I was happy with the outcome.
VW Union Vote
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Originally Posted By: R80RS
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...
This is absolute and total nonsense.
How? Employers take a loss on an employee? Workers actually HAVE capital but choose to trade their labour as a commodity for fun and giggles?
Good gravy, man: Who would argue that wage labour is not exploitative?! Exploiting the fact that a worker has no capital and trades their labour as a commodity is the whole point of an employer employing and employee!
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...
This is absolute and total nonsense.
How? Employers take a loss on an employee? Workers actually HAVE capital but choose to trade their labour as a commodity for fun and giggles?
Good gravy, man: Who would argue that wage labour is not exploitative?! Exploiting the fact that a worker has no capital and trades their labour as a commodity is the whole point of an employer employing and employee!
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Does anyone remember Detroit? Can all of us really believe the unions had NOTHING to do with its decline?
Unions are at 1916 numbers for enrollment. If they can't organize a shop where mgmt is actually cooperative like VW then the people have spoken. I heard comments from the workers that they were worried about the union driving them out of work eventually...
Come one, lets think reasonably. EVERYONE NEEDS to make $100 an hour - even if they are just putting hubcaps on wheels! And of course, they need to retire at 120% of salary. Completely reasonable if you are a union representative.
We used to have New Process Gear here in Syracuse. Dodge transmissions and NP transfer cases were made a few miles from where I live and work.
The Union demanded ridiculously high wages for CNY saying that it was "impossible" to live on $20-$30 an hour.
Guess what - they closed shop and moved out.
Unions served their purpose 100 years ago when people were operating unsafe sweat shops and paying pennies a day. Now, unless they are putting the company out of business ... the employees are not being paid enough.
Unfortunately, my only experience with Unions has been horrible. The Teachers' union has to be the worst. All of the teachers, teacher assistants and teacher aides have to pay into it ... but they only help the teachers.
If I ever work in a unionized company, I will pay Union dues (as that is the law in NY), but, unless I am presented with extraordinarily poor working conditions or extraordinarily low pay, I will not join a union.
The thing that really gets me is there are guys who are now unemployed BECAUSE OF THE UAW, still toting around their UAW hats and jackets and hanging out at the Union hall.
Apparently they aren't smart enough to realize they are unemployed because of the union.
Does anyone remember Detroit? Can all of us really believe the unions had NOTHING to do with its decline?
Unions are at 1916 numbers for enrollment. If they can't organize a shop where mgmt is actually cooperative like VW then the people have spoken. I heard comments from the workers that they were worried about the union driving them out of work eventually...
Come one, lets think reasonably. EVERYONE NEEDS to make $100 an hour - even if they are just putting hubcaps on wheels! And of course, they need to retire at 120% of salary. Completely reasonable if you are a union representative.
We used to have New Process Gear here in Syracuse. Dodge transmissions and NP transfer cases were made a few miles from where I live and work.
The Union demanded ridiculously high wages for CNY saying that it was "impossible" to live on $20-$30 an hour.
Guess what - they closed shop and moved out.
Unions served their purpose 100 years ago when people were operating unsafe sweat shops and paying pennies a day. Now, unless they are putting the company out of business ... the employees are not being paid enough.
Unfortunately, my only experience with Unions has been horrible. The Teachers' union has to be the worst. All of the teachers, teacher assistants and teacher aides have to pay into it ... but they only help the teachers.
If I ever work in a unionized company, I will pay Union dues (as that is the law in NY), but, unless I am presented with extraordinarily poor working conditions or extraordinarily low pay, I will not join a union.
The thing that really gets me is there are guys who are now unemployed BECAUSE OF THE UAW, still toting around their UAW hats and jackets and hanging out at the Union hall.
Apparently they aren't smart enough to realize they are unemployed because of the union.
If only the UAW and other large unions would make the fundamental shift from being adversarial and exploitative to simply asking the question.... "How can we ALL make more money and create a better quality product or provide a better quality service?"
If that happened, I believe that unions could again have their place. Perhaps that's an over-simplification of the issues at hand, but in its current form if I was a worker at the VW plant I would have voted against unionization just to keep the UAW away.
If that happened, I believe that unions could again have their place. Perhaps that's an over-simplification of the issues at hand, but in its current form if I was a worker at the VW plant I would have voted against unionization just to keep the UAW away.
Originally Posted By: R80RS
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...
This is absolute and total nonsense.
yes it is.
As an employer who takes his position extremely seriously I can tell you that MANY times my employees get their generous pay even when I do not!
And the simple fact is if your employer doesn't make a generous profit off of your work then there is a strong likelihood your last paycheck will bounce! Add to that there is then no incentive at all to be in biz...
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...
This is absolute and total nonsense.
yes it is.
As an employer who takes his position extremely seriously I can tell you that MANY times my employees get their generous pay even when I do not!
And the simple fact is if your employer doesn't make a generous profit off of your work then there is a strong likelihood your last paycheck will bounce! Add to that there is then no incentive at all to be in biz...
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
.... (wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer)
LOL. Well, Okay then, comrade.
