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The Obama Watch
Obama the Posterizer
Another genius idea from the central planner: mandatory anti-entrepreneurial posters.
Just when it looked like employers were getting less fearful about what President Obama might do next to worsen the business climate, the National Labor Relations Board (now with its first Democratic majority in a decade, thanks to Obama’s appointees) announced on December 14 that private employers will be required to display pro-unionizing posters in their businesses under a newly proposed federal rule.
“The planned rule,” reported the Associated Press, “would require businesses to post notices in employee break rooms or other prominent locations to explain workers’ rights to bargain collectively, distribute union literature or engage in other union activities without reprisal.”
The posters don’t explain that the largest reprisal against collectivized labor and unionism comes from the public by way of lower sales — and then fewer jobs — when prices of products and services are hiked in order to pay for the escalating costs of higher wages, benefits and pensions.
In the U.S. auto industry, for instance, unionized factory workers have paid a steep price for the public’s reprisal against over-compensated employees and subsequently over-priced cars. During decades when both the U.S. population and the domestic car market were significantly expanding, active membership in the United Auto Workers (UAW) dropped from 1.5 million in the late 1970s to 390,000 in 2010.
General Motors, losing two-thirds of its U.S. market share, falling from nearly 60 percent in 1970 to its current 20 percent, now employs 52,000 hourly workers in the United States, down 89 percent from its 468,000 hourly employees in 1970.
Allowing the UAW “to ramp up costs ad infinitum” put GM at “a major cost disadvantage,” states Martin Hutchinson, contributing editor of Money Morning. “The arrival and establishment of foreign-owned manufacturers in America’s less-unionized states – combined with the inexorable aging of GM’s former and current work force — shackled GM with an impossible cost disadvantage against its competitors.”
Reports financial analyst James Quinn at seekingalpha.com, a stock research and investment website: “The last major strike by the UAW occurred in 1970. After that, management continually gave in to the union demands in all future contract negotiations. They promised tremendous pension benefits, lifetime healthcare benefits, huge pay increases, and onerous work rules that gave management no flexibility. GM evidently didn’t have the bean counters who could extrapolate past a five-year horizon. If they had, they would have seen that they would have an unsustainable cost structure with more retirees being paid than workers on the assembly line.”
As GM workers increasingly became unemployed, the jobless were relocated from the assembly lines to a “jobs bank” at a cost to GM of $130,000 a year in pay and benefits per worker — or more precisely, per non-worker.
The exact wording of this new “rights” poster from the federal government couldn’t be more biased: “Employees have the right to act together to improve wages and working conditions, to form, join, and assist a union, to bargain collectively with their employers, and to choose not to do any of these activities.”
They “act together” to improve things sounds so benign, normal and sensible, like when two or three secretaries act in concert to share their thoughts about what meats, cheeses and condiments to order on a tray for an office luncheon meeting, and discuss collectively if it’s best to order the pizza as just all pepperoni or if it should be half pepperoni and half plain.
There’s no mention by the government about how union people, not infrequently, “act together” to cause unemployment and inflation, to shrink work forces and destroy companies.
If anyone in the top ranks of the Obama administration had ever started a small business, the sector that creates most of America’s jobs, or even if someone at the top levels of this administration had the goal of doing something more independent and commercial than existing in a publicly subsidized bureaucracy, they might understand that the last thing an entrepreneur or small-business owner wants to see on the walls of his own business is a poster that tells his workers that the boss is the problem, a union is the answer, and that strikes, grievances, seniority and slow-downs are the best paths to job security and upward mobility.
What companies should do is display a set of their own posters alongside the government’s one-sided propaganda for unionism, for full disclosure. A large map of the United States, for example, with big wide arrows crossing the country would show the migration patterns reported in the 2010 Census, the masses of people in America leaving heavily unionized and highly taxed regions, either by the force of joblessness or simply voting with their feet and heading off to less collectivized locales. The headline on the poster: “Wanna move?”
Adding to the craziness, as if we don’t already have enough red ink and over-pricing in government work, the aforementioned pro-unionization posters are now required to be displayed prominently in the offices of all government contractors and subcontractors. “The directive was one of the first executive orders Obama signed shortly after taking office,” reported the Associated Press.
It doesn’t seem to matter to Obama that the federal debt already has us $14 trillion in the hole — $140,000 per household. The answer from the Harvard masterminds is to unionize the contractors and subcontractors, to jack up the price of a mile of road to even more inflated levels.
Where’s the “Change”? What’s new about crooked, smug and oblivious politicians draining the lifeblood out of the nation?
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (141) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.3.11 @ 6:23AM
Excellent article.
Jon B| 1.4.11 @ 11:02AM
The article fails to mention the key reason jobs went out of America: US corporations exploiting the extremely low wages of 3rd world countries due to chiefly GOP deregulation, and Republican tax breaks to corporations shipping jobs out of America.
This means that the authors main point, it's the "Unions fault" is total bullshit, but hey, don't let that stop your hatred of American workers rights...
ed| 1.4.11 @ 11:42AM
How about all the Americans that buy the cheapest products they can find at Wal-Mart? Or people who buy Toyota's because American, union made cars are crap???
George F| 1.4.11 @ 11:45AM
Hey Jon B! Your opinion is completely opposite of what is fact.
This country has one of the highest corporate tax rates of any country in the world which costs businesses so much money they can't afford to do business in this country!
Both political parties are at fault in this problem!
Yes, employees should be as safe as possible on the job, they should be paid wages that are truly commensurate with the job they do and they should be treated fairly but laws can take care of this problems for much less cost to the employee and employer.
libertytim| 1.5.11 @ 7:45AM
And let's not forget another key reason why corporations have left America.
Overbearing and unobtainable environmental regulations that are based on fallacious scientific studies.
And Jon B. Unions are unecessary nowadays anyway due to the overbearing and intrusive labor laws that the federal government has passed.
So why have corporations left? Because of unions AND the federal government.
Dan| 1.5.11 @ 12:44PM
Gee, Jon. I wish that were accurate. Well, not really.
I'm running a company and discovered just this week that a simple product would cost me nearly $15 to sew here in the US because of the cost of the amazing fabrics I want to use and the labor charge ($4.xx for materials and $10 labor in small quantities). I can't sell this item for $15 let alone $30 (which I would need to sell it at to make enough to pay shipping, storing, and overhead expenses). Not competitive = no sales = unemployment.
In China or India I can get the EXACT item made for $1.50 or so. That's the only way I can be competitive. Is this strictly union fault? No, but it is representative.
It's not my choice to send business to China or India or elsewhere because I dislike unions or US workers. It is because in a global system I have to find affordable ways to produce product. When I can use cheaper materials of quality, I do. When that isn't enough to remain competitive, I have to make other cuts. Again, because not competitive = no sales = unemployment.
Jim| 1.5.11 @ 1:26PM
Jon:
Did you read the article? Companies can't cheaply ship jobs overseas. It only becomes cost effective when the price they pay domestic workers becomes so onerous that they have no choice. A company exists to make money by producing products / services, NOT so you can have a job, especially one where one makes $90,000 in pay an benefits for attaching a fender to a car all day. American doesn't ship jobs overseas, (some) American workers push them out by their avarice and stupidity.
