Young White Men Without College Are Dropping Out Of Work Force

[Bomb#20]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

Why would anyone think making Americans poorer improves worldwide inequality is even remotely relevant to the OP about young men dropping out of the US labor force?

Try to keep up with the discussion. (Plus, your question assumes facts not in evidence.)

 

[Bomb#20]

A recent strike asked for reasonable sick leave, but was denied by Fed action.

I take it you mean the recent threatened rail strike. The contract was accepted by eight unions and rejected by four. Without Fed action an outvoted minority of workers could impose a strike. Seems like a better solution would be to have one railworkers' union instead of twelve.

Some political philosophers (including our own Bomb#20 perhaps?) want to outsource such work to Bangladeshis or Guatemalans.

Do you have something against Bangladeshis or Guatemalans, that you feel American customers should discriminate against them?

 

[ZiprHead]

I noted this from the article:

That's as men without a college degree have seen their real earnings fall by 30% since 1980, compared to those of all "prime-age" workers between the ages of 25 and 54.

The beginning of the "Reagan Revolution", trickle down economics, anti-union drives, out-sourcing, monopolization, etc.

 

[laughing dog]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

Why would anyone think making Americans poorer improves worldwide inequality is even remotely relevant to the OP about young men dropping out of the US labor force?

Try to keep up with the discussion. (Plus, your question assumes facts not in evidence.)

Trying keep up with the relevant discussion prompted the question. As your deflection indicates, it is not relevant.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I guess the key word there is "adequate." Too many of the union positions in places I worked were vastly over rewarded. I'm not in any way against adequate pay that affords a worker housing and lots of other good things. But what is wrong with working eight hours for eight hours pay, particularly when the pay is extremely good? Just work. Do whatever is in the best interests of your employer that day. Don't tell your employer something isn't your job. You are there because the people who hired you need you to get their product out the door. It's pretty simple.

But unions fail miserably, totally in this regard. For the most part union leadership acts like being cooperative is an act of betrayal. I never did get this antagonistic attitude. In my experience it is this failing that has cost unions their loss of influence and power. It's why companies build facilities away from such conditions. For anyone who has not experienced these toxic working union environments they will not understand. But it isn't hard for me to understand because I lived it and saw how it prevented companies from being competitive and profitable.

It’s a lot more understandable to understand the attitude of not working beyond your job specifications if you know and understand the history of unions and the fact that unions need to protect other unions, not just themselves. Of course it is possible for there to be corruption in unions. They are comprised of people and people are imperfect.

If I'm working for a company, if they are paying me to work for them then that's what I should do. Your response here strikes me as coming from someone who thinks they can sit on their duff, be unprofitable for most of their day on the job, but somehow think they should still get a decent paycheck for it, but is experiencing some guilt today. And that's precisely why unions have lost their power. Every employee has the primary "job specification" of working safely and profitably for his employer. If they don't they are only hurting themselves as evidenced by failing union influence over recent decades. It's really just that simple.

And I certainly agree with laughing dog that companies typically get the unions they deserve.

 

[lostone]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

Bomb#20 isn't math challenged. His mathematics is correct. Lowering the income of Americans to more closely match the world average would reduce worldwide income inequality. That would be true of other high-income countries too but none of them have anything like the population of the U.S.

Western Europe as a whole, including Scandanvia, has a population close to the same as that of the US

 

[Toni]

I guess the key word there is "adequate." Too many of the union positions in places I worked were vastly over rewarded. I'm not in any way against adequate pay that affords a worker housing and lots of other good things. But what is wrong with working eight hours for eight hours pay, particularly when the pay is extremely good? Just work. Do whatever is in the best interests of your employer that day. Don't tell your employer something isn't your job. You are there because the people who hired you need you to get their product out the door. It's pretty simple.

But unions fail miserably, totally in this regard. For the most part union leadership acts like being cooperative is an act of betrayal. I never did get this antagonistic attitude. In my experience it is this failing that has cost unions their loss of influence and power. It's why companies build facilities away from such conditions. For anyone who has not experienced these toxic working union environments they will not understand. But it isn't hard for me to understand because I lived it and saw how it prevented companies from being competitive and profitable.

It’s a lot more understandable to understand the attitude of not working beyond your job specifications if you know and understand the history of unions and the fact that unions need to protect other unions, not just themselves. Of course it is possible for there to be corruption in unions. They are comprised of people and people are imperfect.

If I'm working for a company, if they are paying me to work for them then that's what I should do. Your response here strikes me as coming from someone who thinks they can sit on their duff, be unprofitable for most of their day on the job, but somehow think they should still get a decent paycheck for it, but is experiencing some guilt today. And that's precisely why unions have lost their power. Every employee has the primary "job specification" of working safely and profitably for his employer. If they don't they are only hurting themselves as evidenced by failing union influence over recent decades. It's really just that simple.

And I certainly agree with laughing dog that companies typically get the unions they deserve.

