Right-to-work law: yay or nay?

I will admit Unions have their place, but the level some of them have taken them is too extreme. I'm all for having unions, I just believe that all workers should have the choice to join the union or not.

 

Thank You Steve, I figured I'd let someone else point out the obvious in his post

 

Menial work that requires no knowledge or experience. There are plenty of people in this country that would be ecstatic to have a job period. And that is well above minimum wage, most likely with benefits too. Just because it's not a wage you're willing to accept doesn't mean it's not a fair wage for the job and one that someone else isn't happy with. There are people who make a living with a full time job at mcdonald's making minimum wage. You're telling me they deserve to make $25/hr?

 

I'll be the dick and say I bet the jobs performed at the Hostess factories were worth about $12/hour. It doesn't take a genius to bake cakes, or box cakes or load trucks all day long.

Companies are in business to generate profit for shareholders and nothing more. No business would pay one vendor $10 per box when another vendor offers them for $5, so why should they pay an employee double what another employee one state over will do for less money.

I bet the 18,000 people who lost their jobs at Hostess (with no severance, no pay for unused vacation and who are NOT eligible for unemployment benefits) would gladly take their old jobs back rather than have no job at all.

 

I see no reason why workers cannot prosper and the company's cannot make a profit at the same time. Maybe profits are not as much as shareholders would like.
I am not a snob by any means. You ever do the same task over and over again all day long every day of the week regardless of how easy it is, it is hard work. Try it, 12 bucks an hour is not enough. And McDonalds pays that to their workers while having a very high turnover rate and layering part time workers so they don't have to pay benefits or overtime. Ever try to raise a family with kids on 12 buck's an hour? Sorry but that NOT a living wage. If the company cannot make profits while paying fair wages to the work force, they need to find a better business to be in. ( maybe cut the golden parachute back a bit) ease up the pay scales for executives a little. Give me a break about the brain drain if we cut executive pay back. thats a bunch of BS.

 

Why is everyone so willing to kick the 12 dollar per hour guy in the balls, but not talking about the exec's making ridiculous amounts of money and benefits on the backs of the less educated or intelligent?

 

I would argue that is exactly what the goal is, to eliminate the Democrat funding unions entirely.

 

I think you're giving way too much credit to unions when it comes to past changes in the workplace (wages, conditions, & hours). At no point in history have union members held more than a tiny percentage of the total jobs in this country. Instead, it was the two World Wars in the first half of the last century, along with the massive demand for labor to facilitate those wars, which truly drove most changes. For example, it was the 8-hour work shifts at factories (three shifts in 24-hours to produce more for the war effort), not unions, which firmly established the 8-hour work day.

 

Executive salaries are certainly a huge issue. But what do you do about that? Unless unions manage to somehow negotiate limits on exec salaries there's nothing that can be done.

 

They should not have any say in that at all, but they should have a say in what wages the workers get and how well they are treated.

 

I don't know precisely but I think unions had a little bit to do with work conditions getting better across the board. Why were unions brought about again? so you think company's would be paying their workers union style salaries if unions were never there to set the bar? WRONG not a chance my friend.

 

this was a headline I just saw.

After Mich. victory, Republicans target unions in other states

still think it's about workers rights?

 

If you plan on a career flipping burgers and raising a family you are wrong. Min wage exists to establish a minimum what a worker can get paid. It is not designed as a minimum to live off of and raise a family. Not everyone has the desire or motivation to advance their life and reach their potential. Ask anyone that's ever owned a company, their #1 complaint is finding good workers. I worked for $7/hr at Best Buy in college. I never once thought yeah I could do this in my 30's. No it motivated me to GTFO! If you want equal pay for the bottom and the top, that's socialism. There will always be some businesses that are shit to work for. THere will also be others that are fantastic and reward hard work. I knew a guy that started as a truck driver for a fortune 500 company, and ended up VP of sales. But he was motivated, he wanted to be more than a truck driver earning that wage.

My brother has a metal fab shop, he pays his guys $12/hr to make widgets. It's a menial task. when someone leaves or gets fired, theres someone else a few weeks away that will do it. Most of the guys there are rough necks, drugs, alcoholics, dead beat dads, been in jail. But thats what you get for that task. He doesn't need an MBA for the job. But he's the one that took the loan out, bought the business, took the risk. He should reap teh rewards.

 

It was never about workers rights. The GOP took advantage of an opportunity same way Wisconsin did.

I will say that after years and years of Michigan policy, that state has just gone down hill. A change could be for the better.

 

I was talking for factory worker who has no options to simply GTFO. I never said the boss should get equal pay with his employees either. I just would like to hear about people getting treated fairly. And I know that given the opportunity, eventually the ones on top will exploit a lot of the ones under them for no other reason than to put another car in the garage or park money off shore to feel good about, or "because they have a responsibility to the shareholders" to screw every one they can

 

You are assuming that every company is commanded by a slave driven corporate mad man. There's been several people in this thread alone that have all stated examples of non union factory work where they were happy.

 

thats good to hear.

 

This is exactly why there are so many illegal workers in our country. If our "poor" wont do the work who better than the illegal immigrants. Americans dont want those jobs anyway. Why? Because we think we should make 20$ an hour for back breaking non skilled work.