Company executives responsible for making financial and managerial decisions that result in bankruptcy = not union members. Managers and executives can't join unions. That's how it works, you don't-know-business-from-your-ass moron.

The problem is those company executives don't have a whole lot of discretion over how the company is run because the unions have the power to dictate so much. One of the reasons the Big 3 car companies are insolvent is because they're having to continue paying all the UAW workers whose jobs were replaced by robots back in the '80s; the union will not allow the company to lay them off. A lot of these people get paid $50,000+ to sit around and play dominoes all day thanks to the absurd union labor contracts.

There's a reason all the foreign-based car companies that employee non-union labor are doing okay and all the union-encumbered domestic car companies are in trouble.

The Big 3 have been in dire financial straits because they have built shitty cars for the past thirty years and have no concept of consumer research and demand. Meanwhile, foreign automakers who have built smaller, more fuel efficient cars have replaced American auto manufacturers as the top car companies.

All that's true, but paying retired union members half salary for thirty years or so after they stop working and being responsible for the health care programs of thousands of people doesn't help stuff either. All the money spent on worker's benefits is money that could be spent on better engineering and marketing.

Unions have a major role (nobody wants their hand pulled into a textile machine and everybody loves a sensible pension, for example), but the UAW is exactly what a union should not become.

Tolstoy +1,000,000,000,000
Invictus +1,000,000,000,000

"Why can't unions survive on their own?"

What does this question even mean? Unions grew up organically as a response to laissez-faire capitalism. They continue to do so in places like China. So I don't really see where the question is coming from.

Yes I know you wanted to talk about right to work but why didn't you just say that instead of the nonsense title?

And for your fearless bravery in combatting mofos, TC, the Union of Teamsters, Spaceship Pilots and Bloggers awards you 10 free unions. Two, marital, five, workers', one, fiscal (EU), the remaining two, political (US, UN).

Thank you for your service to the Union for the Advancement of Rabid Capitalists.

So why do unions oppose right to work laws so vehemently then?
If they know they emerged organically and their cause is right then why do the resist freedom of choice for workers who choose not to join a union.
In other words "why can't unions survive on their own?"
I was forced to join the teamsters when I was working my way through school and I resented every single penny the teamsters got out of my pay check because I was working at the company before the teamsters took it over and I lost money.
My opposition to unions is organic.
I'm in service only to my own self-interest. The greatest motivator the world has ever seen.

This is how it works:

If there are people who do not stick with the union, then most everyone gets boned.

It's the cartel problem. With right to work laws you are breaking the cartel.

Same thing between countries. There is no effective international union.

Result? Outsourcing, shitty wages in poor countries so on and so forth.

Unions are the only reason incomes in rich countries are as high as they are. Look I'm not saying unions are never wrong. They can be profligate messes that bring down whole countries. But to trash them with such a broad stroke is idiocy. Without unions we would be fucking serfs.

Because the rights of workers are pointless. Businesses are making huge profits and paying executives massive bonuses while laying off thousands of workers, but that's okay.

"All that's true, but paying retired union members half salary for thirty years or so after they stop working and being responsible for the health care programs of thousands of people doesn't help stuff either. All the money spent on worker's benefits is money that could be spent on better engineering and marketing."

Because as one ages, his or her expenses go down right? How dare people get paid a nice pension.

Thucy,

You make assumptions not established in fact.
You also start off answering exactly why unions can't survive on their own when you post "if there are people who do not stick with the union, then most everyone gets boned."
So I appreciate you admitting that unions can't survive without coercive power to prohibit freedom of choice by workers.

I wonder when simpleton's like you will realize that unions represent people who can't cut it on their own.
The individuals who can't start their own business.
The individuals that can't get ahead on their own abilities, but have to rely on seniority that rewards nothing other than staying alive and ignores ability whatsoever.

The reasons unions are dying is that people with ability and ambition can do exceedingly better on their own than they can in a union.

I appreciate your participation in this thread.

I thought the Northern states in the US Civil War were known as the "Union".So that's one union, at least, which is flourishing...

Don't look now but Scott Walker has almost balanced the budget in Wisconsin and the state unemployment rate is declining and the economic growth is increasing.

All of this done while decreasing the influence of unions on the workforce and in government.

Walker 2016?

54 - 40 percent Ohio voters favor the idea of passing a "right-to-work" law that would ban workers from being required to join a union as a condition of employment, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/ohio/release-detail?ReleaseID=1704

"We've seen the "workers" of the state run a government in the Soviet Union."

That statement delegitimizes your entire post

The reason TC is telling you not to look now regarding his news about Walker is because it's not in the slightest bit true.

E.g., here's documentation of el Caudillo Walker appropriating mortgage fraud settlement funds to help conceal the massive hole in the state budget...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/state-to-receive-140-million-to-settle-mortgage-claims-qh44q6v-139014139.html

And here's a link to an article showing how el Caudillo Walker can only claim to have balanced the budget as long as he doesn't use generally accepted accounting principles (contrary to his promise to use GAAP several times while campaigning). If you analyze el Caudillo's budget according to GAAP, the budget deficit has GROWN by 100 million on Walker's watch...

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/promises/walk-o-meter/promise/561/require-use-of-accepted-accounting-principles-to-b/

Oh, and the jobs thing TC refers to? Unsurprisingly, he's wrong. Wisconsin's lost jobs over the past year. But hey, since when has TC let a silly little thing like empirical reality get in the way of his ideological bloviating?

http://badgerstat.org/2011/job-growth/

When is he going to be recalled? I thought they got the signatures.

