King County Government = Union Thugs?
March 20th, 2009 by Republican By DefaultKing country seems to be putting pressure on Key Bank over one of their customers’ labor dispute. I’m not surprised that a union would resort to treachery and heavy handedness. I am surprised that a county government would act as union thugs in a labor dispute.
The Business Examiner Daily reports “Trucking labor dispute ropes in bank“. The simple explanation is that King County government seems to be trying to put pressure on Key Bank to, in turn, put pressure on Oak Harbor Freight to cave to the union’s demands.
We saw the same thing a few months ago in Illinois when a union pressured a bank first to make risky loans to a failing business and then, when that didn’t work, to make risky loans to former employees of that unionized business that was forced to close. It wasn’t the bank’s fault that they closed. In fact, it was probably party the union’s fault. The business had been unionized just a few years earlier and that fact probably contributed to the company’s inability to remain competitive in the slowing housing market that it supplied.
I think unions have out-lived their usefulness in this country. There was a time when businesses were out of control and abusing employees because of greed. Since that time laws have been changed to protect workers. Unions no longer fill that role in society.
Unions also facilitate collective bargaining. In the past this was done to prevent greedy business managers from paying below market wages simply because they could get away with it. Usually it centered around areas or industries where there were no alternatives for employees to find employment. They had to work for those people so the employees would band together and force the employer to pay a decent wage. But that has changed, too.
Now when unions engage in collective bargaining it’s to obtain higher-than-market wages. They often cripple businesses with onerous burdens that prevent the business from being competitive. You can see this in Detroit in the auto industry where union wage and benefit packages are more than double that of competitors, making it impossible for the businesses to bring costs down so that they can sell their products at competitive prices. And look who’s getting stuck with the bill. We, the taxpayers, are bailing out Detroit automakers again.
It’s amazing, too, that people are screaming about the bonuses that executives are getting even though they’re blamed for bringing down the companies that we’re bailing out. But when it’s the heavy union wages that are destroying those bailed out business nobody says a word. But that’s just liberal hypocrisy.
It’s all right for unions and union employees, who contribute heavily to Democrat candidates (who love unions), to destroy a company that we then have to bail out. But when it’s those so-called ‘fat-cat Wall Street’ types they’re up in arms. They’re both just as guilty, but the double-standard allows the unions to get away with it.
But that’s not my biggest beef with unions. They destroy workers’ motivation. For one thing the employees know that they’re going to get the same amount of money if they work hard or work slowly. I consider it human nature to take the path of least resistance.
Speaking of resistance, in a union setting it’s common for lazy employees to put pressure on hard-working employees to slow down. It’s usually done to prevent the good workers from making the bad worker look bad (even though they are bad.) And in some cases it’s to make the work last longer so they can get more pay, either in more days or in overtime pay.
Unions have become a blight on this nation. They hinder productivity and profitability.
Profit isn’t a bad thing. It keeps businesses around and allows them to pay higher wages and create new jobs. And the ‘us-them’ employer-employee relationship isn’t adversarial anymore. The profits don’t just go to ‘fat-cats’ anymore. They go to all of us. We share in profits either through small investments in publicly traded companies or through our pensions which are often invested (at least partly) in the stock market (have you checked your 401(k) lately?) Profitable business also pay more taxes, which takes some of the burden off of other taxpayers.
We all benefit when capitalism works. Unions have become a burden that hinders it from working.