Labor Unions - are you for or against it and why?

[theVOID]

I guess it depends on one's own experience to a large degree:

A few of my experiences:

(1)First Job:age 16,pumping gas in a small town 100 miles from home during summer holidays.Boarding with boss and his family; I worked a 10 hour day, 7 days a week,for that I received my board and $13 a week (award was about $50,I later discovered)

What does that translate to with inflation taken into account?

(2)Second job: Office clerk in a large fertiliser company.I was not ALLOWED to join a union and told not to even TALK to a rep. IF I did, I would lose my above award pay and conditions. The company used its non unionised office staff as strike breakers when the chemical workers went out.IE we kept the orders going out.

That's rotten, no employer should be allowed to prevent you from joining a union if that's what you want to do. I've got no problem with them hiring non-union workers for when the others strike however, if you're going to strike you should know that you are putting your employment at risk.

(3) Storeman/driver.Day one. Manager says"the owner says he can't afford to pay you the amount we agreed at job interview(and advertised) so we are going to pay you $X (20%less).

Had you signed a contract? If not it makes him a bit of an asshole and probably not someone you'd depend on but he'd still be within his rights to do it.

PLUS owner says to me "I don't pay overtime, I give bonuses at the end of the year". My response was "that's fine, but I get paid for any overtime I do". Within two weeks he tried giving me a job which would take an hour, 10 minutes before knock-off time. I told him I would leave on time, an did. Then it was 'can you come in half an hour earlier each day?" My answer "No". George was a dead cunt.Today he's probably just dead,as he'd be about 90 if still alive.

Yeah, he sounds like a right ass.

(4) While in the civil service I was a union rep for over 20 years,in two government departments. The hallmark of civil service management is mediocrity,incompetence and dishonestly. Just like in a sewer,the REALLY big bits float to the top and are often found in negotiations with unions. These people are amateurs when compared with the average government minister.

Did you have much success in negotiating?

My support of unionism is both ideological and pragmatic

The pragmatic part isn't necessarily true, but I've got nothing against unions in principle.

I'm the one with time to sell, It's up to me to get the most money I can in exchange for my time,

When you are competing against Mexican peasants or Chinese slaves who work for a buck a day you can expect to be in the shitter for the rest of your life using that method.

Slaves? No. Cheap labour? Yes.

If someone wants to do the same job as me for less then it's my responsibility to make sure I can do it better or become more efficient so I can get more done in the same time, it shouldn't be the imperative of the employer to pay me more simply because I'm a westener - I have to compete with other people who provide the same service as me - If someone undercuts me that's not my employers fault, it's just the reality of supply being greater than demand.

Outsourcing has been made possible by governments selling out to the corporate whores in the first place.

Oh, and how do you figure that? Do you think the government should be preventing people from hiring overseas? That's just plain authoritarian nationalism. The government can do certain things to prevent or promote local employment, like not putting up so much red tape or requiring employers buy health insurance for their employees (aside from work place accidents your employer should have nothing do to with your insurance - That's a worse alternative than socialised healthcare, even for the most of the Libertarians.)

The US has become a plutocracy and what is truly annoying is that the trailer trash sits around whining about "socialism" without understanding how badly they are being fucked over by rich cocksuckers.

Relative to many socialist nations the 'trailer trash' is doing fairly well, especially considering how many are unskilled. The fact that they are Americans shouldn't entitle them to more pay for the same job as someone else who can do it cheaper, nor should a businesses location obligate them to hire manufacturers from that region.

Besides, it's Inflation that is the main bane of the working man's existence, If the Fed and other reserve banks didn't think it was a good thing to keep expanding the money supply and lowering the purchasing power of the currency then the cost of living (which let's face it, that's the biggest problem) would barely rise compared to the 4-5% expansion of the money supply per annum. If the government didn't spend so much money that is unaccounted for they wouldn't need to keep boosting inflation to pay of the debts and interest.