Unions need to adapt to the modern era (enemy, legal, racism)
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The Unions have made great accomplishments for workers in this country.
However, they must adapt to the times. Problems that I see with Unions today:
#1 Public Unions owning their own health insurance provider - using collective bargaining to give it a monopoly at the local contract level - then charging sometimes 30 to 40% above fair market value for the service provided. When teacher's unions do this that means less money for textbooks, technology, ending pay to play sports, fixing a leaky roof, compensating teachers, etc...
#2 Wanting public voting for recertifcation or other major votes - so that union members can be intimidated into voting the "correct" way.
#3 Fighting to protect outdated jobs. City of Detroit has a farrier even though they haven't had a horse in decades. Just mindlessness, which hurts Union support.
#4 Fighting to protect poor workers - see NYC teachers that are suspended with full pay surfing the web all day waiting years in some cases to have their hearing.
#5 Public Unions fighting to protect a pension system that cannot work. Most teacher's pensions require the funds to average 10% a year after management fees in order to fulfill the promises to teachers. After you factor out the bonds that pension holds - their stocks sometimes need to average around 15% to hit their mark. This just isn't going to happen...and the teacher's union here fought against lowering the expectations by 0.5% and then even 0.25%. Ford's pension system puts them at a disadvantage to Toyota's 401K.
Unions will remain important and they helped put in place many laws that protect workers today, but some of their policies are harmful to people supporting them.
#3 Fighting to protect outdated jobs. City of Detroit has a farrier even though they haven't had a horse in decades. Just mindlessness, which hurts Union support.
Some mighty fine cattle they are riding...
Quote:
Originally Posted by michiganmoon
#5 Public Unions fighting to protect a pension system that cannot work. Most teacher's pensions require the funds to average 10% a year after management fees in order to fulfill the promises to teachers. After you factor out the bonds that pension holds - their stocks sometimes need to average around 15% to hit their mark. This just isn't going to happen...and the teacher's union here fought against lowering the expectations by 0.5% and then even 0.25%. Ford's pension system puts them at a disadvantage to Toyota's 401K.
Seems to me any pension system will put Ford at a disadvantage. But the union did make concessions. Tier 2 workers do not receive the guaranteed pension as before. They receive 2K a year from Ford to create their own pension. Government worker unions are another story. The tax payers are told to have deep pockets. Where a consumer is not forced to purchase a Ford product, a tax payer must pay taxes.
Sorry, perhaps I should have added more detail. The City of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has no horses but employs a farrier. They did argue to the Detroit News that he does other things besides not shoe horses all day...since it was exposed they moved the position to a different building.
I can't speak for public unions but I am an IBEW member. We are constantly changing. Our numbers are always shifting. We have converted a couple of power plants from coal to natural gas so the workforce went from hundreds down to a handful as most processes are now automatic. The workers either retired or shifted to other locations. It's not like the union forced the company to keep 200 employees at a plant that requires 30. I think many on here think that of unions, that they would force a company to keep people they don't need.
Mostly, it's about protecting the rights of the workers regarding safety, benefits and abuse of power.
There are definitely weaknesses with the union, people are promoted based on seniority which puts incompetent people in jobs they shouldn't be in. But we work as a team and prop them up but sometimes it's a real PITA.
Other than that, our union has been nothing but flexible IMO.
Police and fire are different,as they really are not legally allowed to strike(at least in state's I'm familiar with). Besides,they lay it on the line. For the most part though,I oppose public sector unions(just like FDR).
What is the origin of national origin labels? In the United States, it's labor union racism. Here's what Morgan Reynolds wrote in his Concise Encyclopedia of Economics article, "Labor Unions":
<B>
Economist Ray Marshall, although a prounion secretary of labor under President Jimmy Carter, made his academic reputation by documenting how unions excluded blacks from membership in the 1930s and 1940s. Marshall also wrote of incidents in which union members assaulted black workers hired to replace them during strikes. During the 1911 strike against the Illinois Central, noted Marshall, whites killed two black strikebreakers and wounded three others at McComb, Mississippi. He also noted that white strikers killed ten black firemen in 1911 because the New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railroad had granted them equal seniority. Not surprisingly, therefore, black leader Booker T. Washington opposed unions all his life, and W. E. B. DuBois called unions the greatest enemy of the black working class. Another interesting fact: the "union label" was started in the 1880s to proclaim that a product was made by white rather than yellow (Chinese) hands.
I haven't mentioned how many labor leaders were/are mixed up with the Mafia. Many of them have ended up in prison or murdered. One hell of a history to be proud of. Amazing how people still claim labor unions are anything more than leagalized, organized crime rackets. We woulda been much better off if they never existed in the first place.
Last edited by OhioRules; 05-05-2013 at 02:00 PM..
Because racism discredits their accomplishments? No.
USA was 85% white in 1960's. So the VAST MAJORITY of Americans benefited.
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