"Unions priced themselves out of the market".

[Dr.Phool]

Just one of the remarks I've heard for years from a relative. He runs a construction company. Non-union. Whenever a news report would come on talking about some company off-shoring their production, it was always greedy employees pricing themselves out of the market.

He always said "They can never ship my job overseas".

Guess what I told him when he was bitching about illegal aliens taking away all of his work. "You priced yourself out of the market. If you'd work for less, and forget about all that insurance crap, you'd have all the work you could handle". He wasn't happy. That stuff doesn't apply to him. He's an American, and deserves better.

I told him, "Welcome to the club. If they can't send it overseas to be done cheaper, they'll bring someone in from overseas to do it cheaper".

The man has no sense of irony.

[pberq]

1. Great post! - a tast of his own medicine

[BobRossi]

2. Funny thing about union labor..

Those "highly paid" union workers are also very good consumers. If you look around the blue-collar towns that they live in you will see nice homes with two or more cars, boats, campers, snow mobiles, Harleys, etc.

I know several union workers that make frequent trips to their second homes in Northern Michigan where they tend to spend a lot of money fishing and hunting. Many of them take one or two vacations a year leaving large sums of money in Las Vegas or Florida.

Where do the aliens spend their money? Or do they simply ship it back to Mexico?

[MyNameGoesHere]

5. Aliens? I guess they spend their money on Pluto. n/t

[kenny blankenship]

12. Basic help with grammar

al·ien /ˈeɪlyən, ˈeɪliən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization (distinguished from citizen).
2. a foreigner.

Enough with the PC bullshit.

[MyNameGoesHere]

14. PC bullshit?

well my "immigrant" wife, now a naturalized "citizen" would probably rip your balls off and shove them in your throat if you called her an "Alien"

So maybe it just ain't PC?

BTW i learned the hard way that some people don't like to be called an alien.

[Rosemary2205]

17. You married a violent person?

doing that to someone over a word is assinine.

[MyNameGoesHere]

39. I suppose

but she swears she isn't green or has lizard skin. And no she is quite sweet until some idiot tries to call her a alien.

[Felinity]

35. It is just a word. It is not a pejorative.

And your wife is not an alien. She is a US Citizen.

There have been several threads lately discussing how offended some people are to this or that. Try this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=158223

[MyNameGoesHere]

40. yeah to me and maybe you it's just a word

but to her it is an offensive word. So there ya go.

[CrispyQ]

10. In his book, "Take This Job & Ship It" Byron Dorgan

points out no matter how rich the top 1% or 2% are, it won't compensate for the spending of the millions & millions of middle class. He thinks outsourcing is going to come back to bite the corporations on the butt -- they are destroying their consumer base.

It's really a great read. My rw mother read it & couldn't put it down. She agreed with "damn near everything he said."

Dr. Phool, maybe it would be a good gift for your friend. :shrug:

[lectrobyte]

18. The corporations are convinced that

countries like India and China will have a much bigger and more profitable middle class market than America ever dreamed about.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that but I do believe that is their thinking.

[CrispyQ]

25. I think that is their thinking too. With a populations of over a billion each,

I'm sure the corporations are drooling over the prospects. Like you, I am not so sure that it's going to work out like they think.

Factory workers making a pittance aren't big consumers. I don't know what kind of wages the high tech jobs are paying. I'm sure it's a very decent amount of money for the economies those jobs are in, but India is already starting to outsource some of it's high tech jobs in the same effort to find cheaper labor. As the corporations drive wages down around the planet, who is going to buy their goods?

It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Much as I think the corporations deserve to be slapped down, there's going to be a lot of misery if it happens.

[pampango]

43. "the corporations drive wages down around the planet"

And yet you say that "India is already starting to outsource some of it's high tech jobs". Would India be doing that because wages have risen in India? In other words corporation 'drove up' wages and now will be looking for another place to drive them up. Are corporations altruistic? Do they go places primarily to benefit the people of that country? No to both. To the extent that Chinese and Indians are better off now than 10 years ago, isn't to be credited to the good will of international corporations, but to the unintended, but desirable, consequence of them pursuing their own goals.

[originalpckelly]

45. You're right, the reason that there is outsourcing is that there is credit...

credit allows companies to shift employment overseas without feeling the slow-down in business in America, which would check outsourcing.

Since these people only see better results shipping jobs overseas, they don't stop it. Their greed would usually be checking itself in this matter, but that check and balance has been disrupted by home equity loans and credit cards.

[AzDar]

60. An excellent read...Byron Dorgan ( to whom I'd never really paid much attention previously)

is a very wise man. Glad to have him on our (D) side !

