Peimei wrote:
gbaji wrote:
If the school is able to provide the same quality of service with those part time non-union workers, then don't they have a right to do this? Heaven forbid that the cost to a student for a meal at the cafeteria might just go down significantly because the school isn't paying an insanely high wage to someone who could easily be replaced by the average McDonald's employee (who'd be happy for the job too boot). And if you can be replaced by a hundred other people perfectly willing to do your job for half the salary, then your job isn't really worth what you've been being paid.
That's a big if!
The beauty of a free market is that if the cheaper labor's performance is sufficiently poor so as to affect revenue (like say no one eats at the cafeteria because it sucks, or people choose to go to a different school because the bathrooms are filthy), then the school will place a higher value on those jobs and will be willing to pay more for them. Believe it or not, it does work.
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This would open a pandoras box. Cheaper labour with the same results but without a union whats to stop them from lowering wages more a few years down the road?
Because at some point, no one will be willing to do those jobs for that price. Was this a trick question? This only appears to be some bottomless pay pit because right now unions have so significantly and artificially inflated wages for their workers that there's a massive gap between what they are currently being paid and what the free market would naturally value their labor. That's not a good thing btw.
There is a bottom to that process. And it's a very natural one that has normal market forces governing it. You don't need regulations or government interventions, or payscale police to ensure that someone is paid what their labor is worth. You only need those things to force people to pay them more than they're worth. You're just so used to it that it's hard to grasp just how out of whack current union pay is (in some cases).
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I'm (quite obviously) on the left. More so then most on this board even I would wager but in so many instances I have NOT been behind the unions. I think for the most part they have degenerated into a lazy cesspool of self-entitlement. However this particular strike is justified in that they are trying to preserve job security. That is something that everyone should have.
For me, it's not about what a union is striking for, but the methods they use (and unfair help/advantages they have) while striking. If a union can successfully strike to force their employer to give them all Swedish Massages every day, without using any levers for this than the threat of not working for the employer, then that's absolutely fine with me. If they want pensions, great! It's not about "what". It's about "how". Because as long as the methods used are legitimate and fair, then we know that no one's abusing the situation, no matter how ridiculous the demands may seem. If the employer is willing to give it to them, and there's no unfair leverage being used, then it *must* be something that is worth giving them in exchange for their labor.