WTF? If I did not work at my job, and do it extremely well, I would have been out on my ass PDQ. You are projecting your own values, not mine.

You strike me as someone who doesn’t read with any attention to detail. Makes me wonder how you survived.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Unions work for a while but most union companies end up destroyed, eaten by non-union competitors. Pretty much the only unions you see left are situations where there's a big reason preventing competition.

You misspelled "Shut down by right wing ideological governments at the behest of non-union businesses who don't want to be forced into decent pay or conditions".

Explain how it's shut down by governments. Company B opens up shop, competing with union company A. B's prices are cheaper, B ends up destroying A. The government isn't involved. Basically all union jobs in the US involve situations where there is a major impediment or legal barrier to B competing with A.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Union membership in the US has been steadily decaying since at least 1960. Blaming a stagnant federal wage on either lower union membership or a conspiracy to reduce union membership does not make sense.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

And this is supposed to show what?

Top 1% is pretty strongly tied to the economy. The comparison is total garbage as it's comparing a percentage to a raw number.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

WTF? If I did not work at my job, and do it extremely well, I would have been out on my ass PDQ. You are projecting your own values, not mine.

You strike me as someone who doesn’t read with any attention to detail. Makes me wonder how you survived.

You seemed to be apologizing for union behavior when you said, "to understand the attitude of not working beyond your job specifications if you know and understand the history of unions and the fact that unions need to protect other unions, not just themselves." Maybe you could explain what you mean. I'm particularly interested in what you mean by "not working beyond your job specifications." Based on my experience that sounds like "that's not my job." Perhaps you could explain.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You really will have to explain this in words.

You have a graph tracking raw numbers in unions from 1910 (U.S. population 92m) versus 2010 (U.S. population 309m), purporting to show a correlation (?) between union membership and the income of the top 1%?

What point are you even trying to make?

How brilliant of you to notice that U.S. population increased over the period. That makes the decline in union membership even more pronounced!

The correlation between Reagan's ascension and the decline of relative prosperity for the average American is shown rather starkly in the graph. Cause-effect relationships can be debated.

As for attempting to lead you to points or explanation, that may be futile. I forget: Does your Ilk think income inequality is good or bad?

You're missing the point--the use of incorrect units makes the comparison garbage. While I have not tried to look up the numbers I think that red line is probably approximately flat in the time before it's "peak" other than jumps during the wars. And associating Reagan with that "peak" doesn't prove a relationship--that's also strongly related to when the economy was shifting away from large scale skilled manufacturing. Factory jobs are increasingly workers tending the machines that do the work with a fairly low number of skilled jobs involved.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And the award for Reasons to Unionize goes once again to Hyundai Motor Group and the great state of Alabama for their ongoing commitment violating child labor laws, poor wages, exploiting impoverished rural communities, and poor enforcement of worker safety.

This isn't the first time for the parts suppliers of Hyundai/Kia. There's been news in the past of their disregard for worker safety, demanding quotas that encourage unsafe practices. Of course enabling all this is Right to Work Alabama who if they fine these part suppliers or employment agencies that serve Hyundai at all, it will be a pittance that will only encourage more of the same.

And why isn't OSHA doing it's job?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I noted this from the article:

That's as men without a college degree have seen their real earnings fall by 30% since 1980, compared to those of all "prime-age" workers between the ages of 25 and 54.

The beginning of the "Reagan Revolution", trickle down economics, anti-union drives, out-sourcing, monopolization, etc.

It also corresponds to when skilled manual labor jobs started disappearing in droves, replaced by low-skill operators of machines that did the job. (Far more jobs were lost to machinery than outsourcing.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

Bomb#20 isn't math challenged. His mathematics is correct. Lowering the income of Americans to more closely match the world average would reduce worldwide income inequality. That would be true of other high-income countries too but none of them have anything like the population of the U.S.

Western Europe as a whole, including Scandanvia, has a population close to the same as that of the US

And a lower standard of living as measured by purchasing power parity.

 

[ZiprHead]

Unions work for a while but most union companies end up destroyed, eaten by non-union competitors. Pretty much the only unions you see left are situations where there's a big reason preventing competition.

You misspelled "Shut down by right wing ideological governments at the behest of non-union businesses who don't want to be forced into decent pay or conditions".

Explain how it's shut down by governments. Company B opens up shop, competing with union company A. B's prices are cheaper, B ends up destroying A. The government isn't involved. Basically all union jobs in the US involve situations where there is a major impediment or legal barrier to B competing with A.

Do you have some examples of this?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It also corresponds to when skilled manual labor jobs started disappearing in droves, replaced by low-skill operators of machines that did the job. (Far more jobs were lost to machinery than outsourcing.)

Please provide some examples of what you are talking about. Please be specific. I worked in manufacturing all my life except for a few years with Uncle Sam. I can say I never experienced anything like what you are talking about, at least insofar as I understand your statement.

 

[Toni]

WTF? If I did not work at my job, and do it extremely well, I would have been out on my ass PDQ. You are projecting your own values, not mine.

