Unions: Where did the U.S.A. go wrong?

[Ironside]

I never said anything that contradicts this. Perhaps you should understand what I'm saying. Yes, companies were cruel, in terms of conditions, wages, and responses to strikes. THAT STILL DOESN'T MAKE IT GOOD BUSINESS.

Look at how Ford began paying $5 a day to employees, an unheard-of high wage at the time, and became more profitable.

And if you want to talk about what companies did 100 years ago, you should remember that unions aren't needed now for the reasons they were then.

CR

Could you please define "good business"? Is that goal the same as what is driven through the stockmarket? Or a CEO employed for a few years while making a bonus on profitability? How are companies run today compared to what you consider good business?

As for Fordism itself, the top value for the median US household income was reached 1999. You sure it's still working properly?

It always perturbs me when the ones saying Fordism is the solution are celebrating reduced salary/working conditions. Yes I can understand the difference between one company and the whole market, but at some points, these two matters meet and yet it's ignored. See the salary slashing due to the recession.

Might not be entirely on topic, but these are issues needed to be handled with.

[Ronin]

Do unions in Europe and Japan have mob ties?

worse...they have political party ties.
over here the biggest union blocks are basically used as "force multipliers" by the political parties.

[Husar]

If you abolish workers' interest groups, then you should also abolish employers' interest groups, nature interest groups, gun interest groups, military interest groups, muslim interest groups, christian interest groups, jewish interest groups and any other lobby group there is, since they all work towards their own goals, every single one of them. And they all try to influence the government and get things done their way. I wouldn't be surprised if they have mob ties in many of them either, isn't the italian mafia kinda catholic anyway?
The problem is if you abolish the worker unions but not the labour laws, the employer unions will have more power to convince the government to abolish those labour laws in the long run, or at least erode them, so either you keep all your interest groups or none.

[Beskar]

If you abolish workers' interest groups, then you should also abolish employers' interest groups, nature interest groups, gun interest groups, military interest groups, muslim interest groups, christian interest groups, jewish interest groups and any other lobby group there is, since they all work towards their own goals, every single one of them. And they all try to influence the government and get things done their way. I wouldn't be surprised if they have mob ties in many of them either, isn't the italian mafia kinda catholic anyway?
The problem is if you abolish the worker unions but not the labour laws, the employer unions will have more power to convince the government to abolish those labour laws in the long run, or at least erode them, so either you keep all your interest groups or none.

Why do you think America basically abolished unions? The Corporations run the government and didn't like it. It meant they had to possible pay people what they were worth.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I'm actually leaning more toward what CR has been saying about poor treatment being bad business. However, I think the reasons for this incentive of poor treatment=bad business have been from reasons other then purely free market interactions. I think that nowadays companies would not be interested in attempting to reduce wages back down to the Gilded Age style of pennies for hours. The reason for that is because nowadays the media is global, fast and most importantly interactive. A YouTube video can make the news, so people do have more inherent power in creating bad PR for companies then ever before. However, that doesn't stop the companies from attempting to keep wages as close the minimum wage as possible such as with Wal Mart.

Secondly, I agree that unions are no longer useful in their original role in protecting wages and jobs for their members through acting as representative for workers. Laws have been established that have cemented those protections in our country. However, I think we do still need unions which I will explain in my next point below.

Thirdly, the problem that seems to be arising in America stems from economic recession periods, where short sighted companies do attempt to save in the short run by drastically reducing wages and benefits to unacceptable levels for our standard of living (a modern western nation's standard of living just to clarify). The media factor doesn't come into play here, because in an economic downturn we often see the general attitude of Americans to be "don't complain at least you have a job". Technically, I guess you could call this what others have claimed (and CR has acknowledged) to be the "stupidity of humans who run companies". Theoretically, once the recession is over people should remember who treated their employers badly and who treated them right during the recession, so those who were attempting to save in the short run, fail in the long run. This would make it seem as if the companies that do survive would be the ones that treated their employers right. This would be free market capitalism solving our problems for us. However, you could argue that those that save in the short term are able to outlast the recession while those that keep wages up for their employers are likely to die in the recession, so those with the bad policies would survive.

In either case, if the good companies win the long run, we still need to be realistic here and see that those working for the short sighted companies still suffer from terrible wage cuts during a bad economic period, in which case asking your congress to react quickly by raising the minimum wage would be a somewhat ridiculous hope to bet on. So unions do help when those crisis moments hit, not by holding out for more money, but by serving as a lobby group to help push the bill through congress, speeding the process up faster then normally. Now if the bad companies win in the long run because their penny pinching lasted them through the recession when others didn't, then obviously we still have a need for unions to actively counter and reverse the companies hurtful policies.

