Impeachment

[TitoFan]

Kirk, since you're too small-minded for personal experience and "anecdotes", I'll put it in terms even you can understand.

Back in the 70's and before, the U.S. steel industry, one of the backbones of American industry, was flourishing. There was no reason for that to change, given the amount of resources and technology to keep the industry growing and flourishing. Then, a funny thing happened on the way to Happily Ever After Land. In the late 70's and beyond, Japan started to take large pieces away from the pie, and U.S. steel started floundering. Now..... you can cite product dumping in the U.S. market, cost of environmental controls, etc, all you want. But obviously you'll gloss over and ignore one of the biggest reasons of them all.

While the U.S. Steelworkers unions were fighting for half-hour coffee breaks and overly generous wage increases, Japan was quietly taking over the industry with its worker mindset and culture of working as one with company management. You know..... those Plains Apes you stupidly refer to in your childishly moronic descriptions. Sure..... there were other factors, as well as other countries in Europe taking from the pie. But it was Japan steel squashing U.S. steel that was making all the headlines. The U.S. steel industry has never recovered, and countless plants were closed, affecting the livelihoods of thousands of workers and their families. Maybe you can find us a nice chart and graph on that.

What holds for the steel industry can likely be repeated with ditto marks for other core industries as well. But you get the point (or not).

You see Kirk....... when Johnny and Sally join unions that proceed to drive up labor costs and making all sorts of outlandish demands, their employer ACME Company starts to lose competitiveness. ACME's costs go up, so product prices go up. Johnny and Sally's friends and family can no longer afford to buy the purple widgets from ACME Company. Eventually, a country such as Japan, with the foresight to know that industry can be a win-win with the right attitude, starts to make the purple widgets at half the price as ACME Company was making them. Soon all of Johnny and Sally's friends and family (including Johnny and Sally) start buying the purple widgets from the Japanese company. Lo and behold, ACME Company can no longer survive and closes. Ooooooohhhh!!! Johnny and Sally are left without jobs, and no longer make the money needed to buy their purple widgets from anybody.

Now...... how's about you printing up some of those little, neat charts and graphs and go wipe your own ass with them.

[Gandalf]

True Tito, it isn't just about Unions. It is sbout companies wanting cheaper labour. Thus America boomed post WW2, but when the chance to put people in sweat shops for pennies came along companies grabbed at it because 'Hey globalisation, we will be a service based economy'. Thus the jobs were shipped away to Japan, Korea, China, now Vietnam and India and on it goes. And what happens in those countries? They eventually lose their jobs to somewhere cheaper too.

Here is a bit like the UK at the dawn of Thatcher. They will likely open the borders to poor people willing to work for little to fill the cracks, but eventually you are left with a hollow shell that once was. That is America, that will be here, and on it goes as globalization rules.

[Gandalf]

A case in point, the UK used to build ships. A sunk industry. Others could do it cheaper and more efficiently and in decades from a world leader to a world bleeder. Unions cannot do a thing against globalisation.

[Master]

Unions were not the cause of the economy leading to a down turn and recession.

Strong Unions give workers better rights/pay/working conditions and I would rather that senior managers (fat cats) getting overpaid or even worse shareholders taking a slice of the profits.

[walrus]

Unions were not the cause of the economy leading to a down turn and recession.

Strong Unions give workers better rights/pay/working conditions and I would rather that senior managers (fat cats) getting overpaid or even worse shareholders taking a slice of the profits.

Master there is a big difference between public and private unions in the US. Public unions are the fat cats and have run our states into huge deficits as they are basically feeding the Democratic Party. I’m not saying the Republican Party hasn’t joined in to an extent but I worked for my state for many years and I saw first hand how it operated and it’s just a bunch of fat cats keeping themselves in power. Unions certainly did do some positive things for workers during the industrial revolution, the monopolies, labor laws etc back in the day but seriously collective bargaining has run its course and turned into part of the political machine, especially at the public level. Modern labor laws protect workers just about as good as any union. You can actually do a search online for state and federal labor laws and workers protection and get an idea of what I’m talking about. Some day I’ll send you a link showing you my states deficit and how much of that is due to the state union. And this is coming from someone who worked for the state for many years. At the union meetings they would try to start anti republican chants which is actually breaking their own rules but it was the union president doing it. By the way, my state is in debt to the union for billions and billions of dollars. That means everyone we raise taxes to improve roads, we aren’t doing that, we are raising taxes to feed the unions who donate to the politicians who will support the unions. It’s a big scam

[Master]

That sounds like an abuse of power by those particular Unions which is counterproductive as it is letting their members down. Unions do not want to bring down companies/economies because it hurts their own members.

Over here there has been an erosion of workers’ rights which has led to zero hour contracts and low pay. Yet the super-rich get even wealthier. I would rather the money be more equally and fairly distributed than it going to a few at the top.

[walrus]

That sounds like an abuse of power by those particular Unions which is counterproductive as it is letting their members down. Unions do not want to bring down companies/economies because it hurts their own members.

Over here there has been an erosion of workers’ rights which has led to zero hour contracts and low pay. Yet the super-rich get even wealthier. I would rather the money be more equally and fairly distributed than it going to a few at the top.

Ya I get you. I’m not saying it’s perfect here. Plenty of companies take advantage of workers when they can but too many unions, especially public unions, are willing to kill a state to keep pockets full. I’m not saying unions are inherently bad unfunded pension liabilities are sinking companies and states. Shit I’d love to see everyone make 100 bucks an hour. None of us are dumb, we can see both sides of the issue and they both have merit but when the unions can’t be be separated from politics and everybody’s goal is to stay in power and not have an army of workers but an army of voters you can see how that becomes problematic. If private businesses saw what they were really paying for with these public unions I think we would have a mini revolution but we are probably about 20 years away from that right now. I live in one of the highest taxed states in the US we have a nasty deficit and it’s all due to the public union.

[Kirkland Laing]

A case in point, the UK used to build ships. A sunk industry. Others could do it cheaper and more efficiently and in decades from a world leader to a world bleeder. Unions cannot do a thing against globalisation.

I come from what used to be the biggest shipbuilding town in the world. You either worked in the shipyards of in a coal mine. My family were all shipbuilders or coal miners. But Polish coal came along at half the price and Korean ships at half the price. We were probably the world's first post industrial area. Forty percent unemployment overnight. We haven't found out a way to ameliorate these kind of problems either. It's going to happen in any first world country when emerging economies can undercut your domestic firms. It's one of the shittier aspects of capitalism.

[Gandalf]

A case in point, the UK used to build ships. A sunk industry. Others could do it cheaper and more efficiently and in decades from a world leader to a world bleeder. Unions cannot do a thing against globalisation.

I come from what used to be the biggest shipbuilding town in the world. You either worked in the shipyards of in a coal mine. My family were all shipbuilders or coal miners. But Polish coal came along at half the price and Korean ships at half the price. We were probably the world's first post industrial area. Forty percent unemployment overnight. We haven't found out a way to ameliorate these kind of problems either. It's going to happen in any first world country when emerging economies can undercut your domestic firms. It's one of the shittier aspects of capitalism.

True.