Yes, exactly union membership is about choice.

Similar to the choice of millions of dissidents to stay in Stalin's USSR and actually "choose" to move to the gulags, or the jews' "choice" to remain in Nazi Germany.

Another great choice situation in the world we live in is parents' ability to choose to send their children to subpar schools staffed by UNION teachers, who churn out woefully underprepared oversexed, immorally infused children. All at taxpayer expense.

What a wonderful world.

2 (what's happening to me! - agreeing w/PBPenske??).

At least in Chicago, there is no choice. Bring in non-union labor to a union job and see how fast the electricity "accidentally" gets turned off.

Self-defence. Much like Decker, I would rather be a killer than a victim.

I have seen it happen in DC too, although when you say "electricity "accidentally" gets turned off" I am assuming you mean that some of the non-union labor and maybe someone from the GC (eg: project manager) get beaten to bloody pulps and put in the hospital, right?

What is the problem?
 

Why is it people dislike unions so much on this board? Looked at from 10,000 feet, unions only exist in places where a majority of the employees vote them in. The laws protecting unions are the result of decades of compromise, which settled on a majority rule system in the workplace. A majority can vote the union in, a majority can vote the union out.

I have been a member of a couple of unions, one of which was one of the apparently particularly hated unions of teachers (University faculty and staff in this case). Yes, the union provided protection to teachers, some of whom were capable and some of whom were not. But it was more the civil service laws, the seniority system, and the tenure system that raised the problems with protecting less qualified or capable teachers in that particular case than the union itself; indeed, since that was a relatively young union, it would have been happy to cut back on seniority since the younger members were more activist.

But the union also provided very significant protection, and helped significantly improve the system by increasing pay enough so we could attract some real stars. In the absence of the union, I think the legislature would have been content with a University filled with mediocre products of its own system being paid the least possible.

And, at the end of the day, democracy rules. Just as a majority can decide to fund or not fund schools in the broader political system, a majority can decide to form or to dissolve a union. Yes, there may be rules along the edges that favor the incumbents, but I would no more view that as a reason to get rid of the system for unions than I would for our broader political system.

So, there was good and bad, but most of the sins laid at the union's doorstep were much more products of civil service.

What is the problem?
 

They inefficiently add costs and distort markets. Let the free market for labour decide. People can share info and join together as they choose but employers are free to ignore those "unions".

DEmocracry?!?! In a democratic referundum in America, unions would go the way of the dinosaurs faster than Clinton's pant's dropping at a Sorority party.

What is the problem?
 

I think that every person who spouts off on the "free market" as the be-all and end-all should try to live as a worker in such a "free market" system.

I'm sure that you will have a new appreciation for the worker's freedom of job choice after a period of time making Nike sneakers for $2 a day in Indonesia.

okay- time to vote
 

Ohhhhh, Hank. Between this and LGF, you're simply overdosing on this shit. Keep it up, and It'll clog your arteries and you'll be dead in 5 years.

Here. Take one of these:

http://www.pharmatia.net/@_images/lipitor.jpg

And then read some more interesting perspectives on it all. From the London Telegraph comes the following op-ed piece:

• Riots in France could spread through Europe
  (Filed: 08/11/2005)
  
  The French have long held up their integrationist approach to immigration as a model. Countries with different policies can be forgiven, therefore, for Schadenfreude at the powerlessness of that model to contain rioting over the past 12 days. Yet the rapid spread of the disturbances from the Parisian suburbs to cities such as Toulouse and Strasbourg offers little ground for complacency to neighbours with large immigrant populations, rigid labour laws, self-serving political elites and sluggish economic growth. The torching of cars in Berlin and Brussels over the weekend is a warning that the violence could become more generalised.
  
