$15 Minimum Wage in Seattle Approved
- Thread starter GimpSpack
- Start date
You've made your point very elegantly, kudos.
For those who missed it: if you have strong trade unions, there is no need for the state to legislate a minimum wage - labour and capital will just sit down and negotiate it between the two of them and will arrive at a different rate for each industry depending on scarcity of labour and how willing labour is to band together to negtiate collectively. Germany has this system - strong unions with seats on the board and no minimum wage.
(The only American version I've seen is the cast of Friends, where the five principals negotiated as a group and got equal pay - the usual practice is for producers to play one cast member off against another and allow individuals to walk. The Friends group insisted that "you pay us all or you lose all of us", and they got $1 million per episode each, which hasn't been matched since, though it's nearly two decades later).
If you have weak trade unions/have brainwashed people into thinking they shouldn't fight for their own interests, what happens is that capital ends up holding all the cards and forces down wages to levels that can't sustain life. Then the taxpayer is expected to compensate for this in terms of tax credits. If the taxpayer says no we really can't afford this, then business experiences catastrophic drops in demand (people on $1 a day don't buy much) and then screams that governments should do something about it, while at the same time keeping corporate tax low and not encouraging unions. All that's left for govt to do is raise the minimum wage, or raise taxes on households to finance more tax credits. Unsurprisingly they choose the first.
P.S. When I wrote trade unions I meant all trade associations, manual and professional - the Institute of Actuaries is really a trade union that keeps actuaries' salaries high by restricting entry via exams. Accountants, lawyers, doctors and others operate in a similar way. If you can't restrict entry via qualifications, unions then resort to controlling wages by collective bargaining - but it's really another tool towards the same end.
In a normal system the employee/supplier should fight for as high an income/fee as the employer/customer fights for a low fee. And if they are equally matched you usually get a fair and sustainable outcome. Expecting someone to be happy with low pay is equivalent for a customer to say, "I expect you to be rank me on the top of the SERPs for 10 cents and you should be grateful that I'm giving you this opportunity".
I'm sure these numbers vary by state, but due to the way the government sets income limits on various programs, these welfare cliffs (where it makes more financial sense not to work), are unavoidable.
There's a name for this, it's called a welfare trap.
Coincidentally, not long after TV producers got held over the barrel to pay all that money per episode to their stars, what did they start doing? Producing cheap "Reality TV" shows, driving their costs down. It was the Hollywood equivalent of the United Auto Workers pricing themselves out of a job. Honey Boo Boo, Jersey Shore etc = cheap labor from Mexico, China etc. Well done unions. Well done.
Whatever.
It remains a fact that unions only exist in liberal democracies (they don't exist in China, nor did they exist in the Soviet Union, and the first thing Hitler did when he came to power was ban them, as did Pinochet in Chile - so the fascists hate them as much as communists).
They are in fact an off-shoot of the "freedom to associate" - the freedom of likeminded people to group together as a political party, a quilting bee, an orchestra, an employment association or union - they are in effect clubs.
A genuinely libertarian state would place no restrictions on them - if the super rich are free to group together in SUPER-PACS, then the poor should be free to group together in trade unions, without restriction. If they want to have a general strike they should be allowed to - a free state would stand aside and let the super-rich and super-poor duke it out without interference.
Unfortunately libertarians define "liberty" as the freedom for them to exploit without their victims having the freedom to fight back. The latter must be bound by all manner of restrictive laws. Hence most "libertarians" are in fact hypocrites and not believers in liberty at all.
If you wanted a free state with minimal govt interference in such things as setting minimum wages, you'd abolish anti-trade union laws, including the laws against general strikes, and let capital and labour fight it out without restriction and let the stronger party win. There wouldn't be any need to set a minimum wage, because labour, free of restrictions, would negotiate a wage much higher than the current minimum, as they are the majority.
Indeed in the heydey of the unions, the 1950's, they did indeed negotiate very good wages (and consequently could afford to spend on the products of business - it's not a coincidence that that period experienced high economic growth and budget and trade surpluses). And there wasn't any need for the taxpayer (who are in the main households not corporations) to subsidize workers with tax credits to make up for low wages.
I think that was because the Screen Writers Guild has gone on strike or something. That was what started this rain of remakes too, which they've now learned is infinitely cheaper and higher ROI. Same with reality TV shows. But yeah, Unions get as corrupt as any other group.
