To those who are complaining about unions while still benefiting from those same unions:
I recently replied on another blog to a fellow who was blaming unions for the nations ills. He is benefiting from the the high wages and benefits he was receiving at a non union factory due largely to union workers in union factories.
The person wrote this:
"Companies are exporting jobs because of Unions. Unions demand so much from companies that they can go else where and not fight with unions. I work in the auto industry and we are not union but we get paid just as good and have better benefits. One thing that is different is my company doesn't have to pay millions a year to fight with the union. Why do you think Japan is building plants over here, its because in Japan you have to be in a union. Think about it do you ever hear about ford or chevy building plants in Japan or China...NO because of union."
This person was too stupid to see the correlation between the union fight for benefits and his own wages. This is my reply to him:
We will start ith something simple, yes General Motors and Ford both have factories in China and Japan as well as around the rest of the world.
You work at a foreign transplant factory and you don't have any idea of the history behind foreign auto companies here. There is a law on the books that says a foreign auto company can only import a small number of vehicles here ( I think it is 35,000) Therefore if they want to sell more vehicles here they have to have factories here.
As far as your good wages and benefits are concerned, the only reason your getting them, is because of unions. If foreign companies weren't competing with domestic unions your wages would likely be at minimum wage. It is not the unions who are destroying the middle class, but it is the greed of corporations and the culpability of politicians who allow the decimation of the middle class. Obviously you, once again don't know history. The fight by union workers for better wages, benefits and working conditions are what created the middle class. During the 1950's and 1960's is when the middle class became a reality. Back then CEO's made only about 40 times more than their workers and tax rates on the highest incomes were about 90%. This allowed for infrastructure spending on roads and bridges and made it an incentive for companies to share the wealth with their employees as well as their stock holders. If a company gave more wages and benefits to employees, they could deduct that amount from their profits thereby keeping more money that didn't go to taxes for themselves. With the advent of the 40 hour work week, more people were hired, which in turn advanced our economy. When an individual has an income, they spend the money they make on goods and services. The more people who have jobs and spend money, the more they create jobs by demanding more goods and services. It does make a difference on what the individual buys, as to how much their local economy thrives.
Foreign companies, who earn their money through trade with the USA, is a good example of how; where you spend your money determines the local economy. Buying domestic products that are made and bought here do more for the economy than buying foreign goods do. Also the profits for the foreign companies go back overseas, and are not really taxed here. So we lose out on two fronts. Yes competition is a good thing, but not when your playing with the deck stacked against you.
China for instance doesn't allow free trade in their country, and they don't have basic regulations to protect their environment from polution or to ban slave labor. They are just now realizing that environmental regulations need to be in place to prevent their water supply and land from becoming unuseable.
Also there is the problem of lead and other toxic contaminates that have been found in the products that they export. There are many countries unwilling to buy those products from China, due to the lack of safety regulations in China.
Next is the fact that China does not recognise patents so they steal ideas and produce products that other countries are unable to do Patent laws are recognised nearly everywhere but China. For instance, if you take any new gadget into China, they seize it and reverse engineer it so any patent you may have held on the item becomes a moot point. China therefore is able to produce the product over there for cheap, and with no regulations or need to pay the original owner of the product in question. And because their laws allow for theft of any foreign idea or product, the "free trade" playing field is skewed in China's direction. If you want to have jobs return to America, people need to quit buying all these chinese made goods. We need factories to resume operating in the United States if we want jobs and the economy to return. We also need to close loopholes in the tax system that allow companies like Exxon/mobile and Dow chemical, to pay nothing in federal taxes even with their obscene profits. Also to end the corporate welfare of those same companies ( ie, the oil industry has gotten 1.3 billion dollars in subsidies and even more money in lucrative government contracts) that makes it difficult for smaller start ups to exist. And we need to end the tax credit for companies that ship jobs overseas, until we do so the American worker is at a disadvantage.
Last but not least, we need to get rid of the bribery going on in Washington D.C. and around the country, that allows companies and special interests to pay politicians (in the form of campaign contributions) to make laws benefiting those same industries, and often to the detriment of average Americans.
We need public funding of elections, to make sure that the laws passed by congress, and signed by the president, are in the best interests of all Americans, and not just a select few corporations and individuals.
If you want to help this country recover, you can do things like buy local, shop for items made in the USA, or start a factory that makes goods here. It would be nice if someone like Warren Buffett or George Soros would spend his money to create jobs by actually starting factories and other businesses that create jobs instead of just playing in the stock market, which usually doesn't create any jobs. It would be nice if America could return to the heyday of the middle class that took place in the 1950's and 1960's. It would not only help America but the rest of the world as well, especially if free trade were actually done on an even playing field. And we need to quit the practice of allowing billioniares, who get the majority of their money from the stock market, to have fewer taxes than the rest of us. There is no reason why Warren Buffett or any one else in the top 1% should pay less in taxes as a percentage of income than any of the rest of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment