Union decline lowers wages of nonunion workers

[bshole]

LOL, so we'll "decimate" our universities unless professors have lifetime tenure? That huge line of adjunct professors stretching down the campus would gladly do the teaching for the tenured professors who are too busy publishing anyway to have any time for the low-life students. And this is even before the MOOC model has really achieved liftoff and does to StateU what Amazon did to Borders Books and half the stores in the mall. Muttering ominously about how tenure is invaluable is is just one more example of wishful thinking like the unions where the members of a class think they're a lot more valuable than they actually are.

Keep cheerleading the decimation of the middle and working class. We all know that NOBODY is more valuable than the uber-wealthy. We need to reach income inequalities that surpass Russia. We can't get there by paying good wages to highly trained professionals, much less the working class.

 

[senseamp]

LOL, so we'll "decimate" our universities unless professors have lifetime tenure? That huge line of adjunct professors stretching down the campus would gladly do the teaching for the tenured professors who are too busy publishing anyway to have any time for the low-life students. And this is even before the MOOC model has really achieved liftoff and does to StateU what Amazon did to Borders Books and half the stores in the mall. Muttering ominously about how tenure is invaluable is is just one more example of wishful thinking like the unions where the members of a class think they're a lot more valuable than they actually are.

Adjunct professors are motivated to stay in academia by the hope of eventually becoming tenured professors. Top talent is not going to settle for being lifetime adjunct professors when they can get $200K from Google today. You'll get miscellaneous rejects who couldn't cut it in the industry teaching your state's future workforce. Which is fine by us here in Silicon Valley

 

[glenn1]

Adjunct professors are motivated to stay in academia by the hope of eventually becoming tenured professors. Top talent is not going to settle for being lifetime adjunct professors when they can get $200K from Google today. You'll get miscellaneous rejects who couldn't cut it in the industry teaching your state's future workforce. Which is fine by us here in Silicon Valley

That's mostly my point. The "top talent" in academia isn't teaching anyway, they're publishing papers, chasing down research grants, etc. It's already become a bifurcated system where undergrads are taught by grad students and adjunct professors in an environment which is more like sharecropping than the "life of the mind." Meanwhile the tenured professor universe continues to diverge away from anything close to the diversity of either background or thought you see in the outside workforce and increasingly represented by people like Melissa Click (the "I need some muscle over here" prof from the Missouri protests) and fraudulent showmen like Ward Churchill. Higher education could and would benefit from breaking down the tenure system in favor of more inclusiveness in terms of minorities, political viewpoints other than the progressive left, and people whose main accomplishments come from outside academia.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/the-plight-of-the-black-academic/420237/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...2015-where-are-all-the-black-college-faculty/

 

[senseamp]

That's mostly my point. The "top talent" in academia isn't teaching anyway, they're publishing papers, chasing down research grants, etc. It's already become a bifurcated system where undergrads are taught by grad students and adjunct professors in an environment which is more like sharecropping than the "life of the mind." Meanwhile the tenured professor universe continues to diverge away from anything close to the diversity of either background or thought you see in the outside workforce and increasingly represented by people like Melissa Click (the "I need some muscle over here" prof from the Missouri protests) and fraudulent showmen like Ward Churchill. Higher education could and would benefit from breaking down the tenure system in favor of more inclusiveness in terms of minorities, political viewpoints other than the progressive left, and people whose main accomplishments come from outside academia.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/the-plight-of-the-black-academic/420237/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...2015-where-are-all-the-black-college-faculty/

People who have other options stay in academia because they want to become tenured eventually. Otherwise, why bother? If you got a PhD in math, engineering, or quantitative sciences, you can get much better pay in the industry, with much less drama.
But since you have it all figured out, proceed with it in your state, and let academic prospects decide if they want to take a position where there is no chance of tenure or go elsewhere. And in a few years, "job creators" will decide if your state still has good enough human capital to bother with.

 

[glenn1]

People who have other options stay in academia because they want to become tenured eventually. Otherwise, why bother? If you got a PhD in math, engineering, or quantitative sciences, you can get much better pay in the industry, with much less drama.
But since you have it all figured out, proceed with it in your state, and let academic prospects decide if they want to take a position where there is no chance of tenure or go elsewhere. And in a few years, "job creators" will decide if your state still has good enough human capital to bother with.

Ooooh scary. That's the same argument the left has repeatedly said can't happen if instead of "professors" and "tenure" you swap rich people and taxes. So the same phenomenon you call "race to the bottom" suddenly isn't when it's your wallet that's impacted.

