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Celebrating economic warfare
Memorial Day and Independence Day are honorable summer holidays. But what about Labor Day? A popular 20th century college history text, The Growth of the American Republic, describes the late 19th century relationship between labor and business as “an uninterrupted industrial conflict that frequently broke out into violence and assumed the ominous character of warfare.” In the midst of such warfare—the Pullman strike in 1894—President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a national holiday. By celebrating Labor Day we unwittingly celebrate economic warfare.
While our early and mid-summer holidays honor freedom and the people who made our freedom possible, our end of summer holiday celebrates organized labor. Intimidation, coercion, opposition to freedom of contract, cartel, lobbying for liberty-choking laws like the so-called Employee Free Choice Act . . . these are the tools of union leadership today.
I told a friend who owns a communication consulting firm that I was planning to spend part of Labor Day at my desk working as a silent protest. “Hey, maybe we should rebrand Labor Day,” he said. Tongue-in-cheek he added, “Let’s recast Labor Day as a day to celebrate birth.” Later, I told Foundation for Economic Education President Larry Reed about my silent protest and he too suggested a rebranding effort. He plans on celebrating every other Labor Day as “Capital Day” because labor can only be effective by working cooperatively with capital.
“Any good economist will tell you that as complementary factors of production, labor and capital are not only indispensable but hugely dependent upon each other as well,” Reed pointed out. “Capital without labor means machines with no operators, or financial resources without the manpower to invest in. Labor without capital looks like Haiti or North Korea: plenty of people working but doing it with sticks instead of bulldozers, or starting a small enterprise with pocket change instead of a bank loan.”
Entrepreneurs and business owners and managers use financial capital—savings generated by profit—to purchase resources, including labor, to generate products and services that people value. Yet labor union leaders frequently treat those who are responsible for deploying capital as adversaries by using their extraordinary Franklin Roosevelt-era legal advantages to extract unnaturally high wages and hefty benefits for their members. I suspect that most Americans know this but, due to nearly a century of labor law, feel powerless to do anything about this situation. We have witnessed the fruits of union coercion in the form of a depleted steel industry, a failing and bloated education system, and the recent collapse of the American auto industry. And who pays the price in the end? People. People that include the rank-and-file who were supposed to benefit from union activity. We’ll experience more union-generated problems in the near future as states around the nation come to grips with public pension liabilities.
Maybe then we’ll view Labor Day as more than a day to have one last summer barbecue and recognize it for what it is: a celebration of economic warfare.
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Way to focus on the excesses of organized labor without mentioning why there was a need for organized labor in the first place.
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1. As the granddaughter of two coal miners, I have to agree with Buddy glass a little. The unions have gone overboard but without them this country would have most likely gone towards communism. The laborers should have had just as much freedom to strike and not work as the employers had to fire them or give them a raise. Have we lost the ability for balance in this country.
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Totally agree with Buddy Glass. This is a poorly-done hit piece.
Organized labor has had its excesses and corruptions just like any human endeavor. But it is thanks to organized labor that we have a 40-hour work week, paid overtime, paid sick leave and vacation time, workplace safety standards, paid holidays and a long list of other things that most everyone considers to be a good.
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What is the purpose of a union for any public employees?
The excuse? What CONANTHELIBRARIAN said.
The reason? Power through politics, Democratic POWER politics!
Unions force or want to force people to bend to their will.
Example? Card check.
Example? Closed shop.
Example? Beating people who disagree.
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The government should stay out of it both ways unless laws are broken.
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I agree with Buddyglass and KBells. My husband worked in the steel industry. We saw both the problems with unions and the problems with companies having such power over people that their limbs and life was in danger. That was the reality before labor unions came about.
I cannot understand why people who see the need for checks and balances in our government, often cannot see the need for checks and balances in business.
Perhaps, as some think, we have grown into a place where we have enough checks simply in the legislation we already have in place. I’m not so sure.
How to balance business and the right of workers to assemble and make their voices heard? I am not sure. I do know that it is simplistic to assume workers could just move onto another job or form their own business when they were dissastified or in actual danger in their jobs. The history of why those unions got a toe-hold would be good for everyone to know.
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Bob: Do you really want America to return to the days where working people could be made to work 60 hours a week for low pay, and if they get sick they have to either work sick or lose the pay for the days they take off?
