Adventures in Union Marketing
The Asbestos Workers Union (didn’t realize there was such a thing) is taking the shock-and-awe approach to raising awareness for its services by erecting a couple of coffins on Flushing Avenue this morning. Evidently, there’s some contractor or another with headquarters inside the Navy Yard that has yet to see the wisdom of paying top…
The Asbestos Workers Union (didn’t realize there was such a thing) is taking the shock-and-awe approach to raising awareness for its services by erecting a couple of coffins on Flushing Avenue this morning. Evidently, there’s some contractor or another with headquarters inside the Navy Yard that has yet to see the wisdom of paying top dollar for their services. For a view inside the coffins, click through to the jump. Update: A reader sent in a scan of one of the flyers that the protesters are now handing out. You can view it here.
Lech, again, nobody said stop trading. If rebutting an argument that hasnt been asserted makes you happy then knock yourself out.
dave, not sure why you mentioned “technology, change or trade”. Indeed, nowhere have I even suggested that the technology sector is an area where the US should impose trade caps. The blanket notion that trade caps are never appropriate is one I encourage real debate on, as opposed to this utopian idea that free trade is somehow intrinsically whats best for America.
Lech, again, nowehere do I suggest that nobody should ever lose a job. Entire industries will continue to lose relevance where the product becomes obsolete. That is normal. what is not normal, and what you have yet to address, is the effect of domestic manufacturing companies having to compete with foreign companies who pay their workers pennies per day. Simple math will show that the cost of production will be far less than our domestic companies pay, therefore enabling the foreign entities to sell at a much lower price. It does not matter what you produce, if you cannot match their production costs you will be undersold and forced out of business. That holds true for automobiles, electronics, clothing, food, you name it. How do YOU solve that? Demonizing unions, while fashionable for some, doesnt come close to addressing the real issues. Doing nothing will guarantee that the bulk of manufacturing will be done outside of the US. Maybe people think our workers will just get new living wage jobs, or just go to computer school and become tech workers. Speaking of which, tech workers are also being imported! lol
Your earlier proposed solution is not a solution at all. Wage insurance and retraining? As I said before, if its worth making at all, eventually it will be made overseas for a lot less. Therefore you’ll be retraining folks to work in another industry that will soon itself be undersold by its foreign counterpart. Its a moving target that we will never hit so long as we continue to allow unfettered access to our markets at the expense of our domestic companies. We dont allow doping in sports. Why allow it in trade at the expense of our own companies?
Way too short of attention span to argue basics of outsourcing and such but basically Lech covered all the points pretty well. Not much more to add there.
So long story short: unions are bad. 10-4
The world could be different though DIBS. You could own only one of those things (for what you paid for all of them) and have it made in the good ol’ U.S. of A. by union workers. And you could visit other countries where people would own all of those things (and then some) and wonder how it is our provincialism and protectionism led us to have a lower standard of living than everyone else.
Sitting here at my desk, my cell phone is made by LG, my keyboard was made in malaysia, my Dell monitors were made in China. My espresso is from somewhere in Latin America I suspect, as was the banana I had for breakfast.
I will go home tonight and interact with a Bosch appliance, a JVC recorder and a Sony TV and my Apple laptop, mostly assembled by Hon Hai. I suspect my alarm on my nightstand was made in China so that’s how I will start and end my day.
Except for maybe the delivery of all such above named items, I would suspect union hands had nothing to do with them.
Guvna would apparently have us live in a world where labor allocation remains unchanged. DIBS, I’ll go hunt for animals while you spend a couple of hours starting a fire. And God forbid we start trading with farmers and makers of strike anywhere matches! Then we would both be out of jobs – and any job lost means trading is bad! It would simply be impossible for us to learn a new skill that results in overall production – and total welfare – increasing. Or even if we are permanently dislocated, certainly my children and grandchildren should be entitled to hunt animals and spend hours making fires, for they couldn’t possibly be expected to live in a dynamic economy.
lechacal, I applaud you for each and every one of those responses. I didn’t have the attention span or the patience to do it myself.
I don’t know what kind of world Guvna lives in but it is not one that has any grasp of technology, change, trade or what’s godd or not good for the longer term.
“people tout the idea that we can just move on to manufacture other things. Well, I suggest that whatever we decide to manufacture domestically will eventually be made cheaper overseas, so the same process will bear itself out until and unless we do something different with our trade policy.”
Again, just wrong. Comparative advantage. The Goldman Sachs HQ is in New York City, not Mumbai. A massive number of jobs have been created by trade. You just have to stop clinging on to the past and embrace the future. If you are worried about individual dislocation, as you should be, then there are ways to address that that don’t involve the unbelievably dangerous instinct to stifle trade.
“Why do other countries cap our exports? Think about it.”
Because there are people like you in other countries too.
“As long as our standard and cost of living is higher than the places where our companies move manufacturing to (or allow foreign companies to flood our markets), we shall continue to witness the death of our middle class.”
Dead wrong. You are not witnessing the death of the middle class, you are witnessing its transformation. Be forward thinking. Embrace change. The world will look very different in 30 years. Will you be part of the change or will you cling to things that are dying?