I’ve declared many times on TTAC that I’m a bit of what you folks across the pond would call a liberal. I believe people should have a baseline in terms of living standards, but people should still work for the better things in life. The state should be there to help people, not sustain them. My point is that when an entity gets too much power (or THINKS it has) then the balance of power is shifted and seldom ever for the better. Everything is good is moderation. I feel the same way about Unions. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not anti-union. Unions have done a lot of good for the common working person. They fought for better working environments, better pay, better job security, etc. It is impossible to deny the good they’ve done. But like Harvey Dent said in “The Dark Knight”, “You can either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain”. And unfortunately, this article doesn’t exactly show unions in a good light.
The Workday Minnesota reports that Ford workers at the Twin Cities Assembly plant in St.Paul demand to know why Toyota closed NUMMI. You will rightly interject: “Wasn’t that because GM went bankrupt and used Chapter 11 to rid themselves of their share of NUMMI, leaving Toyota to hold the bag for the whole joint venture?”
The good folks at Ford’s Twin Cities Assembly Plant have a different version. They believe, NUMMI was closed because NUMMI was unionized and they want Toyota to fess up. The first of their protests consisted of Ford workers holding signs up saying “Honk 4 People B4 Profits” at an intersection of Beam Avenue and Highway 61. Now they’re bringing out the big guns. “We’re going to be taking these types of actions all over the Twin Cities area, hitting different dealerships throughout the area, just getting the message out that Toyota has some poor business practices,” said David Perkins, a worker at the Ranger plant in Highland Park and a member of United Auto Workers Local 879. (They might want to get better signs. Simply “People B4 Profits” is kind of generic – wouldn’t you agree? And they should make them legible so that motorists can read them without undue driver distraction.)
“Toyota is the only (auto) manufacturer in the United States that is non-union, but that’s kind of hypocritical because in Japan they are union. For whatever reason – well, for profit reasons, for money-driven reasons – they choose to have non-union manufacturers here in the United States. That puts American manufacturers at a distinct disadvantage.”
The article also mentions that “Toyota also has a poor record when it comes to product safety, the Auto Workers said. The company is facing a $16.4 million fine from the federal government for failing to disclose problems with its cars’ accelerator pedals to the public.” Maybe the author should read a little bit of TTAC to see that there’s a little more to this circus than meets they eye?
The article then finishes off with a quote which kind of summed up the whole affair. “When we buy foreign cars it takes money away from America,” said Sylvia Rutledge, another Ranger Plant employee. “We should always, always support America – not just with cars, with anything. Always buy American.” Really, Miss Rutledge? Are you asking your fellow Americans to boycott the Ford Fusion? Or the Cadillac SRX? The Chevrolet Impala? The Ford Fiesta? The Chevrolet Aveo? The Chevrolet Equinox? Let me tell you, blindly following America can get you into a lot of trouble. Just ask Tony Blair.
I have no issue with purchasing American made products. However, there are usually lots of different companies involved in any given product. Therefore, even if the finished product is ‘made in America’ materials that comprise the overall product may come from overseas. Just my humble opinion about a tiny portion of the overall article.
What pains the most about this article is who wrote it. It was Michael Moore. A man whose work I greatly admire, but I fail to understand why he doesn’t cast an equally critical eye over unions.
I am very confused by this paragraph.
Why would the editor of something called The Union Advocate ever look to write something critical of unions unless he was interested in finding a new job?
Also, what work of Michael Moore’s do you greatly admire? He seems to just be a St. Paul newspaper reporter and union backer.
Honda is also HYPER-ALLERGIC to unions.
Hence its success.
Honda’s Japanese workforce is unionized. The problem is the labour climate in North America, and that’s largely the result of American corporations pissing in labour’s proverbial cornflakes.
Or, in other words, you get the union you expect. Cooperative labour/management relationships work reasonably well; adversarial ones are problematic. North America has very, very little experience with the cooperative model because, quite frankly, management acted like d_____bags from the get-go.
Unions in Japan are completely different from their U.S. counterparts. They are more like company unions, which were banned in this country by the Wagner Act in the 1930s.
