Union slobs want more pay during recession; threaten strike at 11 Houston refineries

People should be allowed to unionize if they choose... but businesses shouldn't be forced to hire union labor. The industries that are heavily unionized, like the auto industry and the airline industry, don't seem to be doing so hot.

 

This is typical of a union employee. They wouldn't need to hide behind the protection of 'collective bargaining' if they were competent and had the skills to defend against competition in the labor market. Can't compete? Band together and threaten your employer -- that's the union way. It's an obvious distortion in the labor market and leads to higher prices at the pump, at the grocery store, higher airfares, the lack of competitiveness of US automakers, etc. It's a system implemented during a period of zero labor law regulations and is now no longer relevant due to the laws that are in place. Unions are the single biggest detriment to labor productivity in the United States. Unions defend ineptitude and sloth.

Want a stimulus plan? I'd put in place training programs for the unskilled, open the doors to immigration, and then break every union in this country. The drop in consumer prices would be considerable and the increase in corporate profits, and thus tax revenues to the government, would be dramatic.

 

Does tj's return to the D&D indicate that he has finally been able get out of the fetal position after his party's EPIC electoral drubbing? It only took him about 3 months to get over the fact that a half-balack, crypto-communist, hoodrat, quasi-muslim named Barack HUSSEIN Obama took the Republicans to the woodshed.

USA!
USA!
USA!

 

yeah right, you'd be all over that with your typical wingnut rhetoric,

"obama giving his *wink* followers free education with *wink* good americans tax dollars."

 

The party you favor would love to do the latter, but would loathe to do the first two.

 

I've never understood conservatives ideological opposition to unions. What is wrong a worker seeking to maximize the amount of return they get for their work? Under capitalism shouldn't everyone seek to maximize the return they get?

I agree with opening more immigration and agree with SamCassell's point that companies should be allowed to hire who they want. I support workers right to unionize but I don't think that should make them immune from competition.

Also isn't Sam Cassell part of the player's union?

 

Unions served their purpose at one time, during the Upton Sinclair "The Jungle" days of unsafe meat packing conditions. But since then, they've crippled the automotive industry, the airline industry, and the food production industries to name a few.

Due to union labor, simple things like productivity improvements are hard to enact. For example, if there's a new machine that saves man hours on a production line, you might not be able to implement it since it eliminates a union job. Or if you're an engineer and need to rework a circuit board ASAP, you may have to wait until the next day as the soldering expert (union guy) has gone home for the day. I could go on, but unions are causing way more harm than good to America's overall competitiveness with respect to emerging markets.

 

I'm pretty sure this is a an exaggeration. The union may hold up some manual labor jobs because you may have a contract that says a certain job may have to be done by a union member but in the case of a new machine, the company will just lop off the job. These Automakers are laying off people all the time so i'm not so sure how much a union can prevent a job from being eliminated all togehter.

 

While labor is only one of the domestic automakers' many issues, it definitely has a pretty big negative impact on their cost structure. It's a huge reason why Honda and Toyota have more modern facilities with a much better cost structure. I know the automotive sector has been discussed here ad nauseum, but here are the facts of Detroit's union agreements (from BW):

- they can't close plants or lay off workers without paying a huge penalty, no matter how far its sales or profits fall.
- they must run plants at 80% capacity, minimum, whether they make money or not.
- even if it halts its assembly lines, GM must pay laid-off workers and foot their extraordinarily generous health-care and pension costs

 

repeat after me. correlation is not causation.

 

I wouldn't give him that much credit.

 

so they should do *more* than their job . . .for the same pay

Working More. . .for the Same Pay

Honestly that sound very uncapitalistic
Capitalism is about getting the most for the least

You asking these guys to be Uncapitalistic
then you are being unpatriotic
which means you unAmerican

Why do you hate America

Rocket River

 

I don't like unions. And I can't stand officials of unions. We have them in Germany as well.

 

Although paying hourly wages probably makes the inefficiencies easier to gauge, this happens all the time in the corporate world. You know how many signatures I need to get a $300.00 check sent to a customer?

 

People who make money from oil without ever doing any manual labor are a bunch of ****ing *****, and I am happy for ANYTHING that makes their lives more difficult and less prosperous.

Time to give some of that money back to the people who made it for you, you sacks of ****.

 

Fight The Power, MF's!

Do you think any corporation is giving the slightest consideration for the people they are laying off by the 10's of thousands every day? How do they think these people, who have been working under their direction, in an effort to be a productive company, are going to pay their bills and feed their children?

In the end it's a war to get whatever you can, on both sides. And sometimes when it looks hopeless, people will just call in an airstrike on their own position. I'd just strike for job security deals, but, whatever.

If the vital chemicals industry goes under, everybody still standing may get a bailout.

 

I next to never agree with bigtexxx and T_J but on the issue of unions, I absolutely agree with them. I can't stand unions and think they should all be dissolved.

 

The problem is, you can bet oil companies are using the recession as a reason to keep wage increases down, but with a 2 year contract to be signed, wages will probably be kept artificially low once the recession is over. A sensible solution would probably be to sign a shorter-term (6-12 months) contract and renegotiate once the country is on sounder economic footing.