I don't think unions should be banned, and I think they work in some industries. I also know from personal experience that they don't work in every industry. My only issue with unions* is when they run a closed shop where every worker is forced to join the union to work in a trade. That goes against the very root of individual freedom.
You should have the right to join a union and you should have a right to not join a union. Let those in the union collectively bargain and let others bargain individually. If the union is providing the best value then everyone will want to join. And when unions get top heavy and become useless then the market will get rid of them.
*Not actually my only issue with unions. Equal pay is a fucking travesty, because workers almost never have equal skill sets. Forcing a company to pay the best workers the same as the worst workers results in skilled workers not getting what they're really worth, and useless fuckers getting paid to be useless. It kills productivity and I saw it first hand with the UAW for years, so I speak from experience. Not saying every union is the same, but this is a pretty common thread running through most.
You contradicted yourself. First you state that a genuinely libertarian state, 2 groups can band together and fight each other, poor vs rich. Then you go back and say that the rich can exploit without their victims having the freedom to fight back?
The first half of my 20's I worked commercial construction in Seattle and we had unions picketing our jobsites within Seattle because we weren't union. Apparently any trade work within the city is basically picketed if they don't get the contract.
We did lose people to the unions, they start at $27 in the carpenters union, electricians make 120k+/year, and the worst paying union out of all of them is actually AV and low voltage cabling, they barely make $20/hr after several years.
We did lose people to the unions, they start at $27 in the carpenters union, electricians make 120k+/year, and the worst paying union out of all of them is actually AV and low voltage cabling, they barely make $20/hr after several years.
Clear, clearly you have not taken your anti-brainrotting vitamins after Obama's chemtrails inflicted you. Please purchase your vitamins at infowars.com
Here's a good one Seattle. what did GEICO say to the mariner? We could save you a boatload!
What's Seattle's favorite noise? The Puget Sound!
What does an alien seamstress sew with? A space needle!
The victims can't fight back because the rich have lobbied govts to place restrictions on trade unions. For example they can't do general strikes or sympathy strikes.
If there was a genuinely libertarian state, these restrictions would be abolished. A libertarian state would have no restrictions at all. In that case, the labour and capital would have an unrestricted fight and the stronger party would win.
But as things stand, one side (the unions) is being restricted by the law. The other side protests about "libertarianism" whenever any restrictions are proposed on them, even though they actively lobbied to have restrictions put on the unions. Pure hypocrisy.
And taxpayers are expected to make up for it by subsidizing the low paid with tax credits and benefits.
Frankly the whole system stinks.
Interestingly in Germany, they have strong trade unions - they even have trade union members sitting on company boards (to give them responsibilty for the success of the company). And they have no minimum wage - because the state doesn't need to get involved. When there are no restrictions on labour or capital, they usually come to an agreement that benefits both sides.
Regarding pay - you should know by now that people arn't paid what they're worth, they are paid what they can negotiate. It's never been about merit. Any restrictions on what and how people can negotiate is a restriction on pay, simple as that.
And you are right - if a union is successful, people will want to join and if they're unsuccessful, people won't - so there shouldn't be any need for laws restricting their behaviour - and yet the anti-union laws exist. From Reagan/Thatcher onwards there have been restrictions as to what they can do, but no corresponding restrictions on what employers can do. So the employer has the upper hand, which drives down wages, and increases the bill for taxpayers to compensate them for low pay in the form of tax credits. Till the taxpayer in desperation hikes minimum wages across the board regardless of industry because that's better than increasing tax credits even further. But that whole destructive cycle was created as a result of the restricting of the unions.
If you want minimal govt interference, the govt needs to stop interfering on both sides. If you are placing restrictions on one side you are interfering.
A genuinely libertarian govt would abolish all the anti-union laws and let them do what they want. If they want to negotiate they can. If they want to go for a general strike they can. If they want to picket, they should be able to. Genuine freedom is the freedom to annoy everyone if you want. But people seem to hate that kind of "liberty". Which is telling...