Where a factory owner can decide he doesn’t want to spend the money for safety features, and if a few employees each year die or become disabled, well, they’re replaceable?
That’s how it was before unions. And it would not take long to return to those days if the unions went away.
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What the unions did in the past is one thing, what they are doing today is another. Power corrupts, and that’s what’s been happening in the unions.
Safety in the workplace is one thing; endorsing a political party is another. We do need the checks and balances. What we don’t need is government and unions in bed together.
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NJLawyer: Safety in the workplace is one thing; endorsing a political party is another. We do need the checks and balances. What we don’t need is government and unions in bed together.
IIRC, you were an outspoken defender of the Citizens United ruling giving corporations a right of “free speech” they hadn’t previously had.
So it’s good if corporations can put corporate money into political candidates and campaigns, but it’s bad if unions have the same right?
‘Splain, Lucy.
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#7 CONANTHELIBRARIAN
“Bob: Do you really want America to return to the days where working people could be made to work 60 hours a week for low pay, and if they get sick they have to either work sick or lose the pay for the days they take off?”
First, I said “…a union for any public employees….” I did not take on industrial unions. They can be OK. They have become political more than they need to.
Second, I do believe if you don’t work you shouldn’t be paid. Please tell us why anyone should be paid if they don’t work.
My observations have to do with public employees unions that become as much political entities as they are employee support groups.
Many public employees are perfectly capable of supporting the political party of their choice. It is not right that people are forced to support (dues) political parties. In my former teacher’s union, if you did not give money for the union to use on political purposes, you were not allowed to vote in any union election. It sure seems that makes that union a political entity, doesn’t it?
I didn’t like their politics and I didn’t want to be associated with their bad mouthing of people. I didn’t like them or their actions.
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#9 CONANTHELIBRARIAN
“So it’s good if corporations can put corporate money into political candidates and campaigns, but it’s bad if unions have the same right?”
Corporations are spending their own money. Unions spend money they have extorted from many of their members, whether those members want to spend that money that way or not.
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The unions have almost become what they formed to fight.
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As Americans Celebrate Labor Day 2010, U.S. Factories Are Closing In Droves…
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/as-americans-celebrate-labor-day-2010-u-s-factories-are-closing-in-droves
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Simple people worked together to build a foundation of liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Capitalism took hold and a great house was built on those walls. The house of greed, a home for men of wealth and power. From there they sent their armies of bulldozers to squash all who would challenge their lust.
Unsatisfied with winning the battle of who owns everything, they now come to squeeze a little more from the simple people with the broken backs. When we are drained and dead the rich and famous will retire to their mansions by the sea and celebrate victory over common sense, love your neighbor and consider the needs of others.
The story of America has changed from a great tale of adventure surrounding the needs of all men to a horror story describing the thirsts and appetites of monsters. The happy ending is that it will all crumble into sand one day.
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I wonder – how did the workers in Hong-Kong manage to improve their lives so much without unions, OSHA and min wage laws?
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The great majority of “workers” in Hong Kong live in crowded buildings, earn minimal wages and are happy to have concrete floors under them and windows with real glass. Their families in China have little of those things. All the Money in Hong Kong came from your pocket.
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Bob,
You were free at any time to quit your public teaching job and go work for a rural school district or a private school with no union. But you continued to tolerate the “extortion”? Hmmm. I wonder why? Maybe it’s because you liked the higher salary and job security that came with holding a union teaching job. Way to bite the hand that fed you.
Furthermore, in a union, your vote counts just as much as anyone else’s. You were free to advocate that the union give money to candidates of your liking. You were apparently outvoted fair and square.
—-
Lastly, Wishing is disingenuous in referring to Rosevelt-era laws that granted certain legal advantages to workers. He fails to note that many, if not most, of those laws were repealed with the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. So, not since the late 40s has any union in America benefited from the Roosevelt-era legislation.
Besides, with a few exceptions, we have not seen adversarial union-management tensions at any time within the past 30-40 years. So, I’m not sure that this article is rooted in fact or fiction.
I would appreciate World Mag a bit more if it had more of the cleverness and nuance of The Atlantic or The New Republic. If the evangelical intelligentsia (World Mag’s audience) can do no better than spew out poorly reasoned drive-by pieces, then it doesn’t say much for the movement.
