Hmm… seem to be doing it again. My apologies. I just saw the worst of unions and have had a chip on my shoulder about them ever since.

Carry on. =)

Noone: Unions do not look after the company ineterests, but the workers. The workers ARE the company, not mgmt. I too belonged to CWA and can testify it was their incompetence not corruption which was the big stumbling block. If unions have ‘lost their way’, then corps never ‘found the way’ to treat humans with decency and dignity.

Paul:
‘It seems to me that the overall standard of living for Billions of people has increased faster since the recent surge of globalization than at any other time in history.’

This has nothing to do w globalization but w human progress. Of course the poor now have more toys and gadgets than they did 30, 50, 100 years ago. Bit the gap between the richest and poorest has only widened the last few decades- in this nation and globally- precisely because there have been weakenigs of things that protect workers- be it regulations (has there beena bigger disaster for safety and competition than deregulation? Just look at the few media titans left, and the consolidation of industries and lack of competition. Unions have been crunched as a result.

Jason:
‘ There are no ‘Union Bosses’ any longer, and they had a few decades run in the middle of the 20th C.

Even if this were true (and it is not — there are still very powerful union bosses that use their positions coercively — see the AFL-CIO and the various government-worker unions for examples)’

There are no old time union bosses in the racketeer sense, No union today has as much power as they did 50 years ago, and even then the most powerful unions had perhaps a tenth the influence of corporations. Perhaps if we reinstituted the higher tax brackets- up to 90%, like there was back then, the corps wd be forced to live in the real world with workers.

Bruce: Excellent point.

Jim S: Ditto.

Paul:
In the 19th C. slave labor was embargoed after we abolished it. This led to pressures brought on nations like Brazil to ax slavery. Similar pressures were brought to bear gainst child labor in this nation. It simply takes will to not deal with nations that mistreat their people. To say that we simply have to fall in to line and accept no bens, low wages, etc. to compete is absurd. You don’t sink to a LCD to compete, you simply disallow violaters of basic human rights not to compete. It’s not difficult and rather simple. It simply takes guts, things most corporate whores lack.

My point wasn’t that your view was extreme, just that while if you support free trade you’ll probably get it, but the support for the improvements in the safety net won’t produce anything. Too many people have bought into the con job about taxes being evil for such programs to be paid for by this country.

But much of the rest of the world is accelerating high stakes economic competition. We will have rapidly diminishing control of the rules of the game. It is unrealistic to think we can easily force trade partners to increase their cost of doing business.

To clarify my earlier post it just seems to me that you and those who make the same argument that you do are willing to let the current globalization model push forward full steam ahead while wishing for things that no one seems willing to give. The result is globalization pushing forward while completely ignoring the bad effects it has. If you don’t push back against it you have no leverage to use when pushing for programs to alleviate the bad effects it can have.

Partially true. Things have improved for many. Not necessarily by that much, though. And in addition things are getting worse for others. The only form of globalization that is realistically going to happen over the next couple of decades at least involves a dive to the bottom in the name of corporate profits. While there are exceptions this is the primary goal of the companies that really are driving globalization. How cheap can they go on salaries? How many environmental standards can they leave behind them to save some money? How many work rules to protect employees can be ignored?

These same corporations and the people who make good money within the current system have no interest in maintaining, much less improving our social safety net. They couldn’t care less about fixing any of our social programs so long as they have the money to put themselves above the public good. It might cost them some tax money. And the average American is too heavily invested in the myth of the American Dream to recognize when they’re being BSed into thinking that there’s no reason for these programs. Not all of them, but enough.

Perhaps we should elect politicians the same way. If most voters stay home, no one is elected.

There are no ‘Union Bosses’ any longer, and they had a few decades run in the middle of the 20th C.

Even if this were true (and it is not — there are still very powerful union bosses that use their positions coercively — see the AFL-CIO and the various government-worker unions for examples), it is not the issue. The issue is social pressure. Workers who are confronted by other workers demanding that they openly profess to support “our union” face withering social pressure to pretend to support the union whether or not they do.

I was a supporter of an effort to start a union for grad students a few years ago and even though I was a supporter, I was sometimes disturbed by the degree to which even some well-meaning union organizers put up social pressures to get people to sign on and, more importantly, to suppress all expressions of concerns or disagreements.

Maintaining the secret ballot can be frustrating for union supporters, but it is tough to see any legitimate reason to get rid of it. I mean, what could be the real purpose of forcing a non-secret balloting process EXCEPT a desire to intimidate voters?

I posted today about the biggest bang for our buck in making the world more peaceful and cooperative is the removing of obstacles to competition.

I would prefer that the US focus on making our safety net more cost efficient rather than trying to hold back the tsunami that is global competition. Fix Health Care, Education, Social Security, energy and environmental protection, and then let the global markets determine the most efficient deployment of resources.

Why? Because they got too powerful and look more like corporations than actual unions. They spend more time and money fighting progress of the company their employees work for than they do looking out for those same employees interests.

Unions have lost their way and no longer take interest in what’s best for the company and the employees futures. They care only about power.

The one thing I took away from the old union workers at Ameritech (Ohio Bell) was this: “Fix a little, leave a litte. That’s job security.” Disheartening, isn’t it?