I’m drawn towards your latter solution. Let’s Diana Moon Glampers the shit out of 'em. Even just briefly.
I hope we’re starting to see the beginning of that. Whether they are undervalued or not.
Collective bargaining is weird. It protects the people in the collective but harms those outside of it. It changes the situation from one of “X work is worth Y dollars” to a blackmail situation of “we’ll all quit at once”. It lands on similar ethical grounds to the wage-fixing of silicon valley that affected over a million employees. Both are anti-competitive.
I think as a society we have serious opportunities when it comes to figuring out transfer of labor, etc. Capitalism seems to struggle as it naturally exacerbates wealth disparity, which enables the wealthy in a democracy to manipulate the system to their own ends. Ultimately, you end up with an oligarchy.
Who is his employer? Has he signed a contract someone that requires him to pay this money? Does he get a paycheck? You cannot compare what an independent contractor or self-employed proprietor does to what an employer that must obey labor laws does. Those who own their own businesses often work long hours and don’t take any wages. That doesn’t mean that Wal-Mart can treat its workers the same way.[quote=“nox, post:81, topic:32156, full:true”]
They. Can. Quit.
You would rather deny them the opportunity to do something they want?
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Formally speaking, everyone can quit. That’s not an excuse for failing to follow labor laws.
Nobody in life is guaranteed the opportunity to do something they want. I want to punch my boss in the face sometimes. The law doesn’t let me do that. I’d like to sell one of my kidneys, but the law doesn’t let me do that, either. Id like to drive really fast like I can in Germany, but the law says no to that, too. Laws that work for the benefit of society almost always place limitations on things some of us might otherwise like to do.[quote=“nox, post:85, topic:32156”]
Collective bargaining is weird. It protects the people in the collective but harms those outside of it. It changes the situation from one of “X work is worth Y dollars” to a blackmail situation of “we’ll all quit at once”.
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The negotiations are never about x work being worth y dollars, but about how cheaply you can replace z worker. In fact, there’s no such thing as “X work is worth Y dollars,” at least not in the sense you’re using it. There may be productivity per hour, but this says nothing about how much workers will be paid. Maybe one hour of work adds $100 in value to the company. The employer would like to pay as little as possible and keep the gains of trade for himself, while the workers would like to see as much of the gains as possible. If the employer can pay $10, then he gets to keep the other $90 in productivity gains, while if the worker gets $90 then the employer only gets to keep $10. Any accepted contract between labour and the employer is beneficial (and could be anywhere between minimum wage and $100), with the actual wage being paid determining who gains the most… but there’s no straightforward situation where x work is worth y dollars, as though this will dictate “fair” pay.
Collective bargaining attempts to rebalance the system to how it might have existed hundreds of years ago. Think of auto manufacturing. Three big three might employ (or have employed) hundreds of thousands of workers at any given time. Auto workers thus have three employers to chose from, while the employers have hundreds of thousands to chose from. The manufacturers could turn down hundreds of employees who ask for too much, but employees could only turn down two offers. Collective bargaining essentially brings parity in the number of workers and employers, as would have been more typical in historical times when there was more theoretical bargaining equality.
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One day left until this thread locks.
Why not? Why the double standard?
I read your third part a few times. Perhaps I confused you. Let’s try again.
I had two main points:
- Unions threaten employers with coordinated shutdowns rather than ‘fair pay for work’.
- Unions protect members and harm outsiders
Ever met someone who wanted/tried to become a longshoreman? Where I live, you need a relative in the business. They will not allow a different capable person to do the work. How is that fair?
You cant compare self-employed people with employees because self-employed people own their business and will profit from any long-term upside that results from their conscious decision to work for less than minimum wage. Indeed, this is why they work for so little. Individual Wal-Mart employees do not benefit from their wage sacrifices: that would be upper management and shareholders who benefit.[quote=“nox, post:87, topic:32156”]
I read your third part a few times. Perhaps I confused you. Let’s try again.
I had two main points:1. Unions threaten employers with coordinated shutdowns rather than ‘fair pay for work’.
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I didn’t attempt to address your second point, but was simply pointing out that there is no such thing as “fair pay for work”. If the employer accepts any union demand (as they usually do after a strike), you can be sure that they are still making a profit despite acceding to those union demands. Is it “unfair” for union employees to make these wages that still allow for corporate profit? Or is it only fair to these poor corporations when they are able to pay as little as possible?
You might also want to consider whether corporations protect themselves and harm outsiders, or not. Do corporations make it as easy as possible for competitors to enter the market and challenge them? Is this an argument against corporations, or only against unions?
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That is quite valid, and in both cases market forces should correct appropriately. Wal-mart will have to pay enough to have someone come off the street, and the self-employed will work for little pay for the hopes of a brighter future. Like interns. Our current system has problems, but we can’t even address those because we can’t have a discussion.
That’s great, but it is irrelevant to the points I raised. We have clear problems with how we distribute and reward effort, but we’re not going to make much headway on those if we can’t raise your current level of thinking and have one discussion where we actually listen and respond to each other.
I’ll give it a shot. I’m sorry, it won’t be pretty. I’ve tried my best already. Some foundations in logic may help you.
I work for a large-cap multinational company. We have a mixed union and contractor workforce. For much of our work, we price down to the unit. I avoided talking about butts filling seats as that’s far less important to an organization than actual work getting done; in fact entire departments have been replaced with systems and automation.
Freelancers, consultants, doctors, plumbers, teachers. We price work. Whether it’s fair or not is an entirely different issue.
It is unfair to the unemployed, as I stated, if the union prevents them from attaining employment.
Corporations behaving poorly doesn’t give us the moral authority to behave poorly as well. We can change things, not only for our selfish selves, but for everyone. To get there, we need to raise our awareness.
Appeal to tradition and likely an incorrect one at that. Given peasant revolts and slavery, I very much doubt the worker employer labor transfer system was in better shape historically.
No, the self-employed don’t simply work for “a brighter future” in the same way interns do. The self-employed are building equity (in addition the to the skills and experience that interns are limited to) in a way that interns simply aren’t.
Edit: I’ll also add that in order for unpaid interns in the private sector to be legal, the internship has to be for the benefit of the intern, and the employer should derive no immediate benefit from the internship. [quote=“nox, post:89, topic:32156”]
That’s great, but it is irrelevant to the points I raised.
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Pointing out that there’s no such thing as an objectively fair price for work isn’t irrelevant when you’ve repeatedly made the point that unions interfere with some sort of objective calculus that “X work is worth Y dollars,” and even talked about how unions interfere with the concept of “fair pay for work.”
Sure, you price work. But you determine the minimum that you can get the work done for, which is different than what the work is actually worth.
And corporations are unfair to the employed if they interfere with them from making as much as they bring to the company.
That’s fair enough, to the extent that there have historically been great disparities in bargaining power (though peasant revolts and slavery have not featured as prominently in the industrial sectors like manufacturing that are currently unionized). But despite that, its true that the tremendous size and market concentration/monopolistic tendencies of modern corporations adds a layer of bargaining inequality that has not historically existed.
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