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.
Where do I even start – a huge number of jobs in engineering for heavy overseas projects. Heavy manufacturing. Boeing. Banking and financial services. Law. Shipping. The list goes on and on.
Unions want you to believe that trade just results in lost jobs. They never talk about all of the jobs gained – because most of them are non-union. Unions are interested in one thing above all else: their own self-preservation.
All the FedEx, UPS, DHL jobs. Also don’t forget that a huge portion of what WalMart, Best Buy and most big retailers sell is from overseas.
As is the success of most Apple products. And then there’s the Hondas, Toyotas and everyting else that you buy.
Jessi – Mine, for starters.
Lech – please give some examples of the kinds of jobs created by trade.
Guvna:
That’s the standard pro-union, anti-free trade speech. It’s also dead wrong.
The number of jobs created by trade by far outweighs the number of jobs lost. By far. Unfortunately, unions focus myopically on worker displacement and never on the far greater number of jobs created by trade. That’s because the jobs created by trade are mostly non-union (many of which pay more) while displaced jobs are largely union. So unions use their considerable PR resources to focus the public on what they see as the negative.
What do you propose? Trade barriers to keep out the “cheap foreign goods” you profess to hate (but benefit from in innumerable ways)? And what exactly do you think will be the consequence? Just how many American union jobs do you think will be lost then (and it’s only Americans you care about after all, isn’t it?)? I’ll give you the answer, because we have been down this path before — the destruction of the American middle class created by increasing trade barriers will exceed the jobs you think you will save. Always has, always will.
The benefits of trade are invisible to you. The “perils” of trade are misrepresented by unions in furtherance of their own selfish interests.
A much more intelligent approach to the issue, in my opinion, is to recognize that trade causes displacement of workers as well as wealth, and those things together create inequities — recognize the inequities and think critically about programs such as wage insurance, retraining, etc. so that there is a more equitable sharing of both the benefits and burdens of free trade. But keeping out those “cheap foreign goods” and risking the inevitable retrenchment that follows? Never. Terrible, terrible idea. Unions want you to think it’s a good idea, but unions most emphatically do NOT have the best interests of the American public in mind.
Asbestos is a really dangerous material to work with and the deat is horrific – compounded by an industry that spent decades out and out lying about the dangers (I have no idea what relevance it has to this post, since I dont even know what the post is about but…)
2nd I have no issue with Unions, NONE, workers should be allowed to collectively bargain if they legitimately (Card Check is 100% NOT legitimate) chose to do so. And if Unions demand to much $ or too many benefits and ultimately kill the goose (ala GM) so be it – the workers should have as much a chance to destroy the company as management. BUT
Municipal Worker Unions should be 100% illegal; by their nature (in a democracy) it gives the workers too much power and is destroying municipalities across the country.
Absent unions workers at companies cannot dictate who management is, they have no direct or indirect say in the companies agenda, hiring practices, pay, benefits or projects. In the municipal arena they have 100% say, through elections and they have the right to collectively exercise power through political parties, free speech/donations etc… To have workers 1. have the right to elect their bosses and thereby their agenda and positions AND then allow the same workers to Collectively bargain with the same ‘bosses’ is insane and has led to a world where municipal workers get paid more, get vastly better benefits and have more job security then the private sector – this is perverse in so many ways and is direct result of municipal workers having the right to collectively bargain.
Ditto what denton and Guvna said.
Companies that see the profit margins their rivals are making by shipping jobs overseas (or down south) to low cost labor countries inevitably think they must do the same. It is a purely profit-driven motive. Suddenly, the domestic unions become the bad guys because they dont agree to deep cuts in compensation and benefits so that the company can “compete” with its rivals who have shipped manufacturing overseas.
The fact is, in the end, the middle class in the US is getting killed. The answer is not to reduce the income of the American middle class to the level of chinese peasant factory workers.
Can US companies keep the jobs in the US and still make money despite having unionized labor? Yes, but they need some help from Congress. Why should we continue letting companies flood our markets with goods produced in sweatshops? We allow them to “compete” in our market despite the fact that they are clearly cheating by paying sweatshop labor rates. Thats like steroids!
So, the common wisdom stateside is to blame the unions and demand that they agree to massive cuts in wages and benefits, ostensibly so that these companies can compete with the companies that pay sweathops rates overseas. We will never be able to compete with those rates, and we shouldnt be trying.
A living wage for middle class workers is the only thing that will ensure future prosperity for America. We wont all be engineers/doctors/lawyers/etc. Thus, our working class must have jobs that can pay the mortgage, pay for food, transportation, raising children, etc. This is not monopoly money we’re talking about, because these same people would in turn be the consumers who will pay for the goods that we produce, thus powering our economy. It was always this way, but once we started shipping jobs out, we had a middle class that could no longer afford to buy our own goods, and thus began the downward slide in US manufacturing.
Negative marketing rarely works, but then unions arent trying to make friends, and don’t really operate by real-world human level standards.