There’s been a great deal of angst concerning labor unions, government’s response to collective bargaining and whether or not it all has an impact on anybody, the economy or the taste of raspberry crème cupcakes. It affects everybody, punches holes in the economies of states and a nation and sours the taste of a raspberry crème cupcake. (Maybe not so much but I’m trying to see a funny in here somewhere.)
Facts are: collective bargaining is NOT a right (even though his eminence Barack H. Obama believes so), you do have the right to withhold labor because you feel the labor creates difficulties; but I don’t have to bargain with you and I don’t HAVE to pay you for sitting on your butt while we argue. Nor must I pay for your retirement, your insurances and/or subsidize your continued employment when your employer proves he’s so incompetent as to allow his business to tank. (See General Motors and others)
Collective bargaining is a gift presented to both sides of a dispute. They can arbitrate and discuss a problem. It’s a chance to say what the problems are, have them recognized and hope to agree on how to resolve the situation. It does not mean people can interfere with the labors of others, nor slow work to the point of standstill. These are tactics more akin to extortionists than negotiators.
People need protection; especially from organizations and governments so large as to forget the significance and necessity of the individual worker. But the substitution of one giant, soulless, behemoth of organizational neglect in favor of another is ridiculous at best and outright stupid at worst.
Question: are ANY so called representatives worth the amount they are paid? Is a U.S. Representative or a Senator worth $170+ Thousand Dollars a year? Is the President worth the money we pay him? (I ask this no matter the breed of animal, donkey or elephant inhabiting the White House.) Are the leaders of the State Department or any of the other minimal minions suckling a governmental nipple worth the exorbitant prices we pay them?
None do any heavy lifting. None stand in harm’s way or at the tip of a human army’s spear as it marches into combat. None walk the streets defending you against the criminal elements laying in wait to victimize you. None stand actively to do the labors you risk yourself and your health for daily. So why do we say they’re worth so much more than we as individuals?
Having asked those questions, now ask yourself the same questions of your labor union’s management and hierarchy. Do the answers differ? I think not, but they get paid amounts hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to do no more than those representatives we send to Congress and the White House.
The fact of the matter is both sets of charlatans attack your emotions and prey upon your feelings of being taken advantage of in the workplace. Then they scrape the top layer of your pay from you to support their avarice. Some do it through taxes, others call them union dues. Either way they’ve employed the key to your psyche. They work on your drive to give your family the better things in life.
Problems arise when people think they must band together to get the biggest piece of the pie. The problem is that the pie has only so much of a circumference to exhibit and thus, exploit. You can’t fill a five pound bag of sugar and expect to remove six pounds of sugar. You can’t get twenty slices out of that pie without recognizing the pieces continually get smaller and smaller as everybody DEMANDS a taste.
It has to be asked of unions: what makes your demands so much more important than the other guy. What defines a Fireman’s needs as greater than a Police Officer, or a Bureaucrat or a hospital worker? Who decides the value of a worker’s right balanced against those of another?
The government’s solution is to print more and more money. They’re now printing so much it’s as ubiquitous as toilet paper and has about the same value.
Thanks for listening