I still haven't thought all this through I admit. But I will say, that there is a definite middle here. We don't need unions to holding out as greedy ********, (asking full dental and medical for grocery baggers when the company just cant afford it), anymore since we don't live in an age of blatant Rockefeller's and Carnegie's anymore. (To say that, would honestly be hyperbole.) But, workers need some sort of lobby group as do any other group in America. So I see unions to be more of a lobby group (or should be more of a lobby group) then anything else in this modern age, just as gun owners have the NRA, animal rights have PETA, workers have their unions.

Honestly, if it was up to me I would restructure/reclassify unions as an interest group and make it so that they only interact with the government and not be involved in company to worker contracts. If the company starts putting the hurt on workers, then give more union dues to the unions, the more fervent and wealthy the interest group is, the more successful it is, just ask the NRA.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Dear Pro-simian:

I would assert that two themes provide a lot of explanative power for the difference in efficacy between unions in the USA and unions in the rest of the G8 (let's set the rest of hte top 20 aside for the moment). First, unions in the USA have not adapted to changing conditions in the global marketplace either in a business sense or a political sense, and second, there has always been a basic disconnect between the classic culture of unionism and US culture.

Efficacy and change:

The globalized marketplace heightens competitive pressure on organizations. In a world with nearly instantaneous communication and fairly inexpensive world transport for many goods, virtually ALL manufacturing concerns have to be able to be competitive with all other companies in a given industry. Caterpillar competes with Komatsu etc. Assuming roughly similar quality of product, anything that drives Caterpillar's production cost higher than the combined cost of manufacture/transport for Komatsu loses them business. Sneakers manufactured to equivalent quality levels by intelligent and hard-working Vietnamese laborers -- where the average per capita income is roughly 1 USD per day -- often cost less, AFTER shipping and importation fees than would the same product manufactured by a US labor force at 90 USD per day. Companies can easily compensate a Vietnamese employee at double or triple the local wage, getting the best of the best of the local workforce, while paying less labor cost for their products. Even companies that would have preferred to stay in the USA and employ that workforce were under pressure to quit doing so. Despite which the Unions often flatly rejected the idea of reduction in compensation and criticized company leaders for their unwillingness to decrease shareholder profits in order to maintain workforce numbers and compensation levels. This last is a complete disconnect with the raison d'etre of most companies.

In addition, US unions have failed to adapt to the growth of the service/information economy. Solidarity and Organizing were (and in some ways still are) the critical elements of union power in a manufacturing environment, but they fail to address the role of the individual or the individuals knowledge/skills that are absolutely central in an info-serv economy. Rather than adapting to the centrality of individual development and adopting some of the vital components of professional associations (a code of ethics, self-regulation/policing via peer review, continued education and skill improvement, etc.) that would have allowed them to alter to their new context, unions have continued with the same old mantra. Having used their political leverage to allow the unionization of public sector employees so as to protect those employee's rights (rather surprising really, as even in the bad old days of the 1940s it was rather difficult to view public sector bureacrats as "threatened"...) WITHOUT changing the basic model of power through numbers and all employees being "the same" and requiring help against the self-serving owners who would readily discard any employee who annoyed them or wanted to improve working conditions. Public sector employees (teacher's and civil service) now represent mor than 2.5 million of the AFL-CIO's 11 million members. Throw in the 3.2 million members of the NEA, and of the roughly 15.3 million union members in the USA (12.3% of total workforce) more than 40% are public sector employees....who were covered by civil service work rules even prior to their unionization. By the way, put in the words "code of ethics" on the AFL-CIO website. You'll be rewarded with multiple hits, exactly NONE of which lay out a code of ethics expected of AFL-CIO individual or organizational members. Unions in the USA have not kept pace with the times.

Culture:

The USA has, and always has had, a relatively flexible society. If you were the son of a Welsh coal miner in 1880, the chances of you not ending up in a coal mine were slim and almost all of them involved taking the Queen's shilling. Even at the height of the "robber baron" era in the USA, when Catholic immigrants were spat upon and U.S.-born blacks were faced with virtual serfdom, there was STILL more social and economic mobility than almost anywhere else in Europe, Asia, or Africa. In the USA, the odds against you becoming one of the real "haves" were pretty steep. In Europe the chance was almost non-existent.

Absent that chance for significant social mobility, Unionism was more or less vital. Without it, who would speak for workers at all? Labor unionism quickly became THE means for social equality, or at least the improvement of the standard of living for anyone in Europe's working class. It is little wonder that unions and unionism became such an integral component of the socio-political culture in Europe. Japan's unions were, and are, uniquely suited to the Japanese culture as a whole, where emphasis on the collective and the community takes a decidedly different turn than it does in the "West."

In the USA, there was a real frontier open to all until into the early 20th. Even after that, unionism never really took hold anywhere where work conditions were reasonable for those employed (some of the health and safety stuff that formed our strongest unions was every bit as 'life and death' as the issues in Europe and numerous companies were grossly negligent -- and sometimes actively exploitative -- of their workforces). The "wobblies" never could get enough groundswell in the USA. US unions have "international" headquarters, but never really were part of the "internationale." US workers were and are US first and union second. In contrast, unionism in Europe has always had more of an international character as well as a much more inimical association with Marxism and its emphasis on power vested in the proletariat.

