Wrong, wrong, wrong again.Follow

Here is why I brought up the industrial revolution. Now do you honestly believe deregulating, and de-unionizing these types of jobs will significantly lower fatality rates? If so, you're full of shit. These companies would only further cut corners, and thus more deaths would occur due to corner cutting. What's another fantastic way of cutting corners? Lowering wages, not paying for safety training, not paying for safety gear! Wanna know the best part? The Department of Labor is too undermanned to handle the individual case, as is the OSH. Even if they get to it, thanks to Republican budget cuts, they are unable to prosecute those guilty. Ding, ding, ding!

I know, they are dumb fucking ********* who gives a fuck? Right Gbaji?





Edited, Mar 12th 2008 11:00pm by Rimesume

That's much better old bean, close to salient, really.

I should just save us all time and point you in the right direction instead of arguing with you.



Unions are monopolies of labor. If the tactics used by unions were used by producers of goods, it would be illegal (is illegal). But because the "good" being sold is labor, somehow people get confused and think that otherwise illegal and unethical practices are "Ok". It's strange really...

It's not strange at all, because the "good" being sold involves people's quality of life. That's why it's not treated as a commodity, because coco beans don't have human rights to consider. Trade unions slow the class stratification that is the primary result of capitalism. Without trade unions you'd get unrestrained capitalism, which results eventually in violent revolution and has consistently throughout history.

Those are basically your options, pay artificially high wages or establish an abject fascist state that rules through complete domination or deal with constant worker revolutions. How do you think unions came to be in the first place?

You make a compelling argument for off shoring your entire data center though.

You're still only seeing one side of the equation. Laborers compete for jobs, but employers also compete for labor. Both sides work at the same time. One can drive labor values down, the other drives them up. The assumption of the market is that over time, these forces balance out. Too much competition for the same job drives down the value of that job. This in turn reduces the attractiveness of that job to the worker, and he shifts to doing something else where there is more demand, in turn receiving a higher wage.

This process ensures that labor is paid what it is worth to the economy. This value is based on the productive output that the labor generates and not via some other artificial method. It also ensures that labor is doing what is most needed within the economy. What's missed by most labor advocates is that without allowing the supply/demand forces on the labor market to work, you stop the mechanism that automatically ensures you don't get too far away from the "sweet spot" from working.

By attempting to artificially correct for a short term imbalance between demand for a skill set and the supply of that skill set, unions perpetuate that imbalance. Not only that, but they make it worse over time by artificially making that skillset more attractive to labor. Had the natural market forces been allowed to operate, that job might be worth $10/hour, but is now paying $20/hour. Thus, you'll end up with a greater imbalance over time, since more people will seek out that job. Perhaps there's an alternative job they could have worked that paid $15/hour. The worker would have been better off in the long run working that job. The economy would be better off if he worked that job. But instead he's going to choose the job that's "worth" $10/hour to the economy because it's artificially been inflated to pay $20/hour instead.

That's a bad thing. It's bad for the worker (in the long term). It's bad for other workers. It's bad for employers. It's bad for consumers of the goods produced at those artificially inflated prices. It's bad for the country as a whole since our products can't compete with other nations.

It's just bad all the way around...



They will if there aren't 10 times more people wanting to work that job then there is need for that job. The reason there are more people wanting the job is because it's been artificially inflated via a union process.

Pay minimum wage for that job and the demand for it will drop. Those workers will move elsewhere. Over time, the match between job requirements and labor skill sets will balance out and the wages for that job will rise to their natural levels.

I think the key point here is that we should be adjusting our labor to meet the demands of the economy, and not the other way around. Labor should seek out the jobs and opportunities that employers make available. Do that and employers will make those jobs. It's in their best interest to do so.




Yes. But here's the deal. If the two sides of the equation are balanced, then both sides meet in the middle with neither having an advantage over the other. Labor can make the employer compete for their skills, and employers can make labor compete for their jobs. When both are in balance, then an "ideal" result occurs. When they are out of balance is when you see problems.



Of course! But from the workers perspective, it's always better to work the minimum amount while demanding the highest wage possible. One "failure" is no better then the other. When both sides are in play, they balance each other and both sides get a fair deal. Each would love to get more, but as long as natural market forces are determining the end pay rates, then it's "fair" by definition.

Remember. Labor can play this game too. But not by using artificial controls over a group of laborers to strike and demand more pay. That's a collective process that violates the free market methodology. Rather, laborers individually force their employers to compete for their skills. This does requires that those laborers have skills that are "in demand", but it's the union process that ensures that they aren't in demand. A free market solution over time ensures that the balance of supply and demand is reached.