Robert| 1.5.11 @ 1:50PM
Jon B don't worry, Chinese and other foreign corporations will soon be exploiting the extremely low wages of Americans and shipping jobs back to the US and then the cycle can start all over again. The unions can start organizing and work to ship the jobs back overseas again.
Dan| 1.5.11 @ 3:32PM
Jon -
Check out the article by Walter Williams linked in this comment.
Manufacturing is doing GREAT in the USA. The jobs aren't there but productivity is! It ain't China and the GOP - it's technology advances.
This article is so good. It will hurt your esteem and make you rethink all you think you know about the evils of capitalism.
http://www.creators.com/opinio.....false.html
Ret. Marine| 1.3.11 @ 6:52AM
What's new about "the crooked, smug and oblivious politicians draining the life blood out of the Nation?" There are millions upon millions of sheriff's coming to the conclusion, these whores to the collective days are now being numbered to their demise, let them sink all the way to their bottomless pit of evil, we have the answer, its called the Constitution. My guess is heads on the demonrat side of the isle will start exploding before the entire Nation in a few days, it will be a good day indeed.
Clint| 1.3.11 @ 7:18AM
"Well over one-third (35.7 percent) of government employees still belong to a union. The 7.6 million union members who work for the government make up 51.7 percent of all union members in the United States. The new face of the union movement is the clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles, not the worker on the assembly line."
saleboter| 1.3.11 @ 7:20AM
"What companies should do is display a set of their own posters alongside the government's one-sided propaganda for unionism"
Um that would be telling the truth. we can't have anu of that s/o
Appleby| 1.4.11 @ 4:47PM
How about some nice GWB posters with the "Miss Me Yet?" slogan thereon?
Appleby| 1.4.11 @ 4:47PM
How about some nice GWB posters with the "Miss Me Yet?" slogan thereon?
coal carrier| 1.3.11 @ 7:36AM
I have worked in industry for over 45 years. I have encountered unions and union workers during that entire time. What I have witnessed was always the same, a union member bitching about some nebulous BS situation that did nothing but create meetings, paperwork, lost time on the job and a separation between union and non-union workers.
When a union representative tells the union electrician not to lay more then 40 feet of conduit per day, when that function can be done in ½ hour, tells you why the cost of construction is so off the charts and it takes so long to complete a project.
I am not saying that unions, at one time, were not necessary. One example, the coal miners. However, take a tour through an auto assembly plant and see that the pendulum has swung the other way.
beebop| 1.4.11 @ 6:06AM
A union mentality is difficult to overcome once they go to a non union "shop." And many of those emerging from what passes for "educational" shops here in the US already have a union chip on their shoulders and believe that the world is run by workers .... truly an amazing outcome.
winterhawk| 1.3.11 @ 8:17AM
If anyone thinks this socialist dictator is going to change his ways they need to talk to somebody's shrink. It's going to be worse. He is going to be "governing" with his agencies so as not to hav to deal with Congress. That is becoming more apparent every day. It will be very interesting.
Stan Redmond| 1.3.11 @ 9:23AM
All we can 'hope' for is the new republican majority in the house can starve these jackal agencies by keeping them unfunded. The chances of a DC politician maintaining a backbone though have me in some despair.
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 8:24PM
Dictator?
Obama is a president, elected by the people in accordance with the Constitution. The vote this past November was hardly the sort of dust-up that happens in a dictatorship.
UpChuck.Liberals| 1.3.11 @ 11:12PM
Hugo Chavez is 'a president'. Barry is getting all the respect that the Socialist SOB deserves.
Liberal Reader| 1.4.11 @ 2:07AM
I didn't ask you to give anyone any respect. Clearly you don't even respect yourself enough to make a sensible argument on your own behalf. Asking you to respect someone else would be asking too much. I only asked that the person above not refer to Obama as a "dictator," since such talk dishonors the American people as well as the actual victims of dictators in other parts of the world. It's called decency.
Horace| 1.4.11 @ 4:18AM
Actually, the economic affects of the Obama presidency on this country are nothing less than shameful. Stating the truth about this president is not dishonoring this country, because this country does not depend upon the honor of the president to be honorable. Obama has become a dictator. He became one when he and his Democratic cronies dictated Obamacare over the will of the majority of Americans. When Obama sides with illegal immigrants over the welfare of the people he dishonors himself. I predict that this president will go down in history as the very worst president in the history of our nation. Its only unfortunate that we can't impeach the SOB yet.
Liberal Reader| 1.4.11 @ 3:10PM
Horace --
Obama sides with illegal aliens? His administration has deported more aliens than ANY administration in American history. Now it's true he favors reform, including the Dream Act, but he's joined by many Republicans in wanting this reform. And how any of this makes him a dictator (he is not, in fact, getting what he wants from Congress on this and many other issues) is all beyond my comprehension. Please explain.
Robert| 1.4.11 @ 6:27PM
Why are Obama's marxist policies always referred to as "reform"?
rongordo | 1.4.11 @ 3:07AM
Czars, illegal oil moritoriums, and multi-thousand page, unread bill shove-downs are not the stuff of democracy or representative government. Regulating by fiat what Congress won't pass is not democratic either. And targeting opposition media with smears, lawsuits is far from how the POTUS should act. He does indeed have a lot in common with Chavez, both in ideals and governance.
beebop| 1.4.11 @ 6:08AM
Do you keep up with polls? Do you know that there are more people who REGRET having voted for this resident than are happy they did? November's election was a huge "what the hell was I thinking" moment for America. Won't get fooled again!
Roscoe| 1.4.11 @ 8:26AM
"Won't get fooled again!"? Yeah, right. Just give them 20 months of watching the oprah network, & they'll be lemmings as ever.
beebop| 1.4.11 @ 6:55PM
I have not and will not be subscribing.
Is there theme music "God Bless the Child who's got his OWN?" Billie Holiday must be having a good chuckle.
Jim| 1.5.11 @ 1:30PM
Wow, you're dumb. Read how Hitler (and, no, I'm not saying Obama is Hitler) came to power, and it wasn't by force. However, once he was in office, he said, "Screw the people if they don't like what I like," which IS what Obama is saying. If we don't live in a dictatorship yet, it's not for lack of Obama and his ilk trying their best.
Mike D.| 1.3.11 @ 8:30AM
Unions at present are nothing more than legalized protection rackets. There was an historic purpose for unions at one point in history, thats long gone. It was a great gig for the Auto industry.
Big three had the market locked up. Unions shook them down for rediculous benefits and wages, along with protecting the lowest common denominator loser class workers. Big Three gave in and passed the costs to captive consumers while building junk that dissolved into ferric oxide as you watched. Great racket. Uh uh, along came those usurpers from the far east building vehicles that actually LASTED and had QUALITY and the consumers had an out. and the rest is history(Detroit and Michigan wasteland) The rust belt states and their Union mentality are now industrial Jurassic parks where socialist Union and political dinosaurs still roam in their native environments sucking down everything around them. Enjoy your last stand Unions, your marxist protector in the white house isn't going to last forever and it will be the last of the glory days for good.
russel| 1.3.11 @ 9:41AM
Well put and I concur . If the voter needed any more proof, look who got the crook Dingy re-elected . That alone has prompted a boycott of casino's . The racketeer running the transportation dept. sure reminds us of ol Hoffa . Their every desperate attempt at recruiting grinds them further into the dirt , such as card check . Nope , they're dead man walking .