All in all, unions are a necessary component of the economic and political landscape. Without unions, there is a measurable segment of the business community that will exploit workforces in the name of profits. Collective bargainin, for all its abuses, is one of the better components of self protection available to a workforce. Unfortunately for unions however, if they continue to lag behind in adapting to the new "global" context of economics and politics, if they continue to devote themselves to defending the interchangeable "bean" worker being exploited by management as opposed to becoming the catalyst for a worker's own advancement and improvement, they will marginalize themselves even further and their influence will continue to erode.

[Beskar]

Well, there are otherways of handling the situation. Force companies to pay a 'fair wage' akin to the 'fair trade' movement. Also, while the world ends up developing, the same demands will be in those places as they are in the West, so the two companies internationally will be paying a similar wage bill. The answer is not to re-inforce wage-slavery arguing that you can pay some one in Timbuktoo with shiny beads.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well, there are otherways of handling the situation. Force companies to pay a 'fair wage' akin to the 'fair trade' movement. Also, while the world ends up developing, the same demands will be in those places as they are in the West, so the two companies internationally will be paying a similar wage bill. The answer is not to re-inforce wage-slavery arguing that you can pay some one in Timbuktoo with shiny beads.

No, you just want us to equalize outcomes by law. Good luck with that.

[a completely inoffensive name]

No, you just want us to equalize outcomes by law. Good luck with that.

That seems like a baseless accusation. Support that please. (I'm just trying to absorb as many view points here since I've never actually been in a union).

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, there are otherways of handling the situation. Force companies to pay a 'fair wage' akin to the 'fair trade' movement. Also, while the world ends up developing, the same demands will be in those places as they are in the West, so the two companies internationally will be paying a similar wage bill. The answer is not to re-inforce wage-slavery arguing that you can pay some one in Timbuktoo with shiny beads.

Fair trade is hogwash. Forcing foreign companies to pay higher wages just takes away from the main economic advantage those foreign workers have; the willingness to work for lower wages. Using law to force those wages up to parity with western workers will just result in those foreign workers not being employed at all. It's got nothing to do with helping foreign workers from the union's viewpoint, and everything to do with helping themselves. (Note: by foreign workers I'm refering to third world workers as in China, Asia, etc.)

Seamus, as usual, makes very good and eloquent points. I'll expand a bit on the fact that unions, unlike engineering associations (for example), don't try to increase the skills of their members in order to respond and adapt to a changing world. They just try to prevent the world from changing.

Oh, and as a prime example of US unions being messed up; Here we have a vide detailing what choice various California unions made between more money and power and epeleptic schoolchildren in danger of dying. The unions chose money and power, of course:

Congress has passed a $26 billion aid package that is intended to save the jobs of thousands of teachers, nurses, and other public-sector employees. To critics who call the measure a "special interest" bill, President Barack Obama says, "I suppose if America's children and the safety of our communities are your special interest, then it is a special interest bill."

In politics everyone claims to be on the side of the children, but who really is? Pat DeLorenzo is a parent whose daughter suffers from epilepsy. Like roughly 10,000 other epileptic schoolchildren in California, eight-year-old Gianna suffers from the type of prolonged seizures that, without immediate attention, can result in brain damage or death. After witnessing the response of teachers and school nurses to one of his daughter's life-threatening seizures, Pat DeLorenzo now believes that teachers and nurses care more about protecting union jobs than saving epileptic children.

DeLorenzo feared the worst when he receive a call from his daughter's school, informing him that she had suffered a seizure. Gianna survived that day, but DeLorenzo was outraged that school administrators had not given his daughter Diastat, a drug that stops seizures before they do permanent harm and is FDA-approved for use by laypeople. Today many schoolchildren must wait until an ambulance brings them to a hospital before they receive Diastat. That's much too long, says DeLorenzo who supports, SB 1051, a California bill that would allow trained non-medical volunteers to administer Diastat at schools.

Epilepsy advocates like the Epilepsy Foundation and physicians groups like the California Medical Association have lined up to support the bill. Unions representing teachers, nurses, and other public employees have lined up in opposition, claiming the bill would put children in danger. Their solution: hire more school nurses.

"The unions are not on the side of the kids," says DeLorenzo who believes unions are more interested in expanding their ranks than protecting epileptic children.

"It's exactly the opposite," says Gayle McClean, southern section president of the California School Nurses Organization and a member of the California Teachers Association. "We care deeply for children and we want them to receive the most appropriate care and that means they need a licensed medical person caring for them."

Sacramento lawmakers sided with unions and have refused to bring the bill up for a vote. The bill will officially expire on August 31.

Stay classy scumbags.

