I've befriended a bunch of union guys. Railroads primarily, but construction and other blue collar trades as well. And what amazes me is that by the age of 50-55, all it takes is something as simple as Bill Clinton cheating on his wife or a terrorist attack to get them to COMPLETELY change their political views. And while I certainly welcome their joining of the good side of the force, it behooves the question;
Do union members ever bother THINKING about what they support politically?
The reason for my asking of this question is the recent (albeit, expected) endorsement of Barack Obama by the UAW.
Now, seriously guys, are you so naive and stupid, you don't have the ability to put 2 and 2 together or (what Joe Soucheray would otherwise say) "link?"
I like to simplify it to the "Host and Parasite" analogy.
The "host" is GM, Ford and Chrysler. The parasite is the UAW. If it were not for GM, Ford and Chrysler, the parasite would not have a job, period. So what does the parasite do? Bleeds the host dry until the host dies.
I cannot emphasize this enough, and I sincerely hope that some of you UAW people are listening, but you brought about your own demise. You killed the goose that laid the golden egg. You priced yourselves out of the market.
And now, when GM, Ford and Chrysler are crippled, old decrepit men of corporations compared to their younger, more fit and competitive Japanese counterparts, you support the guy who will MORE QUICKLY bring about the demise of your employers? You, LITERALLY, support the QUICKENING of the ELIMINATION of your EMPLOYER and therefore JOBS??????
I really (seriously, I mean this) have a hard time believing you are that stupid.
It kind of reminds me of my dad or even Michael Medved (who I respect), who all of the sudden had an epiphany (read, pulled their heads out of their asses) and realized "whoa whoa whoa....You mean their's consequences for voting for socialists all the time?????"
I want to yell (not say) to them;
WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN THIS ENTIRE TIME???? 50 FREAKING YEARS OLD AND NOW YOU GET IT???? WHAT A FREAKING TROOPER YOU ARE!!!! THANKS FOR PISSING AWAY 35 YEARS OF VOTES ON THE BAD GUYS!!!! YEAH, GET A FREAKING BRAIN WHEN YOU'RE 52. LOT OF GOOD THAT WILL DO US!!!!
And for the union members it's the same.
When the F are you guys going to wake up? Yeah, Obama, he'll tax those evil auto manufacturers for you! He'll give them their due! That'll show those rich, evil meanie corporate executive types!
Meanwhile, where did Ford decide to build the next Fiesta plant?
Oh, that's right. MEXICO! The country where (although I loathe the illegal immigrant wave) they seem to provide people with a strong and more American work ethic than you guys.
In any case, I've learned at a relatively young age, it's not worth yelling at you guys because you're so lug-headed you'll be willing to hasten your own demise ("hasten" means "faster"). The only reason I write anymore is so I have a track record where I can point to at a future date in time and tell you "I told you so."
The dream dies very, very hard.
ReplyDeleteRight now union workers in Michigan are getting their rear ends handed to them economically. Unions are so 20th century.
It's all over now but the crying.
I grew up in the Detroit area and had many relatives that worked for one of the big 3. It always amazed me the "entitlement" that they felt. One of them was a mopper (yeah, bucket and mop type), was making close to $50k / year (90's) and always complained how hard he worked and that he deserved more from the company. How Gm was screwing him.
ReplyDeleteStraight line democrat voter also.
When i made my fortune in Software (owned my own company), they all became my best friends. When i wouldn't dole out large sums of money, i became the black sheep.
I have begun to realize that most union members are members because it is required to be employed where they are at.
ReplyDeleteThey are not big union fans and certainly the Union does not carry their votes like they used to in the past.
As both political parties have slid left over the years, the Democrat party slid way left of most union members.
As Ronald Reagan once said: "I never left the Democrat party, They left me."
Considering that wages were up only 2.5% yoy and CPI was 5.6%, the unions are dead in this country.
ReplyDeleteEkonomix
http://turkeconomy.blogspot.com/
Anon: You say, "They are not big union fans, and certainly the union does not cary their votes..."
ReplyDeleteWhy, then, do I see so many "Union (fill in the blank) Worker" bumper stickers, jackets, tee shirts, baseball caps, etc? The ones that I am familiar with, it would seem that they think they are employed by the union, not the company whose name is on their paychecks...
Points:
ReplyDelete- a worker sells his labor to a company, he's not an indentured servant. Why shouldn't he negotiate for the best rate he can get?
- the contracts are signed by the companies. No agreement from the company, no contract. So if the contract is bad for the company, who's the idiot? If a GM car salesman sells you a car for six times its invoice value, is he stupid? Or are you? Sounds like the workers think hard and are smart.
- you could reverse your host parasite analogy: the workers are a host, the company a parasite: no workers, no company! (Of course in the real world neither is the parasite, ideally).
- you seriously think even without hard union contracts the US has a big future relative to say Korea as a heavy industries country? Maybe the UAW should take while the takings good. McCain isn't going to fix it either.
- before unions you had companies beating the crap out of, machine gunning, investigating their employees. You had companies blocking their free ability to sell their labor at the best price to the highest bidder. That ended because of unionization.
Unions may screw their employees with too-sweet contracts -- but the employees form their unions willingly and sell their labor as they choose. Then the companies sign off on the contracts. What you've made a good argument for is that the US automakers suck (and let's face it -- judging by the products and design they always do seem beaten by the furriners). Not the unions. If the contracts were too favorable to the carmakers, and underpriced labor, then it'd be smart to say the union sucks.
