Are unions partially to blame for the downfall of America's economy?

Yes. But, the culprit in the first place is not treating employees fairly to begin with. Unions would not be necessary if people were getting a fair wage for their work, and given decent working hours and conditions.

I am generally anti-union, but they have a purpose. Some of Americas incredible prosperity during the last half of the 1900’s was because unions gave the average guy a decent wage and some security, and it grew our middle class. The middle class is a big part of what differentiated us from other countries, and grew our economy. Everyone got to greedy, unions, management, owners, and now there is a burst in the bubble. I heard that the auto unions basically began health insurance being offered through employers. I hate health care being offered this way, so some might see it as a perk a positive, I see it as a big negative.

I think anyone who works deserves a liveable wage. I think CEO’s make way more money than they deserve. I think if everyone was reasonable, and practicing the golden rule, including Americans willing to pay for quality products, and care for their thngs, everything would be a lot better.

It is greed and the big race to the bottom as far as wages and benefits go. There aren’t really enough unions in the US to do the kind of damage you discuss here. They are a convenient boogieman for the right to kick around and assign blame to.

I got beat to the punch, but I say greed is the real culprit as well.

However, @woodcutter raises a valid point. You can’t really blame the average worker, especially the ones that are no longer working. You can’t blame the companies and/or their CEOs because they will sue you for slander and probably win since they can afford good lawyers so the unions are a safe target. I mean, someone has to be blamed, and it can’t be the perps or their victims.

And yes, sad to say, America probably will lose due to the same Capitalist forces that were our strength for so long. We can no longer provide something people want at a price they will (or, in some cases, can) pay. That means that those that can even afford to buy anything turn to those who can offer better stuff at a better price. Of course, the CEOs don’t care since their incomes are doubling every year… We are about to be hoisted by our own petard.

It is a lot of things John. If you don’t mind, may I please say this with all due respect. I laugh to myself and shake my head everytime I see you guys say greed is the cause of this or that. Please, take a minute and read this:

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2007/01/23/the_greed_fallacy/page/full/

@bkcunningham What word would you use to describe the seeking of competitive advantage and profits regardless of the effects on anything other than the bottom line?
Given that the multiple dictionary definitions of “greed” fall pretty close to there, I must as if we need to invent a new word, or to all write and speak like English professors with sticks up our asses, or can we just speak colloquially and use a word that is close enough to the concept we are trying to convey that if it had teeth it would bite us?

More importantly though, what are some of those things you say there are a lot of? I don’t see much of an answer, only some partisan propaganda, yet I know you are quite capable of coming up with something intelligent and insightful than a link.

The vicious circle of inflation isn’t caused by unions, although it might be one part of the system. Inflation is caused by the free market (particularly when there are “sellers’ markets”) and the profit-oriented thinking (or greed or capitalism or for-profit corporate charters, or the cost of living, or whatever other labels or concepts you care to focus on). The more aggressively people and especially large market-dominating corporations and near-cartels try to maximize profits for their own sake, the higher the cost of living, the more workers need to make to get by, etc.

Nope. It was the unregulated speculative banking system and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed the system.

Anyone blaming Unions isn’t looking at the big picture. This is simply a tactic being used by Corporates to line their greedy pockets more.

This is the best article I’ve ever read on the subject of explaining what caused the crash.

There are a handful of industries where unions have been counter-productive (the airline industry for example), but in general, unions are one of the few forces out there preventing us from turning all blue-collar jobs into Wal-Martesque races to the bottom, where companies will make everyone “part time” by scheduling everyone 1 less hour than the cuttoff, so they don’t have to pay benefits etc.

The US can’t sustain itself with a few hundred multi-billionaires and everyone else working in their “mines” and factories. It needs a healthy, well-paid middle class to prosper. US workers are never going to be able to compete for labor with kids in sweatshops making a 5 cents a day, so the problem is much deeper than what the corporately owned and funded marketing campaigns would have you believe.

Doing what’s in the best interest for mega-corps isn’t necessarily what’s in the best interest of the long-term health of the the US economy as a whole. Most people work for smaller companies, and they are the driving force behind the US economy. Larger corps are the ones that are offshoring, and using US dollars to finance these operations overseas.

I don’t know much about unions in the US, but I do know the federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. That is less than half what it is in Australia, while the US has a higher per capita GDP (PPP. Australia is ahead for nominal GDP). It seems the unions in the US still haven’t managed to establish fair working conditions.

@FireMadeFlesh In America, “fair” means that corporate execs earn at least 500 times what a normal worker does since they are so valuable to the company, and that they ride Golden Parachutes and get multi-million-dollar severance packages if they mis-manage their company into bankruptcy while everyone else gets nothing as they are put out into the street.
To do otherwise would not properly reward those who are willing to take risks and who have skills that nobody else does, and that would be unfair.

