Unions and Corporations

[wkmac]

The Handshake and the Gun

Many people who come to the philosophy of liberty from the right hold on to their conservative talking points on corporations and unions. I came here from the radical left. So it was obvious to me that organized labor played a legitimate role in a free market and that corporations were a creation of the state. But I hadn’t committed a lot of time to forging my opinion.

Both unions and corporations are rooted in freedom of association, but it seemed to me that corporations limit legitimate liability, and unions violate freedom of disassociation. They seem fundamentally similar because they both mitigate economic liability with state force. But I wanted to check my own ex-liberal bias. So, I interviewed one person from each side, a radical unionist and a tea-party patriot, to talk me through the gaps in my understanding.

 

[trplnkl]

What many people do not realize is that unions are in effect corporations.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

What many people do not realize is that unions are in effect corporations.

Since the New Deal era of corporatist laws and regulations, you are correct. Don't confuse real unionism for this handshake version, though. We've discussed this before so I won't go down that road again. lol

 

[UnconTROLLed]

"The voluntaryist position must be to support the workers’ right to freely organize, but also to defend the employer’s and the nonunion workers’ right to freely disassociate."

Right or wrong, that is well said and I tend to take that position.

 

[wkmac]

Trplnkl,

I concur with Sleeve in your point about unions and corp. being the same. Modern unions are not the fraternal and mutual interest organizations they once were are and now nothing more than modern businesses in contract enforcement. I don't expect you to agree with the conclusions but political theorist Kevin Carson wrote a treatise on labor entitled, "Labor Struggle, A Free Market Model" in which he discusses with depth the labor movement in the country beginning in the latter 19th century and coming forward. Even those who disagree with Carson's conclusions have commented that his historical analysis of American labor was well done and worth the read.

As a 30 year Teamster I often felt conflicted with unionism with my belief if absolute free markets until I read Carson and realized that absolute free markets was labor's best friend and very campatible with while being big business worse nightmare. Wish more of my union brothers and sisters would read Carson and at least consider the history of the labor struggle. IMO we've been sold a very bad bill of goods and we continue to keep buying it.

 

[trplnkl]

WK and Sleeve, I don't disagree with the thoughts o on real unionism vs corps. However I was not talking about history past. I was addressing what the reality of today's unions are. There was a time we only fly kites.

 

[moreluck]

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 @ 4:49 pm | Report: Michigan Union Manual Instructs Teachers How To Use Children As “Propaganda”…

 

[moreluck]

| Wednesday, January 25, 2012 @ 10:43 am |
AFL-CIO Wants Obama To Push For $4 Trillion In New Stimulus Spending…

To put it another way, the AFL-CIO wants to spend America out of existence.
Via HuffPo:

Union leaders were the most upbeat about Tuesday night’s speech. Damon Silvers, policy director at the AFL-CIO, said the speech exceeded his expectations. “His rhetoric was spot-on, and it described the real scale of the country’s needs,” he said.

But Silvers acknowledged that Obama’s specific policy proposals amounted to either policies that Obama could pursue without Congress’ cooperation or ones that would make obstructionist Republican lawmakers look “really extreme, because they are.”

“We would like to see the rhetoric more fully fleshed out,” Silvers said. “But it’s understandable given that it’s clear that this Congress this year will not act in the national interest.”

Ultimately, Silvers said, the economy needs a $4 trillion public investment program over 10 years — with investments focused on education and infrastructure — to make the economy competitive enough to support a strong middle class in the long run. While Obama’s speech did not outline such a large-scale project, it did highlight the scale of the country’s problems, he said.

​

 

[moreluck]

After a 30 sec. ad......

Will companies be required to give employee info to unions? - Fox News Video - Fox News

 

[Babagounj]

Obama’s NLRB Considers Forcing Businesses To Turn Over Employee Phone Numbers, Email Addresses To Union Bosses…

 

[moreluck]

Obama’s NLRB Considers Forcing Businesses To Turn Over Employee Phone Numbers, Email Addresses To Union Bosses…

So, during dinner, along with the constant carpet cleaning & bug killing calls....you'll get the heavy handed "join the union or else" calls. Wonderful.

 

[island1fox]

Unions, Companies,Marketers,whatever or whoever --do not want them invading my privacy and calling me at home. Never fails we sit down to dinner and the phone rings --someone selling something or begging for something.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Unions, Companies,Marketers,whatever or whoever --do not want them invading my privacy and calling me at home. Never fails we sit down to dinner and the phone rings --someone selling something or begging for something.