Louis Jenkins| 1.3.11 @ 8:34AM
Obama should be investigated for his "Pro Union" work. But when the political backing for this President comes from Unions it is no small wonder that he pays that piper. We've seen a union at work with snow bound city of New York, and it ain't very pretty. ( For those who have voted with their feet my hat is off to them.) But remember, the agencies that Obama governs with are almost all pro Union, and they will do his bidding. They know which side their bread is buttered on.
Anthony| 1.3.11 @ 8:41AM
Great idea Obozo, I say start posting in the private work places in NYC where the sanitation union thugs have yet to get all the streets plowed from a week ago, and now the garbage is stacked up. Suprise, suprise.
Gee who knows, maybe the brain dead NY lefties will finally begin to see the light, that is, as soon as they can get to theiroffices.
Unfortunately, Mayor (No Labels) Bloomberg can't see over the snow drifts, so he doesn't know the extent of the problem, but his trans fat war goes on.
Mike D.| 1.3.11 @ 5:18PM
Couldn't happen in a better place. NYC(bastion of leftists) gets a screw job from their union entitlement class, kinda like biting the hand that feeds you, huh?
What goes around comes around. LOL
ralph| 1.3.11 @ 9:44AM
Read also Vaclav Havel's essay the Power of the Powerless, 1978, and you will find a description of the "poster test."
Bob K.| 1.3.11 @ 10:01AM
Did you ever notice how the Chinese use Posters everywhere when they protest! It seems to be very effective there!
(Of course, that might be because they have about 5 different major spoken languages and only 1 written language?)
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 10:09AM
Saleboter,
Great post! I have a suggestion for the owner's poster:
"YAH WANNA JOB...OR A UNION?"
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 10:18AM
Over the last 30 years the median household income has been stagnant. Over that same period, union membership has fallen from 24% of the work force to 12% today. Coincidence? I think not.
Wayne | 1.3.11 @ 11:40AM
I worked summers while in college at Cracker Jack. I ran the line the wrapped the boxes. The union steward came to me to told me to slow down as I was ruining things for everyone else. Of course it wasn't too many years later that whole factory moved down to Mexico.
So the jobs are gone. Coincidence? I think not.
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 8:26PM
I'm sure manufacturing would still be thriving in the US if factories could just have hired you to outperform all those lazy union types, Wayne.
beebop| 1.4.11 @ 6:11AM
Nice little smack down.
Contribute something, don't post or go back to where "liberal readers" hang? m'kay?
Margie| 1.4.11 @ 1:45PM
Nasty little twerp Liberal reader "smacks down" the newbies here to discourage them from posting.
Theses newbies always post very good, honest, sensible posts.
Liberal Reader despises good, honest and sensible posts.
jim| 1.5.11 @ 1:33PM
You're right, it isn't a coincedence. Unrealistic union wage demands killed a lot of good jobs for many people. I'm sure that's not the coincedence you mean, but it's true.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 10:32AM
Facts,
You are exactly right! Productivity is what raises pay...
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 10:49AM
Ken, you really ought to think before you post. Productivity has been increasing steadily for a long time, but the median income has not. All the economic benefits of the increasing productivity have been captured by the wealthy classes.
My explanation for this phenomenon is that without the bargaining pressure provided by unions, the individual worker is at a severe disadvantage.
You got a better answer?
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 11:06AM
Facts,
I posted that way just to call you either Stupidly uninformed...or a class warfare liar.
You just have to quit getting your talking points from huffpo. We can't fix stupid here. Sorry.
We CAN debunk liars though.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 11:13AM
It's not a talking point from huffpo or anywhere else. It's just my observation.
I'm still waiting for you to provide a better explanation.
jdkchem| 1.3.11 @ 12:35PM
An increase in productivity came with an increased need for a better skill set which the unionistas balked at. The so called "solution" was to pimp college. You're facts are nothing more than a result of jobs that require a minimum wage skill set being priced out of the market by your precious unionistas. And of course the typical failure to take any responsibility for the results of your actions.
Steve in Pittsburgh| 1.4.11 @ 1:50AM
Then why don't you start a business. Since you know so much.
beebop| 1.4.11 @ 6:13AM
because "look at the facts" and "liberal thinker" would rather be part of the "critical" American business despising left. they won't be happy until we are all suckling at the government teet.
carnot| 1.3.11 @ 8:03PM
ken...ignore the charlatan.
1) median household income (adjusted for inflation) has increased in every decade since the 1930s....except 1999-2009.
2) It trended down during the recession from 2001-2002...bottomed out and started increasing 2004-2007 when the next recession began.
This obviously doesn't correlate historically with the assertion of increasing productivity. It correlates more closely with unemployment and decreased demand. in the event, as soon as I read the post I thought two things:
1) no timeframe presented.....something a real analyst would never do.
2) the "analysis" was so shallow that my immediate thought was "post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning...what a schmuck."
carnot| 1.3.11 @ 8:04PM
typo: "..since the 1940s"
Wayne | 1.3.11 @ 11:36AM
One problem is that you think employers should just raise salaries out of the goodness of their hearts. Why? It is about competition and their is also a competition for good workers. I tend to recommend to businesses I consult for to fire its least productive 20 percent, then raise the pay to the productive ones. But better yet is hiring temporary contractors and go after the best talent from professional consultants.
If as an individual worker, if you make yourself valuable and become professional, you can go to a different employer or form your own company and leverage your abilities.
Conservatives need to reject these arguments that boil down to class warfare in favor of free market solutions.
Bob K.| 1.3.11 @ 12:44PM
Wayne,
You should look for the sun to rise in the west!
Class warfare was perfected by those heros of the free market like Jay Gould who said he could hire 1/2 the working class to kill the other 1/2 of the working class.
And today these advocates of "free" enterprise are bringing in poorly educated hispanics from south of the border to keep wages low which the rest of the country have to pay taxes to educate and support!
Class warfare is inherent in democracy and populism and it will never go away. Hispanics are using it now! And Republicans have to recognize that indisputable historical fact. Hoping that the electorate will reject it and ignoring it will result in more years in the wilderness!
Grzmlyk| 1.3.11 @ 11:40AM
So you'd rather have collective bargaining but no job to bargain about? That would be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
the unions have too much power - uh, I believe that's the article's seminal point: GM failed because of greed - union greed.
I'm not going to buy a GM car EVER - either as the fascist entity it is today or as the sclerotic, highly UNPRODUCTIVE (in terms of dollars) entity it has been since management decided to continually kick the can down the road.
How's that collective bargaining working for you?
When a stage hand at Carnegie Hall makes $400,000 a year, the unions have accrued too much power.
When we spend more money per student than any other country on the planet and test scores condinue to slide, where do you think that money is going? UNIONS. Greedy unions.
Unions are a distortion of the market and inherently corrupt, even from their inception.
In the days of the industrial revolution, you can make some argument - albeit a weak one - that unions were essential. The balance of power has long since shifted due to a host of reasons.
Today, post-industrial companies like Apple or Google or Microsoft - or Honda or Toyota - pay their employees competitive salaries because they want to retain talented people - the free market works.
It is UNFAIR that union parasites get paid top dollar for sitting on their asses and doing nothing. And not only is it unfair, it is UNSUSTAINABLE (are you SURE you read this article? Maybe you just didn't understand it. . . .)
