Commentary by James Shott

The American concept of personal freedom takes a back seat in West Virginia and other states that do not protect their citizens’ ability to get some jobs without being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union. For state governments or the federal government to allow such conditions for going to work to exist is as antithetical to the idea of individual freedom that our nation was built on as it gets.

Half of the 50 states have already embraced worker freedom and passed right-to-work laws. These laws have a positive impact on the economies and job picture for those states, and are creating jobs. And now West Virginia is poised to become the 26th state where workers are free to choose whether or not to join a union.

The state House of Delegates and Senate have both passed right-to-work legislation. The Mountain State’s Democrat Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, has vowed to veto the bill, but the Republican majorities in both houses can override that veto.

Advocates of right-to-work in the state legislature say they are not opposed to unions, per se, but do oppose state laws dictating that unions receive taxpayer and worker funds.

West Virginia and 25 other states believe that people should be free of pressure to join a union to get a job and believe that such mechanisms are deterrents to business development and job creation, and thus are harmful to the economy of states.

Characterized as pro-worker, pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-job, abolishing forced unionization and the prevailing wage rule in the state are predicted to improve the state’s business climate, increase job opportunities for West Virginians, and help overcome the economic damage to the state’s economy brought on by the Obama administration’s war on coal.

The rub arises when a union has negotiated a contract for workers in a business, and some workers do not want to join the union. The union argues that it isn’t fair for non-union workers to benefit from union negotiations, and the union is correct about that. So then non-union workers are assessed a fee to compensate the union for their benefits.

But then that isn’t exactly fair, either, as non-union workers have nothing to say about how the union uses their money.

The solution is simple: Those workers who want to join the union should be able to do so, and to benefit from the union negotiated work conditions and wages, and those who choose not to join should not be required either to join, or to pay money to the union, and therefore would negotiate their own deal with the employer.

Labor unions evolved from workers wanting better conditions, having endured conditions that were generally unfair and even dangerous for many years. Over the years after workers became organized, however, federal and state governments put laws and rules into effect that provided protections for workers, taking on the primary role that labor organizations had been providing.

With their prime function now essentially covered by laws and regulations, labor unions had to change their focus in order to survive. They have become active and influential political organizations, using member dues and non-union worker fees for political purposes. And too often, the demands they make to attract membership frequently involve things that no sensible business would do on its own, such as demanding work rules that are inefficient and designed to increase union jobs, rather than increase efficiency and productivity. They often demand pay practices that ignore individual worker performance, basing pay on considerations other than the worker’s abilities. And they routinely protect the job of all members regardless of their performance, or the health of the business.

Despite their actions on behalf of their members, which frequently are harmful to the businesses in which their members work, union membership has declined sharply from its peak in the mid-1950s, when one in three workers belonged to a union. The decline began to accelerate in 1980, according to Economy Watch online, and today union membership is a mere 11.1 percent.

That figure includes public-sector workers, who among all workers have the least justification for union representation, given that their employers are the governments that enforce labor law. Public workers are 5 times more likely to belong to a union than their private-sector counterparts, with a union membership rate of 35.2 percent, while the private employee rate is just 6.7 percent.

Many of the demands of unions on businesses, while good for union members, make profitability more difficult for businesses, artificially raising wages and labor costs, thereby increasing the price of goods and services for everyone, including union families. 

Rather than being an adversary of management, unions could become partners, focusing on providing a better trained and more productive workforce, assisting business in succeeding, and creating jobs through natural economic methods, rather than blackmailing employers into actions that benefit only one side of the labor/management equation.

Under this scenario unions could succeed on their own merits rather than depending upon government force and political intrigue for their survival.

Cross-posted from Observations

"Living wage" mentality reflects misunderstanding of business reality

Fast food workers in seven cities were on strike last week demanding a "living wage" of $15 an hour, more than twice the $7.25 they currently make. Empathy aside, this expectation is a fantasy.

Every job has a value, but it is based not on what the person who has the job thinks it should be worth, or what sympathetic observers think it should be worth, but on its role in the business.

