Being a somewhat independent minded capitalist, I really need some of my more progressive socialistic readers to help me understand why anyone except the Union management would be against a Right to Work amendment. The idea that one has to pay Union dues in order to work at an employer seems so anti-American that I don't understand it.
I am more than happy to write out a check to any group that is providing value for me. However the idea of being forced to write a check just to get a job would send me looking for another career or employer. What am I missing here?
Star Tribune GOP Weighs Cost of Union Battle
MN Post Right to Work
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Right to work states have lower wages.
--Hiram
False.
Right to Work states have higher employment.
Minnesota has a relatively low unemployment rate. South Dakota's rate is lower, but it's per capita income is 9000 dollars lower too. Essentially, the pro right to work forces are asking us to give up income for jobs. What they don't tell us is that the jobs are at McDonald's.
--Hiram
The pay in SD is also less because their cost of living is significantly less. They have no State income tax and really only have one "semi-urban" area. (ie Sioux Falls) They are also pretty Conservative, so government is much smaller. I don't think any poor folk move to SD for their welfare beneifits. (for better or worse)
"The pay in SD is also less because their cost of living is significantly less."
Are you assuming merchants will lower their prices if they know Minnesotans are paid less? I just came back from Florida, a famous right to work state. Florida has lower per capita income, far higher unemployment, and it's pretty darn expensive to live there. South Dakota, I believe, is a little cheaper to live in than Minnesota, possibly because of lower housing costs. But there is a reason housing costs less in South Dakota, it's worth less. And the fact is, the prosperity of South Dakota is dependent on it's proximity to it's wealthier neighbors.
--Hiram
In effect, right to work supporters are asking us to accept lower wages in exchange of a promise of growth. Yet most right to work states have lower wages and higher unemployment than Minnesota. Isn't this right to work proposal just another assault on the middle class?
--Hiram
Pretty much anything that is labor intensive costs less in SD, therefore the cost of living is less. Here is a simple example:
Brookings SD Theater
Maple Grove MN AMC
The houses cost less to build, to buy and to sell. Makes sense since the labor rate is lower.
I know SD greatly appreciate MN's higher cost of doing business. Since it encouraged many businesses to set up shop in Watertown, Brookings, Sioux Falls, etc. And these are excellent manufacturing jobs, not McDonalds jobs. I am sure we don't need them anyway...
My SD friend's and family do appreciate MN for it's Professional Sports and places to shop. Beyond that they seem pretty happy back in SD.
Here are the prices at the Willow Creek, my local theater:
Adult (12 and up)
$7.50
Child (Age 2-11)
$5.50
Senior (65+)
$5.50
Matinee (Before 5:30pm)
$5.50
Houses in South Dakota are worth less because they are, after all, in South Dakota. In real estate, location is everything.
--Hiram
"I know SD greatly appreciate MN's higher cost of doing business. Since it encouraged many businesses to set up shop in Watertown, Brookings, Sioux Falls, etc."
South Dakota's is a typical parasitic economy, benefiting from proximity to wealthier, larger economies. I don't begrudge them their poaching of Minnesota businesses, it is a free country, and Minnesota generates more than enough wealth to share, but without Minnesota, things wouldn't be going nearly so well in South Dakota.
--Hiram
Strangely, most the industries I know of sell across the region or across the country... I am pretty sure they would be unhappy to be referred to as parasites.
Some started in Minnesota and just could not afford to stay here. Yet they did want to leave the midwest.
I am pretty sure they would be unhappy to be referred to as parasites
Possibly, but they don't mind being one. I do understand, not everyone can make it in Minnesota. For them, it's always South Dakota.
--Hiram
Perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong perspective. How about "what price freedom?"
Please tell me why government should compel someone to become a member of any private organization, and to pay tribute to that organization, whether there is value perceived or not ?
J. Ewing
Oh, and by the way, the net effect of adopting right to work laws is decidedly positive.
http://right-to-work-laws.johnwcooper.com/
J. Ewing
Hiram,
Please explain to me how this "MN is better" than our sister states idea works?
I lived in SD while attending SDSU (ie Brookings) and have good friends that live in SD, ND and IA. Their lifestyles are similar to ours while having the "Right to Work.
By the way, I'll have to go to Willow creek more often. It looks like a great deal.
Here are a few more links on the topic:
Wiki Right to Work Law
John Cooper: Evaluation Paper
Debate org Coverage
Big fan of Willow Creek. The concessions are a little less expensive as well.
Per capita in come in South Dakota is much lower, and the cost of living isn't all that different. I am sure SD is very nice, but I have years of experience with SD commercials explaining to me how wonderful it is that South Dakota is right next to Minnesota. For me, the point I always took away from South Dakota's own commercials was why live near Minnesota when you can live in Minnesota.
--Hiram
Okay, enough unsubstantiated claims.. Show your links...
That's funny, I always see the Black Hills and Badlands in their commercials.
Per capita income in Minnesota 42,000, in South Dakota 33,000. Roughly.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104652.html
Unemployment by state:
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
--Hiram
Infoplease: Per Capita by State
Bureau Labor Stats
More later...
OK, enough dueling statistics, answer the question, what is wrong with the right of free association? Why must I be forced to join a union or starve? How is it right that the union can force the company I work for out of business with exorbitant demands and I get no say in the matter? Do unions even make sense in this day and age? Why do you think, where people are given a choice, that they drop out of unions in droves? Surely, if they saw value in the union membership, they would participate voluntarily?
J. Ewing
Some interesting links
MR: 10 Best States for Raising Kids
SD Madville Times
I have no problem with the idea of Unions that are there to lobby for safe working conditions, reasonable pay for work completed, some employment stability, etc. And I am pretty sure folks would be happy to pay a nominal fee for that value.
However they seemed to have gone terribly astray when they started forcing inefficiencies and waste into organizations. (ie pay for yrs/degrees instead of performance, job security by years instead of by capability, only certain tasks can be done by certain titles, fighting to keep even the most incompetent in their position, etc) None of these encourage employees to improve their performance or the organization's effectiveness.
I definitely think it is wrong to force someone to pay dues to these waste promoting entities. And remember that like Tort issues, the waste is simply passed along to all of us tax payers and consumers. So everyone in our large group pays a little more, and the smaller Union group folks collect a larger share.
Too bad the GOP is broke and nervous, I would like to have the chance to vote on a Right to Work amendment. Even though it probably would not pass once the vocal Union lobby started spinning the issue. And remember, they have the money we paid them to support their cause. Man that was nice of us.
Those are working conditions and working conditions have always been a part of what unions are concerned with. Personally, I think it's a problem when unions become too inflexible on working condition or any other issue. But I also think the decline of the union movement has been devastating for the American worker and the economy as a whole. Without the negotiating power unions give, working people are utterly vulnerable to the increasing power of corporations and other economic cartels. This is in fact what we have seen in the last 30 years since the crushing of PATCO.
The economic problems we are having aren't because the American worker is incompetent or lazy, as so many Republicans seem to be willing to imply. In large part they are the result of the fact that they have lost the bargaining and market power that labor needs to make things better.
--Hiram
Looking at our economy, the problem we have been suffering from, that's driving us down, isn't poor workmanship, it's poor leadership. We have somehow fallen into a system that doesn't reward the guy who makes things, it rewards the guy who shuffles paper, who has both the skills to manufacture bubbles, and the nimbleness to be absent from the scene when they burst. For me, this is summed up by the contrast between George and Mitt Romney. George Romney got modestly wealthy making something. Mitt Romney became immensely wealthy by making nothing at all. When George's values were prevailing in this nation, we were becoming richer. In these times, where Mitt's values are prevailing we are becoming a poorer nation.
--Hiram
"The economic problems we are having aren't because the American worker is incompetent or lazy,..." -- hiram
that is exactly right. Keep in mind, however, that it is the INDIVIDUAL American worker that works hard, innovates and contributes to the success of his employer that makes the difference. When unions become involved, every individual becomes merely an identical cog in the union contract, no better and no worse than the poorest such caucus protected from higher expectations yet rewarded with higher pay – pay unrelated in most cases with the employee's value to the company. The route to restore America's competitiveness lies in allowing individual workers to compete for the better paying jobs, and to allow employers to compete for the better workers. I have seen too many cases where unions have put all of their members out of work rather than make any sensible concession.
J. Ewing
Hiram,
Remember that someone is paying for those higher incomes/costs and it isn't the wealthy. It is likely a nasty spiral. (ie need more money, got more money, need more money, etc, etc, etc)
that is exactly right. Keep in mind, however, that it is the "INDIVIDUAL American worker that works hard, innovates and contributes to the success of his employer that makes the difference."
But the individual doesn't have bargaining power in relation to his employer. That's why wages are stagnant, and that goes a long way to explaining why the economy is struggling. The insistence of the Mitt Romney's of the world that their stranglehold on the economy justifies their demand for a larger piece of the pie in exchange for literally nothing, not only means that there is less for the rest of us, but also that the pie itself is smaller.
George v. Mitt. The contrast is stark, and it's instructive.
--Hiram
If one carefully scans for things, one can find a lot of insight and truth from Fox News. One of their constant themes which I happen to disagree with is that not enough Americans have a "skin in the game". The American worker is alienated and powerless, indeed his powerlessness alienates him. He knows his grip on the middle class is slipping, that the benefit of the increased productivity he is creating goes to someone else, in the case of the Mitt Romney's of the world, someone who has done nothing to earn it. He knows he had done all the right things, the things he was advised to do, yet somehow things have turned out horribly wrong, and he doesn't really know why.
--Hiram
"But the individual doesn't have bargaining power in relation to his employer. "
Well that is the crux of the unions argument, and it is unclear whether it is more flawed in theory or in actual practice. Given a period of full employment, there can be free market competition in the labor market, where individuals seek out the best paying job they can get well management seeks the best worker they can get without paying too much. By most reports, we have an almost full employment situation today because skilled workers are not available to fill all of the jobs requiring those skills. An individual worker who is not being paid sufficiently, in his opinion, would normally be free to go down the road and find someone who will pay him better for the skills he has, thus depriving his current employer of those skills. That is serious bargaining power and you see it over and over again in nonunion employment. Faced with union demands for higher wages unjustified by productivity improvements, companies will simply lay off workers to keep the same total expenditure for employees. We see it all the time in schools. Employees free to choose would, I suspect, preferred to take a smaller raise or even no raise in pay rather than to be paid nothing at all, but the unions prevent this freedom of choice.
In short, a "right to work" law is exactly that, restoring the basic right of individuals to contract for their labor . If working conditions become a serious problem, as they were when unions were first formed, they can still create a union in which the individuals will see value. These laws do not outlaw unions, they simply outlaw forced unionism.
J. Ewing
"An individual worker who is not being paid sufficiently, in his opinion, would normally be free to go down the road and find someone who will pay him better for the skills he has, thus depriving his current employer of those skills."
Possibly, but he would have more power if he negotiated as a union.
--Hiram
The point is that the individual employee should not have such disproportionate power. By definition almost, American unions have a highly adversarial relationship with employers, to the point that jobs are endangered. That doesn't make any sense. Remember how the UAW used to pick one of the big three automakers as a "target" every time contracts rolled around, and essentially threatened to put them out of business unless they yielded to the unions "demands"? That the same union represented all the workers in multiple competing companies simply said that the interest of the union was not aligned with the best interests of the employers and, therefore, neither was it in the best interests of the employees. Ultimately, American automakers became noncompetitive and lost thousands and thousands of jobs. Two of the big three went bankrupt, costing tens of thousands more jobs.
The automakers and their employees are a particularly telling tale, because it was Henry Ford who first came up with the notion of paying employees well enough to be able to buy what they built. That was the enlightened self-interest of the employer going hand-in-hand with the enlightened self-interest of the employee and it worked great. Ford is now the only one of the big three not bankrupt.
J. Ewing
I am more interested in your guy's opinion on our current Union / Mgmt / Community issue. RAS Transport
This is an ongoing example of exactly what you are discussing. With closure likely on Monday...
"The point is that the individual employee should not have such disproportionate power."
Why not? Why shouldn't employees have more bargaining power? You mention the specific issue of productivity. The fact is, the productivity of American worker has increase by huge amount over the last couple of decades, yet this hasn't resulted in a commensurate increase in wages. Doesn't this suggest that there is a problem of disparate bargaining power between labor and management? Doesn't your own logic suggest that when you seem to suggest that wages should be linked to productivity?
--Hiram
Though I agree that the American Business and Production systems have become more productive,I am not sure if the "American worker" has become more productive. At least not through their own efforts or free will.
I believe most of these gains were due to computers, automation, new processes, etc. And it seems to me that the inventors and developers of these things have done pretty well for themselves. (ie Silicone valley and others)
In my experience, managers are full of rationalizations for paying workers less. And workers are full of rationalizations for paying themselves more. Collective bargaining is a great place for these differences of opinions to be worked out on terms of relative equality.
--Hiram
I may even agree with you if the Union took ownership of ensuring that all their members were very capable, motivated and performing.
However they seem willing to accept and defend any warm body within their membership. Even if that body is incapable, unmotivated and not performing.
An interesting comparison is a contract employee agency. They negotiate rates with a client for different classifications of employees. Then they hire employees and provide them to the client. Somewhat similar to a Union.
However if the employee is not performing up to the firm's and client's standards, they do not insist that the client keep the employee on site. They pull the employee back in house and try to improve their performance. (since they want the employee back out earning them money)
And yes, if the necessary improvement does not happen, they fire the employee. And then it is up to the employee to find a job that fits their skills and interests better.
Part of bargaining is ensuring the quality of the product, I just don't see Unions doing that...
"However they seem willing to accept and defend any warm body within their membership."
There is the occasional inadequate worker, and certainly the occasional bad manager. However America's problems are not related to the quality of the work force, and to claim that it does is simply an attempt to divide and therefore weaken us. If business has failed us, and large segments of the business community have, it's a problem of business leadership, in responding to a system of incentives that rewards financial manipulation over production of value. That favors Mitt Romney over George Romney.
--Hiram
I agree that some Management decisions have not helped us at all. However I have personally seen enough of the dead beat Union workers to know that it is also a problem.
By the way, I am still waiting for an answer over on the RAS Transportation post.
And I have seen the occasional dead beat non union worker, and the occasional deadbeat manager. But really, our economic problems aren't the result of people being bad at their jobs. They come from people who are terrifyingly good at what turns out to be very destructive jobs. Among the categories in which we lead are bubble inflators. We have the world's best, most efficient, and also the world's most highly compensated workers in the field of inflating bubbles. Their skills, their capacity for innovation, their willingness to work long hard hours, is truly an inspiration to the rest of us. Sadly, however, we would better off if they weren't so good at their jobs. Maybe unionization is the answer for them. Maybe we need more unionized, deadbeat bubble inflators.
--Hiram
As I see it, bubbles are created by all of us consumers and investors, along with businesses and governments. Though I realize you see it differently. G2A Crisis of Credit Amazingly the link in this old post is still working.
I know I personally helped fund the Tech stock bubble in ~2000. Man those returns looked good until they didn't...
Though I was not one of those milking my home mortgage for every equity and appreciation dollar I could get... Though I know quite a few people that did, and are now upside down on the deal. And some of them are now giving them back to the banks, instead of taking responsibilities for their decisions. And guess what, us responsible conservative folks are paying for their greed or desire for the high life.
"As I see it, bubbles are created by all of us consumers and investors, along with businesses and governments."
I don't. The real estate bubble was created as a result of some very specific policy decisions which the vast majority of the American people were unaware of at the time they were made, and were incapable of evaluating even if they had been aware of them.
What happened wasn't our fault, but we are the ones paying the bill for it. And somehow, the folks who were at fault, the Mitt Romneys of the world, somehow never see the bill for the destruction they wreak. Funny how that happens. It's so much safer so much more lucrative to be a NASCAR owner than a NASCAR driver.
--Hiram
I forgot... The bankers forced those home owners to take on all that debt, buy / build those oversized homes, buy rather than rent, refinance for cash, avoid saving, etc.
I will never understand what you have against folks accepting personal responsibility for their decisions....
If someone offers me drugs, they are doing something that is wrong. However it is ultimately my responsibility if I try it and get addicted. Mine alone, no one elses.
Though I understand that you would say that I was a blameless victim, and the dealer was wholly at fault. That certainly is sweet of you, though it does not help me learn.
Here is an ironic article I just ran into.
Maybe we could put in the caption... "Those darn Bankers forced me to build my dream home !!!"
CNN Money: Foreclosures
The bankers forced those home owners to take on all that debt, buy / build those oversized homes, buy rather than rent, refinance for cash, avoid saving, etc.
Sure. Shelter is a necessity and people were stuck with those inflated prices. Inexperienced borrowers relied on experienced lenders. I have no sympathy with bankers who made loans not understanding the risks they were taking on not only for themselves but for the rest of us as well.
--Hiram
By the way, the recession has hurt everyone, not just those who paid too much for their house.
--Hiram
It is kind of funny that I did not hear any of these folks complaining between 2000 and 2008 while their investments were growing and homes were appreciating at unsustainable rates...
Oh yeah, they thought they had won the lottery. Just keep buying more house and spending equity, they can go up faster than inflation forever.
Those darn addicts...
It is kind of funny that I did not hear any of these folks complaining between 2000 and 2008 while their investments were growing and homes were appreciating at unsustainable rates...
One never does. People do what they do, go to work, raise their kids, try to find a house they can afford. In general, live their lives. It's not really their job to determine macro financial and economic policy, and that's something most of us don't do on a day to day basis. Yet somehow, those who are in charge of such matters, who are the experts, and who are compensated incredibly well for their expertise, have been remarkably successful in shifting the blame, along with the consequences of their errors to those who don't have that expertise, and apart from not being nimble financial speculators have done nothing wrong.
--Hiram
We'll have to agree to disagree again. I think both the drug dealer and the addict were to blame for the situation. I know the majority of people with good common sense did what they all should of... "JUST SAY NO TO EXCESSIVE DEBT"
I think both the drug dealer and the addict were to blame for the situation.
