Quote:
Originally Posted by Cro Burnham
Philaw, c'mon, making the blanket statement "unions are bad for society" is barely different from saying unions are evil. "Bad"/"evil", you are playing a game of semantics.
It is odd you cannot acknowledge the simple reality that at various times, in various places, and under various circumstance, unions have and can continue to do positive things for society. To insist otherwise is so much naive ivory tower gibberish.
I am curious if your ancestors were 100% descended from millenia old European aristocratic families? Probably not. Presumably, somewhere along the line some of your ancestors were among the many millions whose lives and working conditons were greatly enhanced directly or indirectly through the labor movement such that you were afforded the opportunity to obtain an education and achieve the degree of articulateness that you now possess.
I wonder where you'd be now had there been no labor movement. I suspect many of us would be doing dirty, unhealthy, dangerous low skill physical labor for a pittance, resigned to a Hobbesian nasty, brutish, short life.
Perhaps you are perfect, though, and would have achieved your current status and living standards through sheer grit and innate talent under any circumstances, regardless of the achievements labor movement.
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You seem to be equivocating between saying unions at "some time and place" were useful and unions are useful
here and now. Which is it? Before the 1930's, when the government did not have the legal authority to regulate interstate commerce? Yes. Today, where almost anything is construed as interstate commerce, thereby allowing for child labor laws, minimum wage/maximum hour laws, etc.? Not at all. The law today establishes a moral floor under which employers cannot trek. Unions are unnecessary.
Let's talk about our ancestors a bit. No, as you guessed I am not part of the aristocracy. My parents came from Lebanon, a place whose economy is riddled with corruption, etc. But let's talk about the "European aristocracy" you speak of: The period in American history with the highest and longest sustained growth was the post-civil war era - Reconstruction. This was an era where unions were (unfortunately) crushed by employers, with the help of the government. Essentially negligible union activity.
This was also the era with the largest swarm of European immigration - the likes of which the world had never seen. So tell me, did these immigrants come to America involuntarily? Were they forced? Why would they leave their native country, family and friends for a foreign land? The answer is in the numbers. Use google, the great equalizer - the average wage for the average laborer was approximately 3-4 times higher in the US than that of their European counterparts. That is why they moved, for the most part. That all occurred with negligible union activity.
The only true way to raise wages (without harming others) is to increase productivity. This is the only way to raise wages not at the expense of others. If you pass a law to raise wages, it harms others. If you threat and intimidate to raise wages, it harms others. But if an employee increases his skills and productivity, he can demand a higher wage. By that same token, if an employer invests its capital in increasing productivity, wages are further increased. Contrarily, when capital must be expended on dead-weight loss (above the productivity level of an employee), it must come at the expense of something else - usually non-union employees, capital investments, productivity, and the unemployed.
My prior economic reasons for not supporting unions still stand as well.
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), it sounds more as if the CCRA is opposed to legislatively circumventing the process outlined in the new zoning code, and not necessarily to the building itself. I assume their concern is with establishing a precedent for bypassing the new code in lieu of complying with its variance provisions.
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