How important is the job to the business, compared to other jobs? Are other people who can do the job a scarce commodity, or are there thousands of them? Some jobs require substantial training, while others do not, and individuals with the required training deserve higher pay than those without training. Minimum wage jobs in the fast food industry require no formal training; the worker can learn on the job, and while the worker is learning to do the job satisfactorily, the boss endures lower-than-necessary productivity.

Who exactly works for the minimum wage? These jobs are entry-level work intended for people just getting started in the workaday world, like students trying to earn a little money while pursuing their education, or people with little or no skills or experience looking to get some skill and experience. About half of the 1.6 million minimum wage workers are under 25 years of age. The minimum wage is not intended to be, and cannot be, a “living wage.”

The minimum wage is, indeed, a low wage, but most of those workers get a raise in less than a year, and there are fewer of them today than in the past. The number of people making at or under the minimum wage today is 28 per 1,000 wage and salary workers, while in 1976 there were 79 per 1,000 wage and salary workers.

Most employers want the best workers they can find, so if most workers produce 10 of something an hour and Joe can produce 12 an hour, or if Mary’s work is of higher quality than other employees, the boss is likely to give them a raise to keep them on staff.

For people in minimum wage jobs with few or no skills, demanding their salary be doubled to a "living wage" is somewhat akin to high school students demanding they be given a college diploma. And anyone earning minimum wage that is unhappy with it can go look for a better-paying job. If they can't find one, do their best at the current job, and get some training that will qualify them for something better.

An organization calling itself Socialist Alternative illustrates graphically the failure of a “living wage" minimum wage in an article titled "Profit is The Unpaid Labor of Workers."

"Hypothetically, lets assume that our job pays $7.50 an hour and our boss wants us to work for twenty hours," the article says. "At $7.50 an hour for twenty hours, that’s a total of $150. In that same period of time, however, the work we do will probably make $300, $400, or $1000 worth of pizza."

And here's where it gets good: "What does this mean? Just for arguments sake, lets assume we only create $300 worth of pizza. After our boss gives us $150 for our week’s worth of work – meaning our own labor essentially pays our wage – he is left with an additional $150 that he did not work for."

There’s a brilliant bit of insight hidden in that paragraph: "our own labor essentially pays our wage." To the socialist mentality, the only cost of running the pizza parlor is what the boss pays the pizza maker. Everything else – flour, sauce, pepperoni, cheese, insurance, rent/mortgage, electricity, water, sewage, trash pickup, taxes, fees, etc. – the boss apparently gets for nothing, and the money collected for the pizza that is not paid to the pizza maker is ill-gotten gains.

The "living wage" strikers similarly do not understand business, and what happens when wages go up. Raising the minimum wage requires a commensurate raise in all wages, to avoid causing strife among the other workers, and that means price increases that make the business less competitive. That could lead to staff cutbacks or ultimately closing the business.

The strikers and the socialists fail to understand and appreciate the investments of the owner(s), who may have mortgaged their home to finance the business, and managers of larger businesses, who usually have spent years in training and working to get where they are, perhaps starting as a minimum wage employee themselves.

Owners get whatever is left over after everyone else – employees, venders, lenders, taxes, etc. – have been paid. Often, particularly in the beginning or during hard economic times, that is little or nothing. And, few employees work as hard as the owner of a small business, and particularly a new business, yet the Socialist Alternative begrudges them making a decent return on their investment of capital and time.

It’s easy to criticize the boss from the sidelines. The best course for these critics would be their forced entry into the business owner’s world. At their own expense, of course. They would undoubtedly see things differently in short order.

Items in the news: Three examples of labor unions behaving badly

By James H. Shott

Private sector labor unions have all-time low membership, which results from the fact that workers see a relatively low value in belonging to a union. Despite the lack of necessity for their continued efforts on the part of employees, unions nevertheless continue interceding to “improve” conditions that are already good enough for the vast majority of workers, a condition which threatens the continued existence of unions and thus threatens their leaders’ political influence and high pay levels.

The total compensation of some labor leaders places them firmly among President Barack Obama’s 1 percent of people making more than the $250,000 threshold that he believes should pay higher taxes, such as: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – $293,750; United Food and Commercial Workers President Joseph Hansen – $361,124; National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel – $460,060; and American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee – $512,489.

