GOP's new Pro-Labor stance...? Right-to-Work under attack from closet Socialists
- Thread starter Chop
- Start date
1. Teamsters Union boss speaking (at length) at the Convention.
2. Long-time right wing ideologues, like Senator Hawley, are now changing their positions and are becoming anti-right-to-work.
This push against the right-to-work will likely be checked by the Southern GOP reps and Senators. Right-to-work is bedrock Southern politics, and especially Texas politics.
Still, these Midwest/Great Lakes Republicans are sounding like Walter Mondale on labor unions now....
2. Long-time right wing ideologues, like Senator Hawley, are now changing their positions and are becoming anti-right-to-work.
This push against the right-to-work will likely be checked by the Southern GOP reps and Senators. Right-to-work is bedrock Southern politics, and especially Texas politics.
Still, these Midwest/Great Lakes Republicans are sounding like Walter Mondale on labor unions now....
JD appears to be in the pro-labor GOP group. Not sure if he really believes it.
Trump acts like he's in the pro-labor GOP group. Pretty sure he does not believe it. Then again, maybe he doesn't care as he's been running businesses in heavy union states his whole career and is just used to dealing with unions.
Chamber of Commerce types are strongly opposed to all of this pro labor union stuff.
Trump acts like he's in the pro-labor GOP group. Pretty sure he does not believe it. Then again, maybe he doesn't care as he's been running businesses in heavy union states his whole career and is just used to dealing with unions.
Chamber of Commerce types are strongly opposed to all of this pro labor union stuff.
Hawley is fighting mad about it and is loudly decrying the right-to-work now!
And he's about as right wing as it gets in the Senate.
No friggin way Ted Cruz joins his pal Hawley on this. He's from Texas.
The National Review is not amused by Hawley's new flip-flop:
www.nationalreview.com
Josh Hawley’s Pro-Union Folly | National Review
Organized labor has gone all out opposing right-to-work in Missouri, and now Hawley opposes it too.
www.nationalreview.com
The ILWU was the worst. It was run by actual card-carrying Communist Party members.
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I'm generally not pro-union and fully recognise the Marxist connections with the labor movement. However, I changed my position on right to work as Hawley did. For starters, he is correct. It does allow freeloading. Basically, a non- union member can take something for nothing.
But the big difference for me is the I read an actual right to work statute. It expressly interferes with the freedom of contract between a company and a labor union. Freedom of contract is generally a conservative principle and frequently invoked against various economic regulations. Does the law sometimes limit freedom of contract? Yes, but it is usually to the benefit of the less sophisticated party with less leverage. (That's why a 5 year old can't get a credit card.) In a Right to Work law, we do the reverse.
But the big difference for me is the I read an actual right to work statute. It expressly interferes with the freedom of contract between a company and a labor union. Freedom of contract is generally a conservative principle and frequently invoked against various economic regulations. Does the law sometimes limit freedom of contract? Yes, but it is usually to the benefit of the less sophisticated party with less leverage. (That's why a 5 year old can't get a credit card.) In a Right to Work law, we do the reverse.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Good it hurts unions by allowing individuals not to pay them dues. Ultimately, unions as they exist today must be destroyed. They have been used as part of the left's patronage system for a long time. They need to be punished.
It also truly makes the union work to convince individuals paying dues is worth it. If they can show they are truly worth, then they should be paid to act on a person's behalf. But 51 people shouldn't force the decision on 49 others.
Do unions really have a freedom of contract if they are violating individual rights by forcing it on them to negotiate on their behalf? Individual people have a right to contract with whomever they like for whatever reason they like. If a union is interfering with that or stealing that power from them, then they are an illegitimate organization.
If the ends (hurting unions) justifies the means, then sure. Who cares how we treat them? In fact, under that logica, we could justify summarily executing union organizers.
As for your second point, the union has provided a CBA. I do think workers are willing to pay dues for that, but if they don't have to in order to get the benefit of it, most won't. It's the same reason people are willing to shoplift in blue areas. Why pay if they don't have to?
You're running into another conservative labor principle of employment at will. Nobody has to work for a particular company, and nobody has a right to work for any particular company. The union isn't forcing anything on anybody. Go work somewhere else if you don't like the contracts a company makes. That rationale is applied to labor relations on a multitude of fronts and usually with the full backing of economic conservatives. Only on this do we flip that logic.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
For my understanding, what unethical thing did I advocate for? In my mind, if one group of workers wants to unionize even if not all the workers do, even if all workers will get the benefits, then no one has been harmed. Everyone has been able to do what they want. So in my mind, the means are ethical and just and the end is even better if it leads to the ending of unions. Win-win.
Except when workers vote not to join unions even with that in play. It has happened time after time.
The union doesn't have a right to exist, though. It doesn't have natural rights inherently. Individuals do and the groups they form voluntarily and willingly do. In the scenario that a subset of workers unionizes even when a larger groups gets the benefits violates no rights. Having no union violates no rights. The scenario where all workers are forced to join a union or not join a union by vote does violate rights. So at worst the right-to-work scenario is no worse than the competing view. Opposing the right-to-work stance ignores that rights are being violated by what they are advocating for.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Aren't they forcing you to pay them dues and represent you?
That's fine. If the workers reject unionization, that decision should be respected too. And they can negotiate on their own.
Not if you don't work there. Again, it's employment at will.
