Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron61
Jamo,
I was wondering about that replacement with lower paid employees statement. Does that mean the replacements will still be union workers, and if so, how do they get around the contract they just signed some time back? It would seem to me that if they hire people at a lower rate they couldn't be union people because of the contract and I saw no where they said that was being changed. When they had the buy outs in the telephone companies, the people that I talked to who were hired at a considerable less rate as replacements and less of them, weren't in the union.
Ron  |
Ron,
I wondered if some of the industries, such as the telephone companies like you worked at, didn't sell out to another company (sometimes newly formed just for the purpose) that were decidedly not union. In this case, the former contract between the former company and union would be null and void ...unless the union could forge a new agreement. This would certainly be an example where the new lower paid workers were not union.
There are a variety of ways to break a union and that is one of the most popular since all the company agreements on earned benefits more-or-less go out the window also. It is considered a dirty trick by employees that have given up wage concessions, for years, to "let the company be their savings bank". Usually, to add insult to injury, the sleazy former company officials get quite a golden parachute for making such a sweet and profitable corporate deal. It's all legal but most Americans would consider it unethical unless they have a particular distaste for unions. Corporate press releases often have heavy spin that the deal was made "to save the company" and a growing segment of the working population accepts that at face value without thinking it through. Follow the money. The working class is again divided and conquered.
Unions aren't good ...or bad. They are simply a counterpart to "organized management" which is another word for Mom-and-Pop stores banding together and forming large corporations. Unions are simply organized labor whereas corporations are organized management. The irresistable force against the immovable object. OK, a little movement always seeking balance.
Corporations aren't* bad either, since part of the reason (the original actually) for their forming is to allow the investment heft that large scale business operations require. Along with investment heft came the potential power to dominate costs. Dominate both labor and raw materials. The immovable object against the irresistable force. Again, balance is key here.
Guys I work with often berate "the company" as though it were some major faceless plot against them. They try to screw the company, by delaying trains, to "teach" management a lesson. We work by the mile, for Christs' sake. The smoother the operation, the sooner we get home ...the more our earnings for time spent. Guess who's mostly left holding the bag in these cases? These slackers catagorically think that big companies are "evil". The idea is sometimes foolishly fostered by unions trying to generate support for policy change.
Conversely, many people in management think that unions are catagorically "evil". The idea is sometimes foolishly fostered (very publicly) by management trying to generate support for policy change. Management (stockholders) feel that the workers, as a whole, are too greedy by trying to keep too much of the wealth that their efforts generate. And they are willing to sacrifice overall operational corporate health to achieve the dubious victory of endlessly suppressing costs including wages. The wages of people that buy the end product, mind you.
The end result is that the general public begans to take a dim view of both union and corporate entities. Sure, there are unworthy individuals in both management and the laborforce. Slackers. Crooks. There is always that 10 percent. The truth is that neither corporations nor unions are evil catagorically. They are necessary business structures to not only build a modern country, but make it economically worth fighting to save when all is said and done.
Daffynition War: A way to replace upper management of a country in case it's not worth saving. Rome fell ...but the people went on with new management. We call them Italians now.
*WWI and WWII were actually won by US corporations, not by soldiers. Sure, our guys fought just as hard as the Japanese or Germans. But we basically won because we out-manufactured the opposition. We built new stuff faster than the enemy could blow it up. The enemy lost mostly because they ran out of supplies. Countless times, it almost went the other way. WWIII, when it happens, might not be so kind to us. Sure, our soldiers will again be as good as theirs ...and will die for their country. Unless all our factories are overseas. Nobody wins a war by simply dying for their country. They win by making the other guy die for his (Patton). A good steady supply of Death Tools really helps kill the other guy. Terrorism is a mere nuisance compared to this looming fatal jobs-over-seas problem. Our next president, our next congress
can make a lot of difference.
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