Mercury Marine is a pretty familiar name to anyone with an interest in boating. They have had their headquarters and a lot of their manufacturing operations in Fond du Lac, WI for many, many years. But, this will soon come to an end as their union rejected a contract with, to be fair, some pretty serious concessions. The management side has said throughout the process that they needed these concessions to remain competitive while maintaining operations in Fond du Lac. Now that the contract has been rejected, Mercury Marine seems intent on consolidating their operations in Stillwater, OK (a non-union shop).
This is part of the problem with unions. Unions once served a purpose, but now are a parasitic block between employee and employer, with little purpose other than perpetuating itself. In this instance, union solidarity is going to cost a decent-sized city (Fondy has 41,000 people) one of its largest employers. Bloated labor costs, largely due to unions, are the cause of a lot of the problems that have been plaguing automakers (not all, but a lot).
What unions need to remember is that the largest cost in any business is labor. If unions continually increase the cost of labor artificially, this starts to impact the bottom line. Companies have to increase the cost of their products, which....well, I don't think it is necessary to explain the laws of supply and demand. So, when less product is moved, something has to give. Unfortunately for Fond du Lac, they are what's going to give.
Sorry Fond du Lac, but the parasites won.
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But what were the pretty serious concerns?
Seven-year wage freeze and new hires and people returning from layoff making 30% less than currently. While those terms are definitely less-than-ideal, the alternative quite frankly is not having a job. I admit that it is not a good choice to make, but the way the union voted was essentially calling a bluff that is not a bluff. And, it's all because the union told them what to do in its self-interest, not that of its members.
I remember that I had a debate with a guy that I worked with in a Union Shop once. He said that Unions are the only reason that we have a middle class in this Country anymore. I told him that he would have been right at least 25 years ago. I told him that Education was the main reason that we have a middle class in the U.S.
Unions should follow Newspapers down the road of things that we look back on when we study history as something that had a time and a place. Both have now passed the Unions on by. I dislike the way that Union Jobs hold people back from becoming better. A person will get a Union Job right after to a few years after High School is over, or College does not go their way. Then they just go through the motions, and buy countless, and useless toys with money practically gouged out of the hands of the consumers. The toy buying can help out the economy, but it probably does not outweight the damage that many of them do buy their bad habits that they gather as deep down they know that they have wasted their potential.
Of course the Dems would have to figure out how to gain back all of those lost votes when so many people who have membership with Unions are conservative. They would probably switch over to the Republican Party. It would start off as a slow trickle at first. Then the Republicans could strat to weed out the Far Right George Washington Republicans, and Pat Robertson Republicans that have been embarassing them for the past few decades. The Libertarians, and Constitution Parties have not been strong enough to do more than siphon off the Coast to Coast AM Crowd.
100-130 years ago, unions fought for things like workplace safety and relief from onerous labor conditions slightly above the level of slavery. Although deeply rooted in Marxist and anarchist ideology, they had a point.
After WWII, American industry boomed because we were the only major industrial economy which had not been bombed during the war. We enjoyed decades of expansion as our competitors rebuilt themselves. Unions reveled in this environment and workers enjoyed defined-benefit pensions, high pay, secure jobs, and a rising standard of living.
But this could not go on forever. Germany and Japan began to creep into our markets. People would remark that our "former enemies" were invading us. Oh, if we only had the Japanese and the Germans to worry about today.
China has 1.3 billion people. India has 1 billion people. Indonesia has just under 300 million people. Brazil has 192 million people. Did anyone really think that all that labor power would go untapped forever?
When we consider losing jobs to damned ferners, remember that we partied hearty while they ate bread made from dust. It's not that we're getting worse (but we are), but because they are getting better. They are able to COMPETE with us now.
Those of us who believe in capitalism know that competition brings out the best in us. Lack of competition has always been part of "unfair" in our dictionary. Unless, of course, we're talking about your job.
Unions didn't "just" become parasites. As I said, they were dens of Marxist and Anarchist ideology from their outset - violent thugs who used brute force to get what they wanted. And companies (and states and the feds) responded with brute force back. Unions became dominated by organized crime which used more violence and threats of violence to get what they wanted. They literally stole what they wanted with impunity - right off the docks, right off the trucks, right off the trains.
There is only one thing unions want: MORE.
The thugs are fighting back, and the chief place where unions are growing is in the PUBLIC SECTOR. Powerhouses like the SEIU, AFSCME, NEA, nurses unions, fire fighters unions, police unions, bus driver unions have hijacked out city and state governments. They get pay and benefits that would make a UAW worker jealous. Cops can retire after 20 years with full pay and benefits, using their high-three years (with overtime) as their base. Nurses can work TWO days a week and earn $80,000 a year.
One city councilman in the bankrupt city of Vallejo, CA said, "We've got three police forces in Vallejo, but only one is working."
Politicians gain votes and money from these unions and give money in return. The real stakeholders who suffer from this are taxpayers who really have no say in any of it.
While private sector unions are abhorrent, greedy, and annoying, they are paying for their misdeeds. Public sector union employees are getting PAY RAISES during this recession.
Everyone likes pay raises, including me, but when ever-increasing benefits and pay are institutionalized and unchecked, there's a problem.
Union workers say a lot of things, 99% of which is massive hyperbole, lies, and/or delusional. Unions were an evil created to combat an evil. The evil actions of a few industries that was perpetrated in the distant past caused workers to fight back anyway they could. The problems started, as they most often do, when governments decided to wade in and intervene. The balance of power was shifted in favour of the unions side. Now unions use evil methods for certification and evil strike tactics to hold businesses hostage. And they are aided and abetted by most Western governments that don't allow mgmt. of businesses to defend themselves from these tactics.
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