Unions - Page 5

Figment · 2012-04-23, 05:01 PM

Malorn, you say you don't think in black and whites, yet every topic you show you do think in absolutes and almost nothing but absolutes. Still, glad you see there's actual relevancy. The need for unions differs per region though, in well-fare states the need for unions (also from a worker pov) has degraded severely over time. So much that some are struggling to get members. That's a good thing as it indicates the system is healthy.

The easier it is for unions to acquire new members, the harsher the working conditions.

China? India? Could definitely use more union influence.

EDIT: In the case of your wife, if she had been layed off in some states in the US, her pay would have dropped to 0 within a day. This has lead to disastrous situations for a lot of US citizens, since they cannot pay their bills in an event like that. Especially not since pay wasn't that great to safe up a lot of money in the first place.

Look at how many people had to take multiple jobs, leaving no time for family and hence have a very stressful existence. That doesn't create a healthy society if it is completely dependend on good times.

If a company has to take into account lay offs well ahead, they plan and think ahead and they simply keep lay-offs in mind in their budget. If there's a transfer period, the household situation is more stable as there's time to find a new job or even to create your own initiative while you still have a bit of income left, change to a lower cost living, etc. It is not healthy to go from one extreme (full pay) to the other (no pay) at all. This leads to instant need of a new money source, meaning debts are almost unavoidable.

Does it cost money? Yes. Does it cost society more if people go into debt, lose their house and can't find a new job in time? Good question, not?

On the other hand, it can be too hard to fire someone. In which case they can become nothing but a drain of resources. There should always be a healthy balance. But tipping the scales too far either way in the end can cause severe problems in a crisis.

Noivad · 2012-04-23, 10:10 PM

What you describe is a guild, which tended to monopolise the trade of particular craftsman in a city as a form of job guarantee by controlling the competition.

Trade, worker or labour unions were founded to protect the worker's from exploitation.

Actually It was not a Guild it was a Union, one of the oldest types in fact it was A Construction Labor Union local 767 in south Florida. I was an apprentise, and learned how to be a laborer for a few different trades like Carpentry, Plumber, and Sheet Rock installers on High Rise buildings. I paid dues, went to the union hall for work, ect. We called non union people scabs. We only worked on Union Jobs. I got paid well, a lot more then scabs who did the same types of work on non union jobs. I received training in various construction work from the bottom up. If I had stayed with it I could have gotten into one of the Main Unions.

Figment · 2012-04-24, 04:38 AM

Originally Posted by Noivad

Actually It was not a Guild it was a Union, one of the oldest types in fact it was A Construction Labor Union local 767 in south Florida. I was an apprentise, and learned how to be a laborer for a few different trades like Carpentry, Plumber, and Sheet Rock installers on High Rise buildings. I paid dues, went to the union hall for work, ect. We called non union people scabs. We only worked on Union Jobs. I got paid well, a lot more then scabs who did the same types of work on non union jobs. I received training in various construction work from the bottom up. If I had stayed with it I could have gotten into one of the Main Unions.

Perhaps it was called an union, but the way you described it is not quite a "normal" union. Unions are political organizations to back up workers, not organizations that train workers as apprentices. But you could be right.

Possibly that union was set up with the old guild system in mind though, especially if it was intended for carpenting, plumbing and smith works which were traditionally strong guilds. Guilds are interest groups of specific craftsmen and the attitude towards people from outside of the guild is also quite typical: only those within the local guild are accepted, others of the same trade but outside the union were typically shunned as 'illegal' rivals. In contrast to earlier forms of unions, it was obligated to join a guild in order to even practice a particular craft. The guilds were, beyond a form of union, a means to completely regulate the market.

Not sure if you're aware of the history of guilds, but in Europe these ran and dominated cities together. A lot of guilds had their own militias even up to the end of the 18th century.

Basically (and given Malorn's concerns with paranoia regarding market regulation, quite ironically), they were capitalist cartels motivated solely by self-interest. Governments in those days were very decentralised (cities ran the local area) and the ruling classes in the city and townships, meant basically the leaders of the wealthiest guilds. They dominated everything out of self-interest up to the point that new inventions were outlawed because not the entire guild could profit from it - if innovation was done outside of the guild a lot of pressure was enacted to get them into the guild or simply stop. Furthermore, people within a guild had to think alike.

Guilds existing well into the 19th century in Eastern Europe has been seen as one of the reasons that these areas were not industrialised as much as the west and therefore economically fell behind.

