Some thoughts on unions (page 15)

Sam Whiskey

@Dacheech - "1. the goverment gotta start taxing: imports high-->30-40%," - They'll pass that 30% increase onto you, the consumer.

XJW4EVR

My point is that unskilled labor should be able to make a living wage.

Says who? Where is there any right to a "living wage" enumerated in the U.S. Constitution?

How much should a guy who works full time digging ditches make?

Whatever the market for ditch diggers can bear.

lisaBObeesa

My point is that unskilled labor should be able to make a living wage.

Says who? Where is there any right to a "living wage" enumerated in the U.S. Constitution?

And that is why we need unions.

People need to be able to LIVE. Even the poor people at the bottom who are not able to get a college education.

@lisaBo - "How much should a guy who works full time (as if there is there any such thing as a 40 hours a week labor job anymore...) digging ditches (or any 'unskilled' labor job...factory worker, grocery night stocker, janitor, whatever...) make? Let's say he's been working for the company for 3 years. And let's say the company is in LA, California. How much is a fair wage? The guy is a very hard worker."

Answer: It doesn't matter how long the ditch digger has been working in that profession, the question is, what is fair market value for a ditch digger? The answer depends upon what the contractor is willing to pay. Beginning ditch diggers and seasoned ditch diggers can only make the same amount of money because that is what the market dictates (is willing) to pay for ditch diggers. Enter Illegal Aliens that will work for cheaper labor.

Illegal Aliens are simply an expression of offshore workers coming to us, rather than we to them.

Are you guys getting it? IMPROVE YOUR SKILLSETS so that your job cannot be farmed out. It's up to you to find out what jobs are not going to be farmed out.

I know, do you?

Sam Whiskey

XJW - Spot on.... again.

Sam Whiskey

@LisaBo

Congress has set a minimum wage for that reason.
Poor people have better and cheaper options for schooling (college) than you and I do.
Wrong - Unions are one of the reason we are failing as a nation. Unions make it so we cannot compete on a global scale.
Unions eventually will HAVE to go away. We cannot afford them.

When are people going to wake up? It's a global marketplace now......

XJW4EVR

And that is why we need unions.
People need to be able to LIVE. Even the poor people at the bottom who are not able to get a college education.

This is not an answer, it is another assertion. Is this all that you have? If you want to convince me you need to provide something more than labor union slogans.

JeffT

Google "positive feedback" It is an engineering term, but can be applied to economics. When everybody's wages go up, the cost of everything goes up. The so called "living wage" is a moving target - and moving up. The price of stuff goes up so the living wage goes up so the price of stuff goes up....

moshe

How much should a guy who works full time digging ditches make? Whatever the market for ditch diggers can bear.

Not very much, unless the ditch is for a new sewer pipe to replace your broken one- and, he is the only ditch digger in town.

I remember when I lived near Tampa , Fl back in the 80's and old US 41 had a long line of cheap motels for mile after mile. The Interstate highway had relegated them to bottom tier business, pay by the week transients, etc. The rooms were cheap- $12 night. Why? Because of competition from all the other motels who were all fighting for the same customers. The I noticed in one year the rates all jumped up and pretty soon the prices were consistently advertised for $25 night. No more competition. What happened? Well the Patel clan from India bought up all the motels for low prices and they had a gentlemans agreement to charge X-amount- no undercutting each other. Pretty soon they had a very profitable motel business on US 41.

That is how business works and boy do they scream when the manual worker wants to maximize their wages by using a union to minimize undercutting each others pay.

Some thoughts on unions

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