while working at Kroger.
I would've opted out of that **** if I could.
My mom worked for them for over 20 years. Even she hated them. They're a relic of the past. You get passed up because of seniority instead of merit. She bitched about that constantly. It only fosters laziness.
I would've opted out of that **** if I could.
My mom worked for them for over 20 years. Even she hated them. They're a relic of the past. You get passed up because of seniority instead of merit. She bitched about that constantly. It only fosters laziness.