And go ahead and take one of those "much better pay in the industry, with less drama" jobs. I'm sure they're abundantly plentiful enough to employ tens of thousands of formerly tenured professors who are no longer interested. Go ahead and put in your application, we'll wait. Just stand right beside all those semi-skilled workers who said the same thing about their jobs with the UAW or whatever.

 

[senseamp]

Ooooh scary. That's the same argument the left has repeatedly said can't happen if instead of "professors" and "tenure" you swap rich people and taxes. So the same phenomenon you call "race to the bottom" suddenly isn't when it's your wallet that's impacted.

And go ahead and take one of those "much better pay in the industry, with less drama" jobs. I'm sure they're abundantly plentiful enough to employ tens of thousands of formerly tenured professors who are no longer interested. Go ahead and put in your application, we'll wait.

And "the left" has been right. Or has it trickled down already?
Anyways, it's one of those tree falling in the woods things. You want to do your experiment and get rid of tenure, fine. There is no shortage of talented graduates coming from other states and countries, so most hiring managers don't care what some flyover state university system does or doesn't do.

 

[bshole]

And "the left" has been right. Or has it trickled down already?
Anyways, it's one of those tree falling in the woods things. You want to do your experiment and get rid of tenure, fine. There is no shortage of talented graduates coming from other states and countries, so most hiring managers don't care what some flyover state university system does or doesn't do.

Yea it has trickled up. Pretty much exactly as the left warned about. The days of a real and broad middle class are coming to an end. BLM is one indicator of this reality.

 

[senseamp]

Yea it has trickled up. Pretty much exactly as the left warned about. The days of a real and broad middle class are coming to an end. BLM is one indicator of this reality.

Don't worry, they'll find someone to blame. Because admitting that they are the ones who gave away their own prosperity for a bunch of empty trickle down promises is hard.

 

[Roflmouth]

I work in a union heavy industry and I am seeing more and more Trump stickers.

They know and it kills them

 

[JSt0rm]

That's mostly my point. The "top talent" in academia isn't teaching anyway, they're publishing papers, chasing down research grants, etc. It's already become a bifurcated system where undergrads are taught by grad students and adjunct professors in an environment which is more like sharecropping than the "life of the mind." Meanwhile the tenured professor universe continues to diverge away from anything close to the diversity of either background or thought you see in the outside workforce and increasingly represented by people like Melissa Click (the "I need some muscle over here" prof from the Missouri protests) and fraudulent showmen like Ward Churchill. Higher education could and would benefit from breaking down the tenure system in favor of more inclusiveness in terms of minorities, political viewpoints other than the progressive left, and people whose main accomplishments come from outside academia.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/the-plight-of-the-black-academic/420237/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...2015-where-are-all-the-black-college-faculty/

you do realize tenured professors do all of that shit right?

 

[Puffnstuff]

That'd be a companies corporate board forcing profits through cuts. Once you go public the only objective of your owners is looting. I don't think it's right to say "workers" to blame.

Have you ever tried working with former UAW members? I have and they were horrible to deal with. Their job centric entitlement mental set made them inefficient and lazy which doesn't work in a high performance work environment. When Honda built their Indiana plant they did right by strategically locating themselves outside of the areas with former GM workers.

If I were hiring factory laborers I wouldn't want them either. The UAW has driven their membership down to 400k and is still trying to strong arm their way into southern plants such as the VW facility. If I were your HR manager and caught wind that you were trying to organize my facility I'd initiate an anti-UAW campaign like you've never seen. The balance between efficiency, equity and voice has been lost and good workers are the losers when the international if more concerned about maintaining their revenue stream than with the bread and butter issues of the worker on the street. Unions are a dying breed and are no longer effective in the public sector when Republican lawmakers can strip away contracts on a whim. I believe that workers need a voice but the shoddy assembly of my GM products will not ever make me want them building anything else for me. If Ford ever delivers a garbage product to me I'm going back to buying imports.

 

[tweaker2]

Have you ever tried working with former UAW members? I have and they were horrible to deal with. Their job centric entitlement mental set made them inefficient and lazy which doesn't work in a high performance work environment. When Honda built their Indiana plant they did right by strategically locating themselves outside of the areas with former GM workers.

If I were hiring factory laborers I wouldn't want them either. The UAW has driven their membership down to 400k and is still trying to strong arm their way into southern plants such as the VW facility. If I were your HR manager and caught wind that you were trying to organize my facility I'd initiate an anti-UAW campaign like you've never seen. The balance between efficiency, equity and voice has been lost and good workers are the losers when the international if more concerned about maintaining their revenue stream than with the bread and butter issues of the worker on the street. Unions are a dying breed and are no longer effective in the public sector when Republican lawmakers can strip away contracts on a whim. I believe that workers need a voice but the shoddy assembly of my GM products will not ever make me want them building anything else for me. If Ford ever delivers a garbage product to me I'm going back to buying imports.

