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2012-02-02 Home Front: Culture Wars
Indiana becomes 23rd "right-to-work" state
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Posted by DarthVader 2012-02-02 10:58|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ]  Top

#1 This is great news!
Soon we will be able to compete with Vietnamese factory workers based on pay rates!
I for one would like to see the minimum wage annihilated and a MAXIMUM wage law enacted to legally mandate us to be the lowest paid workers on the planet.
Imagine all the factories that would flock here!We'd all be virtually guaranteed full employment in a rewarding and fast paced industry like bauxite processing or assembling iPods.
Of course, this won't apply to management or company officers, that would be bad form.
Posted by bigjim-CA 2012-02-02 11:43||   2012-02-02 11:43|| Front Page Top

#2 You missed the /sarc Jim.

The mass of union expansion has been in the public sector not private sector. The most significant number in the recent Bureau of Labor Statistics release on unionization is probably this: Only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are in unions. That’s the same percent as last year. In the middle of the 20th century, it was 35%. … The number is significant because it suggests that labor’s much-publicized private sector organizing drives have failed. - Kaus.

Collective Bargaining is Newspeak for Closed Shop by other means which has devolved into a source of revenue for one political party. The employees of the state are suppose to work for the people, the basis of a sovereign state. The people don't exist to serve the union.
Posted by Procopius2k 2012-02-02 11:52||   2012-02-02 11:52|| Front Page Top

#3 There's only one single (on it's own) solitary way to sustainably raise wages.

That's to have employers competing to employ people, because productivity is high and thus the economy booming.

Have a leech union extract a private tax on business and you'll ruin the economy and lessen pay in the wider economy.

All the government can do is TRANSFER (with a cost) so union workers get more but the country is poorer to pay for them.

No magic money trees here. It's just marxism with a different disguise.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-02-02 12:10||   2012-02-02 12:10|| Front Page Top

#4 Jim, no one I know of is opposed to people doing well. Particularly when it's us.

I think most people recognize intuitively the teaching of economics: things that can't go on forever, won't.

It's great if you can have an automobile assembly line job that pays $75 an hour in wages and benefits. But if the industry and economy can't support that, at some point the industry crashes and you lose your job. When government tries to prevent that by shifting the cost, the rest of us lose, and in the end the problem is worse (ask the Greeks for details).

Unions have their place. In the private sector there is a corrective to excess union power, that being the power of the business to close the business and move. So there is a balance, and in the main business and labor eventually learn to get along within limits (yes, there are always assholes who test things).

Where's the balance in public union power, particularly when the unions use their power to have their bosses elected (e.g., the Democrats)? The whole reason the public sector is out of control today is that the unions and Democrats created an alliance that disrupted the natural balance of power.

What Indiana is doing is ensuring that balance returns. We won't be competing with the Vietnamese because of this; indeed we may keep some private sector jobs home. But more importantly, we'll restore the balance of power in the public sector, a balance that is urgently needed.

This country simply must get public sector unions under control, or we're headed for very, very bad times.
Posted by Steve White 2012-02-02 12:45||   2012-02-02 12:45|| Front Page Top

#5 This wasn't just about public workers, it was about all workers. And Indiana will be using it to lure union auto jobs from Michigan into non-union northern Indiana.

Jim is correct. In our global village under-educated, unskilled factory workers in the US will be competing for jobs with Vietnamese under-educated, unskilled factory workers. It's called a free market. And the American managers and officers will be competing with Vietnamese managers and officers.

We have a choice. As a result of the competition, jobs can go to Vietnam, jobs can go to the US, or we can stop trading with Vietnam. Which do you prefer?

And if unions have a place, it's on the ash heap of history. Cartels of any type act to restrain trade and reduce freedom. They eventually loose their power, but they are inefficient as long as they prevail.

Good for Indiana. Tough for Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, until they change their laws, as they will eventually have to.

Daniels for President.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2012-02-02 13:11||   2012-02-02 13:11|| Front Page Top

#6 Stop trade with other countries Juche for America!

/sarc
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-02-02 13:17||   2012-02-02 13:17|| Front Page Top

#7 --- Ohio had passed a law banning strikes by its public unions a bit over a year ago. This, along with other reforms, was repealed in a referendum this spring. Unions overwhelmed the airwaves with an expensive media campaign. My next door neighbor told me she dislikes the taxes she has to pay and doesn't want the police unions to be able to strike, but she voted to repeal anyway.
--- She seemed blissfully ignorant of the economic teaching that things that can't go on forever, won't. However, that teaching is still true, and is still chewing its way through the US and other economies. Other cartels which are strangling the economy have been almost untouched.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-02-02 13:37||   2012-02-02 13:37|| Front Page Top

#8 Shove your politically charged useless unions up your fourth point of contact jim. You have bankrupted enough of the country you leech.
Posted by newc 2012-02-02 14:09||   2012-02-02 14:09|| Front Page Top

#9 Well, bigjim-CA. Eventually people will start building authomated factories which employ a very few, very skilled, workers.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-02-02 14:13||   2012-02-02 14:13|| Front Page Top

#10 Some time ago someone suggested the automakers spin off their manufacturing, thus forcing/allowing the manufacturing plants to compete for product to build and allowing the automakers to avoid being held hostage by the unions. Instead we got a government buyout.