Interestingly, Honda almost recognized the UAW at its North American plants in the 1980s. Only a last-minute effort by key plant managers prevented this from happening.
Honda’s Japanese management later thanked them for doing this, even though it went against the directive of Honda’s top management.
This is chronicled in Paul Ingrassia’s excellent new book, Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road From Glory to Disaster. I recommend it for anyone who wants to get a basic understanding of how GM, Ford and Chrysler reached this point.
The most bizarre part of unions to me is that those in the auto industry became so strong. Unlike the garment industry–where people were literally being locked into small rooms they could not escape in a fire–employees for the auto companies were treated very well. The emergence of the entire U.S. middle class, in fact, owes a great deal to Henry Ford’s deciding his employees should be able to afford what they were building. Even now, I suspect that Toyota’s employees in the U.S. are treated and compensated fairly well.
I also agree that unions are responsible for helping a great number people be treated humanely. However, when their leaders lose site of reason and logic, things become ridiculously absurd and sad quickly. Just like this.
Growing up in a non-Union Detroit family, I heard that the 5$/day deal was Mr. Ford’s way of countering the grind-like conditions of the moving assy. line, lowering the related turn-over and the attendent costs of hiring, training, and inexperience-related quality problems. It also allowed him to think he could intrude into and control aspects of employee’s personal lives.
I also think that if the pay and conditions in the auto plants, had they been good, in relation to the profits being racked-up by the manufacturers, there would have been very little motive force to sustain a unionization movement.
If Michael Moore wrote this article, that’s pretty sad. I like his work and I appreciate his opinions.
“The Workday Minnesota reports that Ford workers at the Twin Cities Assembly plant in St.Paul demand to know why Toyota closed NUMMI”
If there is an American company I really want to survive, that’s Ford. This quote shows that even if they did a tremendous work after Mullaly came on board, there are many still living in silos who didn’t see the light of reality. And they are doing a great disservice to their own company.
“just getting the message out that Toyota has some poor business practices”
The fact that Ford is near bankruptcy proves that they have even poorer business practices. Too bad WAU doesn’t understand the notion ‘priorities’.
Completely off topic: Domnule Rosca, link-ul catre site-ul dumneavoastra nu functioneaza. Ati uitat sa audaugati “.com”..
On topic: Why should any particular company deserve to survive for anything other than its own merits (fan worship included)? What, is Ford too big to fail too?
Ford is not too big to fail. If all Detroit 3 will survive, Ford will be the only one to do it on its own merits. I believe $65b would have been much better spent in keeping the teachers in schools and schools open all around the country.
Off topic: multumesc pt. info, corectie facuta
I fail to see how unions “become a villain” here.
Unions created America’s middle class. And, yes, unions keep fighting “for the common working person, [ie] better working environments, better pay, better job security, etc.” On the contrary, it’s laissez-faire capitalism, which is just another word for pure, unrestricted greed, that had led GM to Chapter 11. It is, again, laissez-faire capitalism that is at the root of Toyota’s recall trouble.
Now, what’s the unions’ villainous role in all of this?
The unions did NOT create the middle class.
This is insanity and should stop.
Unions certainly helped in its growth.
OK.
Good.
Now please accept the fact that they did evil things as well.
Not all, but the big ones did. They were crime ridden and anti-individual.
They are like many movements, eventually concerned with their own growth and power than of original dreams and beginnings.
If you cannot understand and accept this, we will be doomed to hearing such repeated posterboard nonesense.
None of the transplant factories in the US are unionized. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, etc. all have non-union US factories.
Mitsubishi’s Normal, IL plant is unionized. As is the Mazda/Ford joint plant in Flat Rock, MI. Interesting that the UAW does next to nothing to promote this.
I’m pretty sure this is not the Michael Moore you’re looking for. Why would he care about a non-story in Minnesota?
“It was Michael Moore. A man whose work I greatly admire, but I fail to understand why he doesn’t cast an equally critical eye over unions.”
The Michael Moore who writes for “The Union Advocate” and wrote the linked article is not the much more famous Michael Moore of “Roger and Me”, “Sicko”, etc. fame. Same name, different people.