In our still mostly-free country, if workers want to join a union they certainly may do so. But when you look closely, you see much union activity that does more harm than good, except for the relatively few workers that gain excessive benefits that hurt the businesses they work for and, of course, union leadership and the politicians with whom they are incestuously involved.

In one example from Thanksgiving week, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union was a party in a dispute that resulted in the closing of Hostess Brands, an 85 year-old company that made Wonder Bread, Twinkies, and 28 other products.

The company had 372 separate bargaining contracts for workers, 42 multiemployer pension plans, 5,500 separate delivery routes and a vast production system.

Hostess has had financial problems for several years and had previously gotten concessions from the 12 different unions that represent its workers, but in this last round the Bakery Workers, which represents about 5,000 employees, refused concessions, even after management said if concessions were not accepted, the company would shut down.

The union claims that vulture capitalists sucked out hundreds of millions of dollars by leveraging up the company, and that management had given itself millions in pay raises while demanding worker cuts.

Actually, Ripplewood Holdings injected $150 million in three rounds of investment as the company’s troubles grew, and lost every dollar. The raises were a tiny portion of the company’s losses of nearly $500,000,000 in two years, but Ripplewood rescinded the raises and made each executive work for a dollar per year.

Hostess paid out almost $100 million in health benefits for retirees last year, but over half of it covered workers who never had worked at Hostess. You see, the Teamsters’ “multi-employer pension plan” transfers the pension obligations of a bankrupt company to surviving rivals, speeding up the collapse of troubled companies.

Union rules designed to create more union jobs forced Hostess to run separate truck fleets for delivering bread and its sweet products. Instead of one driver delivering to each of Hostess’ thousands of customers, union rules required two, one for sweets and one for bread. Union restrictions on distribution routes made it unprofitable to serve tiny outlets, yet the union barred Hostess from using non-union distributors.

Workers were asked to take an 8 percent pay cut and pay 17 percent of their health-care costs, like most other workers do, instead of zero. In return, the union would have received 25 percent ownership of Hostess plus $100 million of debt to be paid back to the unions.

Instead, the union made a decision that closed the company, and nearly 18,500 workers will lose their jobs as the company shuts 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers, and 570 outlet stores.

And then there is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that was voted out at Aviation Safeguards at Los Angeles International Airport by company workers who wanted out of the SEIU. In response the union brought in 1,000 members who weren’t employees of the company to block entrances to the airport, inconveniencing hundreds of innocent travelers.

“We petitioned to leave the SEIU almost a year ago, and the contract ended,” Frederick McNeil of Aviation Safeguards said. “And now they’re bringing in outsiders to block travelers who are just trying to get home for the holidays. It’s ridiculous.”

The United Food and Commercial Workers organized Black Friday protests against Wal-Mart, and the National Labor Relations Board refused to respond in a timely manner to a Nov. 17 Wal-Mart petition to prohibit the protest, saying the request would be dealt with the week after Thanksgiving.

Relatively few Wal-Mart employees participated, and one protester carried a sign that said: “I’m getting paid $5.50 an hour by the union to protest Wal-Mart paying $9.50 an hour.”

In the 1920s renowned union leader Samuel Gompers was asked what organized labor wanted, and reportedly answered, “More,” a philosophy that endures today. Unions raise employee costs beyond the competitive level, increasing prices to consumers and putting negative economic pressure on businesses. If unions are to survive, they must cease being enemies of business and become partners with them, working for the mutual success of companies and their workers.

Cross-posted from Observations

Defeat the EFCA and Card-Check

Commentary by James H. Shott


Still looming on the legislative horizon is something deceptively called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 800), the provisions of which will make it easier for union organizers to impose union representation on a group of workers by circumventing the current secret ballot method of deciding for or against union representation with an odious mechanism called “card check.”

Secret ballot voting has been a feature in US elections for more than two centuries, and that includes union elections. However, if the EFCA were to become law, the federal government will have tilted the playing field toward labor unions by giving them a tremendous advantage in the effort to organize workplaces.

Unions arose in the US more than a hundred years ago in response to issues in the workplace, but those issues no longer exist, due to an effective set of labor laws that have been enacted through the years that regulate the workplace and how employers deal with employees. Of course, if workers want some organization to represent them they certainly have that right, but the steady decline in union membership over recent years reflects workers’ comfort with the effectiveness of labor laws in satisfying their needs.