@gorillapaws But if the rich don’t get richer then who will invest in companies so that they have the capital to create lots of high-paying jobs? The problem is that we aren’t letting them get/keep enough money to do that, and until we do, the US economy is going to remain stalled and the Communists will win!

The tendency to overspend is common for both employers and employees. The economy breaks when both people and companies spend more than they earn.

JLeslie, you have given an outstanding answer to my question and i thank you. john

Why did the companies have to hire cheap labor when the unions negotiated for better wages? Did that have to be an automatic response? Why couldn’t they have just paid the wages, made a bit less, and spread the wealth that they were making? Can you blame the workers of the unions for wanting to share in the profits of the companies that were getting richer and richer?

@skfinkel That is not the American way, you Socialist! :D

What’s probably happening with unions is they’re no longer needed as stooges by Republikans, so they’re being thrown away like jerk napkins. For the past two generations, teacher unions have been opposing improving standards, accountability, and results. What exactly should be done, I don’t always know. But what was done was we’ve created tens if not hundreds of millions of people suffering from illiteracy, poor critical thinking skills, narcissism, quantitative illiteracy, and experiential or anecdotal thinking (“truthiness”). That’s coming back to bite the public in the ass, as those people, particularly the socioeconomically more well off ones, are susceptible to getting all their information from Fox News and illiterate tabloids. Cop unions and other unions aren’t a hell of a lot better: the best most can do is hold onto what perks they have, and try to obstruct reform and accountability when it’s needed.

I’m not by any means against unions, but a union has to be more than an entitlement corps. There’s a lot of talk, and debate, these days about corporate-social responsibility. Unions need to have some of that too. A union needs to actually weigh the present and the future, and find ways to sustainably fit into society if it wants to have a social function.

@bolwerk I actually agree with you. Good answer.

Surprisingly, so do I for once.

GREED, LAZINESS, ENTITLEMENT and people just do not care anymore. Also letting the government do what they will when they want and throwing up our hands and saying…..see I told you they would do that…........we loose…...it is our fault !!!!

Ah, please let me be simplistic and derivative. If it’s Middle Earth and democracy, illegal immigrants, NAFTA, unions, Wall Street, made in USA, retirement, healthcare, taxes, greed, patriotism, compassion, religion, education, abortion are all Rings of Power…there is One Ring to rule and in the darkness bind them…and that is Capitalism, people. That is all.

Yes, of course they are, but management is even more to blame for giving in to them.

@CaptainHarley Neither side can really have their way though. I mean, companies don’t want to pay a living wage while unions want enough concessions to bankrupt employers. That leaves three choices;
1) Give in to unions – Companies lose money hand over fist and everybody loses in the long run
2) Let the companies have their way – So much for earning a living, and kiss all benefits good bye (unless you are an exec)
3) Find a middle ground – This used to happen, but as America becomes more polarized, any attempt to find a compromise is seen as weakness.

I suppose that unions are partially to blame, but only insofar as they are part of a larger group called “everyone”, and tere is plenty of blame to go around in a catastrofuck like our economy.

Never been a union member but are there really unions out there who would deliberately bring down, bankrupt their employer out of spite-?

Ok, @jerv , I bow to your new and improved syntax! ; )

@mazingerz88: perhaps there have been in the past. I have a background in industrial and organizational psychology, and I have definitely spoken to older people in the field who dealt with stuff like that in the 1970s. It was usually an intransigent union and a sunnovabitch manager, from the sounds of it. Management might have been acting out of spite, and the union(s) were probably quantitatively illiterate blue collar types who thought the companies had unlimited deep pockets.

But that’s second hand, so take it as you will….

@bolwerk so much talk about the unions and/or companies as being greedy and uncompromising. I feel America is better than this and Americans should show the world how it is to compromise without slaughtering one another literally or figuratively, especially when it comes to issues economic. And that has always been the real essence of democracy. I guess that’s what the Greeks figured out centuries ago.

If Americans can’t figure out how to strike a balance between having the rich share their wealth without calling it socialism and the poor avoid being criticized as unproductive this great country is going to break my heart.

@mazingerz88: well, compare American unions to unions in other countries, where there tends to be a good relationship between unions and companies. There is obviously tension too, of course, but unions in other countries tend to have a bigger stake in the company than just a wage. They have a say in the decision-making process, and in some cases even profits.

American labor gets obscene entitlements, to the point where public works projects often are several times more expensive than an equivalent project in Europe, despite Europe having comparably, if not more, advanced economies.

