Originally posted by Dalaena
I disagree that unions are needed ANYWHERE as badly as when they were first formed, if at all. The working conditions are NO WHERE near the same.
I don't know how to quanitfy 'as bad'. I saw a news program with kids in India in the silk trade within the last year. I have brought up the situation with the rural Chinese. I think they are more than bad enough to require some sort of organization on the part of labor in those regions.



Originally posted by Dalaena
The abuse from large companies came first. It was solved by unions. Unions won't go away. Large companies CANNOT exist without its workers, and workers in THIS country aren't willing to go work in a factory that chops their arms off on a regular basis without compensating pay. As a country, we are way more educated than that now.
Why in the world would I want to let it even get worse, much less get as bad as it was, before I took steps to fix things? And people were never so uneducated that they willingles worked dangerous jobs for bad pay. Specifically, as we went from rural to urban, people realized they were living worse than they had been despite proseperity all around. Relative prosperity today is such that sure, it is easy to be complacent, but a brief look at the almost complete disenfranchisement of the middle class, the huge power of media to drive politics and the complete lack of an effective outlet for the middle class in all of that is the symptom I look at today. Also, just the rediculous treatment of immigrant labor to me was the last straw. I used to be an economic conservative. The I joined the Navy. Then I worked construction. They I changed my mind.

I don't know what to tell you.



Originally posted by Dalaena
I'm not sure why you say there are a lack of unions in the south. I grew up in the south. The factories that kept my hometown up ALL had unionized workers. Now, only 1 of those factories remain.


Interesting. Texas is a right to work state. Closed shops are not allowed basically. I assumed, apparently wrongly, that it was the same across most of the south. It seems unions appear to work much better in the north than the south, judging by what you are saying.



Originally posted by Dalaena
I have not refused to do anything. You ignored several of the points I made while in my arguments, and I thought it was pretty obvious that most of my post dealt with Western attitudes towards 3rd world countries. Maybe that's a bit off topic, but that was what actually got me interested in this topic at all. Ari has already posted this, but I will repeat it. The cost of BENEFITS (such as health insurace and paid leave) is now MORE than wages for the first time. Why is that a bad thing? Because, what if I want to work 60 hours and get it in cash and find my OWN health insurance for possibly cheaper than what my company is getting it for? What if my spouse has a job with excellent benefits and I would rather have the wages from my job rather than the benefits they have to force on me? Unions and the government totally prevent companies from being able to offer people higher wages for less benefits. Unions also pay money into specific political parties REGARDLESS of what their members wish. I would have to look it up, but there are certain unions well known for this. THEY decide what is done with those dues they've collected, NOT the members of the Union. A few decide for the many. And yet, if you work in unionized company, have you ever tried to NOT be a part of that union? Try it. You're fucked. So, are you saying it's better to be controlled by the union than to decide for yourself?


I answered the top half of this already. Benefits can be bought cheaper in bulk, theoretically. That is not labor's baby. That's a trade off to industry. Wages are lower than benefits because they are just plain, old fashioned too low. The other option is to get a wage that does not equal the combined worth of the benefits and wages.

There has been a longstanding conflict between unionized and un-unionized labor. If unions let non-union workers get the same benefits then all the union workers are basically making the sacrifices and the non-union gets the benefit for free. If industry wanted to be fair, they could. They don't want to. So there is this conflict, and I don't know what the solution is. It's definitely there though and it is definitely wrong.


Originally posted by Dalaena
No, people fought and died in America for FREEDOM and LIBERTY. I'm pretty sick and tired of all these made up rights that we supposedly fought and died for. No where in the Constitution is it written that you have a right to a job. You have the right to PERSUE a job. You have the freedom to pick the job you wish to work. You also have the liberty to not work at all if you wish. That doesn't mean that I should be paying for you to live well if you decide not to work.


I'm pretty sick of the Constitution being reduced to the Bill of Rights. (to paraphrase you) The constitution is also a document that defines how our government is formed and run. Unions have gone through the process, UNLIKE a lot of things lately, of actually going through the congress and the administrative branch and the courts. They are now a part of the law of the land. We have a right to work in decent conditions now. No, we didn't have to amend the constitution to get that right. We can do that through legislation as well.

Originally posted by Dalaena
That's a far cry from having no right to work, and that's a serious mis-interpretation of everything written here. You are simply not guaranteed a job by the Constitution. When people say you are not given a "right to work", it doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to work. It means that there's no guarantee that you'll work.

You have the right and the freedom in this country to work your ass off, build up your business, and try to make as much money as you can. You don't have that right or freedom in several countries. You act like all companies are nameless, monstrous entities. Behind a lot of companies are people who work their asses off in school, at their jobs, and at home.
I would see it differently. I have already made the admission that I have generalized the rich overmuch, but it seems to me that you and Ari, despite denying it, make claims that belittle the working classes. You also seem to be convinced that the vast majority of businessmen are more trustworthy than I believe. Not all businesses are run by monsters, no. But they are not all run by saints either.



Originally posted by Dalaena
China had their revolution in the 1920s. Mexico had theirs in 1910. Russia had theirs in 1917. The French had theirs in the 1790s. These people all tried to make a better life for themselves. What civil war are you wanting? I wouldn't wish civil war on ANY country. Those are the bloodiest wars. I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make here.
Guh... No one wishes a war on anyone. Well, no decent person. The point is that the necessary reforms are not showing yet

China's 1920 revolution did not set them up as a Democracy. Russia even today is still struggling for democracy. The French are good as far as I am concerned on this particular point. Where are the reforms? Why is it that Americans, who have already sacrificed so much, owe it to the whole world now to sacrifice more when these countries have no yet even so much as established their own, relatively decent goverments? Why can they not just run under their own steam? If they were doing so well, they wouldn't even need our markets.