So one could argue that the smaller the central government and the more power to the local government and private owners, free trade is actually at risk. At least locally. Especially the western dutch shipping guilds profited immensily from the dutch international free trade doctrine, where a lot of other guilds were far more mercantile (examples of mercantile factions within Europe were The Hansa and Ligurian and Venetian trade leagues) and had trouble competing elsewhere.

Now that we got to the topic of free trade. Some funny things about free trade:

Economists that advocated free trade believed trade was the reason why certain civilizations prospered economically. Adam Smith, for example, pointed to increased trading as being the reason for the flourishing of not just Mediterranean cultures such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome, but also of Bengal (East India) and China. The great prosperity of the Netherlands after throwing off Spanish Imperial rule and pursuing a policy of free trade[9] made the free trade/mercantilist dispute the most important question in economics for centuries. Free trade policies have battled with mercantilist, protectionist, isolationist, communist, populist, and other policies over the centuries.

Trade in colonial America was regulated by the British mercantile system through the Acts of Trade and Navigation. Until the 1760s, few colonists openly advocated for free trade, in part because regulations were not strictly enforced—New England was famous for smuggling—but also because colonial merchants did not want to compete with foreign goods and shipping. According to historian Oliver Dickerson, a desire for free trade was not one of the causes of the American Revolution. "The idea that the basic mercantile practices of the eighteenth century were wrong," wrote Dickerson, "was not a part of the thinking of the Revolutionary leaders".[16] Free trade came to what would become the United States as a result of American Revolutionary War, when the British Parliament issued the Prohibitory Act, blockading colonial ports. The Continental Congress responded by effectively declaring economic independence, opening American ports to foreign trade on April 6, 1776. According to historian John W. Tyler, "Free trade had been forced on the Americans, like it or not."[17]

It gets funnier here:

The fledgling Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln, who called himself a "Henry Clay tariff Whig", strongly opposed free trade and implemented a 44-percent tariff during the Civil War—in part to pay for railroad subsidies and for the war effort, and to protect favored industries.[18] William McKinley (later to become President of the United States) stated the stance of the Republican Party (which won every election for President from 1868 until 1912, except the two non-consecutive terms of Grover Cleveland) as thus:

Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [It is said] that protection is immoral…. Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefitting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, ‘Buy where you can buy the cheapest'…. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: ‘Buy where you can pay the easiest.' And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards.[19]

On the other side:

The growing Free Trade Movement sought an end to the tariffs and corruption in state and federal governments by every means available to them, leading to several outcomes. The first and most important was the rise of the Democratic Party with Grover Cleveland at its helm. The next most important were the rise of the "Mugwumps" within the Republican party. For many Jeffersonian radicals, neither went far enough or sufficiently effective in their efforts and looked for alternatives. The first major movement of the radical Jeffersonians evolved from the insights of a young journalist and firebrand, Henry George.

Noivad · 2012-05-03, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Perhaps it was called an union, but the way you described it is not quite a "normal" union. Unions are political organizations to back up workers, not organizations that train workers as apprentices. But you could be right.

Possibly that union was set up with the old guild system in mind though, especially if it was intended for carpenting, plumbing and smith works which were traditionally strong guilds. Guilds are interest groups of specific craftsmen and the attitude towards people from outside of the guild is also quite typical: only those within the local guild are accepted, others of the same trade but outside the union were typically shunned as 'illegal' rivals. In contrast to earlier forms of unions, it was obligated to join a guild in order to even practice a particular craft. The guilds were, beyond a form of union, a means to completely regulate the market.

Not sure if you're aware of the history of guilds, but in Europe these ran and dominated cities together. A lot of guilds had their own militias even up to the end of the 18th century.

Basically (and given Malorn's concerns with paranoia regarding market regulation, quite ironically), they were capitalist cartels motivated solely by self-interest. Governments in those days were very decentralised (cities ran the local area) and the ruling classes in the city and townships, meant basically the leaders of the wealthiest guilds. They dominated everything out of self-interest up to the point that new inventions were outlawed because not the entire guild could profit from it - if innovation was done outside of the guild a lot of pressure was enacted to get them into the guild or simply stop. Furthermore, people within a guild had to think alike.

Guilds existing well into the 19th century in Eastern Europe has been seen as one of the reasons that these areas were not industrialised as much as the west and therefore economically fell behind.

So one could argue that the smaller the central government and the more power to the local government and private owners, free trade is actually at risk. At least locally. Especially the western dutch shipping guilds profited immensily from the dutch international free trade doctrine, where a lot of other guilds were far more mercantile (examples of mercantile factions within Europe were The Hansa and Ligurian and Venetian trade leagues) and had trouble competing elsewhere.

