Unions are interest groups, and America’s challenges require every group to put the national interest ahead of narrow self-interest. Yes, including blue-collar workers.
Kinda wild that every discussion about unions skips the part where management and Wall Street spent decades cutting investment and hollowing out industrial capacity.
Yeah, some unions fight automation too hard. That’s real. But acting like labor is the only group prioritizing self-interest ignores how the whole system works.
If the U.S. really wants competitiveness and national security, we need a grown-up deal: automate, invest, modernize, and actually share the gains instead of dumping all the risk on workers. Without that, nobody’s signing up for “national interest” speeches while CEOs cash out on stock options.
Thanks for discussing the problems unions can cause on productivity, Robert.
As I mentioned via a response on your post on LinkedIn, we feel the impact directly in Taiwan, as the delay of needed weapons by the US are being delayed.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how some Democrats are also trying to support a rebirth of unions in the U.S., with Senator Bernie Sanders being a leader of such an effort.
Sanders' berating then-Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz during testimony illustrates the problems of such an effort in a 21st century US economy, on many levels.
For example, why did he go after Starbucks and Shultz and not Amazon and Bezos more aggressively? It can be argued companies where workers are really exploited also in the US have a higher rate of ex- or disgruntled employees tragically gunning down their co-workers or employers. Starbucks has few if any such incidents, indicating things are not bad enough to warrant unionization.
Also, while Schultz is a billionaire of the kind that is much-despised by the far left in the US - simply for being a billionaire - it is more difficult to put him in the same category as others of his tax bracket. He came from a simple background, turned a small business into a global success, and created thousands of jobs - particularly for young people - along the way.
The efforts to rekindle unions by such politicians are, not surprising, politically motivated. They miss the days when they could count on 25% of America (and its voters) being unionized.
The problem is, America's economy now is not what it is was like back in those days. Unions in an economy that is much more focused on the services and consumer industries will not benefit from greater unionization. Image going into Starbucks and having to wait even longer because the unionized four employees are not permitted by the union to handle more than 10 customers in an hour, despite there being around 60 per hour. One can see how this will lead to lower sales, and then downsizing of the company; exactly the opposite of what unions should be targeting.
Your concerns are important, particularly as America tries to rebuild its manufacturing base. While you once again give a very fair look at both the negatives and positives that each side has in this debate, the reality is we need manufacturing, technology and innovation more than we need unionization at this stage.
The 27% wage incrase that UAW secured from GM and the other Big Three automakers is a perfect example of the tension you describe. While those gains help individual workers in the short term, they also put these companies at a competitve disadvantage against foreign automakers who dont face the same labor costs. When you're competing against Chinese EVs and other global players, those kinds of wage premiums can become unsustainable over time.
Kinda wild that every discussion about unions skips the part where management and Wall Street spent decades cutting investment and hollowing out industrial capacity.
Yeah, some unions fight automation too hard. That’s real. But acting like labor is the only group prioritizing self-interest ignores how the whole system works.
If the U.S. really wants competitiveness and national security, we need a grown-up deal: automate, invest, modernize, and actually share the gains instead of dumping all the risk on workers. Without that, nobody’s signing up for “national interest” speeches while CEOs cash out on stock options.
Thanks for discussing the problems unions can cause on productivity, Robert.
As I mentioned via a response on your post on LinkedIn, we feel the impact directly in Taiwan, as the delay of needed weapons by the US are being delayed.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how some Democrats are also trying to support a rebirth of unions in the U.S., with Senator Bernie Sanders being a leader of such an effort.
Sanders' berating then-Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz during testimony illustrates the problems of such an effort in a 21st century US economy, on many levels.
For example, why did he go after Starbucks and Shultz and not Amazon and Bezos more aggressively? It can be argued companies where workers are really exploited also in the US have a higher rate of ex- or disgruntled employees tragically gunning down their co-workers or employers. Starbucks has few if any such incidents, indicating things are not bad enough to warrant unionization.
Also, while Schultz is a billionaire of the kind that is much-despised by the far left in the US - simply for being a billionaire - it is more difficult to put him in the same category as others of his tax bracket. He came from a simple background, turned a small business into a global success, and created thousands of jobs - particularly for young people - along the way.
The efforts to rekindle unions by such politicians are, not surprising, politically motivated. They miss the days when they could count on 25% of America (and its voters) being unionized.
The problem is, America's economy now is not what it is was like back in those days. Unions in an economy that is much more focused on the services and consumer industries will not benefit from greater unionization. Image going into Starbucks and having to wait even longer because the unionized four employees are not permitted by the union to handle more than 10 customers in an hour, despite there being around 60 per hour. One can see how this will lead to lower sales, and then downsizing of the company; exactly the opposite of what unions should be targeting.
Your concerns are important, particularly as America tries to rebuild its manufacturing base. While you once again give a very fair look at both the negatives and positives that each side has in this debate, the reality is we need manufacturing, technology and innovation more than we need unionization at this stage.
Thanks again.
The 27% wage incrase that UAW secured from GM and the other Big Three automakers is a perfect example of the tension you describe. While those gains help individual workers in the short term, they also put these companies at a competitve disadvantage against foreign automakers who dont face the same labor costs. When you're competing against Chinese EVs and other global players, those kinds of wage premiums can become unsustainable over time.
Thanks. Good point. Hopefully not to late