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

Fair trade is hogwash. Forcing foreign companies to pay higher wages just takes away from the main economic advantage those foreign workers have; the willingness to work for lower wages. Using law to force those wages up to parity with western workers will just result in those foreign workers not being employed at all. It's got nothing to do with helping foreign workers from the union's viewpoint, and everything to do with helping themselves. (Note: by foreign workers I'm refering to third world workers as in China, Asia, etc.)

Seamus, as usual, makes very good and eloquent points. I'll expand a bit on the fact that unions, unlike engineering associations (for example), don't try to increase the skills of their members in order to respond and adapt to a changing world. They just try to prevent the world from changing.

Oh, and as a prime example of US unions being messed up; Here we have a vide detailing what choice various California unions made between more money and power and epeleptic schoolchildren in danger of dying. The unions chose money and power, of course:





Stay classy scumbags.

CR

It's stuff like that which makes lean toward your position CR. Out of all the unions, the teachers union is the worst, I have learned that from what little experience I have from talking with my high school teachers. Unions have become a business, and their business is workers so all they want is more union due paying workers.

EDIT: Also, I agree fair trade is backwards, don't ruin the free market by taking away what it does best, finding the best way to maximize capital gains through competitive advantages.

[Beskar]

Fair trade is hogwash. Forcing foreign companies to pay higher wages just takes away from the main economic advantage those foreign workers have; the willingness to work for lower wages. Using law to force those wages up to parity with western workers will just result in those foreign workers not being employed at all. It's got nothing to do with helping foreign workers from the union's viewpoint, and everything to do with helping themselves. (Note: by foreign workers I'm refering to third world workers as in China, Asia, etc.)

Yet, the vast majority of these workers are simply unethically exploited, mainly child labour working 12 hour shifts for $5 per week and you come in here talking about "competitive advantage" saying how Unions hate kids while you advocate exploitation and child labour? Because that is the reality of the situation, some one setting up a factory in an Indian slum, taking advantage of the people in desperate need there.

Nothing to do about "the willingness to work for lower wages.", it is unethical exploitation and wage-slavery of those in need.

Hilarious.


Oh, as for Fair Trade, it isn't counter-productive, since people are being paid far below the worth of those products for profit, and they don't have the choice in the matter, again, another place of unethical exploitation by Corporations.

Forcing an international minimum wage (doesn't have to be as high as the one in the UK or US), would greatly improve the situations of many.




Obviously, all part of "advantages of the free-market", ing people over and unethical exploitation.

[ajaxfetish]

Yet, the vast majority of these workers are simply unethically exploited, mainly child labour working 12 hour shifts for $5 per week

I admit I haven't studied this, so I'm open to correction, but I find this claim hard to believe without supporting evidence. Do you have any data to back this up?

Ajax

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hmm. Roughly speaking ever company that makes shoes has seen such a scandal in the not to distant past. Child labour is still very much a fact of 3rd world life, and employing child labour is still very much a fact of multinational manufacturer CEO life.

Personally I doubt the Fair trade “movement” idea, is hogwash. It's aims are not for a global, cutthroat free-market capitalist environment. Its aims are to improve the working conditions of those who are decidedly in the lower half of this capitalist food-chain (if you will), and raising awareness in the top-half. Which isn't a bad set of goals in and of themselves; and the practices they employ have a highly free-market touch to them (setting up your own companies to compete with mainstream, raising awareness so people can vote with their dollar or euro or yen).

Anyway. Fair trade is not just about “forcing companies” to pay higher wages to local workers. It is also about setting up own corporations with the aim of increasing the wage of the participants. For farmers it is like a reverse-union (and not unlike what farmers did in the 19th/20th century over here) except without a USA or EU pumping in vast amounts of money to prop 'em up, or a Japan to ban all that they didn't make.

[Beskar]

I admit I haven't studied this, so I'm open to correction, but I find this claim hard to believe without supporting evidence. Do you have any data to back this up?

Ajax

Actually, it is even worse. In one of the videos, a child labourer was paid $3.25 per week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIfY9SmJdA

Quota of 150 per hour, paid $3.25 a week, 12 hour shifts. They get physically and verbally abused on a good day.

As for evidence, there are absolutely tons of it. Google will fill you with hits.

It is a shocking and depressing state of affairs, and I think some posters in this thread sum up the ignorant attitude typical of the west perfectly.

[Beskar]

Personally I doubt the Fair trade “movement” idea, is hogwash. It's aims are not for a global, cutthroat free-market capitalist environment. Its aims are to improve the working conditions of those who are decidedly in the lower half of this capitalist food-chain (if you will), and raising awareness in the top-half. Which isn't a bad set of goals in and of themselves; and the practices they employ have a highly free-market touch to them (setting up your own companies to compete with mainstream, raising awareness so people can vote with their dollar or euro or yen).

