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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (30810)	5/26/2002 8:13:11 PM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 281500

CB, i do not disagree with you. as i said earlier everyone votes their pocketbook and that is true in union halls as well as the local precinct voting place. plenty of mistakes are made in both. the most interesting part of this to me is that i do not believe the US economy can stand one or two more trillion dollar hits without plunging into a depression. then they will all be drowning. unclewest

To: Ilaine who wrote (30810)	5/27/2002 4:46:21 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Some points I'd contend with about jobs moving overseas: >>The jobs did not belong to them, they belonged to the factory owner.<< More than a few factory owners have received financial incentives such as tax breaks, to locate their companies and jobs in one city or another, too. Roads are built and businesses spring up on the back of the factory's existence. Not just those that glean lunch and convenience store profits from the workers, but suppliers of raw materials, right down to office supplies. When the factory thrives, it demands loyalty from those employees. But when it closes, that loyalty becomes a one-way road with the other lane cut off to increase, not preserve, the bottom line. >>If they want jobs, they need to build their own factories and compete with overseas labor costs by being more efficient, or else get into another line of work.<< Our efficiency and productivity is unmatched. Can any American compete with $1.50/day or $1/hr wages and avoid homelessness? No. >>If you buy your clothes without looking for the "Made in the USA" label and looking for the Union label, you should not complain. Anyone who shops at WalMart should not complain about all the jobs going overseas.<< It's already known that a car's components can be manufactured abroad with only final assembly occurring in the US, and get the Made in the US label. In fact, I've seen merchandise with that label that have other stamps saying "made in Taiwan". The label is meaningless and unproveable. Your point is taken that folks choose to buy inexpensively. Many times, though, that choice is not so free as it seems, as thrift is often dictated by economic realities like being unable to afford anything higher priced. But more than anything else said, I vehemently disagree with this: >>Union leaders that strove for higher wages were short sighted. The smart thing to have asked for was a share of ownership in the business, and rewards for efficiency instead of seniority. If they had owned a portion of the business, they could have voted against relocation. Or maybe they would have voted for relocation because it was in their own best interest. In other words, they should have asked for dividends instead of wages. Unfortunately, most labor unions are socialistic, and anti-capitalist. They sow the seeds of their own destruction.<< I recall the Eighties as a time of 'give-backs' in wages, designed to keep ailing companies, like autos, afloat. Back then it was the failure of the management, not the workers, that failed to see the rising US demand for smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles. And what was the result when the companies succeeded? Enormous bonuses to management but no wage resumptions for the union guys. Since then, most union demands that make the news are not about wages, but benefits. A fair distribution of profit can be negotiated and achieved without getting tarnished with the socialist label. Most workers who willingly join unions do so out of a need to earn a living wage, and a reasonable reward for work performed is the basic incentive for all capitalists, isn't it? Why are incentives to the owners of much capital defended, while lesser incentives sought for the blue collars by labor unions is dismissed as socialism? Just as the suppliers, free-traders that they are, bargain to supply widgets to the company, so too is it justified that unions bargain to supply its labor. All in pursuit of more capital. The term 'socialism' has already been bastardized enough. The only semblance of real socialism in the US comes with taxes that are progressively redistributed to relieve great economic pressure on the bottom, whether in the form of ADC, food stamps, Medicare, Social Security, etc. But plenty flows back around to the well-off, from farm subsidies to corporate welfare, without the socialist stigma used to denigrate labor. The current weakness in many unions is the failure to make their approach global, to match the global economy. Of course, even if they had, in some Third World countries they'd find it illegal to do any organizing at all. Unions have accomplished much and the solutions to their current weaknesses are clearly as capitalist as capitalism can be.