I hate unions so much it makes me mad just thinking about them. Greedy assholes at the top manipulating under-educated and, typically, hardworking guys into making themselves, as a group, poorer. Sure, those guys that are actually in the union benefit from forcing the company to pay them more than their marginal product of labor. But none of these guys ever think about how close they are to being the guy on the otherside. How easily they could be the one crowded out of the market and into the unemployment line, lucky to make minimum wage or some other no benefit, long hour job. Unions are criminal. And the politicians who allow a union to force non-union employees to join once half of all other workers wish to have a union should be put in jail. Many states do not even allow workers to opt out of a union if they so choose.
ReplyDelete"before unions you had companies beating the crap out of, machine gunning, investigating their employees. You had companies blocking their free ability to sell their labor at the best price to the highest bidder. That ended because of unionization."
ReplyDeleteWow. Dude, you need to open your history books and reread the history of unionization. It was not so much the companies abusing their workers, but the unionized workers violently beating potential scabs. Others guys, who were willing to work for the lower wage than what the union workers demanded collectively, were physically assaulted by the picketers. The pressure from unruly and riotous mobs forced firms to capitulate to union demands. If the union members were not permitted to inhibit other workers from taking their jobs, with the implicit permission of the authorities, then the unions would have been broken long ago. It makes absolutely no sense for laborers to wage war on capital.
"the contracts are signed by the companies. No agreement from the company, no contract. So if the contract is bad for the company, who's the idiot?"
ReplyDeleteYou are, for pretending that companies are not required by law to take every demand by unions at face value, no matter how outrageous.
"you could reverse your host parasite analogy: the workers are a host, the company a parasite: no workers, no company! (Of course in the real world neither is the parasite, ideally)."
Unions are labor cartels. While people ought to be free to form cartels if they wish, labor unions have legislation on their side to force companies to deal with them. They are absolutely parasites, no question.
"you seriously think even without hard union contracts the US has a big future relative to say Korea as a heavy industries country?"
Heavy industries tend to be lower value added compared to things like pharmaceutical research and other cutting edge fields. Preserving them through labor cartels and populist legislation is stupid. Anyone who didn't sleep through Intro to Econ can tell you about comparative advantage.
"What you've made a good argument for is that the US automakers suck (and let's face it -- judging by the products and design they always do seem beaten by the furriners). Not the unions."
The Left has pushed through an enormous amount of pro-union legislation that effectively cripples companies' ability to deal with them on even ground, to the point where the only negotiating chip they have is to say they will go out of business if the union gets their demands. You seem to be completely oblivious of this. Pull your head out of your ass. Until then, shut up.
Of course there's a difference between Unions supporting socialist candidates and the workers doing the same.
ReplyDeleteOften, in recent years, Union members have voted at odds with the leanings of their Unions.
I'm a member of one of the few Unions (the UFA - the FDNY's Union) that has supported G W Bush the past two elections, although in years past, they've supported a littany of Left-wing candidates both national and local.
With Steve Cassidy as UFA President, we've supported Giuliani three times (including his 1989 loss to Dinkins), Bloomberg (a fairly Left-wing Republican) and G W Bush twice.
In that regard, Cassidy's political predilictions are more in line with the UFA membership, which, like the PBA (the NYPD's Union), tends to be consistently Conservative!
ALL "public empoyees" SHOULD embrace the idea of a "leaner, more technically trained, more efficient and better paiod workforce rather than a larger workforce.
That would be a "win-win" for both the employees AND, more importantly, their real employer's (NOT local government) but the local TAXPAYERS, by saving their Municipalities a huge sum! Cutting such workforces by a third via attrition and incentivized retirements (ie. buyouts) would deliver a huge savings even if remaining employees were given additional training and modest raises as compensation for more training/responsibility and a more efficient/more productive work model.
In fact, ALL Union members SHOULD embrace SMALLER, more technically proficient workforces, as they are inevitable IF American industry is to remain competitive.
Without EMPLOYERS, there are no EMPLOYEES.
"What you've made a good argument for is that the US automakers suck (and let's face it -- judging by the products and design they always do seem beaten by the furriners). Not the unions."
ReplyDeleteThough Ryan Fuller is right when he says that pro-union legislation cripples companies abilities, I wonder why German automotive industry is much more profitable than the American. Germany has got some terrifying pro-union legislation, too.
"Though Ryan Fuller is right when he says that pro-union legislation cripples companies abilities, I wonder why German automotive industry is much more profitable than the American. Germany has got some terrifying pro-union legislation, too."
ReplyDeleteTheir workers' retirement is largely financed by the government, not their car companies. That'd be my guess, anyway.
Re: the German auto industry is more profitable
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's because they're building plants in Mexico, in the Southern US where unions aren't so strong, and looking at other lower cost countries.
I also think the German auto industry, while unionized, has a more collaborative working relationship between manufacturers and labor - relations are less confrontational and adversarial than in the US.
In fact, they have to pay 15% of workers wages for pensions (workers add another 15% of their gross wage). Wages are sky high in the German automotive industry (significantly higher than the national average, which is already high). And lets not forget that corporate taxes are almost at 40%, so they are taxed at a similar level as in the US.
ReplyDeleteThe works councils give the unions so much power that they have practically become a part of management. Recently at Volkswagen there has been a big scandal about union leaders being bribed by management. There was no other way for management to get through the necessary reforms! It's still almost unthinkable that some car manufacturer would close a plant in Germany, like they do in the US.
It's really a mystery to me how the manufacturers can make a profit under such communist circumstances.