What's wrong with labor unions?

[zigZag]

Unions destroyed manufacturing in the UK in the 70s.

It is a double-edged sword. If it weren't for unions, these companies would pay workers next to nothing.

It's not really Unions it's globalism. Companies can incorporate in the lowest tax country, manufacture in the country with the lowest unskilled labor cost and do R&D in the countries with the cheapest educated countries. It's the best thing since sliced bread for companies. Apple incorporated in Ireland has R&D in India/America and manufactures in China and Taiwan. Companies making stuff in highly unionized high salary countries can never compete.

 

[rudebwoy]

Unions destroyed manufacturing in the UK in the 70s.

It is a double-edged sword. If it weren't for unions, these companies would pay workers next to nothing.

It's not really Unions it's globalism. Companies can incorporate in the lowest tax country, manufacture in the country with the lowest unskilled labor cost and do R&D in the countries with the cheapest educated countries. It's the best thing since sliced bread for companies. Apple incorporated in Ireland has R&D in India/America and manufactures in China and Taiwan. Companies making stuff in highly unionized high salary countries can never compete.

This was long before Globalism.

The unions had too much power, they had workers doing nothing and getting paid.

I remember as child in the UK, the garbage truck would come down the street with 10 men picking up garbage. All of them getting a nice wage, no doubt.

The steel industry left the UK along time ago.

I remember years ago buying shirts in the UK, that had the royal crest and were made in England. Good luck finding that today or be prepared to pay through the roof.

Even the British car companies died out, Jaguar is owned by the Indian company Tata.

 

[frozen-ace]

For those interested in labor movement history I find the West Virginia Coal Wars of the 1910s and 1920s to be very interesting, especially the Battle of Blair Mountain. The heavily armed miners went to war against management and their private army of strike breakers. Planes were used to drop bombs on the miners, and the military was called up to intervene on behalf of management and stop the miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Unions destroyed manufacturing in the UK in the 70s.

It is a double-edged sword. If it weren't for unions, these companies would pay workers next to nothing.

That's a misconception. Manufacturing was closed because they intended it.

They tanked UK coal by simply importing cheap communist coal (thus propping up communist regimes) and by similar examples done in other industries. You have old statements made by elite planners who talk about the planned de-industrialization of the UK.

Oh of course - you could say - they should compete with communist EE! But that is nonsense as those systems were utterly alien and built on something artificial.

Even government unions or wages are not that much of a problem - it's the predatory and globalist-directed structure of government jobs. Some countries especially - Germany and Austria - had a long history of moderately well-paid organized government working class. Many joined the lower middle class, but got a safe job for life in return. It worked for almost 200 years without fail. The excesses you see now are more based on cultural marxist propaganda.

This is a good documentary about one of countless factory towns that existed in the US up until the 1970s:



See how the people live in shacks for generations. That is how most White Americans lived up until the 1950s. It wasn't about cowboys and settlers - the majority worked in factories and factory towns aside from rural America. It was no wonder that they preferred to wander out into dangerous Western territory on their own if those were the options.

As for comparing this with "restaurants going out of business" if they don't squeeze out the last drop out of staff - that is why I said that those things need to be done at least on state, but better national level. No one "squeezes out" workers in Switzerland or Norway. The waitresses help clean up the place, but they get paid doing that - it won't kill them to pay them for 30 minutes of basic cleanup - especially when everyone else has to pay for it too.

And the funny part is - it's often not the small shops, but big corporations who have 2 bio. $ net gains who do it.

I am not a socialist here - I am for all free markets and close to zero taxes with my economic model - a super-tiny government, best almost non-existent, but I understand the balance that needs to be struck in life. An economy must serve THE PEOPLE - all people. It must give the opportunity for the worker to make a decent living wage and it must give the option of a business owner to make money and get wealthy. And guess what? You don't have to guess which system works well - just fucking copy Switzerland and see how restaurant owners even make more while paying their restaurant staff 25$/hour. How? Because the plumber gets paid 50$/hour and the professor more than that. It's not a lose-lose situation, but a win for 99,99% while maybe 0,01% lose. In the US it's often win for 0,01% while 99,99% lose.

