4 ms·

This is a mix-up of cause and effect. Union membership is down mainly because the jobs are gone. We lowered our tariffs and most of the union jobs got offshored

by burfog 8y ago

This is a mix-up of cause and effect. Union membership is down mainly because the jobs are gone. We lowered our tariffs and most of the union jobs got offshored. Automation didn't help. Strikes are not required for higher wages. What is required is a labor shortage. That is all the incentive needed: wages will be exactly as high as required, no more and no less. We got a surplus of workers for many reasons: the demand was cut by offshoring and automation, while the supply was increased by women entering the workforce. Demand is picking up now, and with it wages are starting to move.

blub 8y ago
That's a surprising thing to say, given that software engineers are always in demand, companies are complaining they can't find candidates and yet salaries aren't growing at a high rate. Companies like Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe even broke the law and colluded to keep SW engineer salaries down and then paid a pittance when they got caught. And SW is an abnormally in-demand field. According to HBR "Since the early 1970s, the hourly inflation-adjusted wages received by the typical worker have barely risen, growing only 0.2% per year" in the US. So not only is the market not fixing anything, sometimes even the law is not enough.
- tropo 8y ago
  They are complaining because that works: they are granted more visas for foreign workers. The success of complaining means that there is no shortage and thus no need to raise the pay.
ionised 8y ago
Union membership is down largely due to the decades of sustained anti-union propaganda equating them with communism.
jtr1 8y ago
I think you have an idealized view market forces. Offshoring was a way to break the back of unions in the US by seeking out unorganized, cheap labor overseas. The power dynamic remains the same, the people who owned capital wanted more profit than could be made in the US. We agree on that much, but your version of the story strips out all of the agency from the equation. At any rate, I don't think labor shortage is an adequate counterweight to wage suppression. Wages are beginning to inch up, yes. But cyclical economic crises ensure that the unemployment rate never goes so low as to require the kind of meaningful wage increases that would counteract the trends we're talking about. Look at the op-eds in the Wall Street Journal -- wage increases are seen as a huge liability and a reason to pull back on investment. Better to throw out a couple of one-time bonuses to keep the mobs from revolting. This isn't some starry-eyed optimism about the working class. Wages are negotiated by the balance of power between management and labor.
- kazen44 8y ago
  > Wages are negotiated by the balance of power between management and labor. wages are not determined between management and labor, but between the owners of means to produce and its labourers. Most managers are also labourers and are just as much on payroll as a factory worker is, they just have authority over other workers. The class conflict has always been between those who own the means and gain money through passively using this and those who do the actual labour. this dynamic still has not changed in the past 150 years, and i doubt it will change.
  - jtr1 8y ago
    This is a good clarification to my shoddy wording. Thanks
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    To an extent, but there is a reason why unions don't let middle managers be leaders in the union.

by burfog 8y ago

blub 8y ago

That's a surprising thing to say, given that software engineers are always in demand, companies are complaining they can't find candidates and yet salaries aren't growing at a high rate. Companies like Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe even broke the law and colluded to keep SW engineer salaries down and then paid a pittance when they got caught. And SW is an abnormally in-demand field. According to HBR "Since the early 1970s, the hourly inflation-adjusted wages received by the typical worker have barely risen, growing only 0.2% per year" in the US. So not only is the market not fixing anything, sometimes even the law is not enough.

tropo 8y ago
They are complaining because that works: they are granted more visas for foreign workers. The success of complaining means that there is no shortage and thus no need to raise the pay.

ionised 8y ago

Union membership is down largely due to the decades of sustained anti-union propaganda equating them with communism.

jtr1 8y ago

I think you have an idealized view market forces. Offshoring was a way to break the back of unions in the US by seeking out unorganized, cheap labor overseas. The power dynamic remains the same, the people who owned capital wanted more profit than could be made in the US. We agree on that much, but your version of the story strips out all of the agency from the equation. At any rate, I don't think labor shortage is an adequate counterweight to wage suppression. Wages are beginning to inch up, yes. But cyclical economic crises ensure that the unemployment rate never goes so low as to require the kind of meaningful wage increases that would counteract the trends we're talking about. Look at the op-eds in the Wall Street Journal -- wage increases are seen as a huge liability and a reason to pull back on investment. Better to throw out a couple of one-time bonuses to keep the mobs from revolting. This isn't some starry-eyed optimism about the working class. Wages are negotiated by the balance of power between management and labor.

kazen44 8y ago
> Wages are negotiated by the balance of power between management and labor. wages are not determined between management and labor, but between the owners of means to produce and its labourers. Most managers are also labourers and are just as much on payroll as a factory worker is, they just have authority over other workers. The class conflict has always been between those who own the means and gain money through passively using this and those who do the actual labour. this dynamic still has not changed in the past 150 years, and i doubt it will change.
- jtr1 8y ago
  This is a good clarification to my shoddy wording. Thanks
- emodendroket 8y ago
  To an extent, but there is a reason why unions don't let middle managers be leaders in the union.