I still don't see a flaw in the plan.
Posted by rjschwarz 2012-02-02 14:49||   2012-02-02 14:49|| Front Page Top

#11 rjschwarz, not a bad idea. Have independent plants bid to make different brands of cars. That WOULD bring costs down.
Posted by DarthVader 2012-02-02 15:02||   2012-02-02 15:02|| Front Page Top

#12 Good idea, but I think Boeing would tell you the NLRB would have your ass.

I heard a rally cry for union support which really struck me, "If you like minimum wage, thank a union". There were others, like having the weekend off and tasty burgers and butterfly kisses and such.

What struck me, is the Federal Government now mandates all and even more benefits than Unions, basically federalized union benefits with minimum wage, OSHA, unfair firing laws, unemployment, retirement, it goes on.

It should make the entire USA right to work, and union dues optional for all US workers. If the unions are doing their stuff people will donate.
Posted by swksvolFF 2012-02-02 15:30||   2012-02-02 15:30|| Front Page Top

#13 Toyota has a massive plant near Princeton, Indiana that employs thousands, with thousands more in local support industries. Indiana Governance is taking care of Hoosiers. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Posted by Besoeker 2012-02-02 15:32||   2012-02-02 15:32|| Front Page Top

#14 We're in a race to the bottom, and I don't really think we realize what the prize is.
Maybe, at some point, we decide we really don't want some of those jobs if they don't pay enough to sustain a worker's life and health.

You can sit at the bar and go broke, why work yourself broke? Personally I don't have a dog in this fight, but Germany has found a way to have a raging economy with manufacturing as a cornerstone. Their labor force, coincidentally, is highly unionized, compensated much more generously, and just as productive as ours.
So I'm not sure you'll see any benefit to busting unions if the underlying product being produced is not needed or wanted. Or if the difference just goes in some CEO's pocket.
Posted by bigjim-CA 2012-02-02 16:07||   2012-02-02 16:07|| Front Page Top

#15 Bigjim-CA, it's simple. You either compete with those Vietnamese workers or they take your job.

With a little inspiration from JM, I offer the following formula:

Unions + minimum wage laws = government telling American workers they cannot compete in the global labor market + inflation + food stamp presidents.

Class dismissed.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-02-02 16:19||   2012-02-02 16:19|| Front Page Top

#16 Yeah, and just wait til the Vietnamese start making cars. Of course, the Koreans already are. How long until we start importing cars from China?
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-02-02 16:39||   2012-02-02 16:39|| Front Page Top

#17 The trick of a Union-buisness relationship is it needs to be a symbiotic one. Several unions, like the UPS driver one, understand this and work to make the workers as productive and compensated as possible while keeping the business healthy and competitive. One wins, the other wins.

The big unions, like the auto unions have gone into a Parasitic symbioses relationship. They do everything they can to suck all they can out of the host business, regardless if it makes the host ill and unable to compete.

IMHO, unions were necessary back through 1900-1945. They helped provide 40 hour weeks, overtime, workman's comp, PTO, etc. Things that are now standard and federal law. With most of their goals met, like all movements (see civil rights movement) they became a solution in search of a problem. With a multi-million dollar payroll and clout, they need to keep the gravy flowing and they are killing our nation's ability to compete.

You want to be part of a union, fine. Join. Just don't force us to do it as that creates a power monopoly that only leads to stagnation and obsolescence.
Posted by DarthVader 2012-02-02 16:57||   2012-02-02 16:57|| Front Page Top

#18 Hope I'm not making it up, so don't quote me, but I thought I heard about a car made overseas, shipped to the USA, then assembled. Like I said, don't quote me on that.

I have some great cutlery from Germany, Switzerland, even here in USA. Have lasted years, still have their original edges etc. Can opener from China, dust in like three washes, was starting to rust just by the can juice splashing.

Person has only $5. That person can buy a nice can opener from Germany, or pick up the chinese one plus three cans of beans.

Problem is, I have bought some chinese stuff where if I didn't know, would have guessed USA or Germany, Japan, top tier. They are getting better.

I simply do not believe people should be forced to join a union, and/or forced to pay a membership fee. If the union is worthwhile, it should sell itself.

Public sector, like police or fire, it undermines peoples' confidence in services paid for and promised if they fuss and strike according to who or who is not in office. It isn't necessarily the individual cop or firefighter either and they should have that choice.
Posted by swksvolFF 2012-02-02 17:09||   2012-02-02 17:09|| Front Page Top

#19 It's up to them to make their cost/benefit analysis look apealing, nobody can save them from that. The problem is as workers rights and working conditions get worse we will see all sorts of increased social and budgetary problems. Paying the workforce less only benefits a very, VERY small group of people. Who don't really need the extra cash that badly to pay their rent or buy medicine. They just want reap even more grotesque corporate profits than they did last year.
Posted by bigjim-CA 2012-02-02 17:15||   2012-02-02 17:15|| Front Page Top

#20 Personally I don't have a dog in this fight, but Germany has found a way to have a raging economy with manufacturing as a cornerstone.

