Remember the company that instituted a $70,000 minimum wage? Profits have doubled.

[coloradoatheist]

You mean by the same system that has been tried in the past which is bullet holes in people's foreheads or "re-education" camps?

- - - Updated - - -

This company is an example of trying something new. The others here should take note and copy the system and start their own company doing it.

Is that what the Spanish Anarchists did?

"Re-education camps"?

Most of the time they were busy fighting the outside world, but yes from the one book they that was linked to in a previous thread, they were very intimidating and threatening to neighbors who didn't believe in the cause.

 

[untermensche]

Is that what the Spanish Anarchists did?

"Re-education camps"?

Most of the time they were busy fighting the outside world, but yes from the one book they that was linked to in a previous thread, they were very intimidating and threatening to neighbors who didn't believe in the cause.

This is source-less wishful thinking.

The Anarchists rose up in Spain because they had a very vibrant labor movement for years.

They were not dictators. They extended democracy into the workplace. The opposite of dictatorship.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Most of the time they were busy fighting the outside world, but yes from the one book they that was linked to in a previous thread, they were very intimidating and threatening to neighbors who didn't believe in the cause.

This is source-less wishful thinking.

The Anarchists rose up in Spain because they had a very vibrant labor movement for years.

They were not dictators. They extended democracy into the workplace. The opposite of dictatorship.

And we had a book that the author spent time within the revolution and his opinion was that the environment was even more dictatorial than before.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

People can form unions all they want. They just can't compel others to join and pay fees. (Unless the government allows them to coerce their coworkers.)

Nobody has ever once been forced to pay union dues.

People are always free to not pay and work somewhere else.

Except when unions ensure there is no somewhere else.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What I am advocating is an increase in the choices people have.

Right now the choice for most is to be a peasant in one dictatorship or another.

You like this limitation.

I would like to see people have the choice to join democracies.

But this is a sea change and the dictators will not just let it happen. The have basically destroyed the labor movement presently. But they have done that many times before.

And where worker ownership and control springs from is a widespread and deep labor movement.

Not by scattered individuals trying to take down the system.

We don't oppose co-ops. We think they'll generally go bad in time but that's no reason to prohibit them.

The problem is that you want to be handed the means of production.

 

[lpetrich]

People can form unions all they want. They just can't compel others to join and pay fees. (Unless the government allows them to coerce their coworkers.)

Nobody has ever once been forced to pay union dues.

People are always free to not pay and work somewhere else.

Good riposte. It takes capitalism groupies' favorite argument about work conditions and turns it against them. They seem to believe that union membership is the only job condition that one has a right to object to.

They will likely wave around some arguments for their position that seem very high-minded, but their real objection is, I think, that they believe that business leaders are society's legitimate rulers and that anyone else is a usurper, like a labor unionist.

This book may be helpful in understanding them: The Authoritarians

 

[lpetrich]

And amazingly all the dictators are worth hundreds of times what the peasants are worth.

I hate to say it, but top down works.

So planned economies can work when the economies are the internal operations of businesses.

 

[Bronzeage]

Nobody has ever once been forced to pay union dues.

People are always free to not pay and work somewhere else.

Except when unions ensure there is no somewhere else.

How do unions do that?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Thread history:
1. Don't be a dick leads to greater profits.
2. ...
3. Union bashing.

 

[untermensche]

What I am advocating is an increase in the choices people have.

Right now the choice for most is to be a peasant in one dictatorship or another.

You like this limitation.

I would like to see people have the choice to join democracies.

But this is a sea change and the dictators will not just let it happen. The have basically destroyed the labor movement presently. But they have done that many times before.

And where worker ownership and control springs from is a widespread and deep labor movement.

Not by scattered individuals trying to take down the system.

We don't oppose co-ops. We think they'll generally go bad in time but that's no reason to prohibit them.

The problem is that you want to be handed the means of production.

Yes that is what the American Tories said about the King.

This democracy stuff is interesting but things "generally go bad in time".

"Let's stick with our dictatorship."

 

[untermensche]

Nobody has ever once been forced to pay union dues.

People are always free to not pay and work somewhere else.

Except when unions ensure there is no somewhere else.

That is what the managers have been doing for the past 30 years. Moving jobs away.

Unions don't do that.

Unions lift ALL boats. When unions are strong they lift conditions for all workers.

They are in fact the only thing every shown to do that.

Which is why they have been severely crushed presently. And why most workers have stagnated or declined over the past 30 years (in the US).

 

[untermensche]

Thread history:
1. Don't be a dick leads to greater profits.
2. ...
3. Union bashing.

I would change 1 to; When people have less financial problems and worries they are more efficient.

Minimum wage leads to constant financial difficulties leads to depression leads to lower productivity. Only a fool or somebody profiting off the labor of another directly can't see it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I hate to say it, but top down works.

