Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in Not so fast

Re: Not so fast

mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:15:16 -0000

As a taxpayer, GM is able to extort money from me. My only satisfaction is that as a consumer I don't have to drive mediocre union-made GM junk.

Hopefully Apple won't unionize. I like my American designed, Chinese made iPod. It helps me take Russ with me wherever I go.

When my 1997 Toyota 4Runner wears out in 10 more years hopefully I'll be able to buy an American designed, Chinese made car as cheap (proportionally speaking) and well made as my iPod. Martin Brock, on the other hand, will be happily buying, fixing and replacing his wonderful union made jalopies from the third-world state of Michigan.

Re: Not so fast

Chris O'Leary — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:11:13 -0000

"why doesn't Congress force these secret ballots on all corporations?"

Because they have no power over me.

I don't give a darn what some board member may think of me. They also are at a distance and have to power to physically intimidate me.

Apples and oranges.

Re: Not so fast

Martin Brock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:57:48 -0000

Martin - are you saying that government has a duty to insert itself in employee vs employer negotiations?

I'm saying that governments establish forcible propriety, courts hearing disputes over forcible propriety and so on.

Again, if you do not want government inserting itself in employee vs. employer negotiations, why would you favor statutory decrees compelling employees to hold "secret" ballots to bargain collectively, when a majority of employees have already publicly declared this desire, only when their employer demands these "secret" ballots, even if the employer demands this process only for the employees, not for its own governance.

Why do you want to compel this standard? I'm only telling you that I do not want to compel it.

If it were up to me, any two, ten, hundred or thousand employees could agree to bargain collectively with an employer, and other employees of the same employer could choose to bargain independently, and none of these agreements could remain in force for more than a few years.

Re: Not so fast

Ike Pigott — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:52:23 -0000

Martin...

As a free individual, I *knew* that I was signing on with a corporate entity when I negotiated my salary. Your point about them being "a collective of capitalists" is MOOT, because that is what I chose to agree to.

The entire notion behind Card Check is to create a public ballot where coercion can come into play. It forces people to be public and on the record about their desire to be in a union (or to not be in a union.) This is rife for abuse, and you know it.

The most insidious piece is NOT stabbing or vandalism or any of the other anecdotes that one may or may not dismiss... it's the silent acts of acquiescence that peer pressure creates.

Those NEVER get documented. Doesn't make the practice any less immoral.

Re: Not so fast

Martin Brock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:49:34 -0000

It's not about bargaining collectively. It's about having a monopoly. GM can't decide to start hiring non UAW members because the UAW has a legislated monopoly.

Regulations of collective bargaining in highly capital intensive industries, like the automotive industry, can have monopolistic effects. I'm not happy about that, but compelling all sorts of corporate governance rules for only one collective, like secret ballots under NLRB rules for labor organizations, doesn't make me happier.

Again, why doesn't Congress force these secret ballots on all corporations? Have you never received a proxy petition from some company? The company sends me a form in the mail, and I'm expected to fill out the form, with my name on it, and return the form. I'm not even voting for board members. I'm giving someone else the right to vote on my behalf for other people who will sit on the board, voting on my behalf, instructing still other nominally operating the company on my behalf. What's the difference?

You are right that if I want to provide janitorial services to Wal-Mart or buy paper towels from them, I have to negotiate collectively with the Wal-Mart shareholders. But, I am also free to provide my services to or buy paper towels from other stores also.

You aren't obliged to clean GM's toilets either. If you want to assemble automobiles for a major automaker, your options are far more limited, but you aren't compelled to assemble automobiles for a major automaker. Personally, I'd be happer with many more automakers dealing with many more parts suppliers and so on, but that's not the reality.

The reason there is violence & coercion from employers & from unions is because the entire process is unnatural & they are fighting over the control of rents.

I agree. I'm not remotