UNION!
- Thread starter Dominic
- Start date
Hüsker Dü
DA
Unions gave us weekends, 40 hour weeks, 8 hour days, job safety, equal opportunity, breaks, lunch breaks, living wages, the middle class, etc. etc.
America was greatest when unions were strongest. Private industry unions built America and the middle class. The weakening of union influence over the last 60 years has eroded the American dream/middle class and has caused the flatlining of wages (across the board) while production, corporate profits and CEO compensation has continue continued to rise far beyond previous levels.
We need more union influence.
America was greatest when unions were strongest. Private industry unions built America and the middle class. The weakening of union influence over the last 60 years has eroded the American dream/middle class and has caused the flatlining of wages (across the board) while production, corporate profits and CEO compensation has continue continued to rise far beyond previous levels.
We need more union influence.
In fairness unions also gave us mafia run hotels in Los Vegas, unfunded city/state pension liabilities, and are currently preventing schools across the nation from opening... I could go on, but I imagine you can smell what I'm standing in.
That said, given the democratic parties laser focus on a redistribution of the nations wealth to the poor, coupled with the republican's focus on big business- for middle class American unions often strike me as the only one's looking out for the middle class.
While I think it's fair to say the Republicans were focused on big business through the Bush admin/Romney run, I don't think that's necessarily true today. Trump really shifted that and you see what's happened over the last 4 months with Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Coca Cola, Delta, United Airlines, MLB, not to mention the media outlets.
That said, I think unions are great and like any institutions can be corrupted. Public unions in particular are problematic because they tend to capture narrow electoral interests, so they serve as both advocates and effectively employer, which creates unique opportunities for both conflicts of interest and corruption. Many European countries, which are held up as an example of progress sometimes for Americans, do not allow public sector unions.
Many European countries do not allow public sector unions to strike, but very few European countries include teachers in the forbidden classification. I am not aware of any European countries that do not allow the existence of public sector unions.
Background summary here --
The right to strike in the public sector in Europe
The right to strike is fundamental for trade unions in underpinning their ability to organise, collectively bargain and represent their members. However, this right has often been restricted for public service workers and in recent years has come under attack.
^ California Teachers Unions....case in Point!
Hüsker Dü
DA
I can only speak for private industry unions. You have thrown PEU’s. You blame unions for mob activities and the deals politicians agreed to? Unions created the middle class and made America what he became, the wealthiest country in the world.
I'm not sure what a PEU is? But as for the teamsters financing mob run Los Vegas hotels... I thought that was common knowledge?
The Mafia’s history in Las Vegas: From Bugsy Siegel to Anthony Spilotro
Las Vegas was once regarded as an “open city” for more than two dozen Mafia families across the country. Many had representatives in Las Vegas for decades, with Chicago being the most d...
www.reviewjournal.com
I've been thinking about this. Here the thing, if big business truly abandons the republican party where are they going to go?
Many European countries do not allow public sector unions to strike, but very few European countries include teachers in the forbidden classification. I am not aware of any European countries that do not allow the existence of public sector unions.
Background summary here --
The right to strike in the public sector in Europe
The right to strike is fundamental for trade unions in underpinning their ability to organise, collectively bargain and represent their members. However, this right has often been restricted for public service workers and in recent years has come under attack.www.epsu.org
Perhaps the Europeans are content with their teachers unions because they don't keep bad teacher in the classrooms and lock the students out?
Not a fan of unions, particularly public sector unions. With all the employee protections in the law these days these days (particularly in California) unions have outlasted their usefulness. They are prone to corruption, tend to promote mediocracy and can slow innovation. The public sector unions have morphed from representing the best interests of their constituents to accumulating power and leverage to advance the personal political, economic and social interests of the union leadership. A silver lining to Covid is that it has exposed the corruption and bad faith actions of the large California teachers unions.
I'm not opposed to unions. However, I do get the distinct idea that corruption is an issue with unions that can't be ignored.
It's not just the corporations, but also the elite and the upper middle class. Wokeness allows them to feel better about themselves, immigration is good for the bottom line, green is also good for the bottom line (unless you are in fossil fuels) and/or the costs get passed onto consumers, things like the higher minimum wage just provide an excuse for automation. So long as the D party is focused on wokeness instead of Sanders style socialism, all's good, but that's the trick.
I don't know. Most people I know who can afford a house in the hills didn't get up there by being nice. But I will agree they sure talk about what good people they are an awful lot...
Something needs to wash away your sins....no one wants to be that horrible person.
I forgot to mention to the D party has become much more foreign interventionist than the R party. That also aligns by income. It's the children of the working poor that goes off to fight in foreign wars. Unless the rich have an officer in the family (and how often is that now days?), the children of the well off don't go off to fight.
Desert Hound
DA
Unfortunately people will end up voting the same way, and so the status quo for public unions will continue
I think the US, Switzerland, and Sweden had economic success after WWII because our industrial base hadn't been bombed into rubble.
Pretty much every other major manufacturing center had been bombed at least once between 1930 and 1945.
Unions, in that context, were kind of secondary. The world needed stuff and we had the factories.
Hüsker Dü
DA
And without unions what would wages have been? Hours worked a week? Healthcare? Child labor? Job site safety? Etc etc
I kind of see unions as a mixed bag.
Good: Most worker safety laws simply would not exist without unions.
Neutral: The 1950s boom would have happened with or without unions.
Bad: The 1970-2010 decline in heavy industry was partly due to unionization. Some of those work rules were awful for the steel and car industries.