Given that German banks were among the big beneficiaries of the TARP, maybe they haven't figured out how NOT to drive capital out of their own country.

The reality is that non-union Honda, Toyota, Nissen, etc plants in America are providing their workers a job and wages that the UAW plants can't anymore undermines your argument that workers are only competing against the lowest possible denominator overseas.
Posted by Procopius2k 2012-02-02 17:16||   2012-02-02 17:16|| Front Page Top

#21 So what's the difference between a union, higher paying VW plant in Germany and a union GM plant in Michigan?
Why can one make money and the other cant? I just read that german autoworkers make more in wages and benefits than their american counterparts. So the has to be another dimension to all this besides wages. There has to be. But corporations claim that that is the whole story.
Posted by bigjim-CA 2012-02-02 17:36||   2012-02-02 17:36|| Front Page Top

#22 Because there's no Deutschmark, just the Euro which because of their friends in the sunny south permits the Germans to be competitive internationally. If the Germans uncouple from the Euro the DMark will soar making exports very uncompetitive.
Posted by Procopius2k 2012-02-02 18:21||   2012-02-02 18:21|| Front Page Top

#23 Germany? When I lived there fifteen years ago, only 1/3rd of women ever held a paying job in their entire lives, and kids stayed at university on average a full decade, because unemployment hovered close to 10% even in a strong economy. I understand that currently German unemployment numbers have gone down, but I suspect that may be at least partially connected to the number that have moved into retirement. Also the number of German jobs outsourced to the Czech Republic and further east...and to the U.S.

*quick google search* Yes. See here. Key graph:

The unemployment rate in Germany was last reported at 6.6 percent in December of 2011. From 1991 until 2010, Germany's Unemployment Rate averaged 9.73 percent reaching an historical high of 12.10 percent in March of 2005 and a record low of 7.30 percent in December of 1991. The labour force is defined as the number of people employed plus the number unemployed but seeking work.
Posted by trailing wife 2012-02-02 18:24||   2012-02-02 18:24|| Front Page Top

#24 So what's the difference between a union, higher paying VW plant in Germany and a union GM plant in Michigan?

Pensions and retiree health care.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2012-02-02 18:29||   2012-02-02 18:29|| Front Page Top

#25 Also, as I recall, German workers do not get private pensions like American workers do -- they get what the government gives them, and are grateful. Health insurgence is a mix of public and private plans -- private, expensive, and very good for top managers, the rich, and the privileged; public, cheap, and long waiting times for the rest. As expats for a large foreign company, we never had to wait more than three business days to get an appointment, while my German friends might wait six months.
Posted by trailing wife 2012-02-02 18:31||   2012-02-02 18:31|| Front Page Top

#26 IMHO German cars are underpowered and overpriced. I can buy two Chevrolets for the price of one Mercedes or BMW. BMWs are cool. OK, I get it. But I can't afford $100,000 for a car and I don't need to go that fast. In fact, if I go that fast the police are gonna pull me over. And, once again IMHO, my old Pontiac Gran Prix is more comfortable than a BMW. Compare an Audi A4 to a Lexus ES350. You get a lot more bang for your buck if you buy the Lexus. The sales guys will tell you about that mythical "German engineering", whatever that means. Balderdash. The Japanese are just as good. And, yet again IMHO, it's only a matter of time before the Koreans, Chinese and Indians get up to speed. Wouldn't want to be a German auto worker then.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-02-02 18:46||   2012-02-02 18:46|| Front Page Top

#27 In germany the unions don't go on strike just to make a point, or to prepare the battlefield for the contract negotiations of an allied union that are coming up. I don't believe the german workers would put up with strikes they didn't believe in. I don't believe german managers would take giant bonuses while laying off workers.

In the US there is much more hostility between management and the unions.
Posted by rjschwarz 2012-02-02 18:48||   2012-02-02 18:48|| Front Page Top

#28 Jim has a point, but there's one other point missing: unionized American workers no longer have much of a work ethic, or at least one that even remotely compares with German workers' discipline and conscientiousness. Screw around in Detroit, and the UAW will defend you tooth and nail. Pull that shi'ite in Bayern, and you're on your own. German unions do not tolerate slack and goofing because the whole country has an ethos of solidarity and individual responsibility that we've lost.

As to the race-to-the-bottom argument, there's no point trying to compete in low-end manufacturing of anything. Give it up. The path forward for this country is in progressively higher and higher value-added specialty manufacturing. Those businesses are doing very well and are desperate to hire skilled workers.

The big problem for all of us is that this country no longer has a serious vocational ed system that will produce highly-trained workers who can fill those specialized manufacturing jobs.

We've got this foolish notion, oddly reminiscent of the "everyone-should-own-a-home" idiocy of the last decade, that every kid should go to college. Every kid should learn a TRADE, a set of marketable skills, and most of those trades can and should be taught at the secondary level.
Posted by lex 2012-02-02 22:32||   2012-02-02 22:32|| Front Page Top

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