Absolutely. So don't make yourself replaceable. Unions make their members replaceable by inflating their cost and their numbers beyond what the demand for their jobs is naturally. The union uses unfair practices to force themselves on the employer, but they *also* do this to their own members. By enticing them into a job market that wont support them naturally, the laborers are also forced to continue to support the union in order to secure their jobs.

Without a union, they'd have no need of a union. That's the great irony...




But employers don't do this artificially. When they do, we call that a violation of anti-trust laws and shut them down. See. There are laws in place that prevent the employer from doing this. We ought to have similar laws preventing it on the union side, but for some reason, we don't.


Unions are monopolies of labor. Actually, they're worse then monopolies. In a monopoly, the supplier of goods only has control as long as he actually controls the supply of that good. His ability to artificially inflate prices is a direct function of his ability to artificially reduce supply. Unions control the supply of labor, but they don't have to maintain that artificial reduction of supply (aka: a labor strike). They can force the employer to sign a contract promising them set wages, hiring rates, benefits, etc that apply even when the supply of labor is increased. They can also add stipulations that the employer can't hire someone who isn't working for the union, or if he does, he has to pay them the same wage (so there's no benefit to the employer to do this).


And the truly amazing thing is that many states actually have laws that support this rather then oppose it. They're called "prevailing wage" laws. Any government contract work must pay labor union wages to anyone they hire whether they are in a union or not. This is yet another layer of artificiality designed to ensure that businesses that hire union labor can compete with those that don't.

It's also unfair and should be illegal. But oddly, isn't...

Not only for highly skilled positions. Almost any position, as long as it can't be filled by anyone with a pulse, can do this. In our economy, most jobs can do this. Heck. Most union jobs can do this.

A guy standing on the road holding a sign? Anyone can do that job. A guy operating a backhoe? Not anyone can do that job, or do it well. I think you're really selling a lot of fields short. Any field can have a range of "skilled" labor working in it. And if you make the pay criteria based on skill instead of "time in", you'll see people rewarded for those skills.

Despite popular opinion, the entire labor market is not filled with jobs employing people digging ditches and holding signs. Every field has ranges of skill. And if you have an incentive to develop that skill, you'll be highly paid. Doesn't matter if you're a roofer, a landscaper, a carpenter, a computer tech, or an assembly line worker. If you allow employers to reward their workers based on skill and value rather then title and time (union pay ladders), you'll see this in a whole lot more fields.



Minimum and low wage jobs are supposed to be entry level. You start there. Then, as you get better at your job, you advance. That's how it works everywhere *except* where unions have control.

Remove the unions, and the system works. It really does.

Minimum and low wage jobs are supposed to be entry level. You start there. Then, as you get better at your job, you advance.

No, largely as you get better as sucking the **** of mangers you advance. Your career is a fantastic example.

dude the vacume tubes used in our radar scopes untill the lat 10 years were made in korea. no one in the U.S. would make them for the F.A.A.

the lcd screens we paid 32k a piece for to replace them are made in china.

raetheon makes most of their electronics over seas. fords are made in canada. chevy trucks in mexico.

its not about being a traitor, its about the unrealistic expectations of american workers to earn a high amount of cash for very little work. it costs an average bussiness owner about 12 bucks an hour to pay a 7 dollar minimum wage. the average wage in china is 50 cents with no benifits. in mexico its about 1.50 an hour with no benifits.

how is ANY manufacturer expected to be able to compete price wise with their products when their over seas compatition is paying 1/10 of their labor costs or less?

american bussiness are flocking out of this country because YOU wont pay them a fair price to make it HERE. and the government forces them to pay high wages for menial labor jobs, in addition to taxing the hell out of them for social security and unemploeement compensation insurance. its not going to stop either. not for a long time. and forcing bussiness to remain here is just forcing them into bankrupcy. either way, the jobs are lost.

ohio didnt loose heir jobs because of NAFTA, they lost their jobs because of UNIONS who wouldnt budge on wages or benifits when the competition was eating them completly out of profitability. there, i said what obama and hillery were thinking but wouldnt dare say publically. guess that ruins my chances for being voted "emporer of the world".

the DoD is just the latest to try and cut governmnet spending by paying china 10 dollars for the same widget some american company wants 200 dollars to make.

I'd need a bit more data then "laborers are screwed" to give any sort of answer Kachi. Doubly so since I don't know where "where I live" is...



They are. What else do you call an organization that uses its control over the supply of something to force people to pay more for that something then they'd otherwise pay? It's exactly what a monopoly is.




I suspect you don't actually know what a monopoly is.




A "stranglehold"? How? Employers can be replaced too you know...