  ***
  
  France is marked by fin de régime rivalry between Mr Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister. Germany faces the sclerosis of a grand coalition. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is more discredited than ever. In Britain, while Tony Blair defiantly bangs the security drum, the electorate waits for him to step down. And all this is taking place against a chronic inability to boost sluggish growth. 1968 or 1848 it may not be, but there is in western Europe a general feeling of malaise, of disillusionment with politicians, expressed by low voting figures. On this, the riots rocking France could feed.

So what this REALLY means is the end of Old Europe. Bonus!

Gattigap

What is the problem?
 

Perhaps, all the mean cost of a single family house in Indonesia is probably not $500K, so there is some relativity that mitigates the paucity of those wages.

Also, you are making an apples and oranges argument. If I lived in Indonesia I don't know that I would be making sneakers on an assembly line in the same way that I don't I engage in hamburger flipping for $7/hour at my current job. What are lawyers or similar professionals in Indonesia paid?

What is the problem?
 

there's no question that unions allowed the middle class to be created here. without the labor movement most of us would not be college educated, and it is likely there would be much less legal work since most people would be too poor to buy anything. That said, unions have become too focused on helping the unions move forward at all cost rather than considering market realities.

Example: the UAW defending people's right to fuck off all day at $30/hour. This hamstrings the big 3 into being non-competitive and they really have no way out. Delphi (formally GM's parts division) just went bankrupt. a main reason is unskilled workers were being paid $28/hour from old GM contracts. Meanwhile Delphi is competing against companies making parts in Mexico at next to nothing per hour. the unions wouldn't get real and help Delphi deal with this so it goes into bankruptcy to get out of its contracts. I like the American worker making money, but there are real world realities.

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

And the ability to countermand the tyranny of the majority was the precise reason our Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution in order to ensure an independent judiciary and a Bill of Rights that would be interpreted to preserve the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all, even those who don't share the same opinion.

What is the problem?
 

The unions inefficiently add costs and distort markets? That may be true to some measure. However, historically, the unions gained their greatest strength in those industries where the employers distorted markets by colluding to deny benefits to workers and artificially maintain wages at a below-market rate.

I know, you're going to ask how a wage can be below-market if someone is willing to take a job at the given wage. But efficient markets are based upon the base premise that information and bargaining power are equal. Where workers were faced with the Hobson's choice of working for a subsistence wage or not working at all, then there was no real market in the classical sense.

Industry is paying the price for its past sins when it confronts powerful unions with bargaining power that exceeds that of the employer. Over a long wave cycle, however, the curve should eventually smooth itself out without government intervention.

And after all, a good conservative is never in favor of distorting governmental intervention, correct?

What is the problem?
 

Fair enough. In defense of the UAW, there have been numerous examples of unions agreeing to reductions in wages and benefits in hard times, only to be screwed when the times aren't hard anymore. It seems like they were wrong this time with Delphi, though.

And to those who think that workers can freely choose whether to start a union at their place of employment or not, ask one of your labor and employment colleagues what "traditional labor practice" means at your firm.

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

Shh. If you explain to Penske that the Constitution was drafted to protect the rights of the minorities he's going to start spouting about how he's a poor downtrodden white conservative in Seattle. And then he'll start with a whole new crop of Photoshops and who knows where that will lead (more importantly, where it would end).

What is the problem?
 

I'd be interested in this. I thought union elections could be prompted by a group of employees, though they'd be fought by the employers through an established process. But I won't claim to know anything really about contemporary labor laws.

What is the problem?
 

I agree on the first. On the second, why isn't the answer that jobs will go to other plants, whether here or abroad, because of the behavior that is irrational? Is this any different in terms of the need for government regulation from any situation where a company or industry behaves irrationally, and feels the sting of Darwin as a result?

What is the problem?
 

is a bankruptcy court breaking union contracts "governemnt intervention?"

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

No. If you explain that to Penske, he'll probably tell you the Constitution was created to protect the rights of all citizens, minorities and majorities.

Which side are you on?
 