Drop your landline and these calls go away.

 

[moreluck]

Drop your landline and these calls go away.

But the new law would force your employer to give your contact number to the unions.....land or cell, it doesn't matter.

 

[moreluck]

(this was from Breitbart, but got it on WZ)

Maybe her heroes should've been cowboys!!

Labor Secretary Praises 'Role Model' Socialist

 

[UnconTROLLed]

Very quick question: if a privately owned company can give sit-down "informational meetings/videos" privately to employees on why unionism is wrong, harmful, unnecessary etc- how could a union not be legally allowed to do the same, yet relaying information that is to the contrary?

It seems like (beating a dead horse here) the layers and layers of law are preventing true freedom for both the "employer" and employee. Hmm..

Mind control, "manufacturing consent" etc will only grow ; and within the common American workplace, corporations generally view hourly employees who perform manual tasks involving marginal skill, as parasites that should be expendable on a whim, with no recourse.

 

[iruhnman630]

Very quick question: if a privately owned company can give sit-down "informational meetings/videos" privately to employees on why unionism is wrong, harmful, unnecessary etc- how could a union not be legally allowed to do the same, yet relaying information that is to the contrary?

The unions can do that. But the company should not be obligated by law to allow it to be done on company property or use company resources to do so.

American workplace, corporations generally view hourly employees who perform manual tasks involving marginal skill, as parasites that should be expendable on a whim, with no recourse.

It should be that way in the eyes of the law. The burden is on the union, as a third party, to convince both the company and its' employees that a working company/union relationship is in everybody's best interest.

 

[curiousbrain]

While I agree, personally, with the previous poster, I would hasten to add that it probably depends on the "default view" that an individual takes on the economic system that this country should abide by.

For example, if you are a member of a corporation, whose job it is to extract value from labor resources, then you would (more than likely) feel that the burden is on the union; conversely, if you were a member of the union, whose job it is to extract value from the corporation, then you would (more than likely) feel that the burden is on the company.

As with all things, a matter of perspective.

 

[wkmac]

Very quick question: if a privately owned company can give sit-down "informational meetings/videos" privately to employees on why unionism is wrong, harmful, unnecessary etc- how could a union not be legally allowed to do the same, yet relaying information that is to the contrary?

It seems like (beating a dead horse here) the layers and layers of law are preventing true freedom for both the "employer" and employee. Hmm..

Mind control, "manufacturing consent" etc will only grow ; and within the common American workplace, corporations generally view hourly employees who perform manual tasks involving marginal skill, as parasites that should be expendable on a whim, with no recourse.

With virtual technology what it is now, begging the employer for worksite access among other things is totally unnecessary IMO. I'll just leave it at that.

That said, the corp. model of contract unionism is dying on the vine but at the same time a growing knowledge of pre-Wagner labor movement thanks to the virtual world is spreading and mostly thanks to the spreading of voluntaryist, mutualist and radical libertarianism and it's ideas among other things. As more discuss the idea of a libertarian class analysis as well as much of Kevin Carson's work, at some point many learn about the early American labor movement in the likes of Big Bill Hayward, The Knights of Labor and the IWW.

From the enclosure movement to Wagner to all forms of state regulation of labor, corp. capitalism has used the State at every turn to quash the free market of labor and to erect market barriers at all levels to force the maximum number of the workforce into wage employment rather than encourage a freer market composed of a vast array of individual entrepreneurs and craftsman. Even removing the vast array of the cost of taxation at all levels on market labor would likely result in a vast reduction of costs of consumer goods so that the same standard of living is maintained at half the annual labor hours worked. And when one understands that most tax dollars from labor ends up as welfare re-distribution into corp. capitalist pockets, no wonder there's a relationship to upward profit lines over time with upward debt and tax burdens mostly on American labor taxpayers. And for the record I don't separate blue collar and white collar labor so let's be clear on that point.

The taxation and market control issue IMO also speaks to the heart of the post I made of the interview with Professor Pack of the Wharton School on centralization of State Industrial Policy. And a lot of the interview below with Kevin Carson by Liberty Minded speaks also to the de-clawed condition of modern labor verses the more vigorous pre-Wagner labor movement.

[video=youtube;ipHU-w4q1uw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ipHU-w4q1uw[/video]

 

[UnconTROLLed]

It should be that way in the eyes of the law. The burden is on the union, as a third party, to convince both the company and its' employees that a working company/union relationship is in everybody's best interest.

ha ;(