Posted on 12/14/2012 7:01:46 AM PST by RoosterRedux
For all the fury and fistfights outside the Lansing Capitol, what happened in Michigan this week was a simple accommodation to reality. The most famously unionized state, birthplace of the United Auto Workers, royalty of the American working class, became right-to-work.
It’s shocking, except that it was inevitable. Indiana went that way earlier this year. The entire Rust Belt will eventually follow because the heyday of the sovereign private-sector union is gone. Globalization has made splendid isolation impossible.
The nostalgics look back to the immediate postwar years when the UAW was all-powerful, the auto companies were highly profitable and the world was flooded with American cars. In that Golden Age, the UAW won wages, benefits and protections that were the envy of the world.
Today’s angry protesters demand a return to that norm. Except that it was not a norm but a historical anomaly. America, alone among the great industrial powers, emerged unscathed from World War II. Japan was a cinder, Germany rubble and the allies — beginning with Britain and France — an exhausted shell of their former imperial selves.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I’ve felt that unions suck since the 60’s when I saw hat the painters local in Pittsburgh did to a painting contractor they didn’t like, and iof course, seeing a few ugly steelworker strikes. They can all go straight to hell.
I think other states need to strike while the iron is hot. A couple more states moving on RTW will likely inspire real violence from the unions but that’s what will destroy them.
“Today’s angry protesters demand a return to that norm. Except that it was not a norm but a historical anomaly. America, alone among the great industrial powers, emerged unscathed from World War II. Japan was a cinder, Germany rubble and the allies — beginning with Britain and France — an exhausted shell of their former imperial selves.”
It’s the Liberal revisionist history coming back to bite them in the a$#. They had it both ways for too long and now the facts have caught up with them.
See... if the population of America understood even the least bit of the factual record on our history or bare bones facts about WWII and US involvement, the’d understand that Unions are a laughable and costly relic.
Most of the economic problems and social discord in America arise from workers/voters failure (refusal) to recognize this and accept what it means.
One sentence in Mr. Krauthammer’s column caught my attention.
“In right-to-work states, the average wage is about 10 percent lower.”
This may be true, but I would expect the take home pay in right to work states just might be equal to or maybe even higher that in closed shop states. Lop of the union dues, add in the usual lower taxes and see how that balances out.
Wage inflation and big government cost money to somebody.
I love how people try to rationalize high public employee salaries in blue states, saying the cost of living is high, when the cost of living is high because they pay their librarians $100K.
Re: “...the average wage is about 10 percent lower”, I’ll bet that the average cost of living is more than 10% lower as well. Look at housing in, say, Knoxville, TN versus New York City or Chicago.
Union stupidity is the norm.
I once did an off-duty security gig on a tv show set. There was a truck parked in front of a door that the set crew had to get into to work that day. The truck had to be moved 4 1/2 feet to clear the door. I offered to move it and was told no I could because it was in the union contract only they could operate vehicles. I said “so what” and was willing to go ahead and do it. The star of the show, a very nice and conservative man, pulled me aside and asked me not to since it wold just cause a big issue and I would be sued in the process of the union suing the company.
So, they had to call a driver who took 2 hours to get there and he really did move the truck 4 1/2 feet, turned it off and left without speaking a word. Big fat slob. He got paid 4 hours of overtime that day for 30 seconds of work and had the whole crew on the clock waiting for him. I to this day think he parked it there on purpose.
The upside I got to sit in the stars trailer and BS with him for about an hour and it extended my work hours by 2 hours that day.
-———what happened in Michigan this week was a simple accommodation to reality.-——
The demonstrations in Detroit and in Madison served the same organizational functions as a strike. Although strikes are theoretically pressure applied to coerce a company favorable decision, they are actually union safety valves.
Over the course of time, various union officers and shop stewards whip up anticompany emotions. The purpose is to create discontent and even specifically directed hatred. The goal is to justify membership and dues in much the same way hell fire and damnation increases collections.
The pressure must be relieved. The strike and the demonstrations are effective pop off valves. The pent up anger and discontent are relieved by angrily yelling and cursing and tearing down hot dog tents. The valve pops off, the pressure is relieved.
For the unions, there is a new fact of life. The need for popping off is diminishing because the pressure vessel is being disassembled.
Indiana going RTW helped but there is something else going on here that isn’t being explained and I’m unsure of what it is.
Our legislators and governor have done a complete 180 and I don’t think economics alone caused it. I personally think the democrats and unions got caught in the process of massive fraud and rather than engage in years long lawsuits, the GOP has opted to cut them off at the knees and be done with it.
Today the legislature is sending a bill to the governor’s desk that he vetoed during the summer. What it is is a simple checkbox on the ballot application asking if we’re legal US citizens. It seems like a minor thing but it does leave a trail that says an illegal voter knows they were voting illegally. I can’t imagine the legislature would send it back to the governor if he was only going to veto it again.
Anyone claiming “the unions had their place” are forgetting history. This is one sentence that summarizes their true intention.
“This section further explains that the proletarians will eventually rise to power through class struggle: the bourgeoisie constantly exploits the proletariat for its manual labour and cheap wages, ultimately to create profit for the bourgeois; the proletariat rise to power through revolution against the bourgeoisie such as riots or creation of unions.”
Taken from Wiki’s description of “The Communist Manifesto,” by Karl Marx and Friederich Engles.
I read the book "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers which put a whole bunch of perspective on the modern democrat party. Chambers was a communist during the 1920's and 1930's. Part of his assignments had to do with infiltrating the labor union's and organizing strikes. When you hear a union bosses talk, you can still hear the echo's of communists in their speech.
People forget that an employer decides what it is worth to him/her to have a specific task done, and the worker - before taking the job - has to decide if s/he will DO that task for THAT amount.
Then, we have a job.
Unions - like all typical liberals - tend to look at how much the employer is making, and then demands a piece of that amount.
It’s really none of the unions, or other employees, business what profits the company is making...only what the company will pay to get a task done.
Unions are the mob, protectionism - either you pay us what we want, or we go on strike and you don’t produce.
There are plenty enough laws - local, state, and federal - to prevent the workers woes of days gone by, unions are a totally unneeded “shakedown society”.
Congress needs to enact a National right-to-work law, and be done with it. If the unions want to walk...then let them...there are plenty of unemployed to fill the gap.
Unionism breed mediocrity in workers, period.
This is why the unions are so familiar to Obama and his work as a "community organizer." They are both in the shakedown bidness.
“Good unions don’t need compulsory unionism; bad unions don’t deserve it.” — Samuel Gompers
I became disgusted with unions when I learned that the Plumber’s union in NYC had “work rules” which required them to cut the ends off of the pre-threaded pipes when they arrived at a building site. The plumbers would then thread the pipes where needed. I think the term “featherbedding” was applied to this practice - a “union tax” applied to every buliding built or renovated in NYC.
On the other hand, my father was in the Longshore union. He related to me that the workers unionized during the Depression in part to provide a union hiring hall (providing workers to unload/load a ship) to replace the “hire at the ship” approach which had been utterly corrupted — hiring managers would look over the crowd of prospective workers for hand signals indicating the amount of kickback they were willing to give (e.g., two fingers indicated a kickback of $2), or the sexual favors to be provided by a worker’s wife if hired for the day.
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.