AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

I do agree with CI as far as this is what we have been taught, "almost as if it were empirically true but I do question if there might be a better working model that he would rather expose his own mother to if she were alive.
This has nothing to do with putting down CI or his mother but rather lifting them up so that he may question his own belief system.

If I were to understand CI correctly with what he has shared I would come to the conclusion that his mother should be at the mercy of the performance that the company she works for no matter how much effort she puts forth even if it is more than what her son CI puts forth because she should be subjected to the beliefs that CI holds.

Interestingly none of these IT companies are unionized and all of them work very hard to stay that way.

Unions resist technological advances that improve productivity and realignment of company investments to better meet evolving coinsumer tastes, simply because that forces changes to the seniority systems they operate and the interests of current (as opposed to future) employees.

georgeob, They don't need unions to watch out for their interests. The companies know that to attract the best, they must offer above average pay and benefits. Many of the companies in Silicon Valley offer their employees, gyms, gourmet food, and stock options.

You accuse me of looking up things to support my bias but you just spout your bias without even bothering to look and see if anything supports your bias.

This question was aimed at George who seems to believe that the hourly worker should be required to be kept at $7.50 an hr no matter how much sweat and blood they put into a company, while the upper management should be paid at 100 or 200 times the hourly wage made by the hrly worker wether the company was doing good business or not. He sounds like someone I wouldent want too work for or if I did I would screw him every chance I got.

Are you suggesting that his work ethics are not all that good but they are sexual stimulating to you?

I am suggesting that he believes that the one who does the least amount of physical work should make the most money because he looks down on manual labor, which produces real value. If I worked for someone like this i would not do my best work. You either understood what I said or you are trying to be cute. Either way I dont think you are as intelligent as you think you are.

Not only that, but the name he chose for himself is off the mark by about 180 degrees.

An hourly worker should be paid whatever they agree to work for.
Every employee of any company goes into their job knowing exactly how much they are going to be paid.

That's only half true; if the employer refuses to provide for wage and/or benefits increases when the company is earning a reasonable profit, there is no protection for workers - except for unions.

I take it that you did not like my joke?

I 100% agree with that, but I also believe that unions have taken it to far, with their demands on companies, and their rules regarding management dealing with employees.

Most unions now wont let management fire an employee without going thru the union and jumping thru their hoops.
IMHO, thats wrong.

Unions seem to, in some instances, want to set the hours employees work, when they take breaks, when management can talk to employees, etc.

My grandfather was a UAW member since 1946, when he returned home from Japan.
He joined the union to keep his job, nothing more.
He used to say that before the unions got all the power, detroit built cars like the 57 chevy, built to last forever.
After the unions got all the power, they built cars like the Ford Pinto, one look and it fell apart.

I am not saying that unions havent done good things, I just think that its gotten to the point that companies will give in at the mere thought of union activity against them.
Thats why I like what Caterpillar did a few years ago.
The union went on strike, and Cat didnt cave in.
They had the supplies and the material to outlast the union, and thats exactly what they did.
The union finally went back to work for less than what they started with.

When the unions get greedy, its real hard to support them at all.

BTW, who defines what a "reasonable profit" is, and how much that is?

mm, That's what negotiation is all about. Management must know how to limit union demands that would harm their company. Without unions, workers have no say on wages and benefits; not a good place to be when it's common knowledge that the company is giving huge salary and benefits to their CEO's and officer while not benefiting the workers.

It's about balance and fairness.

Nonsense.

Just a brief review of the history of our economy over the past century reveals that the presence of labor unions is itself a dangerous indicator for the long-term economic health of any company. Indeed the history of our steel, automobile, textile and airline (and other) industries reveals that labor unions breed poor quality service, inefficiency and failures to innovate that eventually doom the companies and industries infested with them.

Check almost any comntemporary list of the best companies or industries to work for. Almost none of them are unionized.

Companies vary a great deal in the degree to which they work to positively motivate their employees and the degree to which they seriously take employee welfare in to consideration in their management decisions. However, the very basic goals and methods of labor unions, and their antagonistic attitudes, destroy these impulses, to whatever degree they may have existed in every company they infest. In short, the best and most reliable way to get managment indifference toward employees is to organize them into a union that bases its actions on the assumption that management is its enemy.

Not true; it's the middle class with reasonable wages and benefits that provides our economy with stability and growth.

You can't blame unions for companies going bankrupt because of unions. That's like saying that the management at those companies have given up all their common sense and fiscal responsibilities.

Why is it that during the past three decades as unions were dropping to new lows, the CEO's and officers continued to gain huge salary and benefits increases while the average worker lost buying power?

From the WSJ.


Look what happened at HP. The CEO, Meg Whitman, purchased a Brit software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion - all while the company paid the her $16.5 million in salary and benefits. The stock price for HP has been dropping to new lows. Who pays for this huge mistake by the CEO? The union workers; 9k workers laid off.

You apparenly are unable to think beyond your own prejudices.

The fact is it is precisely the union-dominated industries that have suffered the most economic losses in the past many decades, with companies shutting down and being outcompeted by foreign producers, leading to job losses here. That is simply a fact. Repeating tired old homilies about the virtues of the middle class (in fact a recent euphemism for the working class) has nothing whatever to do with it.

Why is it that we, "can't blame unions for companies going bankrupt because of unions"????? That is truly a nonsensical statement.

The fact is that the demands of labor unions do often prevent management from taking sensible actions that might save their companies. The last strike by the UAW against GM was taken to prevent GM from modernizing and automating two assembly factiories in Flint Michigam, so they could compete economically, and in terns of product quality, with similar Toyota plants in Kentucky. This upgrade would have cost about 1/3rd of the jobs in the outdated factories, but would have preserved the other 2/3rds. After a long strike GM gave in and abandoned the plan. Two years later the factories were shutdown, forever. Fatso Michael Moore wrote a deceptive book about it and became famous as a result .... though he chose to omit the real story behind the closing.

The reason that private sector unions have been "dropping to new lows" is that the unions helped bring about the death of the companies they infested. The first thing unions do is to create a hostile relationship with management. Are you surprised if management reacts to that in a very human way? The real threat to the buying power of unionmenbers in the private sector is that their employers have gone out of business, not that their CEO's made too much money. It doesn't take much arithmetic to figure that one out.

Why do you find it necessary to state the obvious? You don't expect him to be any different than us do you?

Fear of foreign producers will always exist. What's your point?

As have been shown, it's not the unions that are creating bankruptcies, it's the managers of companies who fail at their jobs.

You wrote, is a contradiction in terms. Unions have to negotiate with management, otherwise it's the unions running the company. We all know without unions, companies abuse their workers with lower pay and benefits.

It's up to the management to control costs, produce quality products, and provide for the welfare of all concerned. That is their mandate as managers.

You can't blame the unions for destroying companies. They are the workers; not the ones who establish what products are produced.

You also missed my comments about overpaid CEO's who make wrong decisions that also destroy companies.

Without unions, employees have no protection.