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"Unions are one of the main reasons we had such a huge American auto crisis just a few years ago." Or, viewed through another lens: the auto workers' union is
by Frondo 9y ago
"Unions are one of the main reasons we had such a huge American auto crisis just a few years ago."
Or, viewed through another lens: the auto workers' union is the organization that prevented auto workers from being squeezed tighter and tighter without end.
If they, the workers, hadn't banded together, the owners and shareholders could keep cutting their wages, could keep failing to uphold their obligations to the workers' pensions and health care, could keep screwing the workers out of wages and a good life.
It's hard for me to be sympathetic to the owners and shareholders. They're not the ones showing up to a factory floor day after day, bolting cars together, destroying their bodies for dollars an hour.
It's also especially hard for me to say, "you have a constitutional right to assemble, but not if you want to use that right to assemble to demand better pay for yourselves and your fellow workers".
In fact, given the history of how the owning class has treated the laboring class in this country, it's hard for me to say the laboring class should have fewer tools to better their lives.
- briandear 9y ago"destroying their bodies for dollars per hour" $31 per hour for a non-skilled assembly line worker. That's $31 per hour + very good benefits. http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/ http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/ Perhaps we should demand government mandate a $100 per hour salary? I don't know, what's "fair" in your mind? Why not $200 per hour? The truth is that many of these auto workers make more money than many of the shareholders. It isn't like "the shareholders" are ensconced in castles counting doubloons. These shareholders are teachers, fire fighters, normal people who invest in retirement funds or other retail investments. Sure there are a few rich people investing, but acting like shareholders are some kind of privileged class is disingenuous. Why should the factory worker have more rights than the old lady living off her General Motors dividends?
- Frondo 9y ago"Why should the factory worker have more rights than the old lady living off her General Motors dividends?" If they can work collectively and demand it, who are we to stop them? Isn't that a market at work? They don't own the building, but they do provide the labor. Let them negotiate, collectively, and get whatever they can. Why is the little old lady who does literally nothing for that dividend prized over the people who go to work day after day?
- jim-jim-jim 9y ago> Perhaps we should demand government mandate a $100 per hour salary? I don't know, what's "fair" in your mind? Why not $200 per hour? "Fair" is the value that workers' labor generates. It's probably a lot more than $31 in the case of autos.