I would hazard to guess there are a couple thousand people in the US named Michael Moore.
If that is the case, then that would make me a very happy person.
The problem is I know Michael Moore of the “Sicko” fame is pro-union and isn’t very critical of them. If that is the case, then I apologise for the mix up.
Doesn’t stop the rest being true.
Yup, totally different. As are Michael Moore, VP of the Reason Foundation, and Michael Moore, Manager of Playgirl.
Regarding the signs and protesters … is it possible that Toyota is just a straw-man for the Fact that Ford is going to close Twin Cities, and if the Ranger is replaced, it will likely be produced and imported from a non-US-located Ford plant?
Kinda like trying to criticize one’s employer, without actually saying its name (until, at least, the plant officially closes – for fear that there may just be a glimmer that the plant will get a reprieve)?
All things in moderation, including moderation.
I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. If anyone wants to discuss unions, call me.
If the UAW is truly concerned with the plight of the workers in the automobile industry, they should follow the jobs. There’s plenty of opportunity to organize workers in other countries too. As it is, they seem chauvinistic with their concern focused on “American” jobs. Workers are workers, correct?
Well good job Toyota then for screwing the UAW at NUMMI.
I boycott anything UAW, so I would have never purchased one of the Toyota’s built there.
This should be great P.R. for Toyota. Finally a company with some spine to stand up to those criminal union thugs.
The folks at the non-union plants receive comparable pay and benefits (and often the pay is based upon whatever the UAW negotiates with the other automakers) to those of unionized plants and their companies do just fine. In fact, Subaru in Indiana starts at $15 or so an hour on the line but you pay nothing for medical benefits once you’re full-time with Subaru (a lot of jobs start off as temps there, even some office positions). Toyota in Japan is unionized, as are just about every other maker and country. The unions are not to blame for the woes of any industry, it’s management. It is management’s decisions that shape a company, and they entered into agreements with the unions but didn’t bother giving them good things to build and it eventually caught up to them. The guy on the line is not to blame for the poor design/material/whatever of the vehicle he’s putting together, management is.
While I certainly understand a hatred of the UAW, having had a father at GM management for 30+ years, I recognize that it all starts with management. Also, you should (if you’ve never done so) go visit a plant and maybe talk with some of the line workers. Read “Rivethead” to see what life was like in the 70s and 80s for one guy. It is a crappy job and without decent pay the total costs would rise due to turnover and training, as Henry Ford recognized early on.
Being said, the attitude of many union workers is quite repulsive, but I see the same entitlement and laziness in the non-union and management ranks elsewhere. It’s more of an American, or even just human, condition than merely being a member of a union. Being said, I’d love it if engineers had the job security of the people we design products for.
EDIT:
Oh, and if you didn’t know about this page: http://www.uaw.org/node/88
That will ensure you can boycott anything UAW.
Here’s the reason to boycott UAW goods.
http://libcom.org/library/lordstown-struggle-ken-weller
You’ll say that this is ancient history, but the attitude never changed.
Even when non-union plants pay comparable hourly wages, non-union plants get 2 major advantages by avoiding the UAW: work rule flexibility and defined contribution 401(k) retirement instead of defined benefit pension plans. Unions appear to suck the life out of companies with inefficient work rules that have many workers not working at any given moment and inefficient benefits that flow through union middlemen instead of directly to workers.
Drove by the original “transplant” Honda Accord plant in Marysville, OH last week. Interesting to see how rural it’s plant location is. All fields and forest for miles. The pattern appears to be that closed union plants in cities rarely reopen and new plants are built well away from locations with strong union influence.
This orginal Plant was GM and Toyota, when GM went bankrupt? Old GM took over NUMMI and decided to get rid of it, so what did you expect Toyota to do? All these workers at NUMMI got a lot of money when they separated, I don’t think that GM wanted anymore to do with the Nummi operation either.
This is just another decision that the UAW started to discredit Toyota! If they where in a Union say here in Canada, this would not be happening, as I have said before This Union has done more to discredit all other Unions in North America, the same goes for the CAW here too, they are not a democratic organiation and everything comes from the Top down instead of from the “grass roots” of ordinary workers!