[Edweird]

41. It goes back to mexico mostly.

[amandabeech]

46. Remittances from the U.S. are the second highest source of foreign income

in Mexico. Only oil revenues are bigger, at least for the time being.

[Katherine Brengle]

59. Well, job security usually helps one feel better about spending.

:shrug:

[dogman]

3. Most non-union contractors have used union wages as a benchmark.

Many also work at a higher profit level or are not as productive. It's largely the old "I got mine, screw you" mentality.

[amandabeech]

47. Not anymore.

Carpenters go for $10 an hour. It used to $18 union in Michigan in the '90s. With benefits.

[oldtimecanuk]

4. Is'nt that Ironic.. lol... As a Union worker most all of my life...

the other thing that used to blow me away was the fact that the Management types did'nt realize that their wages were primarily determined by what the union could negotiate for their workers. At least thats how it was in the industry that I worked in. Any negotiations for Management salaries were determinded by Union raises.

ww

[Dr.Phool]

7. Management was so jealous where I used to work.

Us union guys made MORE than them.

One time we were all at the bar cashing our paychecks, and one lower management kid was there and glanced at my pay stub. This was in mid-April. He said, You've already made more money this year than I'm going to make the entire year.

His college degree did him a lot of good.

[Edweird]

6. I'm in construction

and I'm freakin' starving. Not enough money in circulation because of the economy, and the competition is usually unlicensed and uninsured and willing to work for way less than I need just to break even. It sucks.

[iamjoy]

8. Unions Are Like Trial Lawyers

at least for Republicans, that is.

They (Republicans) hate Trial Lawyers/Unions until they need them.

[kenny blankenship]

9. Economic Royalists threw the market open to the third world

both by outsourcing and encouraging illegal immigration, and that way they priced Americans trying to live decent lives out of the labor market.

[davsand]

13. Isn't it odd that the expectation of a living wage is a problem?

I marvel at the idea that unions are the problem when the cost of living, the price of medical care and the expense of survival is actually driven by corporate profit margins.

I look at it this way, if they want to PAY me wages from the 50's then the corporations probably ought to roll back their PRICES and profits to that same level.

I'm going to keep my union card.


Laura

[kenny blankenship]

20. Yeah I don't hear them proposing to roll executive pay back to 1950s levels either

[oldtimecanuk]

21. You hit the nail on the head..... Unfortunately......

we have the great * feeding the frenzied of the Huge Corporations.... And building profits each year that are criminal by any stretch of the imangination.... and they really don't care who they step on to get there.

ww

[CrispyQ]

29. Exactly the point that needs to be made to everyone against unions.

I worked a union job for many years. My mother would diss unions, "they have way too much power," but she was always happy to accept any extra cash I sent her way, thanks to my good paying union job. :eyes:

[spoony]

44. Spot on

:yourock:

[pampango]

28. I don't know if you meant that as a shot at the Third World,

but I have lived there. It bothers me when I see a hint that building a wall (literal or figurative) around the country to keep out the illegal immigrants and imported goods and services from the Third World is the answer to our economic problems. Should we care about American workers more? Sure, both because they are our countrymen and because they are the ones who will vote (or not) for our candidates. But we should not ignore the poor outside our borders, any more than we should ignore those inside of it.

China and India have benefited from tremendous economic progress in the past ten years. Do they have major problems with inequality and pollution (not to mention corruption, political freedoms and others)? Yes, but you won't find many in those countries who favor going back to the days of perfect equality and abject poverty.

So while we work to improve the lives of Americans, at work and at home, let's not dump everything on the Third World and tell them to keep their workers, their goods and their services at home, and stew in their own poverty. (Maybe they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, to borrow a favorite Republican slogan, and not rely on us to provide them with a market for their products.)

[kenny blankenship]

30. Not a shot at the third world and its population problems and poverty

just a shot at the boundless greed and treachery of First World economic and political elites.

The problem, in my eyes, isn't the 3rd World "invading" but the top .01% of 1st-worlders trying to beat their own countrymen down into the mire of 3rd world wages. The subject-verb construction I used was meant to place the blame, the action, directly on those string pulling 1st worlders, not on the 3rd worlders. It's not an "invasion" by the 3rd world I'm talking about it's hijacking of the supposedly democratic 1st world governments by their corporate residents both to prevent enforcement of some laws and to create whole new bodies of laws that eliminate the existence of borders for their own exclusive corporate benefit.

As for poor people, I got LOTS of poor people right here in Atlanta who need help. They live right across the MARTA tracks from me, and as long as low wages, scarce jobs, and racial/class inequities in education and hiring keep my nieghbors in poverty, those poor people in China and India are going to have to take a fucking number and WAIT for my sympathy. My neighbors come first.