Well, uh, yes, that's pretty much right. Some would argue (as I implicitly did) that the process is a bit stacked againts the would-be organizers, and that some employers go beyond what the law permits them to do in fighting unionization efforts.

(In short, I was engaging in a bit of hyperboele. I blame too many viewings of "Norma Rae" as a lad.)

What is the problem?
 

Uh, what about all the entrepreneurial immigrants who came over and started businesses and scratched and worked themselves to the middle class and above?

I'd sooner be branded than carry a fucking union card. My immigrant forebears never got in spitting distance of a union. I think a lot of older people would get very offended at your generalization there. Some people got ahead in life by having ingenuity and working and taking some risks.

What is the problem?
 

It seems like the NLRA is gov't intervention.

My impression is that a lot of cost is healthcare and pensions (i.e., past promises), not wages. I was reading somewhere (somewhere NORMAL, like the Economist or Yahoo news, or something) that blue collar workers, and I think even the lower levels of white collar workers, have experienced, in real terms, a decline in wages not only over the near term but also over the last 30+ years (from sometime in the 70s). I don't know if the "start date" for the comparison was timed to coincide with some particular year in the stagflation era, such that it would make now look particularly bad (whereas a year later or earlier would not produce so dramatic a result), but it was interesting.

The article did point out, and I agree, that you get more bang for your buck on a lot of products nowadays -- like, a car that costs the same in real terms would be safer/more reliable/have more features. But, the lack of growth for lower-wage workers, where higher-wage workers have been experiencing significant growth in real terms, does highlight that there is a gap between haves and have-nots. I personally think that such a situation is not politically sustainable unless the lower class a real lower class of peasants with very low expectations, and I don't think we can get there from here.

What is the problem?
 

More interesting and individualized stories, but not as significant in terms of social development. Unions, and the fear of socialism/communism, linked healthcare and retirement to employment, and with that went a long way toward ensuring a more reasonable standard of living for huge numbers of people.

Middle-class entrepreneurs can't get anywhere unless there are people to buy from them. The whole industrialization/mass production thing had to shift work from individuals and small groups to huge numbers of people working in a single location. We wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for this type of labor --we'd be in the pre-industrial, small shopkeeper era and all have shit-ass standards of living.

What is the problem?
 

Dude, you need to learn a little history. People risked their lives fighting for a decent wage -- and were shot by state militias, federal troops, Pinkerton goons, etc. not just for asking for more money, but because they had the nerve to not want to take a pay cut.

The problems with unions today shouldn't blind you to the fact that their efforts made it possible for the working class to become middle class.

What is the problem?
 

It wasn't before, but post BARF, it's an abuse of the judicial process by big business interests exercising remedies denied ordinary citizens.

What is the problem?
 

Do you really think your PA bar registration is any better? Seriously, each of the 50 states and DC all have laws that prohibit an attorney from one jurisdiction from practicing in another, except under limited circumstances. Isn't that the same sort of barrier to entry as a union card?

I suggest you put the brand on your ass. Less possibility of communicating burns or infection to vital organs.

Which side are you on?
 

The traditional organizing process - filing an RC-petition with the NLRA, scheduling and conducting an election and then negotiating a first contract, is very much tilted towards employers. I can keep that fucker in limbo/litigation for years. Thats why unions are fighting so hard to keep and expand the use of neutrality agreements.

aV

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

Yes, but unlike certain activist judges, the Founders did not see any mystical penumbras emanating from their work.

What is the problem?
 

You're argument is anachronistic,like unions. There is no rationale for any special protection for organised labour anymore. Unfortunately, are markets and then our reactive politicians will have to be schooled in this lesson the hard way. Via competition that kicks our ass. Outsourcing. I applaud every union job lost to outsourcing to India and China and Latin America. These union socialist fucks will reap what they sow.

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

I believe in the UMC and natural rights of all men.

What is the problem?
 

2.

What is the problem?
 