Analogies are not my thing, but nothing illegal happened here. For me, it's like saying both a drug company, like Merck, who makes a bad drug, is equally to blame with a patient who takes the drug? And why exactly did he think it was ok to rely on his doctor's advice? Shouldn't the patient bear some responsibility for not choosing a better doctor? Really, shouldn't the patient bear some responsibility here? Shouldn't the patient have done his due diligence, and consulted the available literature on the drug, or perhaps conducted his own critical trials? Isn't his adverse reaction to the drug the result of his own laziness in failing to pursue a pharmacological degree?
--Hiram
Another way to look at the illegal drug transactions is see that the impact of the illegal drug trade, or the trade in any drug with the potential for harmful consequences extends far beyond those actually engaged in the transactions. We as a society end up footing the bill for these things in a variety of ways. That's why we regulate drugs in various ways. We don't allow dealers to push dangerous drugs on the streets. We don't let drug companies sell drugs without evidence proving that that they are safe and effective. And I think those are good things.
--Hiram
I agree the drug analogy is not a perfect fit, yet I think it captures the tone of the early 2000's.
However, I don't think anyone should make a habit of assuming a salesman, realtor, banker, etc will be looking out for the customers personal finances. Their job is to sell their wares.
Whereas Doctors are there to keep their customer healthy. Maybe these folks should have found and listened to a reputable financial planner. (ie charges by the hour and receives no kick backs)
I don't think anyone should make a habit of assuming a salesman, realtor, banker, etc will be looking out for the customers personal finances.
Or doctors, or lawyers or ministers, priests and rabbis, perhaps. Maybe we should live in a constant state of suspicion and mistrust. Maybe we should never rely on anyone at all in this world. But I suggest that's a difficult way to live, and I don't know how many of us are capable of living that way, and I am not sure what the sanctions for the many of us who are trusting souls, should be.
Are doctors really there to keep us healthy. Some of my conservative friends have brought my attention to polling that says half of them will leave the profession voluntarily if Obamacare is implemented. Obviously doctors have other concerns besides the health of their patients.
And by the way, although they aren't bound necessarily by the rules of the medical profession, I don't believe the big drug companies are evil institutions, dedicated to putting profit above patients. I believe they want to do good in the world, and I also think that's good for their business. Nevertheless, we regulate them, as we do doctors by the way, to independently assess that they are doing their jobs well. I don't, by the way, have any sense at all that the financial industry has the same relationship to us as the medical and drug industries. In fact, many of their interests are in conflict with ours.
--Hiram
You know, it's the interest of even the most nefarious street dealer of illegal drugs to keep his clients alive, and buying his drugs. On the other hand, it's in the interest of large segments of the financial industry to drive your home value into the ground, and throw you out onto the streets.
--Hiram
I think you are making a pretty big leap from my recommending due diligence, responsibility and common sense to your paraphrase of paranoia and distrust. Oh well...
I don't think the fact that lots of people in the financial industry are working against your interests reflects any sort of paranoia. Remember all those traders who were cheering Santelli's call for the tea party? How many of them were doing because they were shorting home values? Positioned to benefit financially from people losing their homes?
Do we not know that Wall Street bankers created portfolios of junk securities and sold them in the marketplace, in effect, ensuring that a market crisis would have maximum negative effect both on the home mortgages that were part of the securities, but also on the home market generally, on homes where the homeowners did nothing at all to assume the risk that was suddenly placed on them? In terms of your analogy, the bankers were dealing the crack among themselves, in the form of exotic financial instruments, leaving the rest of us to pay the extremely high costs resulted from their well compensated mismanagement. In the analogy we were the enablers, and I can tell you in the psychology of the drug addict, there is always a time when the addict blames the enabler.
--Hiram
Right to work states usually have lower wages. Yes, you might have a job, but you can also get canned for any reason at all. So there is no real security. Also, you cannot negotiate for a pay raise, when you know for a fact that you are entitled to more than minimum wage. All your benefits can also be tampered with in a blink of an eye, discrimination can be an issue, and overtime wages can be stopped. There is nothing you can do in a right to work state. I think these are some of the reasons people are apprehensive about it. I saw people with numerous years of experience cut like w/o a second thought when i worked in a right to work state. Thanks
Just wondering...
How do you know that you are worth more than minimum wage? Based on what factors?
Now let's say you own the company and business gets slow, how would you choose who to let go?
I am pretty sure that the National FLSA and EEOC address most of your concerns.
I agree that being accountable and at risk is scary. However I think employees need a little of this to help motivate them to stay current, educated and give 100% in their field/job.
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