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I think unions have become more bad than good; I once decided not to accept a second job over the summer during college because I found out, after I was hired, that it would entail me joining a union. (That is to prove I have “put my money where my mouth is.” I was putting myself through college, and was behind in paying my school bill, and that job would have definitely come in handy.)
We always seem to assume that laws such as minimum wage and overtime pay are good, but that truly is debatable. Take overtime, for example: The whole reason I was looking for a second job off campus was that my on-campus job could legally only pay me 40 hours a week without paying overtime. I would have happily worked more than 40 hours, but they couldn’t legally do it anyway. It wasn’t “protecting” me to require that they pay me overtime if I worked more than 40 hours; it was simply ensuring that I never could work more than 40 hours, even if I wanted to, or would be required to undergo the hassle of getting a second job if I wanted or needed to work more than 40 hours a week. I was a healthy college student and could readily have worked 50-60 hours a week for a few weeks, but overtime laws ensured that I was unable to do so. At the same time, by changing employees to “salaried” status, employers who want more than 40 hours a week from their employees can readily get it. So it’s only hourly workers who miss out.
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I’m not saying they can’t speak. In fact, I avoided citing Citizens United because I didn’t want to start you and your friends on a rampage. But when a union says it can guarantee the vote, when a union forces it’s members to vote a certain way, that’s not what a union should be doing — and it’s not free speech either. Union dues should be used for the benefit of the members, not the bosses.
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And here’s another point: the laws and policies in America have resulted in inflation to the point where living in America is outrageously expensive. It isn’t even possible, in most of America, to construct a 200-square foot house and live cheaply; it wouldn’t fit building codes. It isn’t legal to be homeless, either, nor can even a homeless person live cheaply.
The worldwide poverty threshold has recently increased from a dollar a day to $1.50 a day, but even homeless Americans cannot live on two dollars a day. (Even if all they pay for–or receive in handouts–is the bare minimum of clothing and some food, two dollars a day simply doesn’t go very far. And in most regions they also need a blanket or a coat, as well as some sort of toiletries. They also are using public showers and toilets or going without.)
I recently edited a book talking about relieving poverty without making it worse. The authors told a story about an area of the world where a local organization (I believe it was a church) was willing to give small, short-term loans to members. The citizens earned poverty-level wages, two dollars a day or less (I forget the exact amount, but know it wasn’t more than this, and I think it was less). The rules for loans were quite stringent and included the following: Loans could not be made for birth-related expenses, since families knew about those nine months in advance and could plan ahead, and members could not receive loans for regular living expenses such as electric and water bills.
I questioned the authors. Wait a minute–these people earn forty to sixty dollars a month; they don’t really have electricity and running water, do they? I was assured that they do. Puts a whole new spin on poverty, doesn’t it? I’m not saying these people live in luxury; clearly they do not. But there are areas of the world in which one can have clothing, food, shelter, running water and electricity, and basic medical care (e.g., help with childbirth) for less than sixty dollars a month. Yet minimum wage laws in America make it illegal for an employee to pay that much per day. Could this not be one reason costs are so out of control, and in America it’s expensive even to be dirt poor?!
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If you had a limit on the on-campus job, it may have been linked to the fact that you were a student and they wanted you to have time to study. That’s how it was explained to me back in the day.
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“And in most regions they also need a blanket or a coat, as well as some sort of toiletries.”
I can not resist. Please advise in which regions toiletries are not needed. I don’t want to go there.
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NJL,
toiletries are always needed. Homeless people do not always have them. That, the prevalence of mental illness, and the likelihood they are drunk or high is why one walks past quickly.
As to limit in number of hours, yes, school year employment was limited thusly (though I “got away with” more than the maximum when I was editor of the yearbook, simply because the yearbook had to get out . . . and I kept my grades up to the honors level even when I worked 30 or 40 hours a week for the first half of the semester, 20 hours thereafter, so it worked). But the limit I was refering to there was the legal limit of 40 hours a week during school breaks (Christmas and summer and spring breaks). I got away with more than 40 hours a week during Christmas break simply by keeping track of the extra and adding it to paychecks during the spring semester, but the other breaks were kept to a strict 40-hour work week, and that wasn’t helpful to me.
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menemene, where do you get your facts about hong-kong?
