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> The unions have been in damage control mode for decades, trying to avoid losing the factories that employ two hundred to the more automated factories that emp

> The unions have been in damage control mode for decades, trying to avoid losing the factories that employ two hundred to the more automated factories that employ twenty, but then as a result losing 100% rather than 90% of the jobs to China. Eh aren't they basically non existent? Like 6.2% unionised in private industry and that tends to be more in other industries. I find it hard to blame them for this later migration. Hell if you'd take their lobbying on foreign policy they'd probably be fairly protectionist. At the end of the day I think the major dealbreaker is that everything in china whether it's low skill labour or high skill labour like engineers automating things is cheaper and that the capabilities exist. (Some part of bumfuck Africa or SEA might also be cheaper but not have these capabilities) There's also plenty of competition there driving those prices down vs...well what's left in the US and EU.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Eh aren't they basically non existent? Like 6.2% unionised in private industry and that tends to be more in other industries. That wasn't the case when this started. The decline of unions in the US and the movement of US manufacturing to China has pretty well gone hand in hand. > Hell if you'd take their lobbying on foreign policy they'd probably be fairly protectionist. Protectionism apropos of nothing is a non-starter, because there's no argument for it. You can say we need tariffs on China to account for currency manipulation and prevent a single undemocratic nation from monopolizing important world markets, but you can't win an argument that says food workers should pay more for transportation just to benefit auto workers who already make more money than they do. But they do often win arguments about not automating away jobs, because there is less money to be made automating them than there is in getting paid to do them when they're not automated, since the automation would apply to everyone in the industry and just lower prices. So we've been fighting automation for the sake of jobs even though it's the main thing that can make higher priced US labor competitive with lower priced foreign labor, and then we lose the jobs anyway.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Eh aren't they basically non existent? Like 6.2% unionised in private industry and that tends to be more in other industries. That wasn't the case when this started. The decline of unions in the US and the movement of US manufacturing to China has pretty well gone hand in hand. > Hell if you'd take their lobbying on foreign policy they'd probably be fairly protectionist. Protectionism apropos of nothing is a non-starter, because there's no argument for it. You can say we need tariffs on China to account for currency manipulation and prevent a single undemocratic nation from monopolizing important world markets, but you can't win an argument that says food workers should pay more for transportation just to benefit auto workers who already make more money than they do. But they do often win arguments about not automating away jobs, because there is less money to be made automating them than there is in getting paid to do them when they're not automated, since the automation would apply to everyone in the industry and just lower prices. So we've been fighting automation for the sake of jobs even though it's the main thing that can make higher priced US labor competitive with lower priced foreign labor, and then we lose the jobs anyway.