@bolwerk If I were doing the same thing I do now for a Public Works project, the prevailing wage laws would kick in and double my income. Granted, I am currently underpaid, but the average wage for my position is less than Public Works guys get. So yeah, some unions get a little ridiculous.

It wasn’t always this way, but then again, CEOs used to only earn 30–50 times what the average worker did while nowadays the gap is 500–1000 times. Also, while the bottom goes down and the middle class stays flat, the top income brackets have seen their income skyrocket. Unions may be greedy but they aren’t the only ones.

@bolwerk ‘American labor gets obscene entitements’?? What? Our public works in Europe are expensive, but it’s infrastructure investment and it’s going to cost what it’s going to cost, but we know that our tunnels and bridges and water works are built to last a very long time. We also have proper labour laws in place to protect workers rights, more so than in the USA. The Unions are there, but the State has a blanket deal with all workers with legislated rights, not deals done in smoky back rooms between Unions and Corp. Reps. It certainly does make for a more stable economy. We get more days off, full health coverage and a better minimum wage and our children aren’t ‘left behind’.

Don’t start talking about Europe to support your ‘Down with Unions’s rhetoric without being able to show your work. America hasn’t spent what it should on it’s infrastructure and it has nothing to do with labour costs and everything to do with short sighted, ignorant leadership.

From a recent article in the Boston Globe:
Infrastructure spending in the U.S. stands at 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product—half what it was in 1960—compared with approximately 9 percent in China and 5 percent for Europe, according to the government report.

….... now is a good time to spend money on infrastructure because construction companies in this weak economy are hungry for work and the costs are relatively low as a result.

The American Society of Civil Engineers calculates that the U.S. would need to spend an additional $1.1 trillion over the next five years to restore roads, bridges, dams, levees and other infrastructure to good condition. In its latest report card, the engineering society gave the nation’s public works a “D” grade.

To read the entire article: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/10/21/us_shuns_some_big_public_works_projects/?page=2

@cazzie: are you illiterate? I’m quite pro-union. Europe has unions, and capital projects that cost a fraction of ours. I was saying unions aren’t the problem (at least not all of it).

@bolwerk and you don’t know what you are talking about in regards to Unions or cost of infrastructure here in Europe.

@cazzie: I know it costs a fraction of what it costs in the USA, with unions in the both places – and, yeah, the unions there probably get treated better on the whole. What precisely are you objecting you, or are you just shaking your Internet dick into the wind?

‘I know it costs a fraction of what it costs in the USA’ show your work. or are you airing your internet genitals?

@cazzie: have you seen things like the Second Avenue Subway in New York? Compare per-km costs for a similar project in London, Paris, Berlin, other large cities.

(FYI, I’m not talking about how much is spent. That’s a different problem. I’m talking about how it’s spent.)

“Phase I of the Second Ave. Subway is one expensive project. Designed as a three-mile extension of the BMT Broadway line north from 57th St. and 7th Ave. to 96th St. and 2nd Ave., this route is, as SAS commenter Alon Levy has noted, the most expensive subway under construction. It’s budgeted at approximately $1.7 billion per kilometers while similar projects in Paris and Berlin have checked in at $250 million per kilometer and a London Tube extension cost $450 million per kilometer.”

See more: http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/01/14/the-costs-of-second-ave-construction/

Have you seen how much Norway paid for it’s Natural Gas Plant?

@cazzie: nope. But if I compared it to a comparable U.S. project, would I find it cost 3–8x as much?

@bolwerk yes, you probably would. Our labour costs are some of the highest in the world.

@cazzie To be fair, so is our cost of living, especially medical care.

@jerv.. your medical care costs are astronomical because of a poorly formed system, (but if some people are to be believed, we pay for it too, but through our taxes). Some of your public works are expensive because of corruption and racketeering. (great.. now someone is going to have their lawyer call me about THAT!...)

And our cost of living is much more expensive than the average US. Here’s a little comparison chart for you:
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Norway&country2=United+States

@cazzie I believe that that does technically qualify as Slander, or at least close enough for a high-priced lawyer to get you found guilty of such. :D

@cazzie: I’m not really familiar with Norwegian energy plants (and I would guess Norway has unique energy needs…). But, in general, comparing apples-to-apples projects, something like a tunnel or road or railway is going to cost more in the USA than it will in Europe – by a lot. And it costs more without getting a better product in the end. It has nothing to do with the USA’s willingness to spend $ on projects – that’s not there either, but it’s a different problem. At least some of that has to do with outmoded work rules – that unions are sometimes behind keeping around.

That said, the amount of deferred maintenance in the USA is a bit frightening. That’s more a political problem than anything to do with unions, who probably understand the work needs to be done.