Therein lies one of the downsides of unionism: it breeds mediocrity among the rank and file who have no reasonable path toward advancement into higher paying jobs within the company. Such being the case, their primary concern is protecting their jobs and equally so, acquiring increases in pay and benefits without advancements other than their seniority.

As a result of those concerns, seniority becomes more significant than those other traits and qualifications that are critical toward advancing one's career in a non-union shop. As such, and for the fact that employees with seniority seem to have a stronger voice and more influence in what priorities are stressed during contract negotiations, a typical contract will include much better incentives and benefits for senior personnel. Which means more of the funds available at the bargaining table will shift toward senior employees at the expense of less senior and especially new hires where a common go-to "sacrifice" for the sake of the senior workers is pay and benefit progression features. All that it amounts to is a give-back to management for higher pay and benefits for senior personnel.

Pay and benefit progression features leads to a starting pay that is way below prevailing rates such that prospective employees with skill and good potential will refuse to apply and then go out and look for greener pastures, leaving those less qualified being able to apply and gain entry. This further weakens the gene pool of said union shop, BUT! it does leave those senior personnel with mediocre skill and motivation feeling secure in their jobs.

Another quirk that pops up in this kind of downward spiraling situation is when management, at the strong behest of the union, goes looking for promotables within the ranks of those senior employees that got into those positions simply by being able to hang around long enough. More often than not, once these employees do get promoted, they lack what it takes to be good managers yet continue up the ladder, being mindful that "they really did deserve their promotions" for being well seasoned "skilled" craftsmen while completely ignoring the fact that they have absolutely no prior experience in managing people, and regrettably, in lieu of natural ability and proper training, will resort to strong arm tactics and other disingenuous means to "get the job done".

I've seen these types of situations first hand and have had to attend many grievance sessions representing such employees, but represent them I must as a business agent.

Funny thing is, once these personnel acquire management positions outside of the union, management will defend them to their last dime no matter how incompetent they are and no matter how costly it gets to defend "one of their own".

That being said, I've also seen more often than not how well led union representation in concert with smart, fair minded management creates a well balanced and long lasting relationship that successfully benefits both management and employees where growth and job security prevail.

 

[agent00f]

I work in a union heavy industry and I am seeing more and more Trump stickers. While unions traditionally align to Democrats, I am finding that they feel abandoned as a constituency, and Trump's calls for economic protectionism is appealing to them even if it is something he cant deliver. It doesnt help that the Republicans are doing a fair job of tying both Clintons to globalization

Lower class whites have always a somewhat adversarial relationship with minorities in this country who're seen as competitors for their jobs, and they have had to make an interest choice between democrats which promise something for their class, and GOP which promises something for their race. Trump is rather well known for putting that back on the table for the GOP after his predecessor were seen as race-traitors for trying to appease the mexicans and such.

Have you ever tried working with former UAW members? I have and they were horrible to deal with. Their job centric entitlement mental set made them inefficient and lazy which doesn't work in a high performance work environment. When Honda built their Indiana plant they did right by strategically locating themselves outside of the areas with former GM workers.

If I were hiring factory laborers I wouldn't want them either. The UAW has driven their membership down to 400k and is still trying to strong arm their way into southern plants such as the VW facility. If I were your HR manager and caught wind that you were trying to organize my facility I'd initiate an anti-UAW campaign like you've never seen. The balance between efficiency, equity and voice has been lost and good workers are the losers when the international if more concerned about maintaining their revenue stream than with the bread and butter issues of the worker on the street. Unions are a dying breed and are no longer effective in the public sector when Republican lawmakers can strip away contracts on a whim. I believe that workers need a voice but the shoddy assembly of my GM products will not ever make me want them building anything else for me. If Ford ever delivers a garbage product to me I'm going back to buying imports.

Just a heads up that japanese & german autos are also built with union labor at home. If anything many folks like yourself often insist on cars built in japan rather than union-free shops in merica.

Generally speaking UAW's issues are rather particular to the domestic auto industry's history of antagonism between management and labor.

 

[Starbuck1975]

They know and it kills them

It is sad really, only more so

Lower class whites have always a somewhat adversarial relationship with minorities in this country who're seen as competitors for their jobs, and they have had to make an interest choice between democrats which promise something for their class, and GOP which promises something for their race. Trump is rather well known for putting that back on the table for the GOP after his predecessor were seen as race-traitors for trying to appease the mexicans and such.



