Re: Obama 2001 Interview on NPR-Restribute the Wea
I'm appending the quotes I'm commenting on after my statements, because of length.
Henry, your characterization of unions isn't entirely accurate, though it does have some justification.
Similarly, Kenny, your defense of unions and attack on right-to-work are inaccurate.
I decided that unions are about greed when I first encountered one: if I'd stayed on in a job I'd gotten, I would have had to join the union -- and would have been taking home about 15% less per paycheck due to the money the union would take for their fat cats and their political programs I didn't agree with. A Right-to-Work law would have let me keep my job, and more of my pay.
I was confirmed in that belief the first time I rode a passenger train long-distance, where I learned that because of the unions, there were four times as many people employed on that train, at very plush salaries, than it took to run the train. I was further confirmed in it when on a construction site, when plumbing going in was being done by three guys getting $90/hr -- when the exact same things they were doing could have been done by any of about a half dozen of us at our $6.50/hr.
But at the bottom of the scale, when there are more workers than jobs, and skill levels aren't high, employers can pay minimum wage and nothing more. That's where unions would be useful, and it isn't because the workers are stupid, lazy, incompetent, or anything else; it's because with labor abundant and jobs rare, workers become a commodity and get treated like serfs.
In some jobs they may as well be serfs -- a lot in the agricultural sector are like that. But in a lot of others they aren't -- like a good deal of basic skilled work in construction.
So things actually are somewhat in the middle of your two positions. The problem is that in actuality many unions in the upper wage range have become guilds, which are economically a drag on prosperity, while in the lower levels they've become ineffective.
Since we're talking about the better off sharing with the lesser, in my book any union member getting more than $25/hr ought to be paying into a fund to buy benefits for union workers at the bottom.
Only two kinds of people need unions:
1. People who are too incompetent to hold a job on their own merits.
2. People who are too lazy to hold a job on their own merits.
There may be a 3rd category, people who simply want something for nothing, but that's probably a subset of 1 or 2 above.
Union greed has succeeded in driving the steel industry out of this country, and it has damn near succeeded in driving auto production out of this country.
The "right to work" laws are the only thing that protects workers from being enslaved by unions in those states smart enough to have such laws.
More bullshit.
Many people would be better off if right to work was abolished.
Who does it protect? Sure the hell isn't the worker.
Don't talk to me about Union greed.More right wing propaganda.Not when some CEO'S make an average of 300 times what the lowest paid worker makes.Not when executives get billions for running a company into ground,and workers get a big bowl of NOTHING.
As for ''union workers'' being lazy or incompetent.You must be thinking of people who work for shit heel bosses who don't think enough of them to pay them a living wage, or offer them benefits white collar workers take for granted, like vacation pay, sick pay,a process for dispute mediation.
I've worked in both Union shops and non Union shops.The people in the Union shops were far more motivated,knew they were paid and treated well. As a result,expectations and quality standards were a lot higher in Union shops.
You also don't know what your talking about either, when you say that Union Workers are ''incompetent''.Spoken like a frat boy that never broke a sweat in his life. Or a dumb assed republican who belives that working like a dog is ''patriotic''.Which one are you?
How many training, apprenticeship, and journeyman programs do people that work in "right to work" shops participate in?Not many I'd guess.What's the incentive to gain skills you won't be paid for?
I'd trust my electrical work to a Union worker, confident that he knows what the fuck he's doing.Why? Because he's been trained.He should be paid well for it.
I can't say the say about some guy that makes 8 bucks an hour working for a company that doesn't give a shit about him.
You get what you pay for.