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/25/asia-highest-income-best-benefits-leadership-careers-compensation-salary.html
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Worked for AlliedSignal/Honeywell in Phoenix for 23 years. An that time, there was one vote held to decide whether to unionize. (Perhaps two, I forget.) The workers always decided against the unions, because the company basically treated us well.
Not that they didn’t try any accountant-hatched shenanigans. One year they tried changing the vacation policy, without first settling up with the workers for what they had earned (but not yet received) under the previous policy.
I’ll never forget the HR honey batting her big browns at me and touching my arm and saying, “I know you might feel</i< like you're losing something, but you're not." "Sister," I responded, "this has nothing to do with feelings. This has to do with math.”
The damning thing was, CA employees were going to receive their earned (but unrealized) vacation, due to CA law, which only proved our point that we weren’t receiving what we had worked for under the prior system.
Only after numerous employees took the case to a law firm, which firm wrote a letter threatening to sue for triple damages (as allowed by law) if the company pursued its stated policy change, did CEO Larry Bossidy fire off an angry letter to us, stating (essentially), “we tried to do something good for you, but too many people complained, so screw you … you ain’t gonna get it now.”
About 3-4 years later, the company did change its vacation policy, but they also settled up with everyone under the prior system.
All without the help of a labor union.
I voted against unionization myself. I couldn’t see the sense in having to deal with two powerful, self-interested bureaucracies rather than just one.
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Test?
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Why won’t my union-related anecdote post?
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#17 RSD
“You were free at any time to quit your public teaching job and go work for a rural school district or a private school with no union.”
When I started teaching there were unions but they were fully voluntary. There was no requirement to be a member. Next there was a 7 member board representing union members, elected according to the membership enrollment of each union. I then joined the “union” of my choice, PELA. PELA got one seat, CTA got two seats and UTLA got 4 seats. UTLA got whatever it wanted. Next, UTLA got a closed shop. We had to pay UTLA either dues or it’s “Fair Share.”
I was there before you had to pay-off the union.
As for going to a “rural” school district, we live in one now. The union dues here are over twice what they are in Los Angeles. And yes, you have to pay here too.
Your comments show your views. I found the union to be arrogant. Did you catch my comment that the union was political? In order to vote in the union, you had to pay the full union dues including monies to be used for politics? In order to vote, you had to support the Democratic Party! Please tell us how this is right?
If you want to be a member of that union you had to support the Democratic Party. If you want to work for a Public School, you had to support the Democratic Party. Isn’t there something wrong with this?
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In the past, I voted against unionization myself.
I couldn’t see the sense in having to deal with two powerful, self-interested bureaucracies rather than just one.
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Worked for AlliedSignal/Honeywell in Phoenix for 23 years. An that time, there was one vote held to decide whether to unionize. (Perhaps two, I forget.) The workers always decided against the unions, because the company basically treated us well.
Not that they didn’t try any accountant-hatched shenanigans. One year they tried changing the vacation policy, without first settling up with the workers for what they had earned (but not yet received) under the previous policy.
I’ll never forget the HR honey batting her big browns at me and touching my arm and saying, “I know you might feel like you’re losing something, but you’re not.” “Sister,” I responded, “this has nothing to do with feelings. This has to do with math.”
The damning thing was, our CA employees were going to receive their earned (but unrealized) vacation, due to CA law, which only proved our point that we weren’t receiving what we had worked for under the prior system.
Only after numerous employees took the case to a law firm, which firm wrote a letter threatening to sue for triple damages (as allowed by law) if the company pursued its stated policy change, did the CEO (you’d know his name if I said it) fire off an angry letter to us, stating (essentially), “we tried to do something good for you, but too many people complained, so forget you … you ain’t gonna get it now.”
About 3-4 years later, the company did change its vacation policy, but they also settled up with everyone under the prior system.
All without the help of a labor union.
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(Hmm. All because of an inadvertent “lesser than” sign in my html? Sheesh!)
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Work hours. Am I wrong in thinking that it is the law if you work more than 30 hours a week your employer has to give you health insurance? Now just what is the result of this? Most workers in lower level jobs, think WalMart, fast food, retail, can’t get more than 30 hours a week. Is it reasonable to think they will be able to get a second job? Can you live on 30 hours a week @ $8 an hour? Around here, rent for a 1 bedroom is $600 a month. How about utilities, food, clothes…
30 x 8=240 x 4=$960 minus Social Security taxes… somehow or other it sure seems like your money will run out way before your month does.