Just a heads up that japanese & german autos are also built with union labor at home. If anything many folks like yourself often insist on cars built in japan rather than union-free shops in merica.

Generally speaking UAW's issues are rather particular to the domestic auto industry's history of antagonism between management and labor.

You raise an interesting point. I come from an immigrant family, and despite being considered white now, that was not always the case. Even the Irish, who are as white as white can be, faced considerable discrimination when they first started to significantly immigrate. I wouldn't classify the tension as inherently racial but rather purely competitive.

A strong middle class protected in part by unions is what allowed my family to enter the melting pot and climb the social ladder.

Today's immigration system is somewhat different. We've replaced one form of slavery with another in the sense that we have this undocumented working class unable to benefit from the American dream as the previous waves of inmigrants did. That they are primarily brown is irrelevant. To me it is more the case that they simply have to cross a border instead of an ocean to get here.

Republicans have done more to destroy unions than Democrats, but I also see plenty of hypocritical blue state urban centers and affluent suburbs that certainly don't want to lose their low cost undocumented work force of house cleaners, carpenters and mechanics.

 

[Exterous]

Just a heads up that japanese & german autos are also built with union labor at home. If anything many folks like yourself often insist on cars built in japan rather than union-free shops in merica.

My reading of his post was that he isn't against unions overall but certain ones like the UAW since the post mostly centers around them

Generally speaking UAW's issues are rather particular to the domestic auto industry's history of antagonism between management and labor.

Agreed - the problems isn't unions per se but how certain ones choose to operate. Otherwise I doubt we'd see union heavy companies like VW ignoring NLRB rulings regarding unionization in the US:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/no-prog...ion-in-resolving-u-s-labor-dispute-1465474976

 

[agent00f]

It is sad really, only more so

You raise an interesting point. I come from an immigrant family, and despite being considered white now, that was not always the case. Even the Irish, who are as white as white can be, faced considerable discrimination when they first started to significantly immigrate. I wouldn't classify the tension as inherently racial but rather purely competitive.

A strong middle class protected in part by unions is what allowed my family to enter the melting pot and climb the social ladder.

Today's immigration system is somewhat different. We've replaced one form of slavery with another in the sense that we have this undocumented working class unable to benefit from the American dream as the previous waves of inmigrants did. That they are primarily brown is irrelevant. To me it is more the case that they simply have to cross a border instead of an ocean to get here.

Republicans have done more to destroy unions than Democrats, but I also see plenty of hypocritical blue state urban centers and affluent suburbs that certainly don't want to lose their low cost undocumented work force of house cleaners, carpenters and mechanics.

In every study I've seen on the matter, presumably because it's empirically true, racial resentment is by far the best predictor of party affiliation in the US. Much more than age/income/education or consideration of factors like econ/security/etc, and perhaps about as much as race itself. So there's a reality that appealing to such a factor has an effectiveness unmatched by any other in the stack rank of possible marketing messages. What that means is focusing on a mexican's race will simply be more effective than possible for an eastern european for example, and this is something professionals at PR understand.

 

[Puffnstuff]

That being said, I've also seen more often than not how well led union representation in concert with smart, fair minded management creates a well balanced and long lasting relationship that successfully benefits both management and employees where growth and job security prevail.

This is in line with the human resource school of management and is the mind set that I subscribe to. When I go to work I want to look out in the parking lot and see that my employees have nice vehicles. I want them to have nice homes and be able to support their families. In turn when they come to work I want them to remember what it is that they are working to protect and do their very best in return to protect the company which provides the wages and benefits that give them so much. Management and labor are a symbiotic relationship but when unionism and the entitlement mentality start to set into a facility the jobs will end up being outsourced overseas and never come back.

 

[shady28]

It is sad really, only more so

You raise an interesting point. I come from an immigrant family, and despite being considered white now, that was not always the case. Even the Irish, who are as white as white can be, faced considerable discrimination when they first started to significantly immigrate. I wouldn't classify the tension as inherently racial but rather purely competitive.

A strong middle class protected in part by unions is what allowed my family to enter the melting pot and climb the social ladder.

Today's immigration system is somewhat different. We've replaced one form of slavery with another in the sense that we have this undocumented working class unable to benefit from the American dream as the previous waves of inmigrants did. That they are primarily brown is irrelevant. To me it is more the case that they simply have to cross a border instead of an ocean to get here.

Republicans have done more to destroy unions than Democrats, but I also see plenty of hypocritical blue state urban centers and affluent suburbs that certainly don't want to lose their low cost undocumented work force of house cleaners, carpenters and mechanics.

