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From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The Sub-Minimum Wage Again
Message-ID: <286@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Aug-84 10:29:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: fisher.286
Posted: Wed Aug 22 10:29:15 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 01:20:20 EDT
References: <469@tty3b.UUCP> <134@dmsd.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Statistics
Lines: 213

>Mike:
>	Your love for labor unions and the cause they were created for
>has distorted your objective view for what they have (and continue to)
>become.

I am not Mike Kelly, and I have no particular love or hatred of labor
unions, but permit me to comment anyway on John Bass' remarks...

>	Larbor unions are CORPORATIONS run effectively as an unregulated
>monopoly ... with Federal and State support that protect that monopoly ...
>and in closed shop areas force it down the pocket books of workers that
>may not need or want it.

No argument here. The point of labor unions is to favor the collective
good of their members over the individual good of members, potential
members, non-members, employers, and total strangers.

>	The Myth is that workers unhappy with managment organize to better
>their workplace and salaries ... the fact is that unions TARGET sucessful
>companies by PLANTING union advocates and forcing elections. Anyone who
>as worked for a company that is a union TARGET will be subjected to
>DELAYED raises, DELAYED increases in benifits, DELAYED .... DELAYED ...
>DELAYED attempts of the management to meet the workers needs because the
>LAW prevents such during a union contest ... which is continous until
>either the employees get tired to the DELAYS and vote the union in, or
>the UNION GIVES UP (not very often). I have heard on ONLY ONE sucessful
>attempt to decertify a union ... that was a very ugly battle between the
>empolyees of the company and NON-EMPLOYEE union members. The employees
>that voted for the decertification were black listed ... making it tough
>to get a job in closed shop areas. On the other hand the employer SPECIFICALY
>DOESN'T have the right to black list UNION workers and prevent them from
>being hired ... that is against the LAW ... whose LAW? the UNION monopoly
>protection payoffs ...

The Myth is sometimes correct, and sometimes it is as John represents
it. However, I don't feel it is any more realistic to idealize
management. At least union leadership (except perhaps the Teamsters...)
is ultimately accountable to its membership, i.e. employees, while
management's ultimate responsibility is to the owners (except in
the largest corporations where no stockholder holds a large bloc, in
which case it is to the "directors", which is equivalent to no
accountability, but this is another topic...). 

>	The Myth is that UNIONS make the WORK PLACE FAIRER by uniform
>wage scales ... the fact is that TRADE UNIONS a run by senior trades
>people and professional managers which are interested first in their
>salaries and second the salaries of the junior work force. The CARTEL
>of unions limits membership in a union to DEFEAT free market setting
>of wages by creating ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY of skilled trades people.
>The local concret truck drivers get $17.50/hr + plus benies of an
>other few dollars with no-layoff and guarentied year round employement
>AND a very good OVERTIME rate ... net effect is a basic salary of
$17.50 * 8 * 5 * 52 = 36,400/yr with the average for a worker that works
>available overtime and has a little seniorty of over $50k/year.
>Contrast that with the 1984 average DP managers salary with 15yr experience
>of slightly over $40,400/yr. What is fair about a CLOSED union (go try
>to join it ... hope you have enough to PAY under and over the table)
>that BLACKMAILS the entire construction industry to raise wages to
>drivers (without a highschool education requirement) above that
>of MOST management personel across the broad range of US industry?

Sounds like a description of the Teamsters to me...

The point of most unions is to riase wages for workers, and yes, labor
unions are cartels. The free market is not sacred, and I find no
mention of it in the Bible. Competition (which is NOT synonymous with
the free market) is a handy tool to achieve peak efficiency in the
allocation of resources, but that does not mean that peak efficiency
in the allocation of labor is automatically desirable. John implicitly
assumes that ALL cartels are wrong/bad/whatever. 

And, hey, there are lots of good ARTIFICIAL things. Labor unions may
unnatural as far as John is concerned, but unnatural is not the same
as undesirable.

>	Now for you stary eyed college students looking to make the
>big bucks ... consider that for every 1 of you there will be 10 UNION
>trades people who bring home a higher salary for less work and
>no education required ... for LIFE including a better and earlier
>retirement program on the average.

Well, they could choose to become union trade members, couldn't they?
Hey, if you're going to argue that jobs requiring higher education are
intrinisically more valuable than skilled blue collar work, how do you
reconcile that with your previously proclaimed devotion to the free
market? Even with a free market for labor, I'd be surprised if
electricians made less than college grads who majored in English or
Germanic Languages & Literature.

>	Also consider that they CONTINUE divert the attention to
>the poor underpaid manager getting his first reasonable pay increase
>in 4 yrs of 15% ... while all along the UNION employees got COST
>of LIVING, +++ PLUS +++ minimum contract increases, ++++ plus +++
>merit and time-in-grade raises due to union scale.