So planned economies can work when the economies are the internal operations of businesses.

No--the big difference is that in the corporate world there are many competing players. You don't have one "right" answer, you have many answers and the marketplace decides which is best--and everyone shifts towards the one that works best.

While any given guess is going to be similar in quality to those of the planned economies the fact that there are many of them means that you see what is needed to correct course. Planned economies lack this range of test values and thus will continue off course without realizing it.

There's also the factor that the more skin people have in the game the better they do--not to mention that business predictions are less likely to be slanted for political reasons.

 

[ksen]

Good lord, you know even less about how businesses actually operate than I thought you did.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Except when unions ensure there is no somewhere else.

How do unions do that?

Well, around here the hotel unions have been sending notices of potential strikes disrupting plans to those they think might be going to visit non-union hotels. There has never been a strike at a non-union hotel, though--it's purely trying to scare people away.

(And they're stupid about handling the addresses. They've harvested my name from trade show attendance lists and sent me a few such notices--never noticing that I have a local address.)

- - - Updated - - -

Except when unions ensure there is no somewhere else.

That is what the managers have been doing for the past 30 years. Moving jobs away.

Unions don't do that.

Unions lift ALL boats. When unions are strong they lift conditions for all workers.

They are in fact the only thing every shown to do that.

Which is why they have been severely crushed presently. And why most workers have stagnated or declined over the past 30 years (in the US).

The basic means of a union operating is by restricting the labor pool. They most certainly do not lift all boats.

 

[Trausti]

The basic means of a union operating is by restricting the labor pool. They most certainly do not lift all boats.

Well, duh. Some animals are more equal than others.

More than 20 U.S. cities and counties, recently including Los Angeles and Kansas City, Mo., have set minimum wages above state and federal levels. Some will eventually reach more than twice the federal rate of $7.25 an hour.

In at least a half-dozen of those communities, the pay-floor ordinances include a provision allowing unions to waive the wage mandates as part of a collective-bargaining agreement.

Labor groups often seek the exemptions because they say they provide the flexibility to negotiate better benefits for all union members or raises for more senior workers making more than the minimum. Unions also say such exemptions afford cities and employers protection against potential lawsuits if a conflict arises between local ordinances and union agreements, protected by federal labor law.

The carve-outs are increasingly drawing the ire of business groups representing the hotel and tourism industries, among others. They say such exemptions are a way for unions to organize or gain negotiating power by using the ability to opt out of the wage law as leverage to achieve other goals.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/minimum-wage-waivers-for-union-members-stir-standoff-1439857915

 

[SimpleDon]

Here's What Really Happened at That Company That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage

The 20 percent raises Price implemented in 2012 were supposed to be a one-time deal. Then something strange happened: Profits rose just as much as the previous year, fueled by a surprising productivity jump -- of 30 to 40 percent. He figured it was a fluke, but he piled on 20 percent raises again the following year. Again, profits rose by a like amount. Baffled, he did the same in 2014 and profits continued to rise, though not quite as much as before, because Gravity had to do more hiring.

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you!

I don't think that this tells anything about this policy applied across the entire economy. It is unique and obviously it will mean that this company is besieged with applications, 4500 in the first week in the story that I read, and would achieve dramatic increases in productivity as the jobs there become more valuable to the current employees. Sustainability depends on the nature of the business, whether the increase in productivity can support the increased wages.

The question of the economy is concerned with the aggregates and averages, not with the extremes and outliers like this firm.

At the very least we could hope that this would put a little doubt into those who believe the economy is a clockwork mechanism that best determines outcomes far from the influence of we corruptible humans, that there is a "natural" value of labor that we don't dare violate and that the labor market is a fair market where everyone is compensated fairly according to the value of their contributions. A political ideology that has little support in economics.

Yes, I am an incurable optimist.

 

[DBT]

A workers union shouldn't do anything that the members have not voted on in a general meeting. It's also the job of the representative to consider the best interests of the members. Which includes, first off, that union members/employees do not shoot themselves in the foot by making unrealistic claims and taking actions, strikes, that are likely to lead to job losses.

So it is the role of the union representative to advise union members of possible ramifications of taking a particular action if that action does not benefit the members, but the members appear to be in favour, regardless of the possibility that voting for that action is not in their long term interest, job security, sustainable income and relationship with management.

 

[Axulus]

I hate to say it, but top down works.

So planned economies can work when the economies are the internal operations of businesses.

They are more likely to work due to far better incentives. And the key difference is that they are voluntary. You don't like it, you leave. The planned economies throughout history always have their guns pointing inward - you try to escape, you get shot.

 

[lpetrich]

Shouldn't the workers be upset that profits went up and they didn't get that profit in their salary?

But if its profits went down, then the capitalism groupies would be gloating about how terrible it is to raise a minimum wage that high. You can't win against them, it seems. They will always find things to complain about.