Working hard to make us all one big union!
Posted on 12/06/2008 4:49:01 PM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Only a professor, preferably a sociology professor, one with way too much time on his hands, could have come up with this one. His solution to the Detroit crisis that has the Big Three automakers on the brink of bye-bye? Unionize their foreign competitors manufacturing in the USA!
Now why didn't we think of that? Because we're not Jonathan Cutler, associate professor of sociology at Wesleyan University. His solution in a nutshell, contained in his Los Angeles Times column of today [emphasis added]:
"[N]ot to tear down the historic and heroic gains won by prior generations of UAW workers. If there is hope long term -- for the unionized Big Three companies and for the UAW -- it rests in dealing with the unfinished business of the 1980s: unionizing the unorganized transplants."
Let's count the ways that won't work:
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
LOL!
Sociology is a joke of a discipline, and a pseudo-profession.
Sociologists are just people who otherwise would be unemployable because they don’t know sh*t about how the real world operates.
Every college and university should shut down their sociology programs and fire all the faculty. Think of the money they’d save for more important things...like winning sports teams ;-)
If the "big three" carmakers cut back production (or shut down), then there will be an increase in sales of vehicles made by other auto-makers.
If the non-"big-three" auto makers increase sales, then they will need to hire more employees to make and sell more cars.
Working hard to make us all one big union!
The Japanese would never consent to the Unionizing of Toyota. They would close every plant in the USA and move
those plants to Mexico.
Result: Fewer jobs in the USA.
Good on you, MARTIAL MONK... I have often said that a 3 hour course in sociology is more destructive to true culture than a nuclear weapon. When I was in graduate school in chemistry I had a (fairly conservative) friend with whom I used to hold discussions about life, politics, etc. I was always beating up on sociology and he used to think I was being unfair. Then he got a job a university (as I did as well) and when we met up again at conference a year or so later, he said to me with a wide-eyed expression: “you know, you were absolutely right about those sociologists! They’re crazy!”
I bet he wears elbow patches, unkempt hair, nerdy glasses, Hushpuppies, an unironed shirt, and has a beard......oh wai...................
The professor has several makes made in socialist countries to choose from--Ladas from the Soviet Union, Trabants from the German Democratic Republic, Dacias from the Socialist Republic of Romania, Zastavas from the Socialist Republic of Serbia in Yugoslavia, and whatever the car made in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was called. Of course he'll have to buy a used one.
I don't have a copy of his book(s), but I'd suggest you read between the lines on this particular piece vis a vis Toyota.
At the same time I couldn't find much he's said about how the UAW failed to protect the workers at International Harvester as that company, under weak, even criminally ignorant, management ran headlong into serious disinvestment and then bankruptcy at the hands of its debtors (dealers who offloaded their debts to the main IH company by simply not paying their bills for delivered trucks and other motor vehicles and farm equipment).
What Cutler is saying here appears to be that the Big Three are dead unless we kill off the leading automobile manufacturer, Toyota!
“Wow. Talk about your Atlas Shrugged scenario.”
Ayn Rand is turning out to be the Nostradamus of our time.
It’s almost spooky.
Now there’s a good way to lose a few hundred thousand more jobs - run Toyota, Honda, and Kia out of the US. This man’s an idiot.
I would not be so sure about this. The old USSR worked just fine for those in power.
One had “a job”, a government job of course - but it was assigned - it might mean a commute
Jobs were not assigned in the USSR, with the only exception of university graduates who had to work for 3 years at a place relevant to their education (as a limited pay for the education.) But even graduates had more than one choice. Everyone else had 100% freedom to move from one job to another.
and, one couldn’t quit either, nor transfer, etc.
That's not how it was in the USSR. Anyone could quit, usually with a couple weeks of warning out of kindless of one's heart. Transfers were also possible and very common (especially between departments of one larger organization.)
“We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”
This is absolutely correct. However a good deal of wealth was distributed outside of the paycheck, such as huge rent discounts, free medicine, often free land outside of the city (a "dacha") and so on. Many employees could comfortably live and raise family on half of their salary, so much life was subsidized. For example, you could buy 1,500 loafs of bread for one engineer's monthly salary. If we translate that to modern US realities he'd be earning $4,500/mo which is not that bad. Or rent - he'd spend less then 20% of his salary on rent, which again translates into ($1,500/0.2) = $7,500/mo - not bad at all. Given that food and housing are most important (and kindergarten is free, as well as schools [public only] ) - you can see that even a lowly machinist at some remote factory could live his whole life happily, not needing more money to buy an airplane or a palace (he couldn't anyway.)
But that's why lower strata of the society (workers) were happy enough. Those in power had access to more money and more resources. For example, legally you couldn't own a certain prized property, but you could "use" it as long as you hold a certain job, and you don't need to pay for it or its maintenance! In the same way you couldn't afford a luxury car, but one often came with the job.
The most important fingerprint of the USSR, though, is the complete isolation of rulers from the ruled. Elections meant nothing because you could only vote for the lowest levels of representatives. Really important positions were assigned by bureaucracy with no input from the people. This is something that many governments would like to emulate - it guarantees their existence forever (as long as they don't ruin the country in the process.)
In later years, yes. Not in the 30s. But those “who know what’s best for you” started out with a grand plan of the Workers Paradise (meanwhile starving millions of farmers aka kulaks); as Reagan noted, profits, private property, and freedom are inseparable. “Reforms” over the decades meant allowing more freedoms, I suppose, though it still must have sucked to line up for potatos or drab and crappy furniture or whatever.
One angle that some commentators have pointed out, Soviets were used to hardship, and handled the collapse of government much better than say, Americans would. The Russians were already used to bartering and scrounging and working around nonsense red-tape. That - and even though the economy had collapsed, most people lived in a government apartment - contrast that with the “mortgage” mess that the US is experiencing right now. I’d say more but I won’t.
Atlas Puked...
IOW, kill the other guy’s goat.
Should read, "Socialist Prof's Solution To Detroit Meltdown: Unionize Toyota!"
That would be the point.
But we would get great societal benefits from the extra cost going direct to union coffers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.