As someone who works online, I don't benefit from these anti-union laws as I don't employ people, I do stuff myself or automate. But I have to pay taxes to subsidize the wages of those employed by Starbucks, McDonalds and co because they are underpaying. Frankly I resent that. I'd rather they abolish the anti-union laws, let the employees fight without restriction for better wages, because them earning more would free me from having to subsidize them through my taxes. The employees would prefer that too. They don't really like hand-outs from the state, they'd rather win proper pay.
My opinion, is that some people will win and some people will lose out this deal. Because somebody has to get fired when its increased so companies don't go broke, but also someone has to be hired when its increased so companies work still gets done.
Honey Boo Boo and Jersey Shore probably aren't the best examples, as I don't think there ever were too many Hollywood actor jobs at TLC (The Learning Channel) or MTV (Music Television).
Charlie Sheen to Earn Nearly $2 Million Per Episode | PopEater.com
'Big Bang Theory' stars seeking up to $1 million an episode: report - NY Daily News
"Sources told THR that Galecki, Cuoco and Parsons will negotiate together for their deal as they did in 2010"
I'm hearing a lot about anti-union laws, so I'm wondering what you consider them to be? Is the lack of forced mediation anti-union? The inability to have the government strong arm a private business into labor contracts is kind of the absence of legislation.
Also, how the fuck are you or the government able to determine that someone isn't being paid what they're "worth"? I believe that's something only employers and employees can figure out on an individual basis. Only with the most mundane, algorithmic work can that be quantified.
There's a multitude of factors that determine pay. The skill set of the worker, their production, the cost of training a replacement(high turnovers really hurt most businesses), etc. In fact companies like Foxconn in China are willingly raising wages by large percentages because high labor turnovers are killing their bottom lines.
People should be free to organize all they want, but if they make outlandish demands, their employer should have the right to tell them to go fuck themselves and hire all the scabs they want. Look at the bakers unions fight with Hostess a couple of years ago. I thought the bakers union was going to have Hostess bent over the barrel, but I wasn't aware of the fact that you can teach an illiterate person to do the bakers job in a couple of hours. That union had zero fucking leverage at that point, so they forced Hostess in to bankruptcy through government strong arming. Now there's a whole lot of previously overpaid bakers without a job.
I'm not in favour of the govt deciding wages - I'm trying to point out that they are only doing so because the govt has restricted the ability for employees to negotiate with anti-union laws, and this has had negative consequences (a soaring bill for tax credits to make up for poor pay). Remove the restrictions and you remove the need to have a minimum wage. Germany for example doesn't have a minimum wage, but has strong unions.
However, many pretendy libertarian people get all upset when you point out to them that true libertarianism means no restrictions on anybody and that includes trade unions.. If a union wants to enlist the support of other industries in sympathy strikes for example, they should - it's sometimes the only way for the unskilled to get any leverage.
But that seems to make a lot of "libertarian" types come over all panicky. Suddenly they think, oh nos, we need restrictions on them! And their philosophy about not having laws and a free-for-all for everyone suddenly shrivels.
"The government" wasn't responsible for Hostess going bankrupt, and neither was the union. They went bankrupt due to a management decision to degrade their balance sheet.
They started to borrow money to buy back their shares, and ended up with $800 million of debt. They couldn't service that debt from their profits and went under.
Nobody in the government or the union told them to do that. It was a management decision. In fact if there was a union rep on the board, german-style, they'd have probably nixed the idea to borrow to buy back shares as too risky. But I notice that you are blaming the union for all the trouble - if only the workers had worked for free, then they would have had enough service the debt, hell they could have borrowed even more to buy back shares. Those unions are evil, we should pass more laws to make it impossible for them to ask for wages. This is the kind of thinking that passes for "libertarianism".
Unions and trade organizations are well and good, but when the .gov gets involved via licensure regulation it drives the cost of services well above their market value.
I think about this every time I need to go to an office and get a permission slip from an MD so that I can drive across town and give that permission slip to a pharmacist in order to purchase my blood pressure medication.
This kind of involvement is not only economically shitty, it's dangerous as well. In the states, the FDA has pushed the cost of introducing new drugs to the market up so far that they have deincentivized reseach into entire classes of drugs (antibiotics), because under the current regulatory environment it simply is not profitable to develop one-time use therapeutics.
Now, I happen to welcome our new gram-negative overlords, but I wonder how many government employees will need to die from staph infections before somebody realizes that regulation is to blame.