You strike me as someone who doesn’t read with any attention to detail. Makes me wonder how you survived.

You seemed to be apologizing for union behavior when you said, "to understand the attitude of not working beyond your job specifications if you know and understand the history of unions and the fact that unions need to protect other unions, not just themselves." Maybe you could explain what you mean. I'm particularly interested in what you mean by "not working beyond your job specifications." Based on my experience that sounds like "that's not my job." Perhaps you could explain.

Upthread is a brief highlight of some history of unions in the US. People were killed for attempting to win decent compensation for their labor.

Working only within your job is not specific to union jobs. It can be a serious issue of licensure and legality. In my last job, by law and a host of regulations, I was only allowed to perform testing and other tasks for which I was specifically trained to do. If I performed tests I was not trained and. Certified to do, the tests would be invalid ( huge waste of money and resources and valuable patient samples) and the lab could have have lost its licenses, faced a number of serious penalties, and more. This is not a case of unions but of important regulations.

Not that I need to justify myself to the likes of you but I frequently worked above and beyond, working longer hours or worse shifts, performing extra tests and other tasks as necessary to ensure quick and accurate results for patients. But only within parameters of what I was trained to do.

In some union jobs, overstepping your job can mean that something is not done correctly—or that a different work unit loses positions.

When my kids were young, I spent a decent amount of time volunteering in various ways at local schools. I saw firsthand the teachers’ workload—outside of the classroom. Because my town does not believe in paying decent wages, especially for education, contact negotiations with the teacher’s union had broken down. Teachers instituted ‘work to rule,’ refusing to do any of the (uncompensated) work that was not specified in in their contact—but work which was vital to the running of the schools, the classrooms. Eventually the tactic worked and the district was willing to negotiate.

 

[bilby]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

Bomb#20 isn't math challenged. His mathematics is correct. Lowering the income of Americans to more closely match the world average would reduce worldwide income inequality. That would be true of other high-income countries too but none of them have anything like the population of the U.S.

Western Europe as a whole, including Scandanvia, has a population close to the same as that of the US

The EU has a population 135% of that of the USA.

 

[TV and credit cards]

And the award for Reasons to Unionize goes once again to Hyundai Motor Group and the great state of Alabama for their ongoing commitment violating child labor laws, poor wages, exploiting impoverished rural communities, and poor enforcement of worker safety.

This isn't the first time for the parts suppliers of Hyundai/Kia. There's been news in the past of their disregard for worker safety, demanding quotas that encourage unsafe practices. Of course enabling all this is Right to Work Alabama who if they fine these part suppliers or employment agencies that serve Hyundai at all, it will be a pittance that will only encourage more of the same.

And why isn't OSHA doing it's job?

Perhaps they are part of the picture, just not mentioned.
But from Wikipedia, given the size of OSHA’s workforce and the scope of their responsibilities, it would take them 129 years to inspect all workplaces under their jurisdiction.
I guess a good way for a government to be business friendly while appearing to protect people at the same time is to put regulatory agencies in place and then understaff and underfund them.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

WTF? If I did not work at my job, and do it extremely well, I would have been out on my ass PDQ. You are projecting your own values, not mine.

You strike me as someone who doesn’t read with any attention to detail. Makes me wonder how you survived.

You seemed to be apologizing for union behavior when you said, "to understand the attitude of not working beyond your job specifications if you know and understand the history of unions and the fact that unions need to protect other unions, not just themselves." Maybe you could explain what you mean. I'm particularly interested in what you mean by "not working beyond your job specifications." Based on my experience that sounds like "that's not my job." Perhaps you could explain.

Upthread is a brief highlight of some history of unions in the US. People were killed for attempting to win decent compensation for their labor.

Working only within your job is not specific to union jobs. It can be a serious issue of licensure and legality. In my last job, by law and a host of regulations, I was only allowed to perform testing and other tasks for which I was specifically trained to do. If I performed tests I was not trained and. Certified to do, the tests would be invalid ( huge waste of money and resources and valuable patient samples) and the lab could have have lost its licenses, faced a number of serious penalties, and more. This is not a case of unions but of important regulations.

Not that I need to justify myself to the likes of you but I frequently worked above and beyond, working longer hours or worse shifts, performing extra tests and other tasks as necessary to ensure quick and accurate results for patients. But only within parameters of what I was trained to do.

In some union jobs, overstepping your job can mean that something is not done correctly—or that a different work unit loses positions.

When my kids were young, I spent a decent amount of time volunteering in various ways at local schools. I saw firsthand the teachers’ workload—outside of the classroom. Because my town does not believe in paying decent wages, especially for education, contact negotiations with the teacher’s union had broken down. Teachers instituted ‘work to rule,’ refusing to do any of the (uncompensated) work that was not specified in in their contact—but work which was vital to the running of the schools, the classrooms. Eventually the tactic worked and the district was willing to negotiate.

All good. Thank-you. That was not my experience.