Incidentally, where do you think Apple's productivity is coming from? Hint: Their stuff is made in China because labor costs are too high here.
LiveFreeOrDie| 1.3.11 @ 1:15PM
I value your opinion as I've read your posts for some time. I'd like to pick your brain a bit about unions.
We all know what happens when unions run amok, become corrupted and politically entangled but the idea of workers getting together and acting as one entity to gain an advantage in negotiating is a good one. Corporations do not act in the best interest of their employees, their motivation is profit and growth, sustainable or not.
Your thoughts on the idea of collective bargaining contrasted with the current way the idea is executed in is what I'd like to hear your thoughts about. Thank you in advance, I've learned much from your writing.
Grzmlyk| 1.3.11 @ 2:21PM
Thank you for the kind words.
I believe that, to a great extent, the motive for profit and growth require corporations to act in the best interests of their employees - or at least to compensate them well - hence the Apple Computer and Google examples. Their employees are very, very well paid and have pretty cushy work environments.
And, throughout our lopsided economy (tilted toward the service sector and away from manufacturing), your average non-union American worker has it pretty good today, whether it's a skilled laborer making an hourly wage or a professional on a salary. Remember, the standard of living or your average wage slave today is far, far more luxurious and easy than it was even for kings who lived just two centuries ago.
If company A pays its employees 25% less than what company B pays for comparable work, workers are going to gravitate to company B and company A will have to either compete for workers by raising its pay or close its doors (or outsource, which is what exorbitantly high wages and benefits have force American companies to do).
Yes, we ALL feel like we're underpaid, but the minute YOU'RE the one signing the checks, your perspective changes instantaneously. You cannot pay an employee more than they are worth because it is not sustainable from an economic standpoint (hence GM). But we tend to look at everything today not through the lens of a causal reality, but through an abstract, emotion-laden concept of "fairness" - a concept fed in no small part precisely because we are so wealthy as a country, from Bill Gates right down to the welfare mother who has a government-subsidized house, a car, air conditioning, a big-screen TV and all the food and clothing they could possibly need or want.
Don't forget, companies are not just selfish entities - that's a very liberal idea; they are in business to sell something at a competitive price. They are NOT in business to provide comfortable livings for their workers.
People rail about the insurance companies' profits, but I saw a statistic last October that said that the COMBINED profits of the top 14 insurance companies for one year was LESS than the total lost in Medicaid due to fraud. But hey, it's goverment money, so who cares? A trillion here, a trillion there - no biggie.
The fact is, unions are largely unnecessary today, and I believe they are inherently corrupt - ALL power corrupts. Sure, union leadership feathers the nests of its workers - hence the Carnegie hall stagehand earning an astonishing $300,000 a year. But that's peanuts compared to how the leadership lives - like sultans.
And a lot of the money goes toward buying political influence.
I'm old enough to remember when collective bargaining changed professional baseball. When I was a kid, in the 1960s, I remember watching Cubs games on TV, and whenever a guy would come to the plate to bat, part of the announcer's shtick was to tell the audience what he did for a living in the off season - So-and-so's an electrician, a plumber, etc.
It is true that owners tended to take a disproportionate percentage of revenue, and baseball players were underpaid relative to the value they brought their teams.
Well, Curt Floot, Andy Messersmith and a few others changed that because of collective bargaining; they corrected the balance - to a great extent.
Now, though, you have players signing $150 million contracts for 7 years. It's utterly insane. It's shocking that the economics of baseball can support that, but of course that's due to the deluge of TV money. I'm a supporter of the market; if a player can garner that kind of money, well, I can't say it's necessarily immoral. However, a family of four can no longer afford to go to the ball park.
The point is that collective bargaining is ok as long as there is a balance of power. If the union holds all the power - as they did with the auto industry from the 1960s through the 1990s - when all the damage was do0ne - they invariably kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Public sector unions are completely running amok because who are they going against at the negotiating table? Nobody. It is very dangerous, this; it will make serfs of every single one of us who doesn't belong to one of them.
LiveFreeOrDie| 1.3.11 @ 3:26PM
Thanks again. I've been on both sides and it's not a clear-cut issue to me. I've been in the position of explaining to the employees I was managing their health coverage was going away and some of them would be laid off. The reason given was health ins costs had gone up and would be an additional 400k for the upcoming year. Not more than three days earlier there was a company meeting where it was celebrated that we were on schedule to make 19.6 million, 800k more than projected. Employees cried foul and they were right. Our company already paid the lowest wages (compared to other companies in the same field, same geographical area.) Now, without paying for health coverage and after cutting a few employees the new profit figure was 20 million for the current year. I'm sure there are better examples of corporate greed but this one I was intimately familiar with. With collective bargaining I think the employees could have kept their health coverage and the company still would have beat projections. (Private company, investor held.)
I believe in freedom for business as well as individuals. Therefore when businesses act solely in their own interests employees would be wise to do the same. Bargaining together forms a position of strength and seems like a pretty good idea. How does a union go from this simple idea to a UAW or the like? Apologize in advance if I'm going in circles here. I'm trying to balance the great idea of collective bargaining with the unfortunate reality. I think there will always be a reason for people to unionize so they aren't going to disappear. There ought to be an effort to form a more perfect union, so to speak.
Grzmlyk| 1.3.11 @ 3:57PM
Well of course labor vs. management is an eternal struggle.
I don't know which company you work for, of course, but I've worked for several companies in the private sector and I haven't seen "corporate greed" on display nearly to the extent I see it in the government sector and unions - and I worked for Morgan Stanley during the great go-go M&A bender of the 1980s.
As I recall, the head of the M&A department made a bonus of somehwere around $90 million - and that was probably 1988 or so.
Do I wish I'd gotten some of that salary? Yes. Was it fair that he got $90 million and I made about $25k? Well, yes. His value to the company - for essentially playing golf with clients, incidentally (he was a rainmaker) - was greater than mine, as a lowly administrative assistant. I was easibly replaced - he was not.
I believe it comes down exclusively to a balance-of-power question. If the unions have all the power, they'll take all the money and kill the company. If the company has all the power - well, as long as there are employees willing to work for lower wages or reduced benefits, the company will have the upper hand.
I remember fondly when Reagan fired the PATCO union members. They misjudged their power and paid the ultimate price - that was a shot across the bow of government unions; would that it had been heeded by the auto industry and by the SEIU.
The system isn't perfect in part because there is NO objective measure of fairness; it is inherently and forever a subjective judgment, and it is axiomatic that each of US thinks we are the ones getting the raw deal (or in your case, the workers that you empathize with).
In the 70s and 80s especially, the auto industry was still making a lot of money, but was clearly threatened by Japan. In order to stave off crippling work stoppages - and so that they could keep reporting optimistic quarterly numbers - I believe they ceded way too much power to the unions, making the conscious desicion to kick the can down the road.
I'm sure most of the senior execs knew full well that these concessions were a time bomb, but, like our politicians do with Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc., they also knew that as long as they kept the ball in the air, they'd be long gone by the time the music stopped and the piper had to be paid.