Now that we got to the topic of free trade. Some funny things about free trade:

It gets funnier here:

I am not familiar with the Euro Guild System, only the the USA one. So perhaps there are some differences. I can tell you only of my experience with the labor union, and my friends experience with Police, Fire, and Teacher Unions. They are all currupt. They are all political, and they all do more harm them good.

The link below is the history of Unions, and yes it does mention Euros Uniondom. In fact it shows Unions in several countries.

The bigest Union is called Communisim - You know when Government gets into controlling the business of a country completely.

And workers, have, you know, all equal rights. They get to do whatever jobs that are selected for them. They all get the same pay - Equal pay for equal work. They are all commrades.

All Unions start with Labor. The act of work. The Laborer. He who does work.

Because the worker must have rights. An we the Union will give it to them. Of course some where along the way those in control get more rights, and the laborers get less. They start off making more money and in time make less. who knew?

Some where along the way Unions, turn form organizations that want to help the worker to organizations that dictate to the worker.

And before you talk about the power of the Strike - against companies - know this. You the worker do not even have the right to strike. If the Union says no you don't.

Unions control workers, no matter what job they do. In return they promise, but mostly do not deliver, better rights for the worker, higher pay, and protection from companies who would abuse them. Better skilled , better trained workers. lol. And then, there are the unskilled unions starting in 1936.

The first real " MAY DAY" that happened in the United States was about the Unions back then too.

History always repeats itself.

These links will show the link to Labor Organization, or Unions. When you get to the basis all of these terms are interchangable.

They are all forms of control on production. They all start with labor. They all do what they do in the name of the poor worker. And Ultimately they all fail. If any worked at all, and they were so great, don't you think we would all be in them by now.

Thes links should help clarify my statements.

MAY Day History - http://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/index.htm

Unions

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/friedman.unions.us

About Trade Unions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union

About Communism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

About Socialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

**Malorn** · 2012-04-24, 01:21 AM

Meh.

Figment · 2012-04-24, 04:57 PM

Loudmouths often do well in unions. Brains are not always a job requirement. Think we mentioned before that there are union actions that overexert themselves and shoot themselves in the foot out of greed. Then again, company greed is why they exist.

Some companies do anything to save money. Look at the recent Apple ordeal with their Asian manufacturing plants and under what stress and health conditions those workers live. Imagine if that had been in the US, where the response to a high suicide rate among workers living in worker flats was to simply install a safety next, literally.

Nice, huh?

Figment · 2012-04-26, 11:02 AM

@Shultz: that's not an union thing, that's a working ethics and discipline thing that's more to do with culture and adequately responding management than worker interest groups.

In that particular case, I also don't get why you don't give more people the ability to access the LOTO. Seems like a management issue that those workers exploit to me anyway.

Sgt Shultz · 2012-04-26, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

In that particular case, I also don't get why you don't give more people the ability to access the LOTO. Seems like a management issue that those workers exploit to me anyway.

We generally avoid making access to LOTO to anyone but the person to who that lock belongs. With the size of the machines we use it's too easy to lose sight of a person thus you could potential kill someone by removing their locks.

@Vash - it's not my job to make a business case to an hourly operator. He doesn't own the machine, nor the parts. Furthermore what about demand? You think his pissing around is going to help him if demand falls?

Vash02 · 2012-04-26, 02:02 PM

Originally Posted by Sgt Shultz

We generally avoid making access to LOTO to anyone but the person to who that lock belongs. With the size of the machines we use it's too easy to lose sight of a person thus you could potential kill someone by removing their locks.

@Vash - it's not my job to make a business case to an hourly operator. He doesn't own the machine, nor the parts. Furthermore what about demand? You think his pissing around is going to help him if demand falls?

You're putting all the risk on the workers while the business keeps all the advantages for itself.

Say for instance they make 3 engines a day (note: I dont know anything about making engines) and your idea increases that to 4 engines a day. if you can sell 4, thats fine and dandy. But if demand drops and you can only sell 3 a day and go "sorry lads, no ones buying you've got to go home", they are the ones out of pocket from the deal while the impact on the business is none.

Figment · 2012-04-26, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by Sgt Shultz

We generally avoid making access to LOTO to anyone but the person to who that lock belongs. With the size of the machines we use it's too easy to lose sight of a person thus you could potential kill someone by removing their locks.

If they called in sick they're not in the building. Just make a rule where he has to leave the key in the building if he is not present? Obligate a mobile phone and call him to check where he is before unlocking the LOTO?

Or is that too simple? I understand the safety regulations (thank you unions), but safety regulation abuse due to inefficient application of those rules is something else entirely: that's a management inefficiency.