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Not really a big fan of unions, but as my dad said, unions are only as strong as management is bad. It was the wages that unions fought for that enabled the middle class to grow. Good wages fueled consumerism which in turn fueled manufacturing. People with guaranteed decent wages and job security spend, when these are threatened, people hoard what they have. The flip side to this is that the consumer began to demand cheaper products than domestic industries could provide. We're all to blame for the situation we find ourselves in. We really need to reevaluate our needs and wants. Do we want to pay extra for a domestically produced product that is more expensive because the person who made it is making a decent wage, or do we want the toxic cheap shit produced in a Chinese sweat shop where workers are killing themselves because of the working conditions? In the end, consumers are the ones who have the power to decide.

   

It's a chicken or the egg kind of question - which came first, the thirst for cheap products or outsourcing?

Based on what I remember, it was downsizing/outsourcing came first (starting in the mid-80s), then companies dropped prices marginally (usually to undercut competitors and gain market share), and as factories closed and moved overseas, people were almost forced to purchase the cheap goods from overseas.

Now I wonder if we are so addicted to low prices that we can ever go back.

Probably the only things that might wean us off overseas goods is either a war or the price of oil skyrocketing (and making shipping costs prohibitive). However, either of those options will mean negative effects for us too.

   

Workers have a right to orginize to better market their labour to buisness, and non union employees have the same legal right to strike as union employees.

It's very much illegal to fire workers for trying to form a union.

Higher wages from Wal*Mart would lead to higher sales for Wal*Mart as the cost of labour rises across the labour market.

However most modern management can only see employees as a cost rather than what they actualy are money makers. It's funny as more jobs are exported to lower cost labour markets and wages stay low with a reduction in benefits, corporations wonder why they can't get sales to rise.

   

@Bootlegga
Don't know about you or the rest, but I'm willing to pay higher prices or forgo altogether buying cheap shit from China. Their domestic market isn't large enough yet to keep their manufacturing sector going. A boycott on all Chinese products by the West would shut them down pretty hard. Everyone says that we can't resurrect our manufacturing industries.... well they were non existent once upon a time and we built them up from scratch.

People have to learn to suffer a little short term pain in the name of long term growth and prosperity. Funny, how the more things change, the more they stay the same. We seem to be right back in the 19th century.

This all makes me think of this song

   

The "ME,ME,ME and only ME generations can't think past their own noses.


Sorry.

   

   

You honestly think older generations would be any better?

   

I'm scared because I believe I am in agreement with you, to an extent at least.

It reminds me when a crazed mob trampled an unfortunate Wal-Mart employee in New York state (somewhere on Long Island, I believe) to death a couple years back.

   

Perhaps, I think people's sense of patriotism in the past was stronger than now.

   

I think you're right. I'm not, however, certain that patriotism is a desirable trait. Wars are fought over patriotism, borders and flags. Patriotism and the concept of nationhood seem a bit archaic in the global village of the 21st century. I wonder how long it will take for Earth to more resemble a borderless, nationless place, like Star Trekland.

   

I don't have a problem paying a little more to ensure everyone's prosperity (including my own). In fact, I prefer to spend a little more for quality than buying cheap junk over and over.

For example, when I was in high school, I always bought a Sony Walkman, while my sister always cheaped out and bought a Seas brand or some other generic/store brand. Mine might cost $100, but it always lasted several years, while she went through one every six months - and i used mine far more than she did because she had a car and I rode the bus to school everyday.

But like I said, I don't know if there are enough of us to make a difference any longer. With incomes basically staying flat over the past 20 years, yet the cost of everything increasing, people are almost forced to buy the cheap junk multi-nationals are foisting on us now.

I fully agree that we seem to be headed back to the 19th century in regards to labour relations, simply because organized labour is vilified and seemingly 100% to blame in every labour dispute lately. And that's despite blatant examples like Hostess in the US, where execs handed themselves raises year after year while demanding the average joes take pay cuts and lose benefits.

The problem is the politicians won't stand up to corporations either, so they just keep tightening the screws on everyone in pursuit of dividends and higher share prices.

   

I don't know that it has a whole lot to do with patriotism. It's all about the money, and the older "we knew the value of a dollar" generation was atleast as cheap as the younger generations are.

   

It is a shame when it comes to the state of of labor relations in the private sector, but when it comes to the public sector? Well, I see the public sector unions as even more greedy than the corporations because it is the taxpayer's money they are after for their (pretty much) guaranteed benebits, which includes taxes collected from those employed in the private sector who either have uncertain benefits or none at all. Hence why I have sympathy for Wal-Mart employees and nothing but disdain for teachers/other public sector unions.

TL:DR Private Sector unions good; public sector unions bad.

   

That's an ignorant load of shit.

   

Lulz. That is the funniest thing I heard all day.

   

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