RE: Unionizing?

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

>. -----Original Message-----
> .From: Bruce Byfield [mailto:bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com]
> .Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 12:51 PM

> KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com wrote:
  
> > Would somebody please tell me about situations where 
> > somebody can be a member of a union and derive ANY 
> > net benefit from it (after paying dues, etc.) when 
> > you work at a company that is not itself unionized?
  
> Easy. When a union contract is signed in an industry, non-union wages 
> frequently start to aproximate it. The non-union companies need to 
> attract workers, and they often figure that, by matching 
> union working 
> conditions, they can keep the union out themselves.

Until BOTH companies can set up offshore, and close out 
the costly factories... or, at least outsource to 
sub-contractors who have lower costs to pass along.
That choice, of course, depends on whether the union 
has gotten a contract clause that forbids outsourcing.

Of course, there are other factors, too, such as how 
much people value freedom, flexibility and responsibility
in their jobs. Also, there are necessarily a limited number 
of positions at the unionized shop, so it's not like they 
can take ALL the potential workers. The ones they don't 
get will tend to be the innovative, self-starters.

Also, how true is your observation for skilled trades, 
as opposed to assembly-line jobs at which you can 
become ultimately skilled in a week and a half?

But really, your argument is much like the argument 
of people who favor minimum wage laws.  It looks 
good until you think a bit.

"Oh joy! The poor people will now get more money 
 for the work they do. They will be so much better off!"

Sure they will... for a few months.
Then, market forces will set in.
When companies have to pay more for the lowest-paid 
(read "least-skilled", "most-commoditized") work, 
they have no choice but to pass on the increased 
costs, or to reduce costs elsewhere.

If they pass on the costs, prices go up. In short order, 
the "raise" that the government gave to poor people is 
eaten by a higher cost of goods and services.

If the companies elect to cut costs, they have certain 
options --- relating directly to your point about 
union wages:

1) The higher the labor costs, the greater the incentive 
   to either outsource or automate... if it was marginally 
   expensive to invest in a machine to do that job before, 
   the new price of workers just made it viable to find a 
   robot replacement.

2) If the floor-sweepers are employed because it is 
   worth having them, instead of paying more skilled 
   people to also do their own sweeping, then as soon 
   as the floor-sweepers' wages are artificially jacked 
   up to the rate of the second-lowest-paid people in 
   the shop, the floor-sweepers have just become expendable.
   Management trims the floor-sweeper jobs and spreads 
   the menial work among the remaining people, since 
   there is no longer an economic advantage to having 
   dedicated floor-sweepers.

Or, more to the point... management decides that 
maybe those expensive engineers CAN start doing 
the user documents, now that the unionized tech writers 
cost so much...

So, the net result of wages driven artificially high 
is:

 -- a brief period of being ahead of the pack, until 
    the pack and the prices of everything necessarily 
    catch up... in fact, the sooner the hike becomes 
    widespread, the sooner it drives prices up

 -- fewer people actually employed, putting more people 
    on unemployment insurance and welfare.

/kevin

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