If unionizing is bad why isn't incorporation?

[lpetrich]

First you have to state it correctly:

Labor banding together in the form of a union to drive up the price of labor = bad

It's bad because this means higher prices to consumers. This higher price is higher than the competitive price, which is always the best price for consumers. Whatever is bad for consumers is bad for the whole economy and for the nation.

Stealing stuff and then reselling it lowers prices for consumers. Is it therefore good?

Also, where do consumers get their money from? Picking money trees?

 

[dismal]

srsly, what union ever had workers making only minimum wage?

There were other people making more than minimum wage. Like, say, the union leaders. As an entry level cash handling and bagging technician I did not.

 

[untermensche]

srsly, what union ever had workers making only minimum wage?

There were other people making more than minimum wage. Like, say, the union leaders. As an entry level cash handling and bagging technician I did not.

Did you get any benefits?

Health insurance? Job protections?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

srsly, what union ever had workers making only minimum wage?

There were other people making more than minimum wage. Like, say, the union leaders. As an entry level cash handling and bagging technician I did not.

So you were a bag boy?

 

[dismal]

There were other people making more than minimum wage. Like, say, the union leaders. As an entry level cash handling and bagging technician I did not.

Did you get any benefits?

Health insurance? Job protections?

Not that I can recall. Nothing of value anyway. I was a teenager working a summer job. Benefits and protections weren't high on my list of concerns.

- - - Updated - - -

There were other people making more than minimum wage. Like, say, the union leaders. As an entry level cash handling and bagging technician I did not.

So you were a bag boy?

Cash handling and bagging technician.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Labor banding together in the form of a union to sell labor = bad

Capital banding together in the form of a corporation to sell a product = good

Why?

First you have to state it correctly:

Labor banding together in the form of a union to drive up the price of labor = bad

It's bad because this means higher prices to consumers. This higher price is higher than the competitive price, which is always the best price for consumers. Whatever is bad for consumers is bad for the whole economy and for the nation.

Unless, of course, the consumer has a poorly paying job and can't really afford much to begin with.

Capital banding together in the form of a corporation to sell a product = good. As long as the corporation operates legally, i.e., does not engage in anticompetitive behavior.

All anticompetitive behavior is bad for consumers = bad for all of society. Whether it's done by wage-earner producers or by capitalist-investor producers or by independent contractor producers.

*sigh*

The fundamental function of labor unions is collective bargaining = driving up the price of labor without improving the performance of the workers/sellers.

So a better paid employee isn't going to be a better functioning, more loyal and productive employee?

Whatever produces the lowest possible price for consumers, for the same production, is always the best price. No matter what the product is, including labor. All costs of production have to be kept at the lowest possible level in order to produce the lowest possible price for consumers.

Lowest possible? You do realize where that leads, right?

 

[untermensche]

Did you get any benefits?

Health insurance? Job protections?

Not that I can recall. Nothing of value anyway. I was a teenager working a summer job. Benefits and protections weren't high on my list of concerns.

That is immaterial.

Most likely you got job protections most minimum wage workers don't get. An appeals process of some kind.

You probably got breaks during the day many minimum wage workers don't get. You possibly had a plan to earn paid time off as well which is something many minimum wage workers don't get. You possibly had health insurance.

You really know little of the situation you were in.

 

[laughing dog]

Once again the point was missed. The point was never you had to be in a union to understand them, the point that the descriptions of what unions are did not match reality. I'm sorry it was too complicated.

Awesome. Double bonus pedantry.

Irony noted. BTW, the reverse that union membership means one understands unions is simply not necessarily true.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I already answered that. I have no problem with workers voluntarily forming Corporations and selling their services to willing customers in voluntary transactions.

What I object to about Unionism is the non-voluntary aspects of it.

What's not voluntary about voluntarily working at a place that requires you be part of the union? If you don't want to be part of the union don't work there. You have a free choice.

It's no different in any way from voluntarily working at a place that requires you wear clothes.

Who claims that when your workplace requires you wear clothes that is some infringement of rights?

That is logical relativism. Any time any person of a more free market inclination says "if you don't like it don't work there" we are given long lectures about wage slavery, the unlimited power of the employer, how it isn't so easy to just go and find another job, that people shouldn't have to put up with conditions they do not like in order to have a job, etc. And yet when the subject of unions comes up, "if you don't like it don't work there."

 

[laughing dog]

What's not voluntary about voluntarily working at a place that requires you be part of the union? If you don't want to be part of the union don't work there. You have a free choice.

It's no different in any way from voluntarily working at a place that requires you wear clothes.

Who claims that when your workplace requires you wear clothes that is some infringement of rights?