I believe the employees that are abused in this country comprise a very small percentage. Up until the fascistic Obama regime came in, people had options - you could move, be retrained, become an entrepreneur, etc. At no other time in history has the common worker been as empowered as he or she has been in America - it ain't perfect, and it certainly doesn't allow everyone to live exactly as they want to, but it's closer to the ideal than the sclerotic - and dying - corporate environment in Europe (ok, Germany is a slight exception).
Maybe you work for a particularly bad company, or maybe your company is the benificiary of being a government-created monopoly. Or maybe you're in a town where the supply of workers outstrips demand.
But that $19.6 million ($800k more than projected) that you cite - you don't mention whether that's profit or revenue. If it's revenue, there's a lot that has to come out of that, as I'm sure you know. If it's profit and people are getting fat bonuses, then the board of directors had better get its act together - and if they're in on the take, then the mismanagement will eventually kill the company, as happened with so many dotcoms that were flush with cash for about thirty seconds.
In addition, given the uncertainty that the Obama administration has brought to the business environment in this country, many businesses are stowing away their profits because they just don't know what theire tax situation is going to be or what inflation is going to do - we already see energy costs skyrocketing. You can't run a successful business, obviously, with no capital (contrary to what Paul Krugman thinks).
I have been in management, and I understand the divided loyalties you feel. That means you're a decent human being. And I freely admit greed exists everywhere. But I firmly believe that the market - the unadulterated free market - is the best way to sort out the balance of power.
But we don't have that in any industry today, which is why companies like Goldman Sachs make out like bandits and others - like GM or the insurance companies - are getting screwed.
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 8:29PM
You might try reading some economic history. Start with learning a little about how corporations treated workers during the Industrial period up until the 1930s, when labor organizing and labor laws became more widespread. I think you'll find you would have rather been a worker in 1950 than in 1910.
Grzmlyk| 1.4.11 @ 9:49AM
Uh, you might try reading my post if you're going to comment on it.
You know absolutely nothing - your entire existence is based on putative theory; there isn't an ounce of real experience, knowledge or practical reality that you ever bring to the table.
First of all, I said it was about a balance of power - if there are more workers willing to do a job for low wages, the company has the upper hand - I believe there was something called "the depression" in the 1930s - which meant anyone who could get a job was glad to have one, even if that job didn't provide full health care or 401ks. I don't say unions are necessarily bad - just that there must be a balance of power.
Second, the reason life has changed so much in myriad ways in the US is NOT progressive thinking. It is, pure and simple, the advance of technology, which allowed an entire middle class to emerge - a middle class that could both produce more and demand more from its employers.
All of our social change has followed technological change; the emergence of Marxism itself is a product of the industrial revolution. In American life, you need look no further than the inappositely named "sexual revolution" of the 60s. What launched it? Not Kinsey. It was the invention of the Pill.
Which, by the way, I wish your mother had taken more regularly.
Liberal Reader| 1.4.11 @ 3:14PM
I can see you've simplified the issues to the point where thinking about them causes you less anxiety. Congratulations. You've made a messy and complicated historical reality -- modern America -- into something even Sean Hannity could understand! Admirable.
Unfortunately, you sort of ignore absolutely every fact that could disrupt the ideological membrane you've secreted around your own head. This makes you hostile to people who disagree with you and very, very boring to debate. And talking about a man's mother! Wow. Low.
Kishego| 1.3.11 @ 11:46AM
Yes, there is a better answer. If a company is abusing (what ever you're definition of that would be) the employees or paying them substandard wages, quit that job and find another. Eventually the employer will have to pay to get quality workers and treat them well or go out of business because they can't compete. It's a very simple solution and it's worked for me everytime I've have found myself in that situation. Another simple solution (simple but by no means easy) is to start you're own business. You don't even need a college education to start a business(living proof here), just a good idea and the willingness to stick to it.
coal carrier| 1.3.11 @ 11:49AM
Yes, I have a better idea. If you don’t like what the job pays, don’t work there. If you don’t like what Walmart pays, don’t work there. If enough people refuse to work for a particular wage, one of two things will happen. Either the employer goes out of business or the employer increases pay or benefits or both.
If, on the other hand, a union controls what the worker does and for what compensation, and not the employer, then prices rise and the increased cost is passed on to the consumer. Then the employer loses market share and profits. Which leads to less workers and higher unemployment. Does GM and Chrysler ring a bell?
Steve A| 1.3.11 @ 12:02PM
Facts, Just make it mandatory union membership & then pass a 100K minnimum wage law. Problem solved in your book, correct?
PS: You can't just look @ a median income vs. GDP graph & oversimplify this argument. The factors are numerous & complex. Education standards, Global competition, Technology etc. are all factors.
Grzmlyk| 1.3.11 @ 12:50PM
Good point, Steve A:
Minimum wage has done as much to kill jobs at the entry level as union membership has done to kill them at the skilled level. There's a reason there are no more gas station attendants and movie theater ushers, and that bank tellers and grocery store checkout clerks are endangered species. It's called MINIMUM WAGE.
Not to mention that liberals' fetish for citing GDP always involves distortion, because GDP has been a completely phony number, for several reasons, for at least 17 years.
Also for "Look at the Facts:"
The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 percent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.
So tell us, "Facts:" To which union do YOU belong, and how much more are you getting paid than you are worth?
Joan of Snark | 1.3.11 @ 12:27PM
I'll give you a "fact". You cannot deserve what you have not earned and what you earn has only the value someone else is willing to pay for it. So if someone wants to provide more service to me at a lower price, I'm going to hire them.
JamesJ| 1.3.11 @ 12:37PM
Yes, productivity has gone up over the years....as well as union membership going down. Coincidence?
Skip Cashwell| 1.3.11 @ 2:19PM
In 2007 (the last year confirmed data available) the median income for all US households was ~$51,000. However, the mean income was ~72,500. Recently reported was the overall decrease in the poverty level, although that level has been adjusted upward beyond $35,000. Is it unionization that accounts for this trend?
Productivity increases surely did increase the relative size of the overall wealth in the pockets of the top 10% of earners (those who pay ~80% of all income taxes), and the increased profitability of our US corporations resulted in the dramatic (trickle down) increase in our standard of living, disposable income, education & leisure.
On the other hand with respect to educational productivity, the presence of union domination resulted in a dramatic fall in capability of our students' rankings to 26th in the world of developed nations.
The true backbone of our nation is to be found in the small businesses; not massive corporations. Almost all of these small businesses are successful specifically due to the contributions made by non-union employees - those millions who see their future & financial security insured by their level of effort. Small businesses reward the "producers" & cull out the non-performers.
We would be fortunate to have the same principle of pay for performance by the merit of one's work applied to our public sector employees. Today we find ourselves saddled with unreasonable burdens imposed by union-controlled public employees whose "productivity" has DECREASED whilst their pay has increased beyond the true value of the services they are supposed to deliver.
RWinks| 1.4.11 @ 2:54PM
Try thinking, LATF. It's called supply and demand. We have had an inexhaustable supply of low wage labor streaming into the country....Wages for these types of jobs are stagnant.....See the connection?
jim| 1.5.11 @ 1:38PM
I do - you're full of it. The individual worker who gives to his / her company a value worth what he /she is paid REGULARLY, will not only stay employed, but will see (usually, of course not always) a pay increase. Your view, sadly shared by so many, is that companies exist to provide you with a job, instead of to make a profit. No profits, no job for you (and others.) Does "industry" take advantage of workers, yes, sometimes, since all are staffed by sinful, imperfect humans, but mostly they give what they get, i.e., good, regular hard work, good pay, the reverse, low pay. Please don't try to tell me the last time you went to have your license renewed, or pay your property tax, that you felt these folks were underpaid?
