Ed Huntress wrote:
"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
. net...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
s.net...

snip

I worked as a machinist/toolmaker for most of my productive life, and
realize, all too well, the degree of skill and experience that one must
have to be qualified for the job. These people are worth money, but
when they demand wages in keeping with what a well educated doctor used
to make, it's time to get a reality check. That, or lose their jobs,
as it turns out, is how it's shaking out. Who's fault is it?

Harold

Don't get too upset with them, Harold. It's because of them that you were
able to make a living. Unions pushed the whole scale up to new heights
for all people who work, except for white-collar workers, for nearly a
century. And probably for most white-collar workers, too, indirectly.

The trendline without them would have had you scratching for a living.
That's the way it was going before unions really caught hold and there
really is nothing in the historical record to suggest it would have
changed.

Now, their work is mostly done, but not completely. I think of them as a
useful annoyance that tend to accelerate a lot of problems that were
going to hell anyway. They've been self-destructing in recent decades but
what they leave in their wake is an expectation that a good worker should
be able to live somewhere in the middle class. That wasn't the case early
in the last century.

--
Ed Huntress


Thanks, Ed. I can always count on you to give me food for thought.

Truth is, I do realize how much good they did----it's just that the
monkeys are now running the zoo, with the real purpose being lost. Like
any good thing, once the crooks figure out there's a free ride, they're in
on the action, and those that still believe there's a free lunch are
inclined to follow.

It's a damned shame that what was once a noble thing has turned into a
dreadful anchor on humanity. As you suggested, however, it appears to be
resolving itself quite nicely.

My early years in the shop, in Utah, were a direct result of unions, or
at least their threat. Thanks to the horrible union problems of the mid
50's, at least on the east coast, Sperry sought a right to work state
where they might found a new business, for development and production of
the Sergeant Missile. They settled on Utah as their choice, and paid
wages that were no less than union scale, with great benefits. The only
problems I can recall, and I was there for 7-1/2 years, were those that
you might encounter anywhere----those with personalities. The company was
more than fair minded, and, as it turns out, was the best employer I was
to have in my limited time working for industry as an employee. It was
clear to the vast majority of workers that a union would serve no good
purpose, and would likely undermine the decent relationship we had with
management.

Harold


It looks to me like you recognize the ups and downs, 'though I hope you
realize that the reason Sperry was able to pay you good wages was because
the general wages of industry -- and particularly of their competitors, if
that applies in this case -- had been driven up to those levels by the
unions. They created the expectation, and they also created the competitive
situation in which a non-union employer could afford to pay good wages. This
effect was carried to extremes by the car industry. It had the added feature
of being an oligopoly, so the car makers almost didn't care what they paid
as long as their few competitors had to pay the same wages. Everybody got
loaded, both the companies and the workers.

Today, I think they're mostly an anachronism. But it remains to be seen if
they will play any role in driving up wages in low-wage countries, like
China. It appears to me they already have. If our dollar keeps declining and
Europe becomes a more important market for China, I'll bet that the effect
of Europe's unions will be much stronger than ours at indirectly driving up
Chinese wages. Then our conservative economists, such as Milton Friedman,
will finally be vindicated. We'll have something closer to cost equilibrium
and therefore something closer to fair trade.

Without unions we'd still wind up with cost equilibrium. But the equilibrium
would be just enough to keep you in steamed rice and bicycles.

--
Ed Huntress



The unions just killed another one today. In Newton, Iowa (I think) the
Maytag plant that had been there forever and was the heart of the town,
colsed and moved to a non-union place in Ohio. The plant, according to
the news, employed one in four residents of the small town. Now they
have to scramble to find other employment.

Jim Chandler