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Dan Krueger wrote:

"Collective bargaining" says it all. The individual either can't think
for himself or can't earn his own wage on his own merit. He has to be
grouped with a variety of worker - good and bad - to get the same pay,
the same raises, the same treatment, etc.

Still sad.

"Collective bargaining" is the only means by which the worker can even
begin to establish a level playing field. Now, there are folks who
don't think anybody except the guy with capital invested in a private
company has any right to any sort of fair or equitable
business/employment climate and that such a capital investment grants a
license to exploit any and all dumb or desperate enough to work for
the firm- and those who feel that way are entitled to do so.

Otherwise, the power of the employer to withhold pay is merely offset
by the power of the collective bargainers to withhold services. Seems
pretty fair to me. One side uses every trick in the book to pay as
little as it can get by with, and the other uses every trick in the
book to get paid as much as it possibly can. Yup, that's fair. Not
exclusively advantageous to management and capital- but fair.

Without collective bargaining, it is the employer, not the worker, who
ignores merit and does not differentiate between good and bad workers.
Without collective bargaining, everybody's job is constantly at risk if
some guy happens along who will whore out for a buck an hour less.



Tried hard to stay out of this, but Chuck, you did me in ...

Where do people like yourself get these concepts and models of business in
your head? The majority of people are employed by small businesses. Every
small business I've ever dealt with or been associated with absolutely do
NOT have the employment philosophies that you describe. Employees who make
themselves valuable through their skills and dedication to their
responsibilities are cherished and rewarded to the max the company can
afford. Conversely, the slackers, assuming they can meet the minimum job
requirements, are not compensated at the same level. Seems fair to me.

The only place in industry where I consistently saw the employees becoming a
"billet" number with no consideration given to individual talent or drive
was in big corporations with a unionized work force.

RCE

RCE wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Dan Krueger wrote:

"Collective bargaining" says it all. The individual either can't think
for himself or can't earn his own wage on his own merit. He has to be
grouped with a variety of worker - good and bad - to get the same pay,
the same raises, the same treatment, etc.

Still sad.

"Collective bargaining" is the only means by which the worker can even
begin to establish a level playing field. Now, there are folks who
don't think anybody except the guy with capital invested in a private
company has any right to any sort of fair or equitable
business/employment climate and that such a capital investment grants a
license to exploit any and all dumb or desperate enough to work for
the firm- and those who feel that way are entitled to do so.

Otherwise, the power of the employer to withhold pay is merely offset
by the power of the collective bargainers to withhold services. Seems
pretty fair to me. One side uses every trick in the book to pay as
little as it can get by with, and the other uses every trick in the
book to get paid as much as it possibly can. Yup, that's fair. Not
exclusively advantageous to management and capital- but fair.

Without collective bargaining, it is the employer, not the worker, who
ignores merit and does not differentiate between good and bad workers.
Without collective bargaining, everybody's job is constantly at risk if
some guy happens along who will whore out for a buck an hour less.



Tried hard to stay out of this, but Chuck, you did me in ...

Where do people like yourself get these concepts and models of business in
your head? The majority of people are employed by small businesses. Every
small business I've ever dealt with or been associated with absolutely do
NOT have the employment philosophies that you describe. Employees who make
themselves valuable through their skills and dedication to their
responsibilities are cherished and rewarded to the max the company can
afford. Conversely, the slackers, assuming they can meet the minimum job
requirements, are not compensated at the same level. Seems fair to me.

The only place in industry where I consistently saw the employees becoming a
"billet" number with no consideration given to individual talent or drive
was in big corporations with a unionized work force.

RCE

Many small businesses are not unionized, but you will typically hear
the owners and management GD'ing unions with the same venom one would
expect from a company that was in the midst of an intense labor
negotiation. The challenge for them is that the unions set the bar.
It's the fear of losing their best employees to a union shop that
forces many employers to pay good wages to top talent. Small business
owners can keep the unions out by paying a living wage, treating
employees fairly, offering competitive benefits, etc. As long as the
SB's offer a decent wage and working environment, the union organizers
will make very little headway among the employees. When a business,
large or small, treats employees poorly then under our labor laws those
employees have the right to organize and bargain collectively for
better wages or conditions. Seems fair to me. :-)

Also fair is the concept that the owners and managers of a business
need to provide an excellent product or service in the marketplace. A
business should succeed because it is briliantly and energetically
managed, not because it can find an unlimited supply of exploitable
labor. When you have the CEO taking $10 million a year and half of the
production workers eligible for food stamps or other public assistance,
there's a problem. In this example, that CEO might complain that a
union shop would "cost him" $1mm a year in increased
wages......(leaving himself only $9mm all in, all done). First guy
fired in such a case should be the CEO, as its his/her job to position
the company and its product as more desirable than the competition.
Superior value is an easier sale, almost always, than questionable
value and a cheap price.

The trade show model is unique. There is no competition. XYZ Display
has the exclusive right to rent backdrops or fixtures and furniture,
and provide other services to exhibitors.
Prices are not set by natural activity in the marketplace, but rather
by an arbitrary guesstimate based upon "How badly can we rip the
exhibitors, who have no other source to turn to, and still fill up the
hall?" In the example we have been using in this thread, charging a
Boat Show exhibitor $100 for 5-minutes labor to plug in an electrical
cord and then blaming the outrageous fee on "union wages" is just crazy
(and hoping to reduce expenses by using cheaper labor when nearly all
of the $100 charge is pure markup to start with is just greedy)-------
but look how many people buy into it! I'm sure the trade show companies
will continue to use the "union wages" dodge as long as it remains
effective.

wrote in message
oups.com...


Many small businesses are not unionized, but you will typically hear
the owners and management GD'ing unions with the same venom one would
expect from a company that was in the midst of an intense labor
negotiation. The challenge for them is that the unions set the bar.
It's the fear of losing their best employees to a union shop that
forces many employers to pay good wages to top talent. Small business
owners can keep the unions out by paying a living wage, treating
employees fairly, offering competitive benefits, etc. As long as the
SB's offer a decent wage and working environment, the union organizers
will make very little headway among the employees. When a business,
large or small, treats employees poorly then under our labor laws those
employees have the right to organize and bargain collectively for
better wages or conditions. Seems fair to me. :-)


I agree with everything above except for the first sentence. If you don't
mind a correction , most ... not "many" small businesses are non-union and
the subject of unions rarely comes up, so there's no need to GD them. In
30 years of business, we lost one, repeat, one person to a union job and
that was because of the "Big Dig" project in Boston. They needed welders
badly and were recruiting them right out of our shop, meaning they slipped
in the back door and started handing out leaflets. I couldn't blame the
guy - his package was incredible - far more than anything any company, big
or small, could match at the time. Fortunately, of all the welders and fab
people we had he was the only one that decided to go and within a year
regretted it.

RCE