This plant had been completely owned by GM prior to the joint venture. GM was on the verge of shutting it down in the ealy 1980s, but decided to see if using Toyota management practices and production techniques could save it. Hence, the joint venture with Toyota, launched by none other than the hated, and now dead, Roger Smith. The goal was for GM to learn Toyota’s secret production and management methods, and apply them to other plants in the GM empire.
The vehicles produced were of high quality, but GM was very reluctant to apply what it had learned at this plant to its other plants.
The need for unions today is gone with the global competition and auto makers who are successfully building cars in the US (yet treating their employees well). Union is just a relic of greed and mediocrity.
Cogent article until this:
“Let me tell you, blindly following America can get you into a lot of trouble. Just ask Tony Blair.”
Blindly?
Tony Blair seems to be a thoughtful and contemplative person even if he reaches conclusions I don’t agree with.
Agreed.
I’ve always been happy buying American made…except this time it was a Subaru.
If Toyota left NUMMI because of unions, then why did it take them 25 years to do it?
Bottom line. If you think your missing out on money that is going to the owners, ie. stockholders… Buy some stock.
I think you forgot about the fact that many people do not have the resources to gamble on stocks.
“I’ve declared many times on TTAC that I’m a bit of what you folks across the pond would call a liberal.”
From the description of your views it sounds like you may be what we on the west side of the pond call a conservative, or a moderate with some rightward leanings. Unless by “across the pond” you meant Europe, where they still use “liberal” in its more classical, age of enlightment sense.
This administration is desparate to organize the foreign auto manufactureres. First it’s payback for the UAW’s election help, but more importantly it’s to ease the competitve pressures on the two auto manufacturers it owns.
The organized NUMMI plant was a Trojan horse for Toyota, with the potential that representation rights would be mandated to carry over to their other US plants.
I don’t think it was coincidental that the NTSB unintended acceleration brooha came out just before Toyota’s closure of the NUMMI plant. The piling on by the administration was shameless, with Ray LaHood telling Toyta owners not to drive them. It appeared to be a pressure tactic to make Toyota change its mind.
The Ford union tactic is just one more step down that road.
By law (as I understand it), if employees at any company so desire, they are always free to unionize. The employer may do what it can to resist this, but they cannot fire people because they decide to unionize.
So, if transplant factories remain non-union, it is because the workers, not the manufacturers, have made it so. Of course, manufacturers can help to insure a non-union workplace by offering competitive wages and benefits, which is what the transplants have done.
It’s not simply the unions that got Detroit but the general lack of socialism in America. In “socialist” Germany for example, things like health care and pensions are administered at least tightly regulated by the state. This helps to level the playing field between companies. It also allows them to downsize if necessary, without getting stuck with outsized bills to pay for gazillions of retirees from their previous, bigger times.
Socialism also helps to give people the education that they are fit for, as opposed to the one they can pay for. Generally speaking, socialism makes capitalism work better.
German companies have been moving production away from Germany. VW has regularly imported cars from Mexico and Brazil to sell in the U.S. to remain at least reasonably competitive on price, and is looking to built a plant here that will manufacture a Camry-Accord-Fusion competitor.
Both Daimler-Benz and BMW opened plants here to enjoy lower production costs for certain vehicles, and Daimler fought tooth-and-nail when it owned Chrysler to keep the UAW out of its Alabama plant. (For that matter, Daimler sucked a large amount of cash out of Chrysler to stay afloat.)
When I visited Germany in the summer of 2004, the big news was that Daimler was demanding concessions on benefits and work rules from its German workers. VW was threatening to move production of key products from Germany if it also didn’t receive concessions.
The simple fact is that uncompetitive cost structures will kill a car company in the long run, and “socialism” in any form can’t prevent that dynamic from working.
@ Geeber
“The simple fact is that uncompetitive cost structures will kill a car company in the long run, and ‘socialism’ in any form can’t prevent that dynamic from working.”