 

[TravelerKai]

For those interested in labor movement history I find the West Virginia Coal Wars of the 1910s and 1920s to be very interesting, especially the Battle of Blair Mountain. The heavily armed miners went to war against management and their private army of strike breakers. Planes were used to drop bombs on the miners, and the military was called up to intervene on behalf of management and stop the miners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Good stuff. Very shameful event. Checking around other links, I may have to take it back that Britain was worse than us. According to some 1969 study America is the world's worst country in terms of labor violence. Well we do have guns everywhere so yeah I can see that.

 

[Kona]

I don't know much about unions, but I do know these things:

After I killed all the terrorists and got out of the US Navy I was going to get a job that would have required me to be in the Seafarers union. Basically they wanted me to go to some school somewhere and learn stuff I already knew. The paperwork process was such a ckusterfuck I gave up.

Second, my grandma getsba pension from the hotel workers union. She has to have a form notarized twice a year that says she isn't dead. Thenrules of this pension were the mostvscrewed up shitshow I've ever seen. She has a "pension pot" that's worth enough money for her to get the current payments for another forty years, guess what, she pushing ninety.

This is somehow connected to her medicare advantage insurance. They readily admitted the misbilled my dear old grandma when her monthlybrate went up. She just keptvwriting the check for the same amount with her sweet little withered fingers, well eventually the past due balance built up to the point that they cancelled the policy.

This has required a clusterfuck of papers, much like the seafarers union. They dont get mail, they say the shit is late, they say its damaged, etc. Its just stupid.

So I say no unions.

Aloha!

 

[Fortis]

I always viewed unions as a poor man's lobby and an overall good thing. It's nice to think that the law will always have your back against massive, faceless corporations, but we've seen what corporations get up to in unregulated environments against lone workers.

In a sane world where the markets were never tampered with and corporations were not up to slick shit we would not need unions, but I think banding together with a tribe of guys in your same industry is a necessity these days. It's like having a tribe. In these atomized times, we tend to think we can do everything by the sweat of our brow, but just look to the past and see how long that lasts.

I don't co-sign every union, but I do understand why the unions exist.

I'm a bit biased, though. My family is mostly composed of laborers working in the various construction crafts. Almost impossible to avoid fuckery unless you sign on with a union to get your back.

 

[Batka]

I have worked in both the public and private sector and I'm all for unions. I have had my run-ins with various shop stewards but the overwhelming majority of union lads I worked with were sound. I was glad my union had my back a few years ago when my former employer laid me off with a minimum statutory redundancy payment. I had served 7 years with the company and was getting pittance until my union called them out and stated that I was entitled to a lot more. One month later and €25k more in my bank a/c I bid adieu and headed off into the sunset.

I have never looked back since.

 

[Richard Turpin]

I think we've all agreed that it's a double-edged sword.

For my own part, I have to admit to some anti-union prejudices brought about from my childhood in the UK. I grew up in a mining community and the Miner's Strike of '84-'85 caused nothing but misery for friends and family.

It was turmoil and probably as close as I want to get to what felt like a civil war. One day having sympathy for the striking miners, and the next day seeing someone you know beaten and bruised or his house and car vandalised because he broke the strike and went to work cos his family was starving. The whole thing was genuinely unsettling and caused permanent fractures in the community and families (including my own sadly). Kids used to fight other kids at school over it, and they were innocent and knew nothing about what was happening. There is still strong anti-police sentiment in mining areas and older folk have long memories and still bring up past transgressions.

I can't lay all that on unions of course, but I can't deny that I've learnt to 'associate' the word with bad things as well as good. I guess being human, I tend to remember more of the bad. The good things? Those have been very well documented and argued for on this thread and are mostly undeniable.