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
... I can tell you that MANY times my employees get their generous pay even when I do not!
Yep. Common in any small business, especially start ups.
.... (wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer)
LOL. Well, Okay then, comrade.
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
... I can tell you that MANY times my employees get their generous pay even when I do not!
Yep. Common in any small business, especially start ups.
I think though you can't really argue with Germany's success with union labour, and high standards in safety, benefits, and environmental protection.
And it seems that unions still have a place in protecting workers saftey even the US.
http://irlee.umich.edu/Publications/Docs/RightToWorkLawsAndFatalitiesInConstruction.pdf
And it seems that unions still have a place in protecting workers saftey even the US.
http://irlee.umich.edu/Publications/Docs/RightToWorkLawsAndFatalitiesInConstruction.pdf
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: R80RS
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...
This is absolute and total nonsense.
How? Employers take a loss on an employee? Workers actually HAVE capital but choose to trade their labour as a commodity for fun and giggles?
Good gravy, man: Who would argue that wage labour is not exploitative?! Exploiting the fact that a worker has no capital and trades their labour as a commodity is the whole point of an employer employing and employee!
To assert working for pay is inherently exploitative is to assert it is an intrinsic moral evil, one that is always wrong and can not be made right regardless of the terms entered into or the circumstances. That assertion is nonsense.
I would argue that not only is wage labor not inherently exploitative, but it is not exploitative at all in advanced economies such as are found in the US, CAN, and the EU. To assert paying wages for labor is intrinsically exploitative is indefensible nonsense. Labor for wages, freely entered into under agreed upon terms, is an equitable exchange of goods (i.e. the employee's time and effort for the employer's pay and benefits). That exchange works both ways - employees who feel themselves "exploited" are free to walk out the door and find different employment or work to improve their earning ability.
And what on Earth does the employer's profitability have to do with the moral nature of the employment contract? An employer who takes prolonged losses on employees or anything else becomes unprofitable and can't pay wages to anyone.
Your last sentence sounds like it's parroted from an introductory class on Marxism at a second tier college. You think the entire point of an employer employing someone is just so they can exploit them? You'd have to be incredibly naive to believe such a thing. Have you ever hired anyone to do a job, in the capacity of employer, supervisor or hiring manager, or maybe in your personal life? Ever hire a carpenter or electrician? Were they exploited? Or was it a mutually agreed upon transaction?
Originally Posted By: R80RS
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...
This is absolute and total nonsense.
How? Employers take a loss on an employee? Workers actually HAVE capital but choose to trade their labour as a commodity for fun and giggles?
Good gravy, man: Who would argue that wage labour is not exploitative?! Exploiting the fact that a worker has no capital and trades their labour as a commodity is the whole point of an employer employing and employee!
To assert working for pay is inherently exploitative is to assert it is an intrinsic moral evil, one that is always wrong and can not be made right regardless of the terms entered into or the circumstances. That assertion is nonsense.
I would argue that not only is wage labor not inherently exploitative, but it is not exploitative at all in advanced economies such as are found in the US, CAN, and the EU. To assert paying wages for labor is intrinsically exploitative is indefensible nonsense. Labor for wages, freely entered into under agreed upon terms, is an equitable exchange of goods (i.e. the employee's time and effort for the employer's pay and benefits). That exchange works both ways - employees who feel themselves "exploited" are free to walk out the door and find different employment or work to improve their earning ability.
And what on Earth does the employer's profitability have to do with the moral nature of the employment contract? An employer who takes prolonged losses on employees or anything else becomes unprofitable and can't pay wages to anyone.
Your last sentence sounds like it's parroted from an introductory class on Marxism at a second tier college. You think the entire point of an employer employing someone is just so they can exploit them? You'd have to be incredibly naive to believe such a thing. Have you ever hired anyone to do a job, in the capacity of employer, supervisor or hiring manager, or maybe in your personal life? Ever hire a carpenter or electrician? Were they exploited? Or was it a mutually agreed upon transaction?
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
As an employer who takes his position extremely seriously I can tell you that MANY times my employees get their generous pay even when I do not!
And the simple fact is if your employer doesn't make a generous profit off of your work then there is a strong likelihood your last paycheck will bounce! Add to that there is then no incentive at all to be in biz...
SteveSRT8 gets it.
I've gone without pay (up to 10 weeks once) while making payroll for my employees and paying vendors (as best I could) when my company was a very early start-up.
If the value of an employee's contribution doesn't cover the cost of the employee's salary at a profit, then the employer is hemorrhaging money and is on the path to insolvency.
As an employer who takes his position extremely seriously I can tell you that MANY times my employees get their generous pay even when I do not!
And the simple fact is if your employer doesn't make a generous profit off of your work then there is a strong likelihood your last paycheck will bounce! Add to that there is then no incentive at all to be in biz...
SteveSRT8 gets it.
I've gone without pay (up to 10 weeks once) while making payroll for my employees and paying vendors (as best I could) when my company was a very early start-up.
If the value of an employee's contribution doesn't cover the cost of the employee's salary at a profit, then the employer is hemorrhaging money and is on the path to insolvency.