[pampango]

37. I was with you on the first paragraph, then you lost me on the

second. "those poor people in China and India are going to have to take a fucking number"

Why is a poor person in China or India worth less to me than a poor person in Florida or Alaska. Because they don't speak English? Because you don't and will never see them? (I doubt I'll ever see the poor people of Alaska or Maine or any number of other states.) Can I care about the poor in Puerto Rico, or do they not matter because they live in a colony not a state? Do I care about them more if Puerto Rico becomes a state to I care for them more, but if it becomes independent, am I supposed to care less?

Look, we all care more about our family, our neighbors, and others close to us, but do we have to go all the way to "Fuck the rest of the world! We want what's due us and we are not worrying about you, until we damn well get it!"

[kenny blankenship]

42. we really have nothing to talk about

If you are so impractical that you won't focus on the problems that surround you close at hand--and those problems that come from your own hand--you won't accomplish anything for those far away either. And if you feel so little regard for the people of the United States, I have to wonder why you came back.

China and India have historical problems that are their own making and which have nothing to do with me, you, or the United States. Centuries before there even was a United States, China and India both had terrible problems due to overpopulation. It is not the responsibility of the poor of the United States to sacrifice their hopes of escaping poverty, ghettoization, crime etc. so that the poor of India or China will be slightly less poor. And it's not the moral duty of the workers of America to accept impoverishment at the hands of international capitalists so that the poor of China and India or other countries may -MAY- become SLIGHTLY less poor.

Now on the other hand, the poverty of people living in the United States, many of whose ancestors were brought over from Africa at gunpoint to work and to die without wages of any kind, their continuing poverty IS ABSOLUTELY THE FAULT OF THE UNITED STATES. When I see that this problem has been solved maybe I'll entertain the notion that working people in the United States should take a hit so that the excess populations of 3rd world countries can get their jobs. The practice of outsourcing manufacturing and service jobs and hiring of illegal aliens to perform the low paying physical labor of our society isn't just not helping this problem, it makes it worse. In spite of your dreamy talk about the universal brotherhood of Man or whatever, the globalization of labor markets has all the ethical high mindedness of a Caribbean bank account maintained to avoid paying any income taxes. The people pushing this would push chattel slavery if they could.

[amandabeech]

49. BRAVO!!

With the hassle you get on this thread, and anyone gets here at DU on the same topic, I wonder why anyone below the 80th income percentile here in the U.S. votes for the Dems.

[pampango]

54. Guess you are right about the wisdom of continuing this

conversation. Good luck building those high walls around the country to keep out "(t)he practice of outsourcing manufacturing and service jobs and hiring of illegal aliens..."

(It is nice of you at least consider the possibility of helping the irresponsible people of the Third World once we have solved all of our poverty problems. The reason I have been a Democrat since returning from the Peace Corps is that I thought we cared more about poverty anywhere in the world than did the Republicans who care about poverty nowhere. Maybe JFK just fooled me on that one.)

[Snotcicles]

11. These anti-union people can't see long term. They just don't get

the concept of how a society lives and lets live.
They can't grasp how employers and workers need each other. That workers are consumers.
They always want that temporary handicap of cheap labor to be competitive, rather then being innovative.
Our society is based on consumption for consumption sake, and the greed factor is what is steering the ship. If we valued intelligence, creativity, ingenuity, and honesty rather then the accumulation of inanimate material and the display of our capacity for opulence and our shallow fixation on appearance and ornamenting. The whole life experience would be fulfilling for all people, what rewards one would reward us all.
What has happened to Man?

[oldtimecanuk]

16. And that also goes hand in hand with social assistance to ...

those that are in need.... We used to have such great safety nets that would help those in need out, (yes there were abusers as in everything) but by in large it certainly was allot better than we are seeing today.... I would rather pay a little higher taxes in order to help those in need out than not!

JMHO...

ww

[Snotcicles]

19. me too

[Peace Patriot]

15. Labor "priced out of the market" by Reaganites, Corporate Democrats, and

Bushites--not by those asking for the truly fair benefit of their labor in a just society. No productive, loyal workers, no profit--unless you are an asshole, with assholes in the government who give you unfair advantage. Uneducated workers, sick workers, demoralized workers, no profit--unless you are an asshole, with assholes in the government who give you unfair advantage.

In a human jungle, yeah, "dog eats dog." But I thought we had built a civilization.