That is logical relativism. Any time any person of a more free market inclination says "if you don't like it don't work there" we are given long lectures about wage slavery, the unlimited power of the employer, how it isn't so easy to just go and find another job, that people shouldn't have to put up with conditions they do not like in order to have a job, etc. And yet when the subject of unions comes up, "if you don't like it don't work there."

And the free market ideologues lecture us on how finding another job is part of freedom and the working of a marketplace, so irony duly noted.

 

[dismal]

Not that I can recall. Nothing of value anyway. I was a teenager working a summer job. Benefits and protections weren't high on my list of concerns.

That is immaterial.

Most likely you got job protections most minimum wage workers don't get. An appeals process of some kind.

You probably got breaks during the day many minimum wage workers don't get. You possibly had a plan to earn paid time off as well which is something many minimum wage workers don't get. You possibly had health insurance.

You really know little of the situation you were in.

I know I made minimum wage and I was forced to join the union and pay union dues if I wanted the job. I know I didn't give a crap about that other stuff.

That's the situation I was in.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

That is logical relativism. Any time any person of a more free market inclination says "if you don't like it don't work there" we are given long lectures about wage slavery, the unlimited power of the employer, how it isn't so easy to just go and find another job, that people shouldn't have to put up with conditions they do not like in order to have a job, etc. And yet when the subject of unions comes up, "if you don't like it don't work there."

And the free market ideologues lecture us on how finding another job is part of freedom and the working of a marketplace, so irony duly noted.

If I was saying he was wrong, you'd be right.

I'm merely pointing out hypocrisy and logical relativism. Do keep up.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

That is immaterial.

Most likely you got job protections most minimum wage workers don't get. An appeals process of some kind.

You probably got breaks during the day many minimum wage workers don't get. You possibly had a plan to earn paid time off as well which is something many minimum wage workers don't get. You possibly had health insurance.

You really know little of the situation you were in.

I know I made minimum wage and I was forced to join the union and pay union dues if I wanted the job. I know I didn't give a crap about that other stuff.

That's the situation I was in.

But you were not forced to take the job.

 

[laughing dog]

And the free market ideologues lecture us on how finding another job is part of freedom and the working of a marketplace, so irony duly noted.

If I was saying he was wrong, you'd be right.

I'm merely pointing out hypocrisy and logical relativism. Do keep up.

More irony duly noted.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

In that case you must be noting his irony, otherwise you have truly lost track of the conversation (if you ever had it).

 

[laughing dog]

In that case you must be noting his irony, otherwise you have truly lost track of the conversation (if you ever had it).

You are a font of unintended irony and obtuseness today. By all means, keep at it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A sufficiently powerful union does an awful lot of dictating.

Even if it's negotiating, the comparison would be with negotiating wages with all employers in a field--in other words, removing any ability to go elsewhere and get more pay.

No union does any amount of dictating.

Everything they get is because of negotiation and the free choice of management to agree to the terms of contracts.

Union: "Give us what we want or you don't operate".

That doesn't sound like negotiation to me.

- - - Updated - - -

First you have to state it correctly:

Labor banding together in the form of a union to drive up the price of labor = bad

It's bad because this means higher prices to consumers.

No it doesn't.

It means smaller profits, that's all.

But problems arise when owners feel they are entitled to certain profits.

The entitlement mentality is strongest in ownership.

Once again the infinite pool of profits idea rears it's ugly head.

Offering up shit for the 1000th time doesn't make it stink less.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

No union does any amount of dictating.

Everything they get is because of negotiation and the free choice of management to agree to the terms of contracts.

Union: "Give us what we want or you don't operate".

That doesn't sound like negotiation to me.

I wish my union had this mythical power.

 

[ksen]

No union does any amount of dictating.

Everything they get is because of negotiation and the free choice of management to agree to the terms of contracts.

Union: "Give us what we want or you don't operate".

That doesn't sound like negotiation to me.

Corporation: "Give us what we want or you don't work."

That doesn't sound like negotiation to me either. What's your point?

First you have to state it correctly:

Labor banding together in the form of a union to drive up the price of labor = bad

It's bad because this means higher prices to consumers.

No it doesn't.

It means smaller profits, that's all.

But problems arise when owners feel they are entitled to certain profits.

The entitlement mentality is strongest in ownership.

Once again the infinite pool of profits idea rears it's ugly head.

Offering up shit for the 1000th time doesn't make it stink less.

And once again the infinite pool of wages idea rears its ugly head.

 

[laughing dog]

Once again the infinite pool of profits idea rears it's ugly head.

Offering up shit for the 1000th time doesn't make it stink less.

The level of irony in this thread is absolutely stunning - even by the standards of this forum.