If businessA insists on paying its employees low wages, and businessB comes along and offers more money for the same job, what do you think will happen? BusinessB will get the more skilled workers. His business will flourish, while
BusinessA will flounder. Sure. BusinessA is paying less money, but presumably the product quality his workers generate is worse as a result. Over time, he'll be forced to either hire better quality workers (at wages competitive with businessB), or go out of business.

If the product quality out the end is the same, then you can make an argument that the workers aren't actually worth more then what BusinesssA was paying them. If I can put a highschool dropout into your job and he can do it just as well as you, then why should I pay you more money?



You won't have to. Not that often. The very fact that you *can* do this will force any given employer to pay you what you're worth. You don't need huge labor strikes for this to happen. All you need is the competition itself and the result's I'm talking about occur.



BS. I make significantly more then someone in an entry level position in my profession. Why is that? I'd wager there are a lot more people today in the IT profession then there are carpenters. What magical power do I wield, without any union involved, that makes me earn about 4 times what an entry level guy makes?

There is absolutely no reason why the same dynamic cannot apply to a carpenter. None at all...

Er?

In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

That's the definition of a monopoly. It's exactly what I just described.



If you are able to use your control over the supply of coffee in an area to control the terms (price presumably) the consumers must meet to get their coffee, then yes, it's a monopoly. If the consumers simply dive an extra mile to buy their coffee, then it's not.

In the case of unions, they *do* control the terms their employers must meet to have access to the labor provided by the union. What do you think strikes are about? By definition, a union is a monopoly. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't work and unions would not be able to negotiate higher pay and better benefits.


Unions have to be a monopoly. If they aren't, then they have no power.



Nothing in the definition of a monopoly requires any specific scale. Just controlling the market in one town does not change the monopolistic nature of that control.



How does that at all justify unions? Most of us learned the whole "two wrongs doesn't make a right" bit as children...

And you have a choice to move to an area where said coffee monopoly doesn't exist too. Doesn't change that it's still a monopoly. For most people, the cost of moving somewhere else is greater then the cost of simply paying more for whatever the good/service is.

That's why monopolies work. They don't have to be universal. They just have to make sure that the amount of artificial cost inflation isn't quite high enough to make people leave.



I never said it wasn't a market force. It's one that artificially inflates the cost of something (labor in this case). It's a market force that's illegal when applied by just about any entity other then labor unions.


I'll also point out that this factor ties in to what I earlier talked about as one of the downsides of unions. As you correctly observe, the reason the company doesn't move somewhere else is because there's a huge cost in doing so that outweighs the labor cost differential (building factories ain't cheap!). However, what this means is that instead of a constant gradual market adjustment between labor and employer, the employer keeps paying these guys until it hits that cost point. Then Bam! The factory is shut down and everyone there loses their jobs.

The instant that cost point is reached, those jobs are lost. In a free labor market, that doesn't happen (or at least very very rarely). The employer will make constant adjustments based on the relative value of the labor in his factory over time. If this means that he can't pay enough to meet the requirements of the labor force, they'll leave and seek other employment. You don't end up with a large number of people continuing to work at jobs that aren't actually worth what they're being paid. The laborers constantly adjust their own skills and employers as well.

The end result is better for everyone.



So you agree that nothing in the definition of a monopoly requires any specific scale?

Or did you mean to write something else?



Oh. I guess you did!

Are you just bad at reading? Because I've read and re-read that definition I quoted, and nothing in it says anything about scale. It does not say "control across an entire state, or nation, or economy". It just states that if the control of the good or service is sufficient to allow them to control the terms of the consumers of those things, they have a monopoly.


Is it that you actually read that definition and saw some sort of scale, or that you actually think that if you insist there is loudly enough, no one will notice that there isn't? Does this really work for you most of the time?

Unions are not a monopoly. They're people exerting their free will. Unions are a result of market failure precisely because people are not simply a nonthinking asset as corporations would like them to be.

Do you just not know how to read?

In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

"determine significantly" clearly refers to the degree to which the individual or enterprise controls the terms of access.

You were arguing that since a union doesn't have this control everywhere that unions don't meet the definition of a monopoly. You were talking about the size of the geographical area a union controls. Um... That's not in the definition.

Do you have to have special training to misread things so consistently?

As in, the degree to which they can force that one particular company to use their labor at their terms. What part of this is confusing to you Smash?

Nothing in that definition requires that a monopoly apply across a large area. Nothing.



It's not about inconvenience. It's about control. What part of "control the terms" do you not immediately recognize as what unions do when they use a labor strike to enforce better "terms" with their employer?


Care to try again? Once again, you are just plain wrong.