Great result for workers, no health care and not enough money to live off. Thank you!
This result was obvious.
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Just did a quick Google search of the terms
“Doesn’t say anything about economics”? Say it ain’t so, Pastor John!
How then do we (you) view the Scriptures as the only infallible rule for faith and life?
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I just read a story that McDonald’s in San Fran is raising its dollar meal to a buck fifty and the homeless are up in arms.
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Dear READER
My facts come from riding the Hong Kong subways and talking to the people how hang on the straps with me, not from the fancy hotels downtown where the reporters enjoy speaking in english. Money talks, those without shut-up.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-02/foxconn-workers-in-china-say-meaningless-life-sparks-suicides.html
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I have always recognized UNIONS as having a valued position in the past.
But for many years they have been money hungry–more about keeping unions in tact to keep their own jobs. More about growing unions. More about more money for unions. More about politics.
Some unions make deals, behind closed doors, with the companies they are supposed to be against. The deals benefit the union, not the workers.
Whole towns have been shut down. I can’t believe the union was totally unaware that that might happen.
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Obama points a finger at his opponents and says THEY work for their special interest groups. Meanwhile he is working for the unions because they give him lots of money. One of his many special interest groups.
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Recently, the workers in the union HERE protested against a strike that was about to take place. The union was totally out of touch with what the workers wanted. People out of work were lining up to take their jobs if the workers went on strike. The union had to compromise–something they won’t do anymore. Because of that fiasco, some of the workers in the union wanted to quit the union. The union staff just laughed at them.
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dear menemene, I have been on subways in USA and EU, seen plenty of poor people in countries with strict labor laws. so what? does my anecdotal evidence prove that unions cause poverty? do you have data to see how Hong-Kong living standards have changed in the last 50 years or so?
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dear reader,
Hong Kong is a few million people living off the sweat of a billion.
Their growth and benefits come at the expense of masses. For every Hong Kong Chinese dancing in a nightclub and counting dividends there are hundreds making pennies a day. It’s not about union or no union. It’s about people hungry for what they want at the expense of others. Steve Jobs should go work on the iphone production line and see what working is all about. I think he would rather go out to dinner.
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Realize, if Steve Jobs did not do what he did, there would be no one working Apple’s production lines. Hong Kong’s problem is the government ruling China at the moment.
Thanks Frank for that article you posted.
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Bob Buckles: Second, I do believe if you don’t work you shouldn’t be paid. Please tell us why anyone should be paid if they don’t work.
Lots of reasons. But never mind those. Instead let us consider the bosses, who are salaried. They can work or not work at their leisure, as long as they get their jobs done. Meanwhile the poor schmo who gets sick for a couple of days, or whose work disappears for a few days or even a few weeks gets nothing.
You think that is fair?
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Also Jobs has actually worked alongside his lower-ranking employees more often than most CEO’s, if not all.
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Excluding the CEO of the company that makes Arizona Ice Tea. That guy mans a forklift in one of his warehouses, and works 8 hours a day there unless he has other business to attend to.
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#41
Arcadia, you get paid to get your job done. If you don’t your fired. That is how it works for salaried employees in general. Some do their job quicker than others, but in general among salaried employees, if they are sick, they have to make up the work later to get paid. Not sure what your complaint it, I mean why would I want to pay a salaried employee who does not get the job done well?
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CEO’s usually don’t do much outside of PR, they are the “figurehead” of the company, so the Arizona Iced Tea fellow works in the warehouse a lot.
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Rom 116: in general among salaried employees, if they are sick, they have to make up the work later to get paid.
No they don’t. What are you talking about?
I’m salaried. If I get sick and need a couple of days off to recover, I get paid for them (up to a maximum number per year anyway). I doubt there are many companies that don’t have paid sick time for salaried employees.
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Are you kidding me Conan? If you don’t do what your paid for, you get kicked out. By definition a salaried employee makes a certain amount per month/year/2 weeks etc, and if you don’t do the work, someone else will get your job. Doesn’t matter whether you showed up every day or was sick. No work done, you lose your job.
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Should rewrite that, if the work is not done by the deadline, say bye to your job.
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Really strange my post was posted. I’ll try without the link — oh now I see the link has foul language.
