Unions bad or good for America?

[Dr Swane]

My Dad was in the teamsters Union in Chicago driving a mixer and my brother does now. They always told them to vote Democrat. My dad never did and my brother doesn’t vote but his wife is a Democrat. And look what the democrats did to that city.

Forced to live in the city/county, you spend your own pay raises on taxes and private schools.

 

[blkduck]

The fact is the middle class was largest in the USA when unions were the strongest.

Yes as unions have got weaker, the middle class has shrunk. That’s because a lot of them found upward mobility by getting out of the union and now they are upper class

 

[Lip Shooter]

In 1980 it was raised to $3.10.

Everything I have said is true. You are trying to nitpick out minor details, but even in that you failed.

Boy it hard for you to say you’re wrong

The excuse train many words, but note I’m wrong. I have had lots of people like you working for me.

Did you struggle holding jobs?

 

[pintail2222]

LOL and minimum wage was 2.50 in 1980 ha ha ha so easy to just look up and see you are making stuff up again. But again it is your day!

This was somewhere around 1980. The minimum wage was about $2.50 a hour. Going wage was about $4.

The Guide Plant started people somewhere around $13. With benefits.


I would think a person who has been caught lying on so many occasions would be loathe to call anyone a liar, especially since you are such a well-known liar that on this website your name is used as a numerical quantifier for level of lying.

Minimum wage in 1980 was $3.10
Minimum wage in 1979 was $2.90
Minimum wage in 1978 was $2.65

History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009

www.dol.gov

​

 

[grahler]

Yes as unions have got weaker, the middle class has shrunk. That’s because a lot of them found upward mobility by getting out of the union and now they are upper class

View attachment 382051

Union jobs vs non. Union jobs pay 20 percent higher on average. So that’s for the same job, for example a trucker…. Here this guy explains why that’s no longer a solid middle class job.



Middle class Union truckers didn’t become ceo .

 

[Steelshot Scott]

Minimum wage in 1980 was $3.10
Minimum wage in 1979 was $2.90
Minimum wage in 1978 was $2.65

History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009

www.dol.gov

​

And the kicker is that it has no bearing on the debate. I was making a point from memory, stated the wage "was around" a certain amount and very succinctly made my point. Lippy has focused on a few pennies in a argument(where I acknowledged I didn't know the exact amount) that has no bearing on the point and he thinks he won.

My point was that work came in at a highly inflated pay scale for the area and everyone boomed off it. Unions came in and ran them out of town.

That is the point.


I don't think Lippy is capable of intelligent debate.

 

[grahler]

At six minutes in the video I put above the trucker NAILED IT.
“We now have our Wal Mart nine dollar sneakers but in order to do it we had to give away all our industry to overseas”
He’s correct.
The sneakers are not the only way that selling America to China etc has hurt us either.
Ruined the country!

 

[Steelshot Scott]

At six minutes in the video I put above the trucker NAILED IT.
“We now have our Wal Mart nine dollar sneakers but in order to do it we had to give away all our industry to overseas”
He’s correct.
The sneakers are not the only way that selling America to China etc has hurt us either.
Ruined the country!

You have to quit buying $9 dollar sneakers and buy the $36 dollar pair.

Voluntarily, for the good of the country.

Almost all my clothes, including shoes, are made in America. But almost none of my electronic devices are. Because they no longer exist, they are all made in China now.

So it is buy Chinese, or live without a microwave.

 

[Nick87]

I'm a member of a labor union. Anytime you bring up what's in our contract my boss (owner of the company) throws a **** fit. However I get a good laugh anytime something isn't going well with a GC we are working for. First thing he brings up is "that's not in my contract" or "our contract says...". Hypocrite

 

[num70]

This debate is old as time. And with good reason, there's a ton of moving parts to the discussion. There's a ton of long term data to sift through. (About 150 years worth now). When they were started, there's no debate that they were needed. Then the corruption came (40s-70s is the timeline most pointed towards.) There's no question that Unions were quite corrupt. You can debate whether or not they still are. And even then, which ones? My wife's in a union (teacher) and it's the weakest union I've ever seen. Which is fine. They self-fund retirement and bennies. No real cost to taxpayers.
For me, it boils down to overall economic activity. I think unions are good for the economy. good for M1 supply. I have a whole lot of union friends and colleagues. They feel good about their wages and they feed what Keynes referred to as "animal spirits". By that I mean that when a man knows his retirement and healthcare are provided for, he spends his paycheck. He buys not only necessities but boats and vacations and whatever else. He feels his "rainy days" are covered. This is economically very stimulating.
Corporate profits? Not so much. They're taxed so companies will offshore whatever they can (over $3T in untaxed profits by US companies that remain offshore.) Companies don't remain in business long by spending lavishly. They hoard capital that's not spent on expansion. Which is of course what they should do for the shareholder. Yes, we need companies to employ people. No, not everyone should be unionized. Yes, there should be serious oversight on unions. But we are largely a consumer economy, dependent upon people (workers) earning and spending money. I think that the union stimulates the activity our economy is so dependent upon.