Anyway. Fair trade is not just about “forcing companies” to pay higher wages to local workers. It is also about setting up own corporations with the aim of increasing the wage of the participants. For farmers it is like a reverse-union (and not unlike what farmers did in the 19th/20th century over here) except without a USA or EU pumping in vast amounts of money to prop 'em up, or a Japan to ban all that they didn't make.

I think that is a good summary of the Fair-Trade movement. It is encouraging more ethical wages for farmers and workers and better working conditions.

You want to know how much extra cost this is on the big multinationals? If Starbucks adopted the Fair-Trade policy, and got all their products from Fair-Trade suppliers, it would cost them 1 cent more per coffee.

They would still be raking in the profits.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Yet, the vast majority of these workers are simply unethically exploited, mainly child labour working 12 hour shifts for $5 per week and you come in here talking about "competitive advantage" saying how Unions hate kids while you advocate exploitation and child labour?

Ah, how convenient. You ignore my deconstructing of your previous arguments and then jump back in with more wild accusations. An anecdote about one child be treated badly is not proof that the majority of foreign labor is child labor being paid a pittance for extremely long hours.

If you're angry about child labor, you should be scolding India for not banning it, or not enforcing said ban.

Because that is the reality of the situation, some one setting up a factory in an Indian slum, taking advantage of the people in desperate need there.

Nothing to do about "the willingness to work for lower wages.", it is unethical exploitation and wage-slavery of those in need.

So, better to not give those desperate people any job? Better they remain even more desperate and poor and hungry than they would be if they had even a terrible job? Just what do you think would happen if you managed to get some sort of international minimum wage? That the poor third world workers would cheer your name for making them lose their jobs?

Also; we're talking about the US here, and why unions went bad here. Don't you have any thoughts on the video I posted? Or would that put a wrinkle in your 'unions are perfect' world?

CR

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yet, the vast majority of these workers are simply unethically exploited, mainly child labour working 12 hour shifts for $5 per week and you

Looking at the wages is a shallow point

http://www.independent.org/publicati...le.asp?id=1369

In 9 of 10 nations, average apparel industry income exceeds the national average at only 50 hours per week. Apparel workers in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua earn 3 to 7 times the national average.

[a completely inoffensive name]

How we be realistic and drop the stupid rhetoric and admit that companies use child labor but that without the competitive advantage child labor brings, we would all be paying much more in prices which lowers our standard of living since we would be paying more for the same goods. Besides that, the flaw in talking about how low little child labor or any labor in 3rd world countries makes is that compared to what they were making before the factories (AKA jobs) opened up (zero) they are doing much better then before. We all like to call China the factory of world, pumping out lots of cheap toys and such for Americans, Japan and Europe and now after 20 years of opening up this massive industrialization (for very small wages) we have seen the slow build up of the Chinese middle class.

You don't go from 3rd world to 1st world in a matter of years by instituting a "universal minimum wage"; wealth is built on the creation of stuff and all post-industrialized nations have built up their wealth with years of sacrifice from their grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great-great grandfathers etc, down the line until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Factories bring wealth, more importantly, the creation of wealth, the people will eventually reach a point where their wealth is sufficient enough to overcome basic problems such as "Will I be able to eat today?", when those problems are gone from the publics head, then like any other nation, the public finds something else to be worried/angry by. So the next generation not having been subjected to poverty at any point will be angry at their government and for not being paid as much as Europeans or Americans, so they will fight for workers rights and higher wages through the government just as every other industrialized nation did from the US to Europe.

This is why in my opinion you should respect the generations before you. If we are to say that all this hard work and this path to success could be bypassed by putting wages on an "equal" level worldwide, then that simply makes our elders idiots for not doing that in the 1800s.

[Beskar]

You don't go from 3rd world to 1st world in a matter of years by instituting a "universal minimum wage";

Nope, but you accelerate the growth significantly.

This is why in my opinion you should respect the generations before you. If we are to say that all this hard work and this path to success could be bypassed by putting wages on an "equal" level worldwide, then that simply makes our elders idiots for not doing that in the 1800s.

Why does it make them idiots? In 1800 there wasn't a world economy outside of Europe and its colonies. Also, there weren't any international institutions like the UN.

Even by insituting an international minimum wage of $1 per hour, you will significantly improve conditions across the world in the matter of years as the changes are done. Even then, parts of the world will still have a competitive advantage for buisnesses to invest it. Also, it will build up the infrastructure and economy of those nations as well, as the people there will have money to spend within their own country.

Pretty simple to do, however, reality is harder due to resistence from certain groups of people who simply have no regard for humanity.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Nope, but you accelerate the growth significantly.



Why does it make them idiots? In 1800 there wasn't a world economy outside of Europe and its colonies. Also, there weren't any international institutions like the UN.

Even by insituting an international minimum wage of $1 per hour, you will significantly improve conditions across the world in the matter of years as the changes are done. Even then, parts of the world will still have a competitive advantage for buisnesses to invest it. Also, it will build up the infrastructure and economy of those nations as well, as the people there will have money to spend within their own country.