Two points. First, a union has a right to exist as much as a corporation does. In fact, it is a corporation.
Second, again, nobody is forced to pay, because they aren't forced to work for a unionised company. Saying it's forced is like saying your work at a job is slavery. It isn't. It's a condition of employment. Businesses make them all the time. If you don't like them, then work somewhere else.
If you work a job as a paid employee in a non-union shop, then it becomes unionized, you should have the freedom to join the union or not join the union. If the union conspires to deny you your job because you won't join, that's racketeering.
You talk as a Yankee or a European. This crap has no place in Texas (outside the ship channel--too much history with unions there). Right to work, and at-will employment are cornerstones of the Texas economy. A growing economy, with plenty of opportunity, gets workers better wages and lifestyles.
Economically, labor unions = rent seeking.
(esp. public service unions, the biggest type)
And Hawley obviously lacks principles.
Oh yeah, almost forgot...Penn State, Ohio State, and New York Jets fans are a bunch of union members.
You talk as a Yankee or a European. This crap has no place in Texas (outside the ship channel--too much history with unions there). Right to work, and at-will employment are cornerstones of the Texas economy. A growing economy, with plenty of opportunity, gets workers better wages and lifestyles.
Economically, labor unions = rent seeking.
(esp. public service unions, the biggest type)
And Hawley obviously lacks principles.
Oh yeah, almost forgot...Penn State, Ohio State, and New York Jets fans are a bunch of union members.
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Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
I'm okay with too of course.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
I get it but there are many examples of that where it actually bad outcome, not a "tough ****" situation to those who were already working there and perfectly happy.
That scenario completely screws me over for example. Why do people get to change the deal I agreed to and am happy with a decade plus ago? Why is the only conservative response, "then go work somewhere else". It is a very leftist thing to do, not conservative in any way, to fundamentally change a long running system for the benefit of new comers and to the harm of those already there. Think mass immigration.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Not everyone is a new college grad looking for their first job, where this answer could be fair.
Plus this answer can apply to many horrible examples. No one forced you to live in this city. No one forced you to live in this state. No one forced you to live in this house. No one forced you to live in this country. I get it that you don't see a problem with that logic. I do.
But I think the more important question is, what should the labor system look like to you? What would you say a truly ethical and free system looks like? On what values would it be built? What things would be necessarily disallowed?
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
I completely agree with you here. Forcing that person to become a part of the newly formed union is a violation of individual contract rights which is a fundamental natural property right. How we employ our labor and who we employ it for is fundamental to individual sovereignty.
I do think the Texas economy is evidence that the right-to-work system is better than compared to say the Rust Belt. Rent seeking is a good way to put it. Unions also take money away from other firms and industries, artificially reducing wages/salaries there. It is a form of theft against those people.
I agree, again, but that defeats the whole point. The whole point of a union is to take away individual rights and identity and replace it with a proletarian identity. It also takes the property rights away from property owners. It is a way of usurping the capitalist system.
If individuals are able to negotiate with the company on their own, even if it is a subset of workers, then unions will never survive because they only survive if they maintain power over who gets to work for the company. The right-to-work laws are there to give workers a way to escape union power without outlawing by state or federal legislation. Kind of a "free market" approach.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Who knows, but I do know that new automotive manufacturing has come to the South and left the Midwest. It isn't the only factor but it is a significant one. The question is how do you keep labor wages as low as possible while allowing for labor reap the rewards of efficiency and continued industrialization? Let the market decide. What is the market? Individuals deciding what labor wages are high enough to work for and property owners deciding what labor wages are not too high to harm profitability.
Nowhere have wages skyrocketed to insane $$$$ levels for non-owner employees more than the hi-tech field, including Silicon Valley. Very, very few of those workers are unionized. They're skilled and in high demand--that's the way for workers to boost their incomes significantly. Get those in-demand skills.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
That and capital accumulation which makes a laborer more productive. More productivity means the worker can make more money.
The labor market, like most markets, boils down to supply and demand.
Something that does drive wages down is over-immigration. A flood of new employees seeking work drives wages down and/or prevents increases in wages that otherwise would have occurred. Employees lose leverage to seek raises, and better opportunities, when the labor market is flooded with new job seekers.
Something that does drive wages down is over-immigration. A flood of new employees seeking work drives wages down and/or prevents increases in wages that otherwise would have occurred. Employees lose leverage to seek raises, and better opportunities, when the labor market is flooded with new job seekers.
The proper balance between the needs of business for reasonably priced labor, and the needs of employees to get jobs and make a decent living must be balanced.
The massive surge of illegal laborers has depressed worker wages.
Labor union leader Cesar Chavez understood this well and tirelessly crusaded to stop illegal immigration.
The massive surge of illegal laborers has depressed worker wages.
Labor union leader Cesar Chavez understood this well and tirelessly crusaded to stop illegal immigration.
Most on the Right don't have a problem with that logic. It is the basis for the employment at will doctrine. They simply make an exception here because they like the outcome. If we were talking about almost any topic you'd happily apply it.
For me, an ideal system would balance both interests. I'd let employees vote to unionize, and I'd let employees opt out. However, if they opt out, they become true at will employees. They get to negotiate their own pay, benefits, etc. The CBA and everything about it is out the window.
If you're willing to be more liberal with exceptions to the at-will doctrine, I can respect that. Probably won't agree with it often, but I can respect it.
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