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Zonie63 -> RE: A few Labor Leader, cost 18,500 people their jobs (11/17/2012 8:02:59 AM)
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: cuckoldmepls
It's always puzzled me where people get this idea that they have a Constitutional right to collective bargain. I've never seen nor heard anything in the Constitution that allows people to blackmail their employer.
The same Constitutional principles which allow private property and freedom of choice also allow workers to negotiate with their employers regarding salary and benefits. The right to do business is the right to do business, whether it's workers negotiating their salaries or businessmen negotiating a land deal. It seems that workers collectively bargaining is within the same principles of capitalism that many businessmen (and others) extol. You can't have it both ways.
Management has the right to negotiate, and so do the employees. The employees can also form a negotiating bloc, which would be the Union. Big part of the problem, IMO, is that Management is hamstrung when it comes to negotiations. Look at what happened with Boeing regarding their plant in SC. They built a plant in which they were increasing work (as opposed to replacing work from an existing plant) and the only thing really wrong in all that is that some exec. made the comment that SC was chosen because they wouldn't have to hire Union, and wouldn't have the risk of facing strikes (forget for the moment that SC workers can Unionize, if they so choose). Because some exec. made that comment, shit hit the fan with the NLRB. The plant being built in SC was seen as a punitive response to not-so-distant-past strikes by Union workers. That's a no no. This is how Boeing was hamstrung. They could have built the plant there and not hired Union workers, if they so chose, but they couldn't state that it was to prevent (or help prevent) future strikes. When Management can't be open and honest in their choosing, how does that help? Is it really a stupid idea for a business to expand and build in locations where strikes aren't as likely to happen?
I'm not too familiar with this specific case, but from what you're saying, it wasn't really the workers or the unions hamstringing Boeing, but it was the government (NLRB). It's not really the process of collective bargaining or giving employees the right to do so which is the problem, but governmental interference seems to be the main complaint here. I imagine there might have been people in South Carolina who might have wanted to work for Boeing but won't get that opportunity, so they lost out, too.
On the other hand, the employees are kind of hamstrung, too, especially when they're facing the loss of a paycheck. The executives might get big bonuses and golden parachutes, but the average line workers don't fare as well. So, each side has its own cross to bear, I suppose.
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Of course, the business owners are in no way forced to hire union workers. They had every right to fire the union employees and hire non-union employees (many of whom probably would have jumped at the chance). They could have done that and stayed in business. I read that Hostess is based out of Texas, which is a right to work state, so there was nothing preventing the company from doing that, if they really wanted to remain in business. They weren't being blackmailed at all.
Simply being based in Texas (not idea if that is correct or not, but we'll go with it) doesn't mean Union workers don't have to be hired. That just means that the workers at the HQ don't have to be Union. The plant locations determine if non-Union hiring (depending on votes to Unionize) is allowed.
For all the Management/Union doings, the biggest problem I see with Unions is that the contracts are held onto tooth and nail, concessions given over grudgingly, and usually with some sop on the back end of the deal, even if the current business climate and profitability are significantly worse than when the current contract was negotiated. In up times, Management tends to improve labor contracts, or at least negotiates less forcefully and is more willing to accept Union demands. But, that reverse is not true of Labor in Down times.
Personally, I do put some onus on Unions for the death of Hostess. But, I also put some onus on Management, and on the Market. In the end, as sad as it may be to lose Hostess and, possibly, their products, if they have a failed business model, they have a failed business model and the Ho Ho should go the way of the dodo.
I can see what you're saying, and I probably have mixed views about unions, at least in how things are currently in this country. Overall, I think the labor movement has been largely a good thing to raise the standard of living in this country. Thinking back to the days of sweatshops, child labor, and other grisly conditions which also led to some serious incidences of violence in this country, particularly some of the mining strikes we have in our history. It also took some level of government intervention.
But I've also seen where union workers have benefited at the expense of those who are lower on the food chain, so to speak. The local bus drivers are in the Teamsters union, and they've had a few strikes in recent years which has pushed up the bus fares, which affects low income people who depend on the bus. Unions seem more like they want to protect their own private and exclusive club, and they don't appear interested in bettering conditions, wages, and benefits for all working people in this country.
I also remember back in the early 80s when my brother dropped out of college in California and wanted to get a job in construction. The construction company was interested in hiring him, but told him he had to go down to the union hall and join the union first - then they could hire him. The guy down at the union hall didn't let my brother join. Apparently, he was some grumbly old guy complaining about "you young kids coming down here trying to take jobs from people who really need them." So, I can understand why it's hard to sympathize with unions when one encounters attitudes like that.
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