Pretty simple to do, however, reality is harder due to resistence from certain groups of people who simply have no regard for humanity.

Please stop calling people who don't agree with you about economics as people who have no regard for humanity. CR and every other right wing person in here has family and friends that they love as human beings. so just because they go about tackling the issue of poverty differently then you doesn't make them monsters. I guess I'm trying to say stop being an ass. I'm left leaning but I can't stand leftists who attempt at demonizing the right instead of attempting to win them over.

Now, let's go over what you said. "Nope, but you will accelerate the growth significantly." Yes, you will accelerate their growth significantly, at the expense of our growth or the growth of others. If you force them to receive more money through higher wages then those paying for the goods will need to pay more of their wealth to get the product so they will have less wealth now. For a person so concerned about the well being of others you seem to forget that poor people rely on Wal-Marts cheap prices to maintain the bare minimum to survive in an advanced 1st world nation, and having Wal Mart raise prices because they have to pay more for labor isn't going to help them.

By 1880s there was a world economy but instead of instituting a worldwide minimum wage, Americans during the Guilded Age fought just to have Unions legalized.

Yes, you are correct they will have more money. But you seem to think that these nations being exploited will take that money and put it to good use and not have corruption of any sort. That's flaw one of your idealistic view. Secondly, there will still be competitive advantage but it will be lesser or weakened, which means that it is not as cheap then it was before.

You are basically artificially raising prices for all industrialized people so 3rd world countries can have more money which you seem to think will solve all their problems. Having a giant money funnel to poor countries has shown to be inefficient or not quite regulated enough to provide proper growth and development. Your proposal I will grant at least has the benefit of giving Americans cheap manufactured goods in return for sending off all their money, but just like how the US already dumps billions of dollars into Afghanistan with no viable returns on the countries well being I doubt that everything will turn out in tip top shape if we just make labor more expensive around the world.

EDIT: The people there must fight for additional money otherwise they will have no respect for it and not care when corruption starts becoming rampant among the government.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Why does it make them idiots? In 1800 there wasn't a world economy outside of Europe and its colonies. Also, there weren't any international institutions like the UN.

Even by insituting an international minimum wage of $1 per hour, you will significantly improve conditions across the world in the matter of years as the changes are done. Even then, parts of the world will still have a competitive advantage for buisnesses to invest it. Also, it will build up the infrastructure and economy of those nations as well, as the people there will have money to spend within their own country.

Pretty simple to do, however, reality is harder due to resistence from certain groups of people who simply have no regard for humanity.

Even if they are incorrect, do you really think they have no regard for humanity?

we met a 40-year-old woman named Nhem Yen, who told us why she moved to an area with particularly lethal malaria. "We needed to eat," she said. "And here there is wood, so we thought we could cut it and sell it."

But then Nhem Yen's daughter and son-in-law both died of malaria, leaving her with two grandchildren and five children of her own. With just one mosquito net, she had to choose which children would sleep protected and which would sleep exposed.

In Cambodia, a large mosquito net costs $5. If there had been a sweatshop in the area, however harsh or dangerous, Nhem Yen would have leapt at the chance to work in it, to earn enough to buy a net big enough to cover all her children.

The question is clearly about how much unemployment would result from bumping wages for 1-2$ a day to 10 dollars a day. Economics is not my field, but if I had to guess I'd say that the point this article makes is good:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/magaz...weatshops.html

Some managers are brutal in the way they house workers in firetraps, expose children to dangerous chemicals, deny bathroom breaks, demand sexual favors, force people to work double shifts or dismiss anyone who tries to organize a union. Agitation for improved safety conditions can be helpful, just as it was in 19th-century Europe.

...

Sweatshop monitors do have a useful role. They can compel factories to improve safety. They can also call attention to the impact of sweatshops on the environment. The greatest downside of industrialization is not exploitation of workers but toxic air and water. In Asia each year, three million people die from the effects of pollution. The factories springing up throughout the region are far more likely to kill people through the chemicals they expel than through terrible working conditions.

By focusing on these issues, by working closely with organizations and news media in foreign countries, sweatshops can be improved. But refusing to buy sweatshop products risks making Americans feel good while harming those we are trying to help.

Doesn't this seem like a better thing to focus on than wages? Now who has no regard for humanity

[Beskar]

Now, let's go over what you said. "Nope, but you will accelerate the growth significantly." Yes, you will accelerate their growth significantly, at the expense of our growth or the growth of others.

I am not selfish, I don't mind paying the insignificant amount for them not to be in wage-bondage.

If you force them to receive more money through higher wages then those paying for the goods will need to pay more of their wealth to get the product so they will have less wealth now. For a person so concerned about the well being of others you seem to forget that poor people rely on Wal-Marts cheap prices to maintain the bare minimum to survive in an advanced 1st world nation, and having Wal Mart raise prices because they have to pay more for labor isn't going to help them.

America has a minimum wage, so that point is rather null.