It's time we returned to the idea of a civilization, in which collective power, fairness and equity determine the distribution of society's wealth, and in which, through our collective power and democratic processes, no corporation is permitted to pit the workers of one country against another, or one state against another. No more moving shop to Mexico, and then, when the workers there demand $3/hr instead of $2/hr, moving on to Cambodia, where you can get away with paying 25 cents/hr. No more slaveshops in the Mariana Islands. No more outsourcing to India. If you don't create good jobs here, you will be penalized and your profits severely taxed, and if you continue to be a bad actor, here or abroad, you will have your corporate charter pulled and your assets seized for the common good, or you will be forbidden to do business here if you operate under a foreign flag. Similarly, within the states of the U.S., no more "right to work" (right to kill labor unions) laws.

We have seen what the "law" of the human jungle hath wrought--in Iraq, in New Orleans, and in every aspect of Bush fascism following Clinton corporatism and "free trade"--closely related phenomena. It's time to reject both and to restore civilized life and its democratic and progressive policies.

The lessons I have gathered from study of the awesome democracy movement that is sweeping South America--with leftist (majorityist) governments elected in Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua, and big leftist movements in Peru and Mexico that will bear fruit in the next election cycle; also new movements in Paraguay and Guatemala:

1. TRANSPARENT elections.
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

[CrispyQ]

34. "But I thought we had built a civilization." --exactly!

"...and if you continue to be a bad actor, here or abroad, you will have your corporate charter pulled and your assets seized for the common good, or you will be forbidden to do business here if you operate under a foreign flag."

Bravo!! :thumbsup:

It is time to hold corporations to a standard of behavior that is fitting for humans & human societies & to hold them accountable for their behavior -- just like we are held accountable.

A little off topic here, but in Thom Hartmann's book "Unequal Protection" he contemplates that personhood rights have not been granted to any other non-human entities, such as unions.

[Snotcicles]

22. What cracks me up is how many worker bees are anti-union

shiny objects in view, swaying to and fro. "labor is bad, labor is bad"

[kenny blankenship]

24. Proof that brain washing isn't just a myth from the McCarthy era

The irony is that it was perfected in the West especially here in America not by the Chinese and Korean Communists.

[raccoon]

52. Yeah, I don't get that either.

In SC, a "right-to-work" state, lots of worker bees who would really benefit from unions think that way. I can only think they are brainwashed.

[In Truth We Trust]

23. It is not coincidence that the highest standard of living in the U.S. happened to also be when there

was the highest number of union jobs. The period of which I speak was the sixties and seventies before the decline of union jobs through an attack by corporatist's. See PATCO strike and Reagan firing all the air traffic controllers. It is short sighted greed that corporatists fight unions and therefore ultimately cut their noses to spite themselves. Gordon Gecko was wrong. Greed is NOT good.

The irony I find intolerable is the level of ignorance by middle class and working class people who have bought into the anti union rhetoric.

[AlCzervik]

26. my Grampa owned plumbing comapny and he ran a union shop for 43 years

the work they did is still all around the city of Boston.

[Lusted4]

32. And I'll bet his employees stayed with him through thick and thin for life. nt

[AlCzervik]

33. when he died the head of the plumbers union read a eulogy, it was really nice

and a bit unexpected. Grampa passed kind of suddenly and they saw his obit and called my Nana up that day.

[WinkyDink]

27. Why would union members and their leadership be privy to what mgmnt

knew/knows: the truth about the company's financial records and promise; the truth about how mgmnt makes its production decisions; how much profit is required to satisfy the share-holders.

Rank-and-file negotiate based on not only their needs but also what they see other occupations making; i.e., based on a sense of equity. Management concedes only under duress; i.e., a sense of ownership.

[Vox_Reason]

31. We need a new "Look for the Union Label" campaign.

We need a modern, smart message that says to America, "joining a union and buying union made products is good for our country".

I want to do what I can to support union workers and products. We need organized labor to stand up and shout from the rooftops why their way of doing things is best for American workers and their families, for product quality, and for the success of their companies. Look at Costco!

I don't hear the union message today. That's a crying shame. We need to hear it now more than ever.

[hamerfan]

57. Excellent post!

Thank you for saying what I try to live:

We need a modern, smart message that says to America, "joining a union and buying union made products is good for our country".

http://www.theunionshop.com/

http://www.shopunionmade.org/

http://www.leathercoatsetc.com/

This is a good link too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2587076

We need to help each other. It really is us against them, and they are winning. Buy a Sharp USA microwave oven next time. Buy an Oral-B toothbrush next time. Every little bit shows we support unions! It all goes around. Thanks,
dumpbush

[smoogatz]

36. Yep--undocumented labor is just "insourcing" by a different name.

It was okay with a lot of Americans when it was just unskilled workers picking tomatoes in Texas; now you've got what seems like an endless stream of skilled laborers in the building trades: not just tote 'n carry guys, but skilled bricklayers, sheetrockers, roofers, cement finishers, plumbers and every other damn thing. Construction firms that don't hire undocumented workers are now at a severe disadvantage when it comes time to bid a project--even in the upper midwest and northeast. If there's no protection for documented workers, this is what you get. The only question is, what took so long?

