US income gap widens as poor take hit in recession

[Lorax]

Correct...Not a union with its' own and different agenda, the laborer [[singular).

Not the case. We need strong unionization to keep the natural greed of fascism in corporate America from taking over.

We have needed them for a century now since the Triangle fire and other egregious conditions brought to us courtesy of the robber barons and other elite groups of fascist thugs.

[ccbatson]

That is what the socialists have brainwashed you into believing.

[Lorax]

I am immune from brainwashing, as are you, but for different reasons.

You don't have a brain to wash.

[Papasito]

Take more money from rich people, they hire less workers, businesses don't expand, therefore more people are poor.

Simple math.

[elganned]

Unions are nothing more than "corporations" of laborers. Even you should understand that, Cc.

[elganned]

Take more money from rich people, they hire less workers, businesses don't expand, therefore more people are poor.

Simple math.

Not simple, but simplistic. And wrong.

Business expansion doesn't stop if it has a good business model and makes a good product. Business is not a zero sum game, where one's win is another's loss.

Better pay attracts better workers, which adds to the value of the product or service, which can actually cause the business to expand more rapidly.

[oladub]

Bats, Consider unions from a libertarian point of view. Rich people can afford to hire lawyers to look after their financial interests and negotiate for them. Think of unions as being sort of a group legal plan for those of lesser means. If autos workers, for instance, hired a legal firm with a name like 'Piece, Jenkins, Wolfe,Wilbur and Tabak' to represent their collective interests, why should that be more illegal than Monsanto, Ford, or Warren Buffet hiring the same firm to represent their interests? The only difference is that we are calling workers' representatives the 'UAW union' instead of 'Piece, Jenkins, Wolfe, Wilbur and Tabak'. It works out the same way.

It is true that unions can demand so much that they can cause employers to be uncompetative and die. If the government stopped bailing corporations out, unions would be more prudent.

To make a case against unions, you must first make the case of why rich people and corporations are allowed to promote their own interests with attorneys but workers are not allowed the same right.

[ccbatson]

Why do workers need lawyers? In a free market system, they don't. Besides, the legitimate primary role of government is to establish and enforce laws that protect parties engaged in a contractual agreement and relationship.

[Lorax]

That's really funny, Batts. Problem is, the rich are the ones in charge of government. Lobbyists representing the wealthy corporate interests own the politicians, so what chance do average working folk have in getting laws enforced? They don't.

[elganned]

Why do workers need lawyers? In a free market system, they don't. Besides, the legitimate primary role of government is to establish and enforce laws that protect parties engaged in a contractual agreement and relationship.

...for which people will need lawyers as the inevitable disputes erupt over exactly what the contract obligates one to do and what it does not.

I just love it when you answer your own question--without even knowing it. It shows that you're paying close attention.

[[Are you seriously suggesting that under an Objectivist system there won't be any lawyers?? Dude, you are seriously deranged...)

[East Detroit]

Why do workers need lawyers? In a free market system, they don't. Besides, the legitimate primary role of government is to establish and enforce laws that protect parties engaged in a contractual agreement and relationship.

Incorrect.

US Constitution lays out the role of government:

To Form a More Perfect Union
To Establish Justice
To Provide for the Common Defense
To Secure the Blessings of Liberty
To Promote the General Welfare
To Insure Domestic Tranquility

[ccbatson]

Justice and the blessings of liberty are precisely what is meant when I say protecting contractual relations.

[East Detroit]

He who dies with the most toys wins.

[ccbatson]

He who owns that which is unalienably his right to own is a free and liberated person.

[ghettopalmetto]

He who owns that which is unalienably his right to own is a free and liberated person.

Where is the Right to Obscene Wealth enumerated in the Constitution? I can't seem to find that clause.

[East Detroit]

He who owns that which is unalienably his right to own is a free and liberated person.

Nah, that person is just a slave to materialism and likely not free to have meaningful relationships [[with people).

[Omaha]

Any Colbert Conservative knows that there's absolutely no need for unions. Employers need to maximize profits for stockholders and unions get in the way. We want to put worker against worker for a limited # of jobs so that the jobs go to the lowest bidder. Unions stop the reverse auction that is critical to profit maximization.

“We can’t get enough white labor to build this railroad, and build it we must, so we’re forced to hire them [Chinese labor]. If you [white laborers] can’t get along with them, we have only one alternative. We’ll let you go and hire nobody but them.� Charles Crocker, company superintendent for the Central Pacific Railroad explaining to white workers why he was forced to hire Chinese immigrants [[at a 30 percent savings in labor costs) to build the Western end of the transcontinental railroad. 1865

“The low wages at which women will work form the chief reason for employing them at all...A woman's cheapness is, so to speak, her greatest economic asset. She can be used to keep down the cost of production where she is regularly employed. Where she has not been previously employed she can be introduced as a strike breaker to take the place of men seeking higher wages, or the threat of introducing her may be used to avert a strike. But the moment she organizes a union and seeks by organization to secure better wages she diminishes or destroys what is to the employer her chief value.� US Bureau of Labor, Report on Conditions of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, vol. 10, 1911

“Any man who pays more for labor than the lowest sum he can get men for is robbing the stockholders. If he can secure men for $6 and pays more, he is stealing from the company.� Stockholder of American Woolen, [[Lawrence, Massachusetts) told to the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1911

“Greed is all right; by the way . . . I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.� Ivan F. Boesky, U.S. financier. Commencement Address, 18 May 1986, School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley.

“Until we get wage levels down much closer to those of the Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along productivity gains to workers’ wages and still be competitive.� Stanley Mihelick, Executive VP, Goodyear 1987

Apple personnel executive, when asked what the company was planning to do about the widespread problem of employee overwork and burnout: “We’re not doing anything about it. We work people as hard as we can and if they burn out they leave, and we get new people.� At Work magazine, January/February 1994

“If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job. There are lots of them and many of them are hungry.� Andrew Grove, president of Intel Corp., in his book "High Output Management" 1995

[ccbatson]

Burnout? No such thing.

It is the right to the results of a person's ideas/efforts/risks that is sacred. What form it takes is not relevant, or anybodies right to lay any claim to.

[elganned]

So you concede the laborer's right to his/her labor. That's a step in the right direction, at least.

[ccbatson]

Yes, absolutely I agree that a laborer own's his/her labor.