Agreed. However, what made the cost structures of GM and Chrysler so particularly uncompetitive were the obligations to the retirees. Bankruptcy was mostly a scheme to get rid of those. So much easier if those costs are not the responsibility of the company to begin with.
Your other points seem unrelated.
Dr. Strangelove: Agreed. However, what made the cost structures of GM and Chrysler so particularly uncompetitive were the obligations to the retirees. Bankruptcy was mostly a scheme to get rid of those. So much easier if those costs are not the responsibility of the company to begin with.
Except that there was nothing in any law that prevented the companies and the UAW from renegotiating those obligations to make them less onerous.
The main obstacle, of course, was that the UAW refused to do that, and the companies were not willing to risk a strike over this issue. The problem is not that the U.S. lacks enough “socialism” to keep companies in business, but that the UAW doesn’t want to take the difficult steps necessary to keep its employers solvent, and management wasn’t willing to force the point, preferring to believe in pie-in-the-sky sales projections that would produce enough revenue to pay those wages and benefits.
Note, for example, that the U.S. has “socialized medicine” for the elderly – Medicare. If the UAW wanted to put its money where its mouth is, it could simply require all retired UAW members to rely on Medicare for their health care. But since Medicare is not as generous as the current negotiated plans, the UAW refused to do so. Also note that the UAW lobbied against the tax on the so-called “Cadillac” plans to pay for the recent health care overhaul.
Also note that the quasi-bankruptcy that GM and Chrysler went through did not completely absolve the companies of sending retirees pension checks or paying for their health care (they still must fund the VEBA, for example).
Dr. Strangelove: Your other points seem unrelated.
If socialism is supposedly helping German car companies to succeed, then why are they moving production to lower-cost locations, and why are they seeking concessions to lower costs within Germany?
@ geeber
I think in so many words you a proving my point here. Medicare isn’t good enough, so the unions insisted on their previously won concessions to be abided by, thereby killing the goose laying the golden eggs. If there had been no golden eggs to begin with, these problems would not have arisen.
Re job relocation from Germany: When I said that “socialism” makes capitalism work better, I didn’t mean to say that it’s a panacea. Of course it doesn’t remove the need to cope with international competition, so I don’t see your point here.
You also have to remember that GM more than any other entity was responsible for blocking a national pension system.
1971 – 30 and out, it was over at that point, Ford and ChryCo had no other option but to follow, a long strike for them and at that time GM would have just swallowed thier business/market share.
***
1989 – Law passed requiring companies to recognize long term health care obligations on thier balance sheet (GM’s one time charge $30 billion, immediatly placing them in violation of all debt covenents. That was GM’s last chance to fix things (in terms of labor cost structure), instead they spent the next 20 years selling all of the assets that kept them out of BK in the first place (EDS, Hughes, EM, GMAC) for $60 billion or so (all of these funds went to trying to close the underfunded pension gap). At this point any major strike or work stoppage would have pushed GM into BK, so they could no longer take that rode, all they could do was hope to make it to the 2020’s when enough of the retiree’s from the good ole days would have died to make them cost competitive again, requiring things like an ever growing market 16m+ and all of the high interest AAA assets that thier pensions were invested in performing (remember all CDO’s and such were AAA rated)
***In between these two dates Ford had significantly restructured before the “even if you don’t work, you get paid contracts”, this is a big reason ford survived
Dr. Strangelove: I think in so many words you a proving my point here. Medicare isn’t good enough, so the unions insisted on their previously won concessions to be abided by, thereby killing the goose laying the golden eggs.
You are confusing the intransigence of the UAW and unwillingness of management to force the issue with the need for more government intervention (in the form of government-provided pensions and health care).
You apparently believe that there are only two choices here – the current level of wages and benefits, provided solely by the companies, or having the government entirely assume these costs.
This ignores three problems with this approach:
One, there is a third path – renegotiate the contracts to make them much less onerous. The problem, of course, is that the UAW stoutly resists this option, and management has been unwilling to risk the strike necessary to make it happen. The fact that the union and management resist this option does not mean it is not a viable approach.
Please note, for example, that Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes succesfully build vehicles in this country without relying on government-provided benefits for active employees. They do allow retirees to rely on Medicare, but the UAW has turned up its nose at this option.