[kikiek]

38. Amazing to me that they will justify a CEO's pay, and knock a union for

fighting for a livable wage. I am sick and tired of it. I am sick and tired of Congress sitting there with the best pension, health care, and perks up the ass while the guy they're there working for struggles to make ends meet. We need more strong unions! This type of media propaganda is to convince people they don't need unions because they cost jobs. Bullshit! The fact is we the workers are what makes a company gold. Without us they are nothing. We deserve this recognition in the form of wages and benefits just like the CEO running it does. Time is running out to change this. We need to get Congress to enact legislation that stops the jobs from going overseas not ENCOURAGE it like it does now! This should be top priority for us all.

[Swamp Rat]

48. We're all worm dirt

Some enter the mulch wondering what the hell happened. :D

[HardRocker05]

50. There is some truth to that, but unions and their clueless supporters absolutely refuse

to look in the mirror and accept the tiniest criticism of unions. i would work for $6/hr with no benefits before i would ever join a union (unless that union was light years different than the one i was just working with.) and btw, i worked for $4-6/hr (+tips) with no benefits or rights for many years, so i know what that's like and i absolutely support higher wages and benefits for workers, and there is nothing wrong with unions in theory, but in practice they are a disaster. the two unions i have worked with embodied the very worst stereotypical aspects of communism, i.e., lazy workers with extremely negative attitudes and a sense of entitlement, such that they believed that if they ever so much as lifted their little finger they had gone way above and beyond the call of duty, massive unmanageable rule-laden contracts that made rational business operation impossible, extreme rigidity and resistance to any changes whatsoever, organized crime/gang-like enforcement of membership, it is impossible to be fired, there are no consequences, either positive or negative for job performance, etc. I'm sorry, that's the way it is, and i bet most of the people here who are blindly in support of unions have no experience with them. the biggest problem is that right now workers really need unions to do something to get them the wages and benefits they deserve, but unions are putting themselves out of business, and all workers are going to suffer. but they will not reform because absolutely no criticism of them is allowed. if you are inside the union and you make any criticism, you will be viciously condemned and ostracized by the entire union membership; if you are in management and you criticise the union or try to make any changes, your crew and any other union personnel in your depertment will start slow-walking things or sabotaging things, and since it's impossible to be fired, there's not much that management can do about it. Given this situation, can you blame any business owners who don't want unionized workers? Truth is, if they paid a non-union workforce the same amount in terms of pay and benefits as a union workforce, they would get twice as much work out of them and the work environment would be 10 times more pleasant.

[kikiek]

51. Yes I have had plenty of experience with unions. Close to 25 years. Also experience without

them, and in one is much better. Your characterization of them protecting lazy and incompetent workers is the old talking points prattle. What unions do is protect workers rights at work regardless of age or sex or race, ensure they have fair wages and benefits, and help maintain safe work environments. In the nursing industry that also translates to safer patient care practices. It most certainly is not impossible to fire someone under union protection. It only prevents them from being fired no reason. That is far more common than anything you claim. The biggest threat to unions is this administration. Sounds like you're on board with Bush on that.

[B Calm]

56. Great points.. Especially the last sentence!

[JCMach1]

53. Simple answer: International Fair Wage Laws!

Allow no goods or services in this country that do not pay a fair wage based on the country's mean salary.

Then, if it's cheaper let's import it!

If not, Americans need and deserve the jobs.

People in other countries deserve the right not to be exploited!

[B Calm]

55. Whenever I hear that the high cost of automobiles is because of union

labor, I go ballistic. Back in the early 70s I worked at a GM foundry as an iron pourer. GM automated, put in robots and deleted over 300 iron pourer jobs at this one factory. This was just one example in the GM operation. They said by eliminating jobs this would make them more competitive in the market. Funny thing is all this automation never did lower the price of automobiles, but people still want to blame unions for everything bad...

[populistdriven]

58. same thing is happening in the lumber mills - they went from 300 to 30 staff

but the morons believe the corporate media's lies about lumber job losses

[B Calm]

61. Another bad rap unions get is that they support Mexican workers. When

a company hires Mexicans into a union shop, the union signs them up. Is it the unions fault the company hired them or the company?