Our GAB is still verifying the signatures and has yet to set a date. At a guess, sometime in April or May.

what a simplistic pile of anti union nonsense TC
If you want completely uncontrolled capitalism you are a gullible dill.
Slavery, child labour, monopolies, yeah, it sounds just charming.
Capitalism is the greatest system for creating wealth, but not so good at
distributing the wealth it creates equitably.
Remember the lesson of the french revolution,
when 2 % of a nations population control 98 % of that nation's wealth
you inevitably get the 98% killing the 2 %

Unions, like all human organisations, are definitely not perfect and have their faults.
I suppose the Unions were somehow responsible for the Lehmann bank fiasco,
or was that caused by uncontrolled greed ???
where does a free market exist ??
Only as an abstract economic concept, all real markets have inherent distortions.

He should cut his losses and resign now. What is the chance that he stays in office when it is all said and done anyway?

MM, don't you realize that you will gain literally nothing from arguing with TC and his narrowmindedness. Good point though.

It's actually pretty close on el Caudillo's chances. There's a large segment of my fellow Wisconsinians who oppose the recall as unnecessarily cutthroat politics and argue that the proper remedy is to wait until Walker finishes his term to vote him out. It's actually a viewpoint I can sympathize with, for all that I despise Walker. Add that to the 30% of Wisconsin voters who are hard core Republicans, mix in the tens of millions of dollars worth of ad buys the Chamber of Commerce and various Super Pacs are going to do, and it'll be a really close run thing.

TC also ignores the way taxpayers are socialising risk,
(by bailing out your dysfunctional banks etc )
but allowing profits to remain privatised.
Just who, TC is the greatest recipient of Welfare ?
the disabled, elderly, returned service persons on medical pensions and unemployed ?
or the Corporate sector with all those taxpayer funded subsidies ?
I am going to enjoy this.

He will prolly ignore your question and answer why the government should not be giving welfare based on his ideology or just change the subject.

perhaps I should also ask TC to define Welfare spending.

C'mon TC, define welfare spending & try to respond to my other
questions and propositions.

I am just a worker, but I am also a shareholder with a lazy $5k invested in shares,
separate to my superannuation, which also involves an "indirect" investment in shares.
I also own my own humble property, a shack by the sea on a quarter acre block,
and own it outright, no mortgage.
I have also run my own business as a subcontractor in what we call gyprock fixing,
flushing and ceiling fixing, I think gryprock fixing and flushing is called dry walling
in the USA. So I have been an employer.

it appears that Chettleton has something "stuck in his craw"
that he is having dificulty digesting

still waiting TC
you say Unions are for people "who can't cut it on their own abilities"
I refute that as absolute rubbish
I got to where I am with the support of my family, with the help of my community
( by providing educational opportunities etc )
and also through my own hard work and the use of my few talents.
I also got to where I am because of the benefits that are the result of the activities
of Unions over a long time.
such as a safe working environment for my father, decent wages so he had the
resources to house, clothe and feed me.

You say you are "only in service to your own self interest"
That is an extremely selfish philosophy.
You expect me to believe you have never been the recipient of assistance
from your community ?
So the police who risk all to provide you with a safe environment never helped you ?
The taxpayers who provided you with Educational and Health services never helped
you ?
You have never used the services of a Dentist or Doctor, Nurse or other Medical
service provider ? All those people had to work hard, employ their own talents
to get their qualifications, but without a community supporting a tertiary education
system & paying taxes they would not be there to provide you with medical services.

Or are you going to advance the proposition that you went from embryo to adult
without any help from your community and country.

The clean water that has been available to you, how the F*** do you think that
gets to you ??? The investment of taxpayer dollars over a long time to build all
that infrastructure means nothing to you ???

You are so arrogant to believe that you can do it all on your own,
there has to have been times when you have taken advantage of help from your
community, you selfish prat, even if it has simply been every time you have drunk
clean, disease free water.

Ever taken an antibiotic ? How the F*** do you think they were developed ?
Florey (penecillin) was South Australian and was educated in a university
funded by taxpayer dollars, the research facilities he used in England, what they
just appeared at no cost to the British taxpayer ???

Self interest is important,
but having an interest in your community & fellow humans is MORE IMPORTANT,
you cork brain'd clown

In theory right to work is a good idea, it makes unions abide to free market principles and if workers don't want unions the unions wont be there.

However any homo economus (A profit-motif rational species used frequently in economics models but is rarely found in the real world) would not pay a union fee.

If the union will fight for me regardless of the free, why should I pay? In the long run unions will die with RTW legislation. Good riddance why have them? If they can't survive in a free market, then they're not needed.

However thats not entirely true, unions negotiate with employers to make sure they give employees fair wages for their labour. I am against RTW, even though I want weaker unions, having them there make sense, and if unions go, the people will regret it.

Sometimes the government knows something the common man doesn't. Most workers have never taken buisness courses, and have no idea how to properly manage finances, they'll just see the union fee, see that its optional, and will gladly rid themselves of it. A union negotiates, and both the union backed workers and the non-union backed workers get a salary increase, workers paying the free will see that the unions will back them regardless of if they pay. So what do they do, they stop paying. Soon the unions are bankrupt and go, so what happens, their salaries are cut and they can no longer protest. They will regret doing this in the long run, but not in the short run.

Unions are one of those things that are needed by can't survive in the free market.

I thought it said, "Why can't Unicorns survive on their own?", but then I read TCs name, which would mean that for the first time he would actually use sarcasm in the right way. This time again is the weird kind of sarcasm, where you can't imagine that other people have these ridiculous ideas, who actually write them down and that others think that his messages are sincere.