How many factories have moved overseas due to a union as opposed to how many have stayed because of a union?
Is it the presence of a union that drives a company to move factories offshore, or is it the opportunity to pay slave wages and no benefits in order to reap "shareholder value" and bigger bonuses? Often two sides of the same coin, but which perspective do you take?
I am a stockholder, you are a stockholder, all of us here in NES are stockholders due to the death of pensions and the emergence of IRA and 401k plans. Personally, as a stockholder I am willing to accept a little less return in exchange for more societal stability. I believe in the rising tides raises all boats theory.
Problem is, the exec class has paid the political whores to remove the barriers to sending our jobs off shore. Others talk about unions paying off pols (and they are absolutely 100 pct right) but do you think unions are paying them to move jobs overseas? To kill their member base? C'mon, who really wants labor to forever be in a position of weakness?
The guy with a Harvard or Yale MBA who gets a new Mercedes every 2 years and has a summer home in Marina del Ray and a winter home in Aspen
They guy who "worked for everything he's got" building a company who now has a car collection, a cottage on the lake, and a cigarette boat that would make a cartel jealous. All they while the guys doing the work have no retirement contribution (never mind a plan) and has barely affordable health care?
Unions have many negatives. No doubt. But they are one of the last mechanisms for maintaining income
parity (not equality) among the classes, and that parity contributes to societal stability.
Should the business owner or CEO make 25 times more than the average worker. Perhaps yes. In the case of the business owner, he took the risk and should certainly be rewarded if he succeeds.
Should that same gentleman make upwards of 100 times what the average worker makes. No way.
What if he only makes 50 times more while his workers pay less for healthcare and maybe make a little more? Would that be a bad thing?
Should an iron worker, welder, truck driver, or equipment operator make $250k a year. No way, and if those guys in the private sector join a union to grind that out of a company, they will all soon be on the unemployment line wishing they weren't so greedy.
Once again, the rising tide and the fleet of boats. If the corporate pigs brought some factories back here, and paid some of our poorer, less educated countrymen to produce material there would be less need for social welfare programs, fewer burning and generally devastated cities, and all in all a much more stable nation