George True| 1.3.11 @ 11:03AM
So, if increased productivity is of no benefit to the worker, then I guess you are saying that workers should strive to be less productive, eh?
The so-called bargaining pressure provided by unions is a thinly disguised extortion racket. Whenever a union infiltrates an efficient and profitable business, whatever booty is extracted benefits primarily the union bosses themselves. Everyone else pays the price of this legalized extortion - the business, the consumer, and eventually the union workers themselves.
Ultimately we are all free agents, with the freedom to make the best deal our skills and experience can command in the marketplace.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 11:25AM
"workers should strive to be less productive"
No, I am not saying that at all. But I would like to know if any of you can explain the rather striking correlation I quoted.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 11:45AM
Facts,
You better look at the facts again. You are simply wrong. There is no correlation to be observed.
Until the communists, (pardon the shorthand), took charge, the US middle classes experienced the biggest upswing in personal lifestyle/income in the history of the earth. (1980 through 2007).
Obviously you are either too young, too much of a looser/family, or too propagandized...to count very well.
But if you have a problem with adding and subtracting, go get a job...after you get your GED.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 11:48AM
Hey Ken, you smug little turd, you'd better look up the historical facts, which are entirely different from your lame attempt at the big lie.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 12:14PM
Fact/snot
OK, give us a reputable source for your "facts".....
THEN go get your GED and get a job.
Let me know when you get a raise due to productivity. Maybe I will hire you.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 12:17PM
You couldn't possibly afford to pay me anywhere near what I am already getting.
And even if I could, why should I want to work for an ignoramous like you? I would prefer to work with people who are at least as smart as I am, which cuts out about 99% of the population.
COnservative Bob| 1.3.11 @ 1:01PM
Please Please someone of your obvious intellect should go find a cure for cancer or create a cold fusion generator or something. Thank you so much for gracing us with your awesome presence here with us today. Speakiing for all of the others here we really have enjoyed your enlightening company and the inspiring level of you argument you shared in support of your beliefs.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 12:12PM
People who use "loose" when they mean "lose" betray their substandard intelligence.
Before you start throwing around suggestions to "get your GED", you really ought to finish grade school first. And stop sleeping with your sister (or is that what your father did?)
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 12:28PM
fact s not
Heh, I'm so glad I have some time to toy with you today.
Better check your dictionary, loooooooser.
Most everyone here has been reading my posts for a couple of years now and judging my thought on its own merit.
You have stumbled into a room full of adults, bud.
Please quit embarrassing yourself, or go do some research on your so-called facts and get back to us.
Heh! On the other hand, keep stomping your feet and throwing a tantrum and using "bad" words.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 12:38PM
No comment is necessary.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 12:56PM
Folks,
I bid fact s not adieu with one of the shortest words in the English language:
'By.
Clint| 1.3.11 @ 11:13AM
" Increased productivity lowers your cost of work. That allows you to lower your price, which in turn increases demand. Increased demand forces you to find new and better ways to increase productivity."
We are Worker/ Investor/Consumers and lower prices benefit us.
Wayne | 1.3.11 @ 11:30AM
A part of me wonders if there is a way to use the Unions to go after the ruling elite. For example what if Banks unionized? What if IT shops unionized? Can unions themselves be unionized? Unfortunately every time I think about the longer term effects it would backfire.
We need to realize that Lenin and Trotsky united the intelligentsia with the worker (unions) to insert communism in Russia. Obama is following their lead. What Russia did not have was a middle class and only Kerensky weakly stood in the way of the Bolsheviks. We have the Tea Party and its supporters.
Even the old union guard in the US were patriots. Obama now wants a world wide union movement lead by Stern to intentionally drive jobs away from the US. It is obviously part of his global vision.
Jim| 1.5.11 @ 1:41PM
Who are the ruling elite? Credit card companies, banks, etc.? Hardly, the govt. workers / leaders are. Let us get their pay / benefits down to private firm levels, and then we'll talk. Until then,....
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 11:46AM
I'm disappointed in you guys. I bring to the table a surprising correlation, that median income has stagnated in precisely the same time frame as unions have declined to insignificance. I provide my own personal explanation and ask if anyone has a better one.
And instead of a serious attempt to provide an answer, all you can do is quote standard propaganda.
George True| 1.3.11 @ 12:10PM
You are making the classic mistake of confusing correlation with causation. Just because the two happened in the same time frame does not mean that one caused the other.
There could be many reasons. One is that the U.S. now has by far the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That automatically puts U.S. based companies at a 35% competitive disadvantage in the marketplace. Thus, the only way to compete on an even footing is to relocate overseas.
Another reason is automation. Assembly lines that 40 years ago needed several hundred workers now need only a few dozen. Only a lucky few get those highly coveted jobs, while the rest have to accept a lower wage somewhere else working for a company that is operating at the aforementioned 35% competitive disadvantage.
These are just a few possible reasons. There are probably many more.
Correlation is not causation.
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 12:15PM
Thank you, George. While I don't exactly agree with your explanation, I appreciate that at least someone is willing to state a rational argument.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 12:48PM
fact s not,
Rational argument: 2+2 =4
Get over it. Oh, you will wet your pants reading my newest bestseller.
Enjoy: www.texassaidno.com
I rushed it to publication digitally to get it out before the elections.
It is part one of "America Alone Said NO!" (forthcoming)
look at the facts| 1.3.11 @ 12:55PM
I notice you have a strongly worded copyright statement, referring to "pirating efforts" which will be "prosecuted to the full extent of the law".
I don't think you have to worry.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 1:02PM
Yeah, you gotta' do that with e-books. Most ignorant children have never read the small print on every copyright page of every modern book written.
I killed a lot of trees with my prior books, and when the complete saga; "America Alone Said NO!" comes out...(sigh)... I will have to kill a lot more trees.
A lot of folks don't have kindles yet.
Clint| 1.3.11 @ 1:55PM
"The correct statement is that correcting the upward bias of the official CPI adds more than 1 percent per year to official estimates of the growth in median and mean wages.wages, rather than being stagnant this decade, have actually risen by around 6 percent in real terms."
"Wage data ignore that benefits are an important part of compensation and have been rising faster than inflation for some time."
RCV| 1.3.11 @ 3:27PM
BTW, "Clint", it is now a misdemeanor in California to maliciously impersonate another person online. I realize that you may live elsewhere, but be careful....
Colliefornia Arnold| 1.3.11 @ 4:01PM
"I'll be back."
Negro X| 1.3.11 @ 6:19PM
George,
You are correct computers and CNC machine tools have replaced the individual worker. I pay one programer and a drone to change tool bits.
I no longer need to employ ten machinists and I have improved my output by 300 units a day.