Two, Medicare is basically broke, and the national health care systems in other countries face serious financial strains, too. (The French system often pointed out as a potential model for the U.S. to follow is already in the hole for $14 billion, and the amount keeps climbing.)
Having the federal government assume EVERYONE’S health care costs will not lead to a financially stronger Medicare plan.
Three, someone still has to pay for government-provided health care through taxes. If it is so much more cost-effective to operate a plant in a nation where the government assumes all of these costs, then one wonders why Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes built plants here in the first place (or didn’t locate their North American plants in Canada).
Probably because the costs – via taxes paid by said corporations – outweigh the supposed benefits. Unless, of course, the corporation received tax breaks to locate in the area in the first place.
Dr. Strangelove: If there had been no golden eggs to begin with, these problems would not have arisen.
That’s an argument for management holding the line at the bargaining table, not instituting government-provided health care and pensions.
Dr. Strangelove: Re job relocation from Germany: When I said that “socialism” makes capitalism work better, I didn’t mean to say that it’s a panacea. Of course it doesn’t remove the need to cope with international competition, so I don’t see your point here.
You originally posted this:
In “socialist” Germany for example, things like health care and pensions are administered at least tightly regulated by the state. This helps to level the playing field between companies. It also allows them to downsize if necessary, without getting stuck with outsized bills to pay for gazillions of retirees from their previous, bigger times.
Having health care and pensions administered by the state may level the playing field between companies within Germany. When GM and Chrysler were still largely only competing with Ford and AMC and each other, they were quite profitable, too, and without government providing everyone health care and pensions. But they now face international competition.
Now, international competition is forcing Germans firms to locate more production outside of Germany (where pensions and health care are NOT necessarily provided by the local government) and seek concessions from their German workers. In the long run, government-provided health care and pensions must be paid for via taxes on companies and individuals, and if competitors take advantage of lower-cost areas to locate production facilities, the Germans will either have to compete (which they are attempting to do) or write off certain markets (as the French and Italians have basically done with the U.S.).
And I would dispute the contention that Germany’s pension and health care plans make it easier for companies to shed jobs.
There has been strong opposition to any attempt by automakers to shed jobs in Germany – look at what is happening at Opel. (My cousin works there, so I’ve got a good idea of the tremendous resistance to any attempt to shed any jobs in Opel’s German operations.)
My understanding is that NUMMI’s production was atleast 85% Toyota before GM pulled out of it. I don’t think Toyota pulled out of NUMMI just because GM pulled out of it. I believe they pulled out because of the cost of running this plant which is higher because it is union. GM’s pullout was basically an excuse to get rid of it. That being said, I am pretty anti-union and fully understand why Toyota got out while the getting was good.
I understood that the arrangment was that the plant and workers were GM’s and toyota just leased the capacity and managed the plant. If this is correct then they had no obligation to begin with. And I think those workers need to understand that if not for toyota NUMMI would have never been reopened, yes the workers would have been paid for years, but they also would have been required to show up everyday and just sit there (the federal government did this to senior level people in the 80’s, couldn’t fire them so they warehoused them, the suicide rate was astronomical).
Ms. Corrigan does not mention (but “The Workday Minnesota” does) that Beam and 61 is the intersection where Maplewood Toyota, a very large Toyota dealer, is located.
It could be that a supplemental reason for this activity is to discourage sales of Tacomas in favor of Rangers. Ford has been threatening to close the Twin Cities’ Ford Plant, where Rangers are built, for some years. The local politicians are currently working on offering additional benefits to Ford to keep the plant open.
So if you anti-union, and I believe as well that the unions, in current form, have gotten old, how do you propose workers gain things like a standard of living? You don’t support people living off the gov’t. Then how do you propose society generate the things it needs to provide a standard of living?
I think when you make comments like “living off the gov’t” you show you fail to understand the purpose of gov’t. If people don’t use gov’t to come together to decide how they want their society to function, then what other means do you propose we use? Because, in some basic functions, all of us “live off the gov’t”. We depend upon the gov’t to have and enforce laws, pick up our trash, police our streets, put out fires, etc. The founders created the system we have so that the gov’t would be subservient to the people it governs; not to make it hollowed shell of an institution that serves no basic purposes.
