“This is something I’ve never understood, that people think right to work hurts unions,” Casteel said in February. “To me, it helps them. You don’t have to belong if you don’t want to. So if I go to an organizing drive, I can tell these workers, ‘If you don’t like this arrangement, you don’t have to belong.’ Versus, ‘If we get 50 percent of you, then all of you have to belong, whether you like to or not.’ I don’t even like the way that sounds. Because [Right to Work is] a voluntary system, if you don’t think the system’s earning its keep, then you don’t have to pay.”How many times have I said it? Part of the problem with fair-share compulsion is that, since unions are entitled to the money no matter what, they are not accountable to the membership. Mr. Casteel seems to recognize this, and good on him for doing so.
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
"Fair Share" Supporters Are Just Thugs Who Want To Compel Others
The secretary-treasurer of the UAW is more correct than most u-bots, which is why he makes sense:
On the face of it, his comment makes perfect sense ... but in practice, human nature and selfishness makes it just as practical as communism, and for the same reasons.
ReplyDeleteHe's talking out an orifice not generally associated with speech.
ReplyDeleteTo quote President Lyndon Johnson, when you've got 'em by the balls their hearts and minds will follow. Unions are both built on that tenet and live by it. That's the point of exclusive agency and mandatory membership. Both obviate the need for a mutually beneficial arrangement.
When a union official says the sorts of things Mr. Casteel said he's saying it for public consumption. It has no bearing on how the union carries out its business which the Michigan Education Association exemplifies in its tawdry attempt to block exit from the union by allowing exit only one month a year and then doing their best to obscure that fact. If you're no longer in a position to twist arms then lies come naturally.
Could you imagine if some local pastor got his parishioners, who constituted 55% of the workforce of a local employer, to select their church as their bargaining agent and declared a tithe to be the mandatory union "fair share" fee? Folks would be outraged at the notion that a majority of the employees were forcing the minority to give to a church they didn't want to be a part of.
ReplyDeleteMax,
ReplyDeleteSo basically you shouldn't be free to choose because you might not make the right choice and instead go with what's in your own best interests.
Jerry Doctor, I guess you could characterize it that way, if you like. My real point is unions only work if they are unions ... and as much of a supporter of unions as I am, if you give me the option not to pay to support it, I won't, and lots of others who use common sense will join me. Pretty soon, you have an ineffective union with no power in negotiation. And yes ... my best interests are to rely on a union I choose not to join negotiating better wages and conditions at no cost. That is exactly the problem. If you don't like what your union is doing, run for union rep ... I did that, and I tried to check stupidity for about 5 years.
ReplyDeleteNo Max, unions only work if they're monopolies. Even then they only work for the membership. For the rest of society, the people who have to pay those monopoly wages, the union's response is "I've got mine, screw you".
ReplyDeleteI'm always entertained when a libertarian supports compulsion in my own "best interest".
ReplyDeleteallen, when have I not said that unions only work if they're monopolies? That's the point. It balances the bargaining power between many employees and one employer. Again, it's sound economic theory. In the case of government unions, you have a point, but only because there is no profit incentive for the government not to give away money ...because we keep reelecting them anyway. 'Monopsony' ... do some research.
ReplyDeleteDarren, that's an easy dig to make, but I'm not a pure libertarian. It's closest to my views, but I, for instance, don't favor open borders. Or complete isolationism. My starting point is that government provision and legislation should be used only when economic theory suggests it should be ... and while I'm mostly Libertarian, I'm all economist.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=milton+friedman+unions
ReplyDeleteDarren, you know I love Uncle Milty. And I don't have any really strong disagreement with what he said ... obviously, if you raise wages, fewer workers will be hired ... but that starts from the pure free market assumption that their is competition for laborers, and many laborers seeking that job. If we assume that, well, then yes ... he's entirely right. But note: this piece is so dated that he said 'the number one goal of unions is to improve working conditions." Maybe back then, but not now, and not the economic basis for what is now the number one reason for unions to exist: wages. He's right that skilled people don't really need unions; why does the NBA have one? LeBron could make MUCH more without a union. Unions are based on the premise that the number of employers are few, compared to the vast sea of interchangeable ones. Therefore, they can pay a lesser wage than the market would provide were it a free market. The goal of union is not to extort, but rather to achieve a true market wage. Notably, pilot's unions have significantly negotiated wage DECREASES because they overshot, and realized the market had changed. With public unions? Again, completely right ...but that's the fault of taxpayers who elect foolish politicians. If people paid attention, as, apparently WI voters did, that can change.
ReplyDeleteSorry Max but unions don't balance anything.
ReplyDeleteThere's no balance in a monopoly other then the balance between greed and caution on the part of the monopolist. The monopolist's direct prey, the employer, lives on sufferance dependent on the good sense of the union leadership. That's a pretty thin reed as the recent example of the Hostess company demonstrates but there are whole industries that demonstrate the principle.
Worse then that though, and what you've chosen to carefully ignore, is the damage done by that monopoly to the public at large, to the customer and the economy.
The higher pay that union members get doesn't come from their greater productivity but from their monopoly control of the market. That means that all the customers of the employer of the union are impoverished to the degree that union members are enriched. A product of a unionized shop isn't one whit better then the product of a non-unionized shop but it is more expensive.
That's why unions are avid supporters of tariffs and other way of excluding competition. They have nothing to offer either the employer or society so have to try to arrange things so that people can't make choices the union doesn't like. For the employer that means state and federal laws which give the union a legal, if not ethical, monopoly on labor with all that implies. For the public that means tariffs and other trade restrictions and when we get tired of paying more for union products no better then non-union products and dismantle the tariffs we find out that buying union is the patriotic thing to do.
I never understood the saying that "patriotism is the final refuge of the scoundrel" until someone told me that real Americans buy American. Now it's pretty damned clear who the scoundrels are so it's achingly gratifying to see those scoundrels being pushed ever backward into a smaller and smaller corner. With luck I'll live to see their end.
Max--you make my point for me by saying that people in Wisconsin changed *what was obviously wrong*.
ReplyDeleteYou made a distinction about public sector unions, which are the unions we talk about 99% of the time on this blog.
And how you can claim that unions work towards a "market" wage is beyond me. You may as well say the sky is orange, we're that far apart on the topic.
It's beyond you because you continue not to read about it.
ReplyDeleteAnd ... I also pointed out that that can be fixed by electing better negotiators. School Board have to be elected, and also have to approve contracts. Californians are notorious for giving away other people's money, but it needn't be that way. You benefit from this largesse without being a member.
ReplyDeleteIt's beyond me because it's stupid to think I couldn't negotiate more as a math teacher than a 3rd grade teacher.
ReplyDeleteGiven that, I don't see this "largesse" of which you speak. You clearly have union blinders on and no longer can imagine a world without them, even though the *vast* majority of Americans live without them.
Yeah max and if I had some ham I could make ham and eggs if I had some eggs.
ReplyDeleteSchool board elections are notoriously thinly attended and that's not by accident. Special interest groups have a lot to gain by keeping public attendance low and one of those special interest groups are school board incumbents.
The union certainly has no interest in electing better negotiators and not uncommonly runs candidates who are functionally incapable of find any fault in a union. You don't have to imagine the sorts of contracts they'd "negotiate" for, they're part of educational landscape.
If you remember, when I was union rep, I suggested forming a separate union of math and science teachers. Or a stipend for hard to fill slots.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that suggestion went over real well with the local's leadership.
ReplyDeletecome come, now allen... you KNOW that didn't happen. But I goddamn tried. The people who stood to gain said they were with me, but sure didn't vote that way.
ReplyDelete