Little-Acorn
Well-Known Member
Sowell is right on, again.
Unions once did a valuable service for their workers. Before unions existed, sometimes employers would get together and "gang up" on workers, lowering wages across the board so workers could find NO jobs in any companies that paid what they were worth. In response, the workers formed unions (and shed a lot of blood to do it). They, in turn, "ganged up" back on the employers, making sure the employers could find no workers anywhere, unless they agreed to pay them more. It was the only response the workers had available to them at the time, and it was a valid and legitimate one. They fought fire with fire, as it were.
Then, after workers and employers did a lot of fighting and bleeding, government stepped in. Govt made a lot of laws dictating the ways unions could do their thing, and they ways employers could treat union workers and non-union workers. Antitrust laws, min-wage laws, maximum work weeks, benefits laws, laws controlling unions, all became law.
And in a stroke, government made unions obsolete. Unions were no longer necessary for workers to get a guaranteed wage at at least a minimum level (and experienced workers get far more), work in a place with decent ventilation, emergency exits, lighting, 40-hour work weeks, benefits, etc. etc. All that was now mandated by law.
But, oddly, unions hung around. And they kept using the same tactics to extract even more and more from employers. What used to be an act of survival necessity, now became an act of simple greed as unions demanded more and more, without limit.
Unions were vital in their day, transforming unacceptable employment conditions into acceptable ones. But with the intervention of government, that day has long passed. And unions now occupy the same role as a rough, unscrupulous gunman brought in as Sheriff to pacify a wild western town, who stayed around and kept acting out his own wild, coercive ways long after the criminals were driven out and the town became peaceful.
Sowell describes here, some of the results of that ongoing trend.
-------------------------------
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/03/08/union_myths
Union Myths
by Thomas Sowell
The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.
Nothing shows the utter cynicism of the unions and the politicians who do their bidding like the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" that the Obama administration tried to push through Congress. Employees' free choice as to whether or not to join a union is precisely what that legislation would destroy.
Workers already have a free choice in secret-ballot elections conducted under existing laws. As more and more workers in the private sector have voted to reject having a union represent them, the unions' answer has been to take away secret-ballot elections.
Under the "Employee Free Choice Act," unions would not have to win in secret-ballot elections in order to represent the workers. Instead, union representatives could simply collect signatures from the workers until they had a majority.
Why do we have secret ballots in the first place, whether in elections for unions or elections for government officials? To prevent intimidation and allow people to vote how they want to, without fear of retaliation.
This is a crucial right that unions want to take away from workers. The actions of union mobs in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere give us a free home demonstration of how little they respect the rights of those who disagree with them and how much they rely on harassment and threats to get what they want.
It takes world-class chutzpah to call circumventing secret ballots the "Employee Free Choice Act." To unions, workers are just the raw material used to create union power, just as iron ore is the raw material used by U.S. Steel and bauxite is the raw material used by the Aluminum Company of America.
The most fundamental fact about labor unions is that they do not create any wealth. They are one of a growing number of institutions which specialize in siphoning off wealth created by others, whether those others are businesses or the taxpayers.
There are limits to how long unions can siphon off money from businesses, without facing serious economic repercussions.
The most famous labor union leader, the legendary John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers from 1920 to 1960, secured rising wages and job benefits for the coal miners, far beyond what they could have gotten out of a free market based on supply and demand.
But there is no free lunch.
An economist at the University of Chicago called John L. Lewis "the world's greatest oil salesman."
His strikes that interrupted the supply of coal, as well as the resulting wage increases that raised its price, caused many individuals and businesses to switch from using coal to using oil, leading to reduced employment of coal miners. The higher wage rates also led coal companies to replace many miners with machines.
The net result was a huge decline in employment in the coal mining industry, leaving many mining towns virtually ghost towns by the 1960s. There is no free lunch.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
Unions once did a valuable service for their workers. Before unions existed, sometimes employers would get together and "gang up" on workers, lowering wages across the board so workers could find NO jobs in any companies that paid what they were worth. In response, the workers formed unions (and shed a lot of blood to do it). They, in turn, "ganged up" back on the employers, making sure the employers could find no workers anywhere, unless they agreed to pay them more. It was the only response the workers had available to them at the time, and it was a valid and legitimate one. They fought fire with fire, as it were.
Then, after workers and employers did a lot of fighting and bleeding, government stepped in. Govt made a lot of laws dictating the ways unions could do their thing, and they ways employers could treat union workers and non-union workers. Antitrust laws, min-wage laws, maximum work weeks, benefits laws, laws controlling unions, all became law.
And in a stroke, government made unions obsolete. Unions were no longer necessary for workers to get a guaranteed wage at at least a minimum level (and experienced workers get far more), work in a place with decent ventilation, emergency exits, lighting, 40-hour work weeks, benefits, etc. etc. All that was now mandated by law.
But, oddly, unions hung around. And they kept using the same tactics to extract even more and more from employers. What used to be an act of survival necessity, now became an act of simple greed as unions demanded more and more, without limit.
Unions were vital in their day, transforming unacceptable employment conditions into acceptable ones. But with the intervention of government, that day has long passed. And unions now occupy the same role as a rough, unscrupulous gunman brought in as Sheriff to pacify a wild western town, who stayed around and kept acting out his own wild, coercive ways long after the criminals were driven out and the town became peaceful.
Sowell describes here, some of the results of that ongoing trend.
-------------------------------
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/03/08/union_myths
Union Myths
by Thomas Sowell
The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.
Nothing shows the utter cynicism of the unions and the politicians who do their bidding like the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" that the Obama administration tried to push through Congress. Employees' free choice as to whether or not to join a union is precisely what that legislation would destroy.
Workers already have a free choice in secret-ballot elections conducted under existing laws. As more and more workers in the private sector have voted to reject having a union represent them, the unions' answer has been to take away secret-ballot elections.
Under the "Employee Free Choice Act," unions would not have to win in secret-ballot elections in order to represent the workers. Instead, union representatives could simply collect signatures from the workers until they had a majority.
Why do we have secret ballots in the first place, whether in elections for unions or elections for government officials? To prevent intimidation and allow people to vote how they want to, without fear of retaliation.
This is a crucial right that unions want to take away from workers. The actions of union mobs in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere give us a free home demonstration of how little they respect the rights of those who disagree with them and how much they rely on harassment and threats to get what they want.
It takes world-class chutzpah to call circumventing secret ballots the "Employee Free Choice Act." To unions, workers are just the raw material used to create union power, just as iron ore is the raw material used by U.S. Steel and bauxite is the raw material used by the Aluminum Company of America.
The most fundamental fact about labor unions is that they do not create any wealth. They are one of a growing number of institutions which specialize in siphoning off wealth created by others, whether those others are businesses or the taxpayers.
There are limits to how long unions can siphon off money from businesses, without facing serious economic repercussions.
The most famous labor union leader, the legendary John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers from 1920 to 1960, secured rising wages and job benefits for the coal miners, far beyond what they could have gotten out of a free market based on supply and demand.
But there is no free lunch.
An economist at the University of Chicago called John L. Lewis "the world's greatest oil salesman."
His strikes that interrupted the supply of coal, as well as the resulting wage increases that raised its price, caused many individuals and businesses to switch from using coal to using oil, leading to reduced employment of coal miners. The higher wage rates also led coal companies to replace many miners with machines.
The net result was a huge decline in employment in the coal mining industry, leaving many mining towns virtually ghost towns by the 1960s. There is no free lunch.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