George S| 1.3.11 @ 12:56PM
Your correlation is too narrow. First, median income is only one measure of compensation. Add to that medical and retirement benefits, along with safer working conditions. And the biggie: lower prices of durable goods due to economies of scale so today more people own cars, houses, air conditioners, appliances and access to travel than ever before -- something only available to the rich only a century ago. It is what you have access to, not what you can buy, and, today, this overall compensation is over 40 percent higher than it was in 1970. That's the plus side... the negative side is that government has grown in that time period also. Thus, you have higher property taxes, sales taxes, energy taxes, excise taxes, and much higher corporate and personal income taxes -- all subtracting from your buying power. You work harder every year until the middle of July to pay your tax burden -- something unheard of merely fifty years ago.
Next. The trade deficit amplifies our unwillingness to save our income (since government pays for our retirement, college, and unemployment). This enable foreigners who save their cash to purchase assets here in this country. In turn, we purchase more than we export. This results in foreign goods being cheaper but we can still compete because we are more productive. But... factory goods now give way to technological goods which require higher skilled labor, and the smokestack union industries give way to the lower labor rate of foreign countries. In other words, they no longer have an artificially high labor supply to the neck of industries and the price of factory goods drop since they are made overseas cheaper. This forces us to shift to other means of productivity -- computer, automation, etc., to produce more goods cheaper. All to successfully compete with cheaper foreign labor.
In short, our advances in technology has increased our productivity so that we produce more with fewer workers. We have advanced ahead where it no longer is profitable to produce plastics, clothes, knick knacks here in the US; instead we produce the brains behind the industrial production and quality of life: computers, software, microchips, medicines, medical technologies, and processes such as chemicals, nuclear and electro-magnetic that advances the production of products that enhance human life. We are compensated better today -- except for those who cling to the old union dogma and refuse to better themselves by breaking away from the trap of collectivism.
Ken (Old Texican)| 1.3.11 @ 1:08PM
George S,
Your post above is about as fine a summary as I have seen...anywhere.
I saved it. I hope you have.
If you ever decide to publish for profit, I hope you will contact me at one of my publishing agents.
try sales@texassaidno.com
I will contact you asap.
I also hope to help Booger publish his brilliant letters for profit.
Steve A| 1.3.11 @ 1:30PM
George, Thank you for voicing what many here inherently know but are unable to communicate as effectively. Nicely done, sir.
Clint| 1.3.11 @ 7:08PM
First, read the second paragraph.
"Wage data ignore that benefits are an important part of compensation and have been rising faster than inflation for some time."
Secondly, "housing, healthcare, education, and child care went up 46 percent, or more than incomes. "
Jim| 1.5.11 @ 1:48PM
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Did it occur to you that many (not all) households had inflated, unrealistic wages as a result of unionization? I didn't see any response to why a button-pusher, fender installer, etc. should get $90,000 wages plus benefits.
Sid Vicious| 1.3.11 @ 12:44PM
Ah, but there is another, higher for this poster's "bill of rights," to wit:
"Citizens have the right to act together to improve freedom and the national economy, to form, join, and assist a political movement, to bargain collectively with their government, and to choose not to do any of these activities."
Comrade Calamity's neo-socialists weren't so enthused when the tea partiers exercised the first three rights by forming political "unions" across the nation, were they? There's that pesky Law of Unintended Consequences, biting them in the ass once again...
Sid, red-faced| 1.3.11 @ 12:46PM
... another, higher use ...
Brain farts: Life would be so much less entertaining without them...
;-D
Dave| 1.3.11 @ 1:55PM
To bring the topic of the story full circle - while the NLRB will require the postings as described, be aware that Companies can also post a message right next to the Federally required poster that can say that every Worker Also has the right NOT TO JOIN A UNION.
Skip Cashwell| 1.3.11 @ 2:31PM
Dave, the employer may have the right to display the poster about every worker's right NOT to join a union, but here in CT, a "closed shop state" - if a worker in a unionized company fails to join the union (or pay the union's "activity fee" = to 85% of dues), they will be terminated on the 31st day. I could go on, waxing eloquent about the subject, but just want to get the nasty fact about CT work laws on the table. :)
Mojo Risin| 1.3.11 @ 2:34PM
If this column can't be read by someone with basic comprehension skills and in turn come away with the reasons why America is failing, the true reasons, then that person is beyond hope and undoubtedly an Obama voter...
It's pretty simple, decertify/outlaw public sector unions...
Skip Caswell| 1.3.11 @ 2:37PM
Mojo Risin - 110% correct-0-mundo! Distilled to the pure essence of the solution! Great post!
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 8:32PM
Outlaw public unions?
Any other people you'd like to deny protection of the 1st amendment? Jews, maybe?
Sid Vicious| 1.3.11 @ 9:24PM
How about Obama-voting welfare parasites with no skin in the game? You sound like a good place to start, Regressive.
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 11:00PM
It's always nice to hear currents in contemporary fascist thought. Thanks, Sid. You guys really are all warm and fuzzies around here.
Sid Vicious| 1.4.11 @ 3:10AM
Awww... did we offend the pow widdle babwy pwowgwessive? If you were looking for "warm fuzzies," then by all means go back to HuffinPole Post and MorOn.org, Communist – and STAY there.
Mojo Risin| 1.4.11 @ 12:36PM
Your comprehension skills appear to be lacking...
Boomerbabe| 1.4.11 @ 12:02AM
I'm sorry, Liberal Reader, I cannot agree to public sector unions in any form, because public servants should not be allowed to threaten work stoppages against the citizens who pay them for their services. It is that simple. Through the years, we, the public, have paid these public employees very, very well, through our taxes. Now that the value of our property has plummeted, and many of us in the private sector have been forced to take pay cuts to help our private companies stay in business, it is to be expected that our public service employees would be willing to forgo their many yearly perks, as well. It has been disappointing, to say the least, to watch the greed displayed by these so called public servants. A union formed to protect the working conditions of a public service employee, say a police officer or firefighter would be understandable, but not a union formed to force the public to contribute every more tax money to keep these employees from belt tightening a bit.
Ray| 1.3.11 @ 3:03PM
Ok, if employers must be forced to post information about the supposed "right" to collective bargaining for themselves and to distribute union-affiliated material without reprisal, then they should also be forced post information about an employee's Constitutional right to petition government for a redress of governance and to their Constitutional right to print and distribute religious-affiliated material without reprisal. Sauce for the Goose, and all that.
Ray| 1.3.11 @ 3:04PM
Correction: that should read "redress of grievances" and not "redress of governance." My bad!
Osamas Pajamas| 1.3.11 @ 3:14PM
Let's steal all these posters and make a bonfire of them in the streets of America, and pitch in any NLRB enforcers who show up, let's make their fat SIZZLE!
voted against carter| 1.3.11 @ 3:19PM
You want to see what UNIONS do for AMERICA?
Look at Detroit MI for the answer. A once proud GREAT AMERICAN City reduced to RUBLE in less than two generations. THANKS AFL-CIO, SEIU, WAY TOO GO!!
Disclosure; I live in the Metros Detroit aria, and I HATE UNIONS.
Richard Baker| 1.3.11 @ 3:27PM
I'm getting older, I guess. When I first read the title of this article I thought it said "Obama The Posterior." Then again...
voted against carter:
My parents were originally from Detroit and what was once a great city is now a garbage dump for liberal/union ideas. That's the Union Way!