People moved into the middle class before there was a union movement. The idea that unions created the middle class is a myth and nothing more.
The reason unions did well in the post-World War II era is because American industry faced no real competition. If a union has organized every company in a sector (tires, autos, steel, etc.), it can simply negotiate wage and benefits increases and have the company pass them on to customers. This is the way it worked in the 1950s and 1960s. But when non-union competitors enter the picture, this dynamic stops working. This is what has happened in the auto industry, with the arrival of the non-unionized transplant operations of Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai in the U.S.
I love the false choices presented here – either join a union, or live on welfare.
And please note that there is a difference between government providing basic services – fire protection, police, schools, mail delivery and libraries – and expecting a check every month from the government to meet basic living expenses.
geeber,
To be truthful, unions did help with the emergence of the middle class in most western nations, but you have to set the bar back about forty or fifty years to early days of the industrial revolution.
You’re right that it’s not an either/or choice of union or indentured servitude, but I would point out that unions and guilds are one of the few ways that the lower and middle classes can collectively balance the scales against the upper classes, and that doing so did indeed foster further enabling and growth in the middle class. That growth would have been much, much slower without organized labour.
It’s also worth noting that the decline in organized labour’s reach tracks very neatly with a similar stagnation in median wage, and that while median wage is effectively static, GDP and (most notably) the 98th percentile’s income has gone up quite a bit. I don’t think it’s really fair to say that unions are the reason why
That said, it’s fascinating to see how the upper class is spinning this: instead of attacking organized labour directly, it’s taken to playing the middle class against itself. This is a wonderful little bit of propaganda: millionaires and billionaires are doing a really good job of selling the idea that their getting orders of magnitude richer isn’t the problem, but that one group who makes a few thousand more is really at fault.
Organized labour, to it’s detriment, has been utterly clueless in selling itself. Part of this is base self-interest, part is that labour has very little media clout (no matter how liberal the media is, it’s owners still dislike unions), but a lot of it is incompetence. This is an example of it: Toyota’s closing NUMMI because it’s pointless to keep it open when it’s products are already made by two other, more modern and better utilized plants (San Antonio and Cambridge). The UAW is essentially casting itself exactly how the upper class would like it to, to it’s own detriment.
The distribution of wealth argument is meaningless, because it does not necessarily follow that because someone else is richer, someone else got poorer. The very rich are not competing for the same goods as the middle class – Donald Trump and Paris Hilton are not looking enviously at a Toyota Corolla or Ford Fusion, and don’t plan on buying a $150,000 house in a subdivision. And if Donald Trump is a dollar wealthier, it doesn’t mean that he took that dollar from our pockets (or bank accounts).
Immigration also skews the results. Immigration – especially illegal immigration – keeps wages at the bottom of the scale low, because it provides a large pool of people willing to work for less than most native-born residents. (Most illegal immigrants are not competing with Donald Trump or Bill Gates for a job.)
This means that wages at the lower end are not increasing because of an abundant labor supply, but, at the same time, there is no limit to the growth in pay at the upper end, or even of assets. Hence, it will always look as though the “wealth gap” is increasing.
As for the effect of unions on the middle class – unions in this country were very weak prior to the 1930s, but plenty of people still made the leap from working class to middle class.
In the postwar era, American unions reaped the benefits of the U.S. being the only major power with an intact industrial base. Given those circumstances, management was more willing to recognize unions, and grant their requests, because the chief fear was a strike that would disrupt production and prevent the exploitation of lush postwar markets. The success of unions from about 1945-1975 in this country was more an accident of history than any inherent justice of the union’s cause.
“I also think that if the pay and conditions in the auto plants, had they been good, in relation to the profits being racked-up by the manufacturers, ”
Profits? Where do you see profits? They went bankrupt, FYI.
Lokkii: Steelworker’s kids, and just as militant. I visited the plant several times. Vegas would go right to the repair lot.