Yes, you are correct they will have more money. But you seem to think that these nations being exploited will take that money and put it to good use and not have corruption of any sort. That's flaw one of your idealistic view.

It is not a flaw. It is a separate issue. If the money went straight to the workers, the workers then decide what to do with it.

Secondly, there will still be competitive advantage but it will be lesser or weakened, which means that it is not as cheap then it was before.

The difference between the production of Starbucks Coffee and Starbucks Fair-Trade Coffee is 1 cent per cup. It will not break the bank.

You are basically artificially raising prices for all industrialized people so 3rd world countries can have more money which you seem to think will solve all their problems. Having a giant money funnel to poor countries has shown to be inefficient or not quite regulated enough to provide proper growth and development. Your proposal I will grant at least has the benefit of giving Americans cheap manufactured goods in return for sending off all their money, but just like how the US already dumps billions of dollars into Afghanistan with no viable returns on the countries well being I doubt that everything will turn out in tip top shape if we just make labor more expensive around the world.

There is also a difference between India and Afghanistan. Having your money basically pay for Indian products which you receive will be an obvious gain for their economy and yours as they could afford the more expensive American products like the IPhone more easily.

In Afghanistan, you are funnelling money in a sand-pit and you get no return from it.

Two completely different situations.

Doesn't this seem like a better thing to focus on than wages? Now who has no regard for humanity

Non-sequitur? Especially since I spoke out about the cruelty in the post I made the same statement about the wages.

Not like I conducted any hypocrisy by posting "Think of the Children!" while advocating de-facto Child Labour in the same post.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I am not selfish, I don't mind paying the insignificant amount for them not to be in wage-bondage.

What's insignificant for you is very significant for an illegal immigrant Hispanic mother of 4 living in LA.

America has a minimum wage, so that point is rather null.

How so? Those that are poor have a bare minimum of wealth they get from working, and now more wealth is required for the same amount of stuff so their ability to buy more is limited and in fact may have to cut back on spending on certain things because they are now too expensive for them. By inflating workers wages, you are creating inflation which hurts the poor the most since the minimum wage doesn't move with the inflation rate but instead whenever Congress decides to raise it.

It is not a flaw. It is a separate issue. If the money went straight to the workers, the workers then decide what to do with it.

A corrupt government won't let the workers decide what to do with the money. They will take the money through force or taxes.

The difference between the production of Starbucks Coffee and Starbucks Fair-Trade Coffee is 1 cent per cup. It will not break the bank.

A) Like I said before, for someone who is advocating for the less fortunate you seem to dismiss the value of even a penny for them. Besides, coffee is a luxury that is already too expensive (at Starbucks at least) for many poor people. So that's a poor example.
B) The coffee market is very different from the toy market which is different then the toothpaste market etc...

There is also a difference between India and Afghanistan. Having your money basically pay for Indian products which you receive will be an obvious gain for their economy and yours as they could afford the more expensive American products like the IPhone more easily.

In Afghanistan, you are funnelling money in a sand-pit and you get no return from it.

Two completely different situations.

That situation (India) already occurs without needing to inflate worker's prices. The growth of these nations is naturally stable, but shoving in inflation (I'll say may) may destabilize the growth.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Pretty simple to do, however, reality is harder due to resistence from certain groups of people who simply have no regard for humanity.

Yup, that's me. That's why I only volunteered at one week long trip to help collect and distribute food to migrant workers this summer. You, being so full of your regard for humanity, probably volunteered for a month or more to help feed the hungry. Right?

Nope, but you accelerate the growth significantly.

No, you absolutely do not. By decreasing the incentive for companies to use foreign labor, you decrease the amount of jobs those companies will offer and the number of foreign factories they'll build. That means less jobs, more unemployment, or more going back to lower paying jobs. ANd that's not even counting the job loss from domestic companies employing less people.

This 'wage slavery' is nonsense. Sasaki showed that apparel workers get paid more than average. So, often sweatshop jobs are better than the other jobs available.

Look at China; decades of low paid workers making stuff for the west. After all those years we see a middle class emerging and better pay for workers. There is no magic fix to leap a third world country into the first world.

The difference between the production of Starbucks Coffee and Starbucks Fair-Trade Coffee is 1 cent per cup.

Source?

What's insignificant for you is very significant for an illegal immigrant Hispanic mother of 4 living in LA.

Heh, that's a good point. Cheap goods helps the poor in America and other countries who can afford more basic necessities like clothes and food.

EDIT: Again, Beskar, why don't you share your thoughts on the video I posted? Or does the fact that unions are choosing more jobs for themselves over the safety of ill children conflict with your worldview too much?

CR

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The difference between the production of Starbucks Coffee and Starbucks Fair-Trade Coffee is 1 cent per cup.

Source?