JHZR2
Staff member
Employees are only brought in for one reason - because there are only so many hours in a day, and the people who own the intellectual and/or physical capital can only trade in so many of their hours in a day for dollars. So an efficency is gained by someone who can do something better/faster/cheaper, or at least close to equally, but it is still that they are brought in to leverage their skills to expand profit for someone else. The only way to expand their profits and total capital/business presence is to leverage others' labor.
There is nothing inherently wrong or right about this, it is what it is. It is a neutral point. It is indeed exploitative, because the employer is looking to extract max value for THEIR profit off of someone else's skill. But it is also a trade of value for value, agreed upon, thus it is neutral, and NOT something that is inherently negative. Slave labor is negative, IMO offshoring to a far lower cost area is negative. Trade of hours for dollars just is what it is.
But let's face it, "efficiency" is when all the available work is performed with the minimal number of employees, or more specifically, minimal number of burdened man-hours.
The employer isnt paying wages to be generous, even if the owner isnt taking a wage in order to pay employees. Let's face it, nobody is in business for the good of others, including the employees. Then it would be charity. They are in business for the long run creation of business value and profit for themselves, or in the case of a corporation with shareholders, for the shareholders.
The employee has vested interest in the business succeeding, because it assures a paycheck, and IF there is a profit sharing program, then some ownership in the long-term valuation of the business. If there is no employee ownership, it is purely to have an assured paycheck and hopefully a rise time to time. There is no benefit to the employee to have an increased business valuation, because it will never increase or effect the employees' net worth.
But these things are all just what they are. Its all fairly neutral, unless one cares to make it adversarial. The reality is that these days there is enough mobility and enough opportunity from area to area to make something of ones self no matter what. Jobs are finite, indeed. But it doesnt mean that there is no opportunity. Sure, nobody is going to create a B&M discount chain in their garage that competes with walmart, but there are tons of other opportunities.
The funny thing is that it becomes adversarial because the employees and the small business owners all spout rhetoric and are pawns of the greater injustice being done to all.
There is nothing inherently wrong or right about this, it is what it is. It is a neutral point. It is indeed exploitative, because the employer is looking to extract max value for THEIR profit off of someone else's skill. But it is also a trade of value for value, agreed upon, thus it is neutral, and NOT something that is inherently negative. Slave labor is negative, IMO offshoring to a far lower cost area is negative. Trade of hours for dollars just is what it is.
But let's face it, "efficiency" is when all the available work is performed with the minimal number of employees, or more specifically, minimal number of burdened man-hours.
The employer isnt paying wages to be generous, even if the owner isnt taking a wage in order to pay employees. Let's face it, nobody is in business for the good of others, including the employees. Then it would be charity. They are in business for the long run creation of business value and profit for themselves, or in the case of a corporation with shareholders, for the shareholders.
The employee has vested interest in the business succeeding, because it assures a paycheck, and IF there is a profit sharing program, then some ownership in the long-term valuation of the business. If there is no employee ownership, it is purely to have an assured paycheck and hopefully a rise time to time. There is no benefit to the employee to have an increased business valuation, because it will never increase or effect the employees' net worth.
But these things are all just what they are. Its all fairly neutral, unless one cares to make it adversarial. The reality is that these days there is enough mobility and enough opportunity from area to area to make something of ones self no matter what. Jobs are finite, indeed. But it doesnt mean that there is no opportunity. Sure, nobody is going to create a B&M discount chain in their garage that competes with walmart, but there are tons of other opportunities.
The funny thing is that it becomes adversarial because the employees and the small business owners all spout rhetoric and are pawns of the greater injustice being done to all.
Originally Posted By: R80RS
You think the entire point of an employer employing someone is just so they can exploit them? You'd have to be incredibly naive to believe such a thing.
I think that there may be at least a shred of truth to uc50ic4more's statement. Just because you choose not to, doesn't mean that somewhere another employer won't find a way to bend his employees over the barrel, which is one of the principal reasons that unions were formed in the first place. Of course the practice is much less common, making many unions obsolete.
You think the entire point of an employer employing someone is just so they can exploit them? You'd have to be incredibly naive to believe such a thing.
I think that there may be at least a shred of truth to uc50ic4more's statement. Just because you choose not to, doesn't mean that somewhere another employer won't find a way to bend his employees over the barrel, which is one of the principal reasons that unions were formed in the first place. Of course the practice is much less common, making many unions obsolete.
Originally Posted By: R80RS
To assert working for pay is inherently exploitative is to assert it is an intrinsic moral evil, one that is always wrong and can not be made right regardless of the terms entered into or the circumstances. That assertion is nonsense.
I agree with about 99.9% of what you've said, because it's all right and true.
But the word "exploit" is not morally or ethically suggestive in any way by itself. It requires further context.
To assert working for pay is inherently exploitative is to assert it is an intrinsic moral evil, one that is always wrong and can not be made right regardless of the terms entered into or the circumstances. That assertion is nonsense.
I agree with about 99.9% of what you've said, because it's all right and true.
But the word "exploit" is not morally or ethically suggestive in any way by itself. It requires further context.
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