The most persuasive factor against the pro-union EFCA, however, is that labor unions produce negative rather than positive results for the economy and society at large.

There are 22 states, mostly in the south, which have right to work laws that allow workers to opt out of joining a union, even if there is union representation where they work. In non-right to work states, primarily in the north, if the business is unionized, all workers must belong to the union to work there. Right to work states have fewer unionized companies, because employees generally see no need to belong to a union and to pay expensive dues each year.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports that not only is unionization down in right to work states, but those states also experience lower unemployment levels. “In December 2008, states with right-to-work laws had an average unemployment rate of 6.2 percent compared to 7.0 percent for states without right to work laws.” Michigan is the heaviest unionized state, and had the highest unemployment of all 50 states at 10.6 percent, and Rhode Island, another non-right to work state, had the second highest unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent. The six states with the lowest unemployment rates all have right to work laws.

Right to work states also have a better record than non-right to work states in three important categories, according to Americans for Prosperity (AFP):
• Productivity growth - 18.6 percent to 17.3 percent;
• Job growth - 17.6 percent to 8.9 percent;
• Economic growth - 41.6 percent to 33.4 percent.

The National Legal and Policy Center and The John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy issued a report titled "Do Unions Help the Economy? The Economic Effects of Labor Unions Revisited," which states that studies that have looked at the impacts of proposed card check feature of the EFCA legislation have found:
• Real GDP was depressed by about $3.5 trillion dollars from 1947 to 2000 due to unions. If you added the decrease in real wages paid to employees, the total impact rises to more than $50 trillion.
• One study found that union-produced "deadweight" loss to the US economy of 0.91% of GDP in 1980 fell to 0.34% of GDP in 2000 as union membership declined.

AFP further states that right to work states have had significantly more population growth than union shop states since 1990, seeing “on average, a 65.5% increase in population over the 16-year period while states with union shops laws only experienced an average of a 45% increase.” Right to work states also have experienced a higher level of growth, AFP notes, as businesses move their operations to states that promote a friendly environment.

Proponents of the EFCA boast that union workers are paid higher wages than their non-union colleagues, but this contention fails the truth test. Workers in right to work states saw an average 23 percent increase while union shop states wages increased only 15 percent on average.

"Right to work laws make unions more accountable to their rank and file," said Paul Kersey, director of labor policy for the Mackinac Center. "When you make unions more accountable to workers, you make a state more attractive to employers. A right-to-work law by itself doesn't guarantee prosperity, but it does seem to help. Allowing workers to decide for themselves whether or not to support a union does attract job-creating businesses, making work easier to find. These numbers bear that out."

Unions may serve a useful purpose in select circumstances, but the evidence heavily supports right to work laws and keeping the workplace open and free, allowing employees to make a decision about joining a union based upon their own personal situation and desires, and without the coercion that will exist if the EFCA becomes law.

That will not only benefit workers, but the economy of individual states and the nation.

Cross-posted from Observations

Illegal Immigration March Slogan Revisions

All over the U.S illegal aliens (aka: immigrants) and their advocates are getting ready to take to the streets today and Tuesday in another series of May Day marches calling for immigration reform. You will note that various socialist labor movements world-wide have celebrations on May 1st , May Day.

Here’s one of their slogans: "Today we march, tomorrow we vote."

Here's the revised slogan:

“Today you all march, tomorrow you all leave!”

¡Usted todo marcha hoy, mañana usted que todo deja!

Here’s an alternate revised slogan:

Today you all march, tomorrow you all return to Mexico!

¡Usted todo marcha hoy, mañana usted toda la vuelta a México!

Here are some more of the May 1st march slogans. Have a little fun revising and sharing these slogans!

Si` se puede, - (Yes, it can be done), Justice for Children of Immigrants, and No Human Being is Illegal.

I could swear that some enterprising bloggers have already created bumper stickers and they are up for sale, but I can’t remember where I saw those blogs. One site had all kinds of innovative ways to use the stickers besides just putting them on the back of bumpers.