Because labor law protects against "run-away shops." A Company cannot simply say, "this union and this contract costs too much, so we are closing up and moving to North Carolina/Mexico/China." A company has an obligation to negotiate with the union over the movement of the work.

Hank is absolutely correct in his statements about the UAW and Big 3 auto contracts. The UAW negotiated so much crap into the agreements that Delphi and Visteon have absolutely no way to compete with any other Tier 1 or Tier 2 supplier making the same parts.

aV

What is the problem?
 

The exercise of 2nd Amendment rights is a beautiful thing. Were these union rabble rousers armed? If they are like the modern day pussified liberal I doubt it. Therein lay the problem.

Penske (strapped and cocked) Account

What is the problem?
 

The Homestead Strike

• With Carnegie's carte blanche support, Frick moved to slash wages. Plant workers responded by hanging Frick in effigy. At the end of June, Frick began closing down his open hearth and armor-plate mills, locking out 1,100 men. On June 25th, Frick announced he would no longer negotiate with the union; now he would only deal with workers individually. Leaders of Amalgamated were willing to concede on almost every level -- except on the dissolution of their union.
  
  ***
  
  Frick turned to the enforcers he had employed previously: the Pinkerton Detective Agency's private army, often used by industrialists of the era. At midnight on July 5, tugboats pulled barges carrying hundreds of Pinkerton detectives armed with Winchester rifles up the Monongahela River. But workers stationed along the river spotted the private army. A Pittsburgh journalist wrote that at about 3 A.M. a "horseman riding at breakneck speed dashed into the streets of Homestead giving the alarm as he sped along." Thousands of strikers and their sympathizers rose from their sleep and went down to the riverbank in Homestead.
  
  When the private armies of business arrived, the crowd warned the Pinkertons not to step off the barge. But they did. No one knows which side shot first, but under a barrage of fire, the Pinkertons retreated back to their barges. For 14 hours, gunfire was exchanged. Strikers rolled a flaming freight train car at the barges. They tossed dynamite to sink the boats and pumped oil into the river and tried to set it on fire. By the time the Pinkertons surrendered in the afternoon three detectives and nine workers were dead or dying. The workers declared victory in the bloody battle, but it was a short-lived celebration.
  
  The governor of Pennsylvania ordered state militia into Homestead. Armed with the latest in rifles and Gatling guns, they took over the plant. Strikebreakers who arrived on locked trains, often unaware of their destination or the presence of a strike, took over the steel mills. Four months after the strike was declared, the men's resources were gone and they returned to work. Authorities charged the strike leaders with murder and 160 other strikers with lesser crimes. The workers' entire Strike Committee also was arrested for treason. However, sympathetic juries would convict none of the men.
  
  All the strikers leaders were blacklisted. The Carnegie Company successfully swept unions out of Homestead and reduced it to a negligible factor in the steel mills throughout the Pittsburgh area.

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

From the Federalist No. 43:

"But theoretic reasoning...must be qualified by the lessons of practice." This is only one quote of many. But I think it proves the point adequately.

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

That activist judges can subvert the constitution and make up rights?

What is the problem?
 

Tell that to all the part-time workers at Wal-Mart who will never be full-timers, because full-time employees have to be paid benefits.

And the crap about applauding every union job lost to outsourcing overseas is just plain old fucking mean-spirited.

Vote no on Proposition 73
 

You're hopeless. I give up on you.

ETA: To any Admin. Please put Penske on my ignore list.

What is the problem?
 

Good story. I am pro-all of it.

What is the problem?
 

Yes, but his art collection is something else.

What is the problem?
 

Oh God, yes. I couldn't agree more. There should be automatic reciprocity everywhere. But I guess that runs afoul of states' rights advocates.

I think the bar admission nonsense is the worst kind of local protectionism imaginable. Our fungible, transferable skill sets are no different than those plied by others who don't have such protections. We provide a service and should be forced to compete within anyone else anywhere providing the same service.