I’m always amazed how people say unions used to be necessary but not anymore. Or unions have gotten to powerful. America has the lowest rate of unionized labour in the world — and the least powerful. There has been a decline in the middle class and a rise in personal debts since the late 70s and early 80s when Reagan started busting the unions.
Reader, average income/wealth means nothing when there is extreme differences between the top and bottom percentile. Moreover, Hong Kong is filled with illegal immigrants from China who live in extreme poverty and are not counted in any of the data.
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I tried to post a link to Michael Moore’s labour day post but it contained foul language.
Here’s Michael Moore’s open letter to Rahm for labour day and at the end he includes Alan Grayson’s message
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
As he imitates Rahm’s style, I need to include a language warning. I changed the link — the above will take you to the home page then click on the title below the pictures — yes, the title with the f-bomb,
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31 — One more reason to remove basic health care from the workplace. If you had a public option or single payer, the gov’t wouldn’t require workplace health insurance and employers would be more inclined to hire full time workers.
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Rom, have you ever actually had a salaried job? Aren’t you still in college?
Paid time off is about as standard a benefit as you can find. The deal is, you get paid a set salary per year, and a specific number of days you’re allowed to take off during the year is part of the arrangement.
In most cases, there is paid vacation and paid sick leave … so you might be able to take three weeks vacation a year, and have up to four weeks in sick time if you need it.
Other places combine them into a pool of allowed time off … so you might have four weeks time off, but none of it’s dedicated as sick time. This is to the employer’s benefit because it encourages employees to not take all the time they’re entitled to because they’ll hold some in reserve in case they get sick. But even then, there is guaranteed paid time off.
This is not about “not doing what you’re paid for.” It’s a standard benefit.
Sure, if you don’t show up when you’re not approved to have time off, or if you slack off and don’t do your work, you’ll get disciplined and, if it continues, fired. But that’s not what I’m talking about.
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How do you think people take vacations if they’re not allowed to take time off?
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For what its worth, Hong Kong has an agency analagous to OSHA:
http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/osh/content1.htm
Also- Reader, did you read that Forbes article? Here’s what it said about Hong Kong (emphasis mine):
“Despite the impact of the global financial crisis, senior managers in Hong Kong continue to dominate the disposable-income rankings in Asia. While Hong Kong is infamous for sky-high property prices, housing is usually covered as part of the compensation package, so managers typically boast 40% more spending power than their contemporaries in America.”
I don’t think Forbes was attempting to rank what the guys assembling stuff are earning.
According to wiki, as of July 2010 Hong Kong has had a minimum wage. Also trade unions, with 610 registered employees unions in 2001.
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HRW, and those mainland Chinese immigrants came and stayed voluntarily in HK – I wonder what that means?
buddy, menemene, etc. – so none of you dares to explore if workers’ (not managers’) incomes in HK have significantly risen post WWII without labor unions?
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Conan, I think we were indeed talking about two different things. What I was describing was some of the engineers in my family. They get paid as long as they hit the deadline in time.
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#55: They have unions. I haven’t explored when these first came about, but they’re there for at least the last 9 years.
I’ve no doubt that wages have risen in HK since WW2 even if labor unions are only a recent addition.
Bear in mind that the entire economic climate of HK has likely changed significantly since WW2, and bear in mind that much of the rest of the industrialized world had unions, which could exert pressure on HK employers to improve conditions simply to avoid unionization. In other words, HK workers may have benefited from other countries’ labor movements even without having one of their own.
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Let me try again.
As a public school teacher in Los Angeles I worked in a closed shop. I had to pay union dues. I did not want to have any of my dues go to support Democrats. Allowing the union to spend money on politics was a requirement for joining the union. I never saw the union recommend anyone except a Democrat. If I didn’t pay full union dues (part of which went to support only Democrats) I couldn’t vote in union elections or on the contract.
How is it right that I had to support a political party in order to work for public school?
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“How is it right that I had to support a political party in order to work for public school?“
You didn’t. You could have moved elsewhere and worked in a district that allowed non-unionized employees.
Though, this strikes me as an area where regulation could pay dividends. Essentially, have government restrain the sorts of concessions employers can make to unions. For instance, prohibit employers from making the concession that they will only hire union members.