 

[Enoch]

I always viewed unions as a poor man's lobby and an overall good thing. It's nice to think that the law will always have your back against massive, faceless corporations, but we've seen what corporations get up to in unregulated environments against lone workers.

In a sane world where the markets were never tampered with and corporations were not up to slick shit we would not need unions, but I think banding together with a tribe of guys in your same industry is a necessity these days. It's like having a tribe. In these atomized times, we tend to think we can do everything by the sweat of our brow, but just look to the past and see how long that lasts.

I don't co-sign every union, but I do understand why the unions exist.

I'm a bit biased, though. My family is mostly composed of laborers working in the various construction crafts. Almost impossible to avoid fuckery unless you sign on with a union to get your back.

The only issue I have with the union is that there are government agencies who only exist to support the unions, such as the NLRB.

The union should have to stand on its own two feet in any labor dispute against the company, without Uncle Sam's backing.

 

[Fortis]

The day corporations stop abusing their powers is the day I'll agree that the common man doesn't need unions. Corporations lobby and the common man unionizes. It's just the ebb and flow of the world.

If you really think about it, a lobby is throwing money at the government to affect the outcome of regulations. How is that any different than a union having government backing?

It's hard to argue that unions receive some sort of unfair support when you have corporations (fucking facebook) that straight up can tamper with elections through targeted ads designed to make uneducated people vote a certain way.

 

[frozen-ace]

I always viewed unions as a poor man's lobby and an overall good thing. It's nice to think that the law will always have your back against massive, faceless corporations, but we've seen what corporations get up to in unregulated environments against lone workers.

In a sane world where the markets were never tampered with and corporations were not up to slick shit we would not need unions, but I think banding together with a tribe of guys in your same industry is a necessity these days. It's like having a tribe. In these atomized times, we tend to think we can do everything by the sweat of our brow, but just look to the past and see how long that lasts.

I don't co-sign every union, but I do understand why the unions exist.

I'm a bit biased, though. My family is mostly composed of laborers working in the various construction crafts. Almost impossible to avoid fuckery unless you sign on with a union to get your back.

The only issue I have with the union is that there are government agencies who only exist to support the unions, such as the NLRB.

The union should have to stand on its own two feet in any labor dispute against the company, without Uncle Sam's backing.

Government employees make up the bulk of union membership in the US. Government employees are specifically exempted from the National Labor Relations Act and not under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. There is no special board for government employees.

Another big group of union employees- railroads and airlines- are also not covered by the National Labor Relations Act / National Labor Relations Board. Airlines and railroads are covered by the Railway Labor Act which makes it harder for those employees to strike.

https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/jurisdictional-standards

The National Labor Relations Board is more of a framework for coming to an agreement on labor issues. It isn’t all against the employer- they have many rules that the unions must also follow. When you read the text you see that it actually takes away quite a bit of power from the unions.

https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employerunion-rights-and-obligations

 

[nomadbrah]

Feudalism.

 

[ChicagoFire]

This post makes me envy people fortunate enough to be unionized. I spent most of my working years under Obama in the food industry. While the Democrats were more than happy to play identity politics and throw in some token gestures to the working class (Obama's meaningless overtime law comes to mind) they largely ignored the working class. They can blame Russia or white supremacy all they want, but did they really help the working class? As some have pointed out here yeah, there's some problems with unions but for the most part they are there to protect workers.

A friend of mine told me she got fired from Whole Foods because she didn't properly call off after getting heart surgery. I was around when an older gentleman tripped over the slightly raised drain grates in our kitchen, spilling hot soup all over himself. Days later management replaced the raised grates with flatter ones. I've been told by multiple people that Whole Foods at one point brought up the concept of unions in a meeting and bashed the concept altogether. Now watch as Amazon slowly turn Whole Foods into an automized profits first business. I can list other places I've worked at where management could have been checked with a labor representative, but I think everyone gets the point.

Snip

 

[nomadbrah]

The major problem with unions is that they support left wing political parties, which means that your union money is spent promoting SJW, trannies and femininsm.