Originally posted by Dalaena
You'll have to recheck my numbers. I had to call over to some cousins to check the numbers and make changes. If you read my whole post, I explained pretty clearly that the cost of living in Thailand is MUCH, MUCH lower than in First World countries. I also gave an example of this.


Yeah, I was basically lamenting that the beginning stat of a dollar an hour turns out to be more or less worthless. I don't know of any statistics that take both into account. I just wish I did.

Originally posted by Dalaena
Wages are NOT going down here. They will never go down. They'll only keep going up. I don't even know where you get info that would make you think wages are going down. Wages are not going down here. Companies are simply going to places where they won't go out of business. Not ALL companies are going there either. Many companies that require educated workers never leave the First World nations, but those that mostly require minimum wage workers do. They simply cannot keep up with the demands of union and government. (Whether it's because they are not willing to for profit reasons or because they cannot do it without going out of business.)
First point: Meat Packing link
The last line. For the first time possibly in our history, certainly the first time in living memory, wages - actual dollar amount wages - are down in a U.S. industry.

Second point: That is just an example of actual cash wages going down recently. Obviously any job that has not been keeping up with inflation is going down in terms of buying power.

Thirdly, it is not education that limits export of jobs. With the internet and phones, anything that is document based can be exported. The only safe jobs are direct service industry jobs dealing with things physically planted here in the U.S. (like mine!)

Fact is, you might be smart to move Thresh to Thailand. Your expenses might be lower eh? Obviously I don't know this, I have no idea what things are like tech-wise in Thailand... Just tossing an idea around. But being educated is absolutely no guarantee at this point of having a job safe from the overseas job market. Nor should it be.

I welcome the educated to the brotherhood.


Originally posted by Dalaena
There is no doubt that many third world nations still need unions. We have never said otherwise. The unions we are discussing are the ones in the US, where Unions have an ungodly amount of power over the average worker who works for unionized companies. I'm not sure how you are even implying that I am saying any of these people working in factories in the third world are lazy. These people really do everything they can to pull themselves out of poverty and support their families in a legitimate (rather than illegal) lifestyle. Obviously, in any country, there are people who work hard and people who are lazy. People who are content to live off the government and never try to better their lives will always be considered lazy in my book. You can call me inhumane, and you can imply that I'm a horrible human being for thinking so. It won't bother me, because I will always point to the fact that there are tons of people out there who have been horribly poor, poor in ways people in the US can never imagine, and they have pulled themselves out of that. My parents lived that life. They were poorer than anyone I've ever met in the US aside from utterly homeless people. (Even those people have more cash that my family did.) They worked and labored to get out of that. When they were poor, they weren't looking for a hand out. They looked for a way to achieve and improve their family. People who are utterly content to live on whatever the government gives them and teach their children to do the same are wrong in my book. (If you've EVER lived in a rural farming community, you see TONS of these people.) For the most part, I think that the people who are in this situation are trapped and need to be educated to help them get out of this poverty, but doing that is a LOT harder than throwing some governement money at them every now and then, teaching them that the rich (anyone who pays taxes) are "evil", and using them to get you elected.
All this sounds a lot like what I believe.

Originally posted by Dalaena
I definitely don't need a lecture on what needs to happen in Thailand. I've lived there. I have family that live there. I regularly keep tabs on political and social events there. It's ridiculous to even say that there's a drop in the standard of living here. As a nation, we are able to afford things that no third world nation can even think of affording. People who live in projects have TV, hot water, and electricity for the most part. People who live in metal shacks in Thailand don't have running water, electricity (let alone any electronics like a TV), any kind of a modern stove, or even basic creature comforts. People in China consider a board with a hole in it over a hole in the ground an awesome toilet. People in India simply crap and piss on the streets or in the river, river water that other people downstream drink, by the way. You're not finding events or stories like that in America on a regular basis. It's ridiculous to even imply that the standard of living is going down here, especially when you compare with the rest of the world and even more so when you compare with third world nations.


If you think these things are to do with U.S. unions, I want to keep lecturing. I'm sorry but the U.S. cannot be held responsible for these conditions. Plumbing has been around since before Christ. These are social ills that are directly the responsibility of the governments in these regions, not the fault of Americans who have already done what is necessary to insure they have these sorts of minimal standards.

My grandparents tell me a different story about whether or not things are going backwards here. If you had been here perhaps you would know. Just because things are better here does not mean they were not better still before. The two income household is now a necessity. Things were not always thus....

Originally posted by Dalaena
Unions and the constant demand for more, more, more are making businesses build more factories outside the US or to try to recruit more of their workforce outside the US. In some cases, they are simply putting companies out of business. With the airlines, the government has to keep bailing them out. That's more tax dollars to feed the monster.


Meh, I answered this in the old thread and again here. Southwest has a union. Southwest is not bankrupt. Not all unions are created equal, but at the same time to not even look at the administration for clues as to why large airlines fail is not right thinking in my view.

Originally posted by Dalaena
Okay, rambling now. Gonna stop!

(I kind of hi-jacked this thread, I guess, to discuss more than unions. Sorry about that!)
I never have been one to stick to a strict subject, and am always glad to talk to anyone who I can manage NOT to make angry.