Labor unions generally have not complained about lower management's
pay levels. Most of the heat has been directed at top executives who
award (via a board of directors who run companies whose board of
directors the CEO of this company is on) themselves stupendous bonuses
on the basis of profits (which are more often the result of the
general state of the economy or the management of ten years ago (who
are not around anymore)) rather than performance.

>	They draw attention to concessions of trival dollar amounts
>in RELATIVE terms by using LARGE ABSOLUTE SUMS like 4 billion.

So? Who doesn't do this? Besides, 4 billion dollars is a lot in
relative terms, even for a million employees. 

>	UNIONS are quick to point a the few excesses in managment
>salaries ... but we never hear about the wage increases in BLACKMAILED
>union contracts as excesses ... in relation to job training, education,
>skill, degree of difficulty etc ... across the entire market ...
>what is the pay of other delivery drivers ... NOT %50k/yr average.
>But then it might be next year ...

Is all bargaining blackmail? The loser in any negotiation quickly
resorts to that charge. When labor gets a nice contract, we here the
above; conversely, when management holds the high cards, it is labor
which charges blackmail. Using such emotionally laden words generates
much heat without shedding any light.

>The time for PROTECTED CLOSED UNIONS is past ... they are a MONOPOLY
>of trade labor ... CORPORATIONs selling labor in a federally protected
>and closed market.

Yes, they are a monopoly. No, not all monopolies are bad.

>	In comparison AT&T and IBM are only minor industries ...

AT&T was an example of a good example of a good monopoly,
incidentally.

>	It's PAST time to cut UNION excesses down to size. But try to
>raise that issue in our press (UNION CONTROLLED) and radio/tv media (UNION CONTROLLED)
>and goverment (UNION CONTROLLED).

In case you haven't noticed, unions are already much weaker than
twenty years ago, and all indications are that trend will continue. Also,
John's charges that the unions control everything seems to border on
paranoia. I've read editorials on all types of media on either side of
most labor issues, so maybe John just reads the wrong newspaper. It is
also apparent to the most casual observer that the government is
presently embarked on a course of weakening unions, not something
which suggests union control.

>	With our future being strangled by UNIONS everywhere of importance
>it IS NO STRONG WONDER that action to correct their abuse of industry
>go uncorrected.

It's no wonder that if you begin with the assumption that any
restriction of the labor market is evil, that you conclude that unions
are bad. Hey, and you said you were going to judge this objectively. I
guess EVERYONE claims to be discussing things objectively. Larry
Bickford's signoff has some merit.

>	IN THE END it doesn't matter if UNION workers in the US have an
>average salary of $3.50/hr or $10/hr ... or what the minimum wage is ...
>what really matter is it LOW enough to allow american bussiness to compete
>in the world market with a STRONG US DOLLAR.

Pardon my disagreement. Making labor as cheap in the US as it is in
Hong Kong does not strike me as a desirable end, nor do I agree that
the business of America is business. What prevents American from
competing is not just expensive labor, but the fact that management is
rewarded for immediate rather than future results. Given that climate,
it is no wonder that a CEO will starve R&D for an Ad campaign, and
will even grant contracts to unions which will become too expensive
in the future...after all, it won't be HIS problem.

>	The answer is NO ... US industry workers have OVERPRICED their
>labor by a factor of 2 to over 30 in some cases ... making it IMPOSIBLE
>for their employers and managment to make a profit or even CONTINUE BUSSINESS.

Hey, unions are not suicidal. Most businesses with real trouble have
had to expend little effort to gain concessions from their workers.
Failing companies don't get struck.

>	That is why those big bad greedy business men are closing US shops,
>laying of US workers, and sending the JOBS over seas ...

They'll do it as long as American workers get more than $0.35/hour.
Labor intensive industry will continue its exodus at any reasonable
wage level. The solution is not to bring the economy back to the level
it was in 1900, but rather to cause industries to be more capital and
technological intensive. Rather than depress wages, the goal ought to
be to raise productivity.

>		BECAUSE the BIGGER BADDER GREEDIER unions have priced
>themselves, the businesses, and the rest of NON-UNION professions clean
>out of the market ... You can keep your starry eyed vision of perfect
>union (and perfect socialist) workplaces while you look for one of
>the FEWER good jobs in the computer industry.

The reasoning escapes me. Unionism is costing non-union professionals
their jobs? How?

>	Personally I think that a manditory 5 year education in SIBERIA
>would give those liberals mouthing BIGGER UNIONS an idea of what the
>perfect UNION really is ... a socialist state ... a prison by any
>free persons view point.

How's that? Unions aren't allowed in Siberia. Does this means John
holds the Soviet Union to be a example of how desirable a lack of
unions is? I think the Soviet Union would quickly become a better
place if free trade unions were allowed.

>Free today ... and would like to stay that way ...

Free today ... and would like everyone to stay that way ...

					David Rubin	
			{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david