The question of unions is not simply whether they harm or hurt business. The intent of an anarcho-capitalistic system is to provide the individual with the best possible protection from abuse. That is what unions claim to do for workers. The question is why can’t unions compete with each other for employees? If that is forbidden, then they become a form of government ruling employees and businesses.
My main dilemma with Unions is that being in one ensures job stability. You can’t be fired because some bureaucratic asshole doesn’t like you, and acts like he runs the organization. Bureaucrats sometimes act like they run the organization. What if a middle-higher up management in the organization decides it would be profitable if he fired you, so that they could save money?
The reason for firing may have nothing to do with your with your labor productivity, but some guy just may not like you, and decides because he is in a position to fire you, that he can.
Also, incompetent workers in Unions DO get fired.
At the same time, I don’t like that Unions cause some jobs to go, make it harder to get a job, and are based on a subjective “exploitation”. I have never seen anybody who claims workers are exploited back that bullshit up. Americans also justify Unions for the reasons that they are “underpaid”. It pisses me off so much when Americans complain about their wages, because they are the ONLY ONES who do it that much. Workers in third world countries will happily take jobs for the wages offered here. Namely, in sweatshops which supposedly have horrid conditions.
Unless the company goes bankrupt because it can’t fire the extra workers.
Isn’t that their job?
Saving money is a bad thing?
That would probably go against their fiduciary responsibility. If the worker is making the company loads of profit and his manager fires him because of hate or jealousy, I’d say that goes against the fiduciary responsibility of the manager.
Who claims that none at all get fired?
Unions are mechanisms of exclusion, that traditionally relied on violence to gain privilege, (violence against the firm, and non-union workers competing for jobs) and now rely on government law (violence) to excluse other workers, limit labour competition and bully employers.
Oh come on. Either you’re naive or you just hate poor people. It’s true that workers have used violence to establish unions, and it’s also true that employers have used violence to destroy unions. In Columbia, for example, firms often deal with the threat of a union by simply hiring hit men to assasinate a union organizer or two. Union organizers are killed and tortured all the time in countries like Columbia and Mexico. The U.S. has a long and sordid history of such things as well.
read about the Ludlow massacre for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
It’s true that unions use the state to get certain benefits, and it’s FAR more true that employers use the state to get certain benefits too. Our government in the U.S. is a pay-for-play operation, and unions simply don’t have the kind of cash that employers do to influence politicians.
Why do union bosses get paid more than the workers they represent?
Why do union bosses get paid more than the workers they represent?
Because their unions are corrupt hierarchical bureaucratic corporations?
Why do CEOs get bonuses for plowing their companies into the ground?
Because their companies are corrupt hierarchical bureaucratic corporations?
Unions always fulfill a “need”, the desire to have what others own. It just happens that a free market prevents people from using violence (thus unions) as a means towards that “need”.
The idea that unions are a statist measure that forces a statist world to be less statist is absurd.
When the union can use the government to limit the options of the business to circumvent the union then that is a government protected union. I don’t think there are very many “free unions” in existence, because voluntary unions are very, very weak and usually form at the specific time of the injustice. In fact, most modern unions are not even voluntarily entered - most of the unions I have experience with have always forced employees to pay, or not work for the company. This includes nursing unions and the union “protecting” UPS workers.
libertarians have no problem with unions forming, but they also have no problem with companies simply firing you if you’re a union member or to make you sign a contract that stipulates you’ll never engage in union activity so long as you’re employed at that place of work.
Given that, I think in a libertarian society you’d see very very few unions form; sure, there would be some, but the vast bulk of them would not have much power as companies that allowed unions would very likely be outcompeted by those who barred their formation in their company.
They don’t.
CEOs get paid regardless of performance because they are laborers, selling their labor. All laborers gets paid regardless of profits, thats how capitalism works. Workers are isoluted from risk, both profit and loss.
CEOs get paid more because they perform a more important role, obviously if share holders thought they could pay a lower salary to the CEO and get the same results ( and pocket the difference) they would.
Don’t try to lecture us on the working of organizations when you can’t even tell the difference between labor and capital!
Got any real world examples?
Fri. 10/04/09 19:47 EDT
.post #55
I think this is incorrect. Libertarians oppose the initiation of force or violence (i.e. aggression). Insofar as a particular union violates the Non-Aggression Principle, libertarians would condemn that union. Not because it’s a union, but because it has committed aggression.
I have crossed several picket lines in my life, just for the first-hand experience, and I recommend doing this (just be careful) - it’s very interesting.
What I saw were striking union members blocking access to a building by forming a human wall or fence, and assaulting any scab who tried to “cross the line.” I also saw cops look the other way while assaults were being committed. When I asked a cop why he wasn’t doing anything, he told me to “move along.” This is a true story.
The point here is that some unions get away with aggression and trespassing, while most “civilians” must obey the law (such as it is).
Got any real world examples?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Killinger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Mozilo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cayne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Prince
Are you really that naive?
while most “civilians” must obey the law (such as it is).
I won’t dispute your observation. But who’s laws are these exactly?
Perhaps, but I fail to see how any of them got "bonuses for plowing their companies into the ground."
What is more, Kerry Killinger was removed as CEO after WaMu was “[f]aced with mounting losses from the mortgage market and deep declines in the stock price as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis[.]” James Cayne lost “about one billion dollars in net worth from the collapse of Bear Stearns’ stock, he sold his entire stake in the company for $61 million.”
Thanks for bumping this thread, you saved me the hassle of making my own thread on unions. [:D]
Are there any major examples of large-scale union violence?
Sun. 10/04/11 07:44 EDT
.post #61
I guess the answer depends on “which laws.”
Some laws, such as laws proscribing assault, are ostensibly universal, but in practice, selectively enforced (e.g. picketing union members are allowed to flout them).
Other laws, such as minimum wage laws, are ostensibly for the benefit of the lowest wage earners, but in reality protect unions from lower-wage competition.