Art of the Possible

I’m a day late I realize. This is an awkward subject to say the very least. If you’ve ever been to this site you will realize that I am a liberal and I’m not insulted to be called one. There is one issue though where I drift away from the usual liberal crowd and that’s unions.

First the positives. The idea of unions is sound, by the very nature of business the workers create the wealth and the bosses control it. The Workers individually have almost no control, but if they work together they are unstoppable. In the years just before the workers became organized they realized that if they all threw down their tools together and demanded change then their was nothing anyone could do but bend to their demands. I do not know who said it originally but I love the quote, “the most powerful force on earth is the worker with his (or her) hands in his pockets” or something like that. In those early days they were unorganized, people simply stood up and said I’m not going to take it anymore, who’s comin’ with me? Entire factories would empty, then other industries would show support and they would walk out as well, there were times when hundreds of thousands of people would walk out. They would shut down an entire city until there demands were met. When almost all of the workers in an entire city stand together there is nothing the boss can do but sit down and listen, and give into demands of an 8 hour work day and a livable wage. This is also the point where labor began to organize. In theory this is still good, until you count human nature and our amazing greed.

Here is the most fundamental problems with unions. They have leaders, the heads of the union and those under them are simply another group of very well paid people who do not actually produce anything. There are always going to be management at the company who do not produce but who are necessary, part of the overhead. Adding a union simply means more management taking a cut. These means that it has to cost more money to produce the same product. Workers could be paid more while reducing costs for the company. The perfect example of this is prevailing wage. For those who have never worked a blue collar job, prevailing wage is where you get paid more to work on government jobs. My experience was during a trade job one summer, I made 7 bucks an hour which was good enough for a kid on summer vacation from college, and living with the parents. One day I get sent to a job at a school, suddenly I’m making a little over 30 dollars an hour. I loved it but why was my work suddenly worth so much more? Well the unions know that they cannot compete with non-union shops on a fair playing field, so they have forced the government to set a standard wage for government work. Was there any reason I deserved an extra thousand dollars of tax payers money because I happened to be sent to a particular job? It also needs to be noted that I was far and away the lowest paid person and everyone else made more than at the local union shop while receiving better benefits and more vacation. Our shop could produce more at less cost despite paying our employees more because those who were there were paid more and worked harder, than their union counter-parts. Another example of union inefficiency is in factory type places where there is a specific number of units that each employee must produce, if you fall below then the company is upset, and if you overproduce then your union rep will come after you. This is taking labor to the lowest common denominator. If your not allowed to show how much you can do then how can you prove your worth and move up? There is no incentive to work hard and can actually get in trouble if you do. I concede that this is not personal experience and rather it comes from talking to friends who work in union shops. The one of the friends is by nature a hard worker after a while would get frustrated because he could finish his 8 hours worth of work in 4-5 hours and then had nothing to do. He wasn’t allowed to do nothing so he would have to wander about and just appear to be working. Eventually he slipped into a routine of taking long lunches and breaks. He was not a lazy person, he had no choice. When they did go gung-ho and produce well above the quota they would be reprimanded by their union reps. How is this good for the worker? This is still in a non-corrupt union. Now you need to factor in that where there was once a huge mass of people with one voice, now there are specific leaders. By having a single person or a small group of people that can be “persuaded” by the company to do things that may not be in the interest of the workers. The mafia connections to unions like the Teamsters are infamous. Others simply have corrupt leaders who either steal from the workers or take kick-backs from the company to prevent disruption.  

Because of this inherent inefficiency the union have helped to create a world where
America cannot compete in the world market in terms of manufacturing. Manufacturing is not glamorous work but it is one job where an uneducated person can make a very respectable living and support a family. If a union puts a company out of business then those employees are no longer working no matter how strong that union was, unless they are willing to move. There are advantages to both groups when they set-up traveling workers, if they employees don’t mind they travel around working at whatever shop needs the help for a big job. They work there for a few months or a few years then move to the next shop. This is good for the business as they always have all the employees they need without having any more than they can afford at slow times, its like labor-ready for a specific industry. This aspect can be beneficial to both groups, reduces overhead for the company and gives the employees more secure jobs, stability to those who don’t travel and an in for those willing to travel.

I am looking for the demographics of the trade unions. I bring this up because I have been told that some of the local unions are very racist. One business owner who was trying to stay non-union so they could stay in business was being constantly harassed by the union and so he hired a bunch of African Americans and suddenly the harassment stopped. Unfortunately I have yet to find a single site with information about the demographics of the various trade unions.  

This is obviously a biased site but it is one of few which gets into the negative issues of unions, including racism. Union Facts.com Complaints

I like the idea of unions giving political voice to the masses, unfortunately it’s the leaders of the union and not the actual workers who have ended up with the voice. Also if the union aids in democracy then why does one have to join in order to work? If I want to go work at a shop and I feel that I can out produce the others then why do I not have the right to negotiate my own wages? What gives the union the ability to say that I cannot work in some jobs without having to pay money to people I don’t support? Do I not have the right to pursue any job I am qualified for? When did I lose my right to earn a living?

There are 22 states with Right to Work laws which say that you can work in a union shop without joining the union without having to pay union fees,
New York is not one of them.