James T| 1.3.11 @ 3:41PM
I lived in a state where International Paper owned three mills. Two closed when they lost market share. The union in the third decided to strike two weeks before the annual shutdown for maintenance and rebuild. Depriving themselves of unemployment during that period. Then after violence against the paper mill and fellow workers, the rejected the proposed contract knowing the company had two full crews camping out to take non union jobs the next day. Guess what, the national headquarters of the union stepped in and accepted the contract. Later I watched the unions all over NY vote themselves out of a job and the jobs move to non union states. The useless unions of today are not only greedy, violent and lazy, they are suicidal.
Looking Back| 1.3.11 @ 3:59PM
I worked as a Union member for a major company. When I was promoted the Union informed me that I was now Management, and no longer eligible to be a Union member. They "thre me out." Months later there was a union strike. I received Strike Letters from the Union saying that as a "good Union member" I was "required" to share any savings I had with other members that had run out of money becasue of the strike. So, if as a good Union member I had saved money while other members had "lived better" than I, I was "required" to give my savings to those that had better enjoyed their income and spent it all. They had made as much as I, but I now had to support them? I think not.
I never felt the need to support Unions again.
A.C.Guard| 1.3.11 @ 4:05PM
Of course the Kenyan born, Muslim, socialist believes in posters. Before blacks, Bush haters and white guilt elected him POTUS, nailing them up and blackmailing companies was his big job.
RCV| 1.3.11 @ 5:21PM
It was 52% of the American voters who elected him. And your characterizations of the President display your ignorance generally.
Mojo Risin| 1.3.11 @ 5:28PM
It doesn't require being a rocket scientist to recognize the unmitigated disaster that is the Obonehead presidency, it's jacked-up beyond all recognition!!!
Clint| 1.3.11 @ 6:01PM
"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-nine percent (39%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13 .
Only 35% of Americans expect 2011 to be a good year. That’s the lowest level of optimism recorded in seven years of tracking and down from 68% three years ago. Forty-six percent (46%) expect the country will still be in a recession at the end of 2011. "
RCV| 1.3.11 @ 11:34PM
Of course expectations for 2011 have dropped to a new low : look who's in charge of the House now!
missbosslady| 1.3.11 @ 5:47PM
I have always marveled at the expressed need for public employee unions. Really? If, in theory, a union is meant to protect the worker from the boss, then are we to believe that government employees need protection from the government? Really? The same government that makes the labor laws?
I once worked for a small sub-contactor in south Florida. My boss wanted to grow the buisness and we started bidding larger scale projects. As it happens, in the feast or faminine construction industry, we were awarded several jobs at once. Our work force strectched, my boss was reaching out for workers and was approached by a union rep. The rep said that we could contract crews with him on a job by job basis. Of course, that proved to be less than true and shortly after the first job completed he tried to unionize our shop.
My boss immedicately contacted an attorney and he and I wound up in Federal Court testifying, and ultimately winning our case. I remember my boss telling me later, that had he not won he would have closed up shop.
Unfortunately, the victory was tempered by the thousands of dollars it cost my boss to fight the union.
J.P. Travis | 1.3.11 @ 6:25PM
The UAW did NOT "ramp up costs ad infinitum" and put GM at "a major cost disadvantage." That's urban myth, exposed time and time again and then given new life by GM management. Studies of actual wage rates show that Asian and European car makers operating in the U.S. are only a couple dollars below UAW wage rates. Read a UAW-family-man's take on this: http://www.jpattitude.com/081205.php
carnot| 1.3.11 @ 8:21PM
bahahaha....you're serious? aside from the fact that the response neglects to consider whether the CONUS rates of foreign firms themselves were high....the issue is Union pensions, benefits, etc.
bluecollarbytes| 1.3.11 @ 7:38PM
Post help-wanted ads next to the govt-mandated union-threat poster, just to fully disclose new career opportunities if the workers feel picked on.
By the way, unless workers can be 'taken advantage of ', they are completely useless.
carnot| 1.3.11 @ 8:16PM
either way...keep a list of Union dominated companies...AND BOCOTT THE PRODUCTS THEY "PRODUCE".
carnot| 1.3.11 @ 8:18PM
oi....BOYCOTT!!!!
Michael| 1.4.11 @ 12:13AM
I have had the opportunity to be on both sides of this issue, I worked at a cement company over four years and the Bethlehem Steel one year as a summer job while attending college. Both were union shops, as summer help, we paid union dues and were paid for holidays, I believe that was the extent of our union benefits, other than a very generous hourly wage. At the Bethlehem Steel, we had to work on all three shifts, which were rotated weekly. The first time I had to work the overnight shift, I was doing general clean-up; I knew I would have to be awake throughout the night so I slept during the day. At approximately 1 AM to 2 AM, everyone began shutting down their machines and walking off to the locker room, or leaving the building. I assumed everyone was taking a break and sat down at our lunch area to have dinner. After 30 minutes I went back to work, but I didn't see anyone else initially. As I went about working, I saw people in various hiding spots, sleeping. I walked by the foreman's office, he was laid out across his desk, sleeping. I continued to work because I appreciated the opportunity to earn $15.00/ hour. This pattern of behavior continued throughout that summer, even the other guys hired with me would go off and sleep, I never did. My last week, I worked nights again and that morning, the foreman on the morning shift shook my hand, which was covered in paint, thanked me for my work over the summer and said he wished there were more guys like me. His kind words were etched into my memory and I will never forget the experience. I told friends I knew why the once mighty Bethlehem Steel had collapsed, union workers were paid a decent wage to sleep at night, how could production goals be met when the work force was asleep? How could they compete with foreign steel producers?
After college I worked at a secure treatment facility for adjudicated juveniles, I majored in psychology. The administration consistently misled the staff about raises, had little interest in meaningful dialogue about recommendations for improvements, and was condescending more often than not. After two years, I led the charge to organize a union and by one vote, we won. However, weak-minded staff members that could be bullied by the administration were and we had to hold another vote because they claimed I coerced them. The second vote was also successful, but I vowed to never attempt this again. Some of my fellow employees turned on me because they chose to believe the lies spread by management. They eventually changed their minds when we were given a retroactive raise, which for many of us that worked over time regularly to fill in for call outs and staffing shortfalls (high employee turnover) totaled a few thousand dollars. Overall, I felt the union was necessary; the facility that we worked at was the only remaining facility in the state that did not have a union, which was clearly reflected in the difference in our wages. However, I realized that eventually my lackluster co-workers would exploit the union representation and I was correct; I left within a year of the union vote, within three years the facility was closed and by my estimate, that action was overdue.
In some instances unions may be necessary to ensure fair treatment, however, unions have, in my opinion, destroyed heavy industry in this country, empowered teachers far beyond what is reasonable or financially sustainable, and increased the burden on tax payers as we must now bail out pension funds, while our private sector 401Ks are drained.
George| 1.4.11 @ 4:24AM
Unions are just branches of the Democratic Party organized as cash cows to be milked for campaign contributions.
PaulD| 1.4.11 @ 8:44AM
"Obama the Poser" is a more relevant headline.
Richard Baker| 1.4.11 @ 9:38AM
RCV:
If the Kenyan is so wonderful then why did he refer to the events of November last as a "shellacking?" The country made a mistake in 2008 and what's happening is a SAFU.
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 6:08AM
is good
العاب بنات | 4.10.12 @ 12:36PM
How about some nice GWB posters with the "Miss Me Yet?" slogan thereon?