A side thought on labor negotiations in general: Anyone who supports the free market supports an individual employee’s ability to “bargain” with his employer for wages. If the employee thinks he is being paid less than his employer is willing to pay then he’s free to ask for a raise. The employer is free to refuse, and the employee is free to seek higher wages elsewhere. That’s the way the market works.
So why the problem with collective bargaining? Just as an employer places a certain value on a single employee, he also places a value on his entire workforce. This latter value is likely higher than sum of the values of all his individual employees. If I’m running a McDonald’s and one guy quits then I can hire another guy without impacting my business. If all my guys quit at the same time, business will be significantly affected. Therefore the “value” of “all my guys” is greater than the sum of the values of each guy individually.
If we’re alright with an individual employee seeking to narrow the gap between his actual pay and the maximum amount his employer would be willing to pay him, why are we not okay with employees doing the same thing as a group and taking advantage of the fact that the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts?
On the other hand, as an employee, my goal is to maximize my pay until the point at which the company has to start laying people off. Unless there is profit sharing or I’m getting stock options, I have no self-interest in seeing the company grow. Any profits that could be used to grow the company I would rather see go into my pockets. This has a limit, obviously, since its not in my self-interest for the company to fail and my job to disappear. Shareholders in the company, however, want to see the company grow since that’s how their investment increases in value. So they want to minimize wages & salaries as much as possible before the company’s business starts to be negatively impacted. This seems to suggest that different forms of compensation besides just wages (e.g. paying employees in stock, or sharing profits) might mitigate the employee motivation to maximize wages at the expense of growth.
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Buddy Glass, my biggest problem with unions is this: striking. When I get hired by a company, I make an agreement. It isn’t morally right for me to decide to manipulate them into paying me more by refusing to do the job we agreed I would do, at the pay I agreed to. Since I won’t strike, and refusing to strike at a company that calls a strike is dangerous, I won’t work for a union at all.
These days a lot of the problem comes at the other end: it’s not that workers don’t get paid enough, it’s that for too long the American way has meant spending every penny you earn and then go into debt assuming the next raise. People who learn early to spend well within their means can survive comfortably if their income is low, and have a little more cushion (and more to save and give away) when their income is high. In Chicago I was living on far less than I made and fellow single employees who probably made more than I did sometimes regularly griped about how little they made. Seven years later, earning just over half as much as I earned then, my savings from those years have been useful (down payment for a house, money to make unexpected repairs on it, and money left to live on when my outgo briefly exceeded my income), and I have just seven years to go on my mortgage and no other debt. But budgeting and frugality are learned habits, not instinctive.
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57, buddy, that’s a very interesting speculation on a possible externality but also quite a leap of logic – do you have a more detailed theory with some supporting data to test it?
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#61: No, no data. Do you have data to highlight the relative increase in HK workers’ wages over the period in which there were no unions vs. the relative increases of workers’ wages in similar countries over the same period where unions were active?
#60: “Buddy Glass, my biggest problem with unions is this: striking. When I get hired by a company, I make an agreement. It isn’t morally right for me to decide to manipulate them into paying me more by refusing to do the job we agreed I would do, at the pay I agreed to.”
See, I don’t think you really believe this. Is it “morally right” for me to go to my boss and say, “If you don’t give me a 10% raise I’m going to quit”? Almost everyone probably agrees that’s fine. In the absence of govt. intervention, a strike is nothing more than a lot of people going to their collective bosses and saying, “If you don’t give us a 10% raise we’re all going to quit.”
In other words, a strike is only a strike when the company either can’t or won’t fire those who are striking.
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Buddy Glass, who are you to tell me what I do and do not really believe? I chose not to take a job one summer that would have been very helpful to my budget because I do not believe in striking–so yes, I really believe this.
I do think it’s morally acceptable to go to one’s boss and say, “Listen, I know finances are tight, but I just can’t live on what I’m earning with my family’s new financial situation. If I can’t get a 10% raise, I will need to find another job.” This assumes giving notice, BTW, and not quitting on the spot.
In fact, I once did something very similar. I was working at McDonald’s, one of their best and longest-term workers (I worked there several months past a year, in a store with a three-month average). I’d been through the previous summer, when high school employees were suddenly available a lot more hours, and my hours had been cut from an average of 20 hours a week to about half that. (I don’t remember the “numbers” now, just that my hours were cut way back, and whereas in the winter months I often got work even if I hadn’t been originally scheduled, and might sometimes get close to 40 hours, the previous summer I had carried a very low load all summer, an average of nine hours a week if my memory is correct.) So I went to my boss, explained the dilemma, explained that now that I had a car I had the means to go farther and find a different job, reminded them I was one of their most dependable employees, and asked whether I could be guaranteed more hours in the coming summer. I was told no, so I said, “OK, I’ll be looking for another job.” It was with great joy a week later that I gave my two-week notice.