Best I can tell from google, starbucks pays top dollar for it's non fair trade coffee--not surprising that their costs don't go up much from buying fair trade coffee (6% of the coffee they buy apparently). I don't think this helps whatever point beskar is trying to make--something like "increasing sweatshop wages 5 fold will only lead to a 1 cent increase in price"? I hope that's not the point he's trying to make...

[a completely inoffensive name]

No, you absolutely do not. By decreasing the incentive for companies to use foreign labor, you decrease the amount of jobs those companies will offer and the number of foreign factories they'll build. That means less jobs, more unemployment, or more going back to lower paying jobs. ANd that's not even counting the job loss from domestic companies employing less people.

This 'wage slavery' is nonsense. Sasaki showed that apparel workers get paid more than average. So, often sweatshop jobs are better than the other jobs available.

Look at China; decades of low paid workers making stuff for the west. After all those years we see a middle class emerging and better pay for workers. There is no magic fix to leap a third world country into the first world.

CR

I would say the first paragraph is a bit hazy. Depending on exactly how much you raise the wages, the effects could be different. The demand for the products might not decrease drastically if the prices increase a tiny bit, so companies might just eat the loss in profit if they are still making a healthy profit in satisfying the demand. However, the problem is that judging what is the "right" amount of wage inflation is tricky even from a purely economical view point not to mention you would have people in politics like Beskar making absurd demands that would jack up prices and have demand and thus supply collapse (AKA higher wages=no jobs as you said).

Everything else you said CR I agree with.

[Beskar]

Best I can tell from google, starbucks pays top dollar for it's non fair trade coffee--not surprising that their costs don't go up much from buying fair trade coffee (6% of the coffee they buy apparently). I don't think this helps whatever point beskar is trying to make--something like "increasing sweatshop wages 5 fold will only lead to a 1 cent increase in price"? I hope that's not the point he's trying to make...

It was an article I read a while ago. When Starbucks first started releasing a 'Fair-Trade' range locally, and there was a big hoohaa, because it only cost Starbucks 1p to do Fair-Trade, and they charged an extra 10p per cup.

You, being so full of your regard for humanity, probably volunteered for a month or more to help feed the hungry. Right?

You probably was sarcastic when you wrote this, but it actually correct. I been doing charity work since 13, which involves assisting with the homeless, providing food, collecting/performing and community work.

Again, Beskar, why don't you share your thoughts on the video I posted? Or does the fact that unions are choosing more jobs for themselves over the safety of ill children conflict with your worldview too much?

Actually, no. I pretty much shrugged it off as something minor. It was a very biased article. From what I skimmed read, there is a bill which will allow non-trained medical professionals to administrate this drug. However, the unions said they oppose it, most likely due to complications, legal risks, etc and that a trained professional should deal with it, aka, just hire a school nurse to deal and look after the patient.

Makes sense. The alternative is, to simply train teachers to a certificated first-aid standard then there would be no issues then either. But I am guessing this costs money and school don't want to pay for that.

There isn't enough in the article for me to give a more meaningful answer.

[jabarto]

So, better to not give those desperate people any job? Better they remain even more desperate and poor and hungry than they would be if they had even a terrible job? Just what do you think would happen if you managed to get some sort of international minimum wage? That the poor third world workers would cheer your name for making them lose their jobs?

Oh stop it. That they do that horrible work out of necessity doesn't make it any more right.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Actually, no. I pretty much shrugged it off as something minor. It was a very biased article. From what I skimmed read, there is a bill which will allow non-trained medical professionals to administrate this drug. However, the unions said they oppose it, most likely due to complications, legal risks, etc and that a trained professional should deal with it, aka, just hire a school nurse to deal and look after the patient.

Makes sense.

No. It. Doesn't. Did you even read the article? Schools can't afford to hire more people now. The medical professionals -

Epilepsy advocates like the Epilepsy Foundation and physicians groups like the California Medical Association have lined up to support the bill.

- support allowing lay people with some training and not just nurses to administer the drug. The union claims about concern for medical issues have got nothing to back them up; the people who actually know something about the medical issue support this bill.

And just because something makes a bunch of greedy idiots look like a bunch of greedy idiots doesn't mean it is biased.

The alternative is, to simply train teachers to a certificated first-aid standard then there would be no issues then either. But I am guessing this costs money and school don't want to pay for that.

The alternative this bill provides for is to let teachers get some simple training - they don't have to have a certificate in first aid - to administer this drug. That's what the schools, doctors, and parents want.

The unions oppose that simple, effective solution because it doesn't result in them getting more jobs.

The bottom line is that unions are opposing a bill that makes it much easier to care for children with potentially deadly conditions because it doesn't let them make more money. Can you give a meaningful response to that?

Oh stop it. That they do that horrible work out of necessity doesn't make it any more right.

Everyone works because they need to. And it being right isn't the point. The point is that Beskar's plan to force a minimum wage would result in those desperate workers losing their jobs. How will taking the jobs from them help their situation?

And in the apparel industry, those jobs usually pay more than the local average.

CR