[Eugene V. Debs]

Originally Posted by Dredly

I also agree that a wage should be in relation to the job being done and that the COMPANY should have the option to set this amount of money based on what they are willing to pay and what they can afford to pay.

You presumably believe in the free-market, which in turn is predicated on the basis of free contract which means in a labor contract (whether between employer and single employee or between employer and group of employees) the wages are agreed upon by TWO parties, not the unilateral prerogative of the employer only. If the employee or employees refuse the best offer given by the employer they are free to withhold their labor as individuals or a group.

Unions were a crucial piece of developing this country and ensuring that the working conditions were in place to move this country forward... since then they have become corrupt pieces of gov't backed organized crime.

Black people smoke crack.
Arabs are terrorists.
Gun owners are ignorant rednecks.

Aren't generalizations fun?

I've been in the labor movement for over a decade now, have worked with many unions and I'm only aware of three on a national level that have any significant organized crime influence. And I can say, without a single reservation, that my union, from the local to national level, has NO organized crime influence.

They are directly responsible for the downfall of the American auto org as well as the US's manufacturing ability as a whole.

Um, no...foreign competition is. Sure, labor costs are part of that, but you can hardly blame unions for doing their damn job-- improving wages and working conditions for their members. If the unions in other countries did as good of a job it wouldn't be a problem because there would be wage equilibrium or at least a reasonable wage floor.

Hell, the auto and manufacturing jobs we lost in the 1970s and 80s had more to do with the Marshall Plan and rebuilding of Japan than it did with American unions. And why are you giving a free pass to the politicians who gave PNTR to China despite labor and currency manipulations by the state or the politicians who passed NAFTA? Nah, much easier to blame it all on the unions. Why lay the blame on much more powerful institutions when you can call the smaller kid a bully and use it as an excuse to pick on him?

Honest days work for an honest days wage is a lost concept to unions.

Besides unions doing their job-- improving wages, benefits and working conditions for their members-- what evidence do you have to support this statement?

The amount paid is due to EXTORTION by GOV'T PROTECTED unions. If the company doesn't give in to demands then the Union takes their people off the job and work stops.

That's not extortion. That's the right of free contract. You don't pay what I want I withhold my labor. You don't pay us as a group what we want we all withhold our labor. Maybe we should do like China and ban strikes? Force people to work? Oh wait, we already have that-- it's called a Taft-Hartley injunction.

Getting rid of a Union is impossible due to gov't regulations and Union law.

Only someone completely unfamiliar with the NLRA and who's never dealt with the NLRB would make such an erroneous statement. Under the law all employees have to do is get 30% of their co-workers to sign up on "deauthorization/decertification cards". Then the employees may file a petition with the NLRB for a secret-ballot decertification election (if they want legal assistance dong this the NRTWF, an anti-union outfit, will provide free lawyers, but you don't even need lawyers to it). 50%+1 (simple majority) votes to decertify the union, no more union as far as the government's concerned and the employer has no legal obligation to recognize the union or bargain with them any longer.

As far as unions being "Government backed"-- ha! You ever dealt with the NLRB? I have, several times. For one thing, there are very few restrictions on employer conduct. What does exist is nearly impossible to enforce to any deterrent level. I've had people get fired during organizing campaigns because of their union activity (plainly illegal under the NLRA), and the best we can get for them, several months later, is reinstatement with back pay (minus whatever they earned in the interim)-- now you tell me, how many doggedly anti-union employers will such a penalty deter from breaking the law? And I've seen employers blatantly violate the law and the NLRB didn't do shit at all. I've seen NLRB election ballots where we know we've won impounded by the Feds for years before they were counted, and employers flat-out refuse to bargain (another violation of the law) and nothing happened to them. After Carey (President of the Teamsters) launched the UPS strike, the Feds punished him by trumping up corruption charges against him of which he was eventually acquitted, but ended up costing him the presidency.

Shit, we even had an employer STEAL dues money from our members, the NLRB did nothing and the D.A. refused to prosecute for larceny. Yeah...the government's really got our backs...I guess that's why we only have 7% of the private sector workforce as opposed to the REAL government-backed unions in China that have 100%. Don't make me laugh. Save that "government-backed Big Labor" argument for someone who doesn't know better. Anything we get is through shop-floor and industrial organizing-- the government's never given us shit except a bureaucratic method of regularizing industrial relations so there won't be strikes...and that's all we'll ever get from them.

The reason that so many new car companies are moving to the US is because they know that they can undercut American car manufacturers and get "affordable" labor and avoid tariff taxes. They also have no issue with telling the union to go fuck themselves.

Yep, that's why Hyundai did it...to avoid their own unions in South Korea. That doesn't mean that plant will always be non-union however if their employees choose otherwise.

Wages should be set by the market, not by unions!

Ah yes, the mysterious market forces that contain no rational actors. Oh, wait a minute, that's not true, markets contain...wait for it...wait for it...PEOPLE! And these people negotiate prices, both as individuals and as organizations/institutions. That's the way it's always been and that's the way it'll always be. It works on the labor side and the capital side and the consumer side.

You may think you are arguing from a free-market basis, but in reality, extrapolating your arguments to their logical conclusion would nullify the basis of free market theory-- the right of free contract.

Unions = BAD

Arguments informed by ideology but not facts + sweeping generalizations = WORSE