You might want to temper family history with some stats.

It's true that in the past the US had a similar percentage of foreign born people within its borders. It is not true that it has always had high percentages of foreign born people. We are currently at or possibly just above the highest percentage of residents who are foreign born in the countries history. Specifically, about 1 in 7 people in the US were not born here.

You have to go back to 1930 for the last time we had similar percentages, and prior to that back to around 1870-1890 (which is when many Irish migrated to the US).

 

[Starbuck1975]

You might want to temper family history with some stats.

It's true that in the past the US had a similar percentage of foreign born people within its borders. It is not true that it has always had high percentages of foreign born people. We are currently at or possibly just above the highest percentage of residents who are foreign born in the countries history. Specifically, about 1 in 7 people in the US were not born here.

You have to go back to 1930 for the last time we had similar percentages, and prior to that back to around 1870-1890 (which is when many Irish migrated to the US).

I didn't realize proportionally there is historical precedence, although would you agree that what distinguishes the previous waves from the current wave is a path to citizenship further complicated by the relative ease at which the current wave is able to enter the country?

 

[shady28]

I didn't realize proportionally there is historical precedence, although would you agree that what distinguishes the previous waves from the current wave is a path to citizenship further complicated by the relative ease at which the current wave is able to enter the country?

I think of the two things you note that differentiates now from "then", it is more the latter part of your statement (ease of entry), and I'm not really talking about Mexico.

But the real thing I see are these massive recruiting / offshoring / onshoring of H1B and H2B visas.

I mean seriously...

Hottest Visa locations for Caterpillar - note Mossville Ill 255 Visas and 67 Green Cards for 2015.

Next we have the predictable result.

Caterpillar cutting 300 support, management jobs at Mossville

You just can't make this shit up. IMO, the executives and high-ranking officers of companies that do this type of thing should be hauled into criminal court for falsifying statements to the government (that they can't find american workers) and then made personally liable to civil damages done to the workers.

Technically, that should be not only possible but probable. They do have to make such a statement. The problem is that laws don't get enforced, or get "re-interpreted".

Good example, the 1986 Amnesty as part of Immigration Reform and Control Act. How the hell did they sell that should be a question on people's mind if they are buying any of the bull from the left on Amnesty.

Well it's real simple, that act from 1986 had a provision that essentially said this :
(2) established sanctions prohibiting employers from hiring, recruiting, or referring for a fee aliens known to be unauthorized to work in the United States,

Now how the hell did we get from that to having another 11M or so illegals? Real simple, the courts made it a liability to find out if someone is authorized or not, and technically the law says "known to be". They essentially implemented 'don't ask, don't tell' while lying to and manipulating the electorate. Not difficult to do given the short memories people have. It remains to be seen if people will fall for it again.

 

[agent00f]

I think of the two things you note that differentiates now from "then", it is more the latter part of your statement (ease of entry), and I'm not really talking about Mexico.

But the real thing I see are these massive recruiting / offshoring / onshoring of H1B and H2B visas.

I mean seriously...

Hottest Visa locations for Caterpillar - note Mossville Ill 255 Visas and 67 Green Cards for 2015.

Next we have the predictable result.

Caterpillar cutting 300 support, management jobs at Mossville

You just can't make this shit up. IMO, the executives and high-ranking officers of companies that do this type of thing should be hauled into criminal court for falsifying statements to the government (that they can't find american workers) and then made personally liable to civil damages done to the workers.

Technically, that should be not only possible but probable. They do have to make such a statement. The problem is that laws don't get enforced, or get "re-interpreted".

Good example, the 1986 Amnesty as part of Immigration Reform and Control Act. How the hell did they sell that should be a question on people's mind if they are buying any of the bull from the left on Amnesty.

Well it's real simple, that act from 1986 had a provision that essentially said this :
(2) established sanctions prohibiting employers from hiring, recruiting, or referring for a fee aliens known to be unauthorized to work in the United States,

Now how the hell did we get from that to having another 11M or so illegals? Real simple, the courts made it a liability to find out if someone is authorized or not, and technically the law says "known to be". They essentially implemented 'don't ask, don't tell' while lying to and manipulating the electorate. Not difficult to do given the short memories people have. It remains to be seen if people will fall for it again.

I take it you're some kind of leftist who hates the free market.

 

[Puffnstuff]

When it comes to offshoring I agree with Hillary that there should be a hefty exit tax levied against the company to discourage the move. If it's unionized then their contract needs to be examined and reopened if necessary to realign it to the economic reality that exists.