More details on the May Day Illegal Immigration March

Illegal immigrants are demanding citizenship, and an immediate end to: planned increases in citizenship fees, guest-worker proposals, arrests and deportations, and increased border policing.

Additionally organizers want an end to the war in Iraq and policies that they say punish the poor.

Some march organizers have told marchers to leave their Mexican flags at tome and to wave only U.S. flags. Additionally, they are not to call for boycotts. On the other hand, other’s have called for a boycott:

“Besides the marches, the national pro-immigrant organizations have called for a Second National Boycott on the first of May that consists of not working, not buying or selling anything, and not going to school. It demonstrates that we are a vital part of this nation's workforce and also displays our economic power.”

Some Hispanics think that last year’s marches didn’t do that much good and might have increased racism. You will note that the lefty MSM reporters usually make the word “racism” synonymous with The Minutemen!

“And the Yakima resident believes racism rippled through the community after groups demanding stricter immigration controls arose for the first time in the area -- organizations like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.”

In Tucson a toothless warning to “stay in school” was issued by the superintendent of Public Instruction, so march organizers are telling parents to request excused absences.

Now this takes the cake!

In Los Angeles another toothless warning to stay in school came from State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. . .

“But Los Angeles school officials, apparently resigned to the fact that some students will ditch class anyway, plan to provide bus service for students hoping to return to class after attending the downtown rally.”

President Bush appealed to graduating college students Saturday for help in persuading Congress to produce an immigration bill, while hundreds of immigrants marched in Houston -- a prelude to nationwide marches and rallies planned for Tuesday.

I’d like to see what a President Fred Thompson would have to say!

Here’s an interesting article about the effect of last year’s marches and an immigration poll you can take today:

The poll results this A.M so far.

What should Congress do?

Pass a bill that beefs up enforcement, allows the estimated 12 million illegal residents to pay fines and earn their way to citizenship – 26%

Pass a bill that beefs up enforcement and deports illegal immigrants already here – 50%

Not pass any new legislation but require the Department of Homeland Security to enforce current immigration laws – 24%

Aside: Now we all know that Google is becoming more and more p.c. If you go to Google news and put in “illegal alien marches,” you won’t get much valid or current info. But if you put in the p.c. “immigration marches, ” – now that gets you to the info you need.

The Truth Smarts. This is from The American Daily on the Communist ACLU illegal immigration ties.

“ . . .Somewhere between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens, many of them dangerous criminals and others, members of known terror organizations, have broken into our not-so-sovereign or secure nation and set down roots illegally. But the ACLU is only concerned with the civil rights of these criminals as if they were legal citizens of the United States and any American not willing to offer full Constitutional benefits to these illegal invaders will be deemed “racists” or “bigots” by the ACLU and their friends in congress and the press.

One need not be a genius to properly interpret the clear intent of the ACLU, which today, remains entirely aligned with the stated goals of its founder Roger Baldwin, and fully engaged in the process (read as progress) of making those goals a reality, one law suit at a time.

For the terminally blind progressive, those goals bear repeating…“I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.” (Founder and long term director of the ACLU, Roger Baldwin.)

The ACLU is the legal arm of the Democratic Socialist Movement running roughshod over America today and there is nothing pro-American about any of it. The ACLU is responsible for making those laws which elected leftists (Democrats) in congress do not yet have the seats to pass into law via the legitimate legislative branch.

“Communism is the goal” and they are well on their way to achieving that goal. If you happen to disagree with their agenda, they will quickly label you a “fascist”. . ."

Join the Stop the ACLU coalition

Others Blogging about the May Day Illegal Immigration March:

Illegal Aliens Must Go, Slapstic Politics, American Conservative Daily

This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal ImmigrationIf you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let us know at what level you would like to participate.

Permalink:
http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/2007/04/illegal-immigration-march-slogan.html

Trackback URL for this entry:
http://haloscan.com/tb/txwise/6165544148672902893

Technorati tags: politics, mexico, illegal immigration, border, news, bush, terrorism, immigrants, congress, border security, economy, immigration, law, jobs, education, workers, employment, immigrants, mexico, liberal, political, democrat, legal, crime, left wing,
ACLU