I don’t think manipulation is a good way to get extra benefits, so no, I don’t like the idea of demanding a 10% raise for all. It might be a different issue if the employees say, “We have a serious safety concern that has been brought to your attention, and it hasn’t yet been fixed. If it isn’t fixed by the end of the month, none of us will be on the job next month.” But striking for BETTER terms than you all initially agreed to? I don’t see how that is biblically justified. (In my own case, I was saying I couldn’t afford to have my current working situation worsened, and reminding them that I was a good employee. The reality was I needed a better job, so it’s just as well they didn’t agree–but I had taken more than a year to get that pitiful job, and didn’t even realize that with job experience and my own car, getting a better job would be fairly easy.)
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In the absence of state intervention, striking is no different than quitting. Or threatening to quit. If you’re okay with going to your boss to ask for a raise and potentially quitting (with proper notice) should he declines to give you one, then I don’t see why you object to striking.
When I accept an offer of employment at a company there is no implication that the salary offer they made is set in stone for as long as I’m employed by that company. If at some point subsequent to when I hired on I realize that the salary I asked for was actually way below market value, I have no problem going back to management and asking that my compensation be adjusted to match the fair market value of my skills. Or, for that matter, asking that it be adjusted to above fair market value if I think I’m doing “above market value” work for them.
“But striking for BETTER terms than you all initially agreed to?”
If you are under contract and you strike because you don’t like the terms of that contract, then yeah, I think that’s hard to defend. Usually offers of employment don’t fix the compensation that way. If someone offers to pay me $X to work for them, I’m not under a contract to be paid $X for some fixed amount of time.
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Reader
HRW, and those mainland Chinese immigrants came and stayed voluntarily in HK – I wonder what that means?
Mainland China is worse
Cheryl
When I get hired by a company, I make an agreement. It isn’t morally right for me to decide to manipulate them into paying me more by refusing to do the job we agreed I would do, at the pay I agreed to
Strikes are illegal when there is a current contract. When the agreement runs out, then a strike is a possibility if they don’t reach a new agreement. You are not breaking an agreement when you are on a legal strike — the agreement expired and you are fighting for a new one.
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Cheryl, you’re not taking into account the fact that an employee’s value to the employer usually grows over time. If an employee has been doing her job for awhile, she’s usually much better at it than when she started. If she’s dependable, hard working, and motivating, she’s more valuable now than when you hired her. Obviously it could be different for skilled trades. But to say that it’s always morally wrong to strike for better wages doesn’t really make sense to me.
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…which is the point BuddyGlass just made.
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One of our bus companies is striking now because they don’t have a contract. I don’t see what’s wrong with negotiating working conditions.
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Women are good at manipulation; it’s one of our besetting sins ever since the Fall. In my mind, it’s perfectly legitimate to go to one’s boss and say, “I’m worth more than you’re paying me,” and if he agrees, he will probably pay you more. What isn’t legitimate is to say, “Boss, I’m going to put you over a barrel and give you no choice but to pay me more or lose all your valuable employees at the same time. See, all of us are in agreement and we will all quit if you don’t pay us more money.” That is manipulation, and in my mind it is wrong. There may be times when it is justified (with dangerous working conditions, for example), but I don’t like it, and I personally refuse to do it. I have the choice to take another job or quit if I don’t like it. And God has always taken care of my needs, so I don’t fret about it.
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And yes, if your contract says you will work through the end of August 2010 and at that point you need a new contract or you won’t work, then it can be morally justifiable to say, “I’m not under contract; my old contract has expired.” Occasionally I work for a company that wants a “work for hire” with each project they give me, and without that contract I’m not their employee. That makes sense. I myself will not, however, join in any sort of agreement (as with a union) that says, “I reserve the right to refuse to work if I feel like it.” Hire me, pay me, and periodically look at my work and promote me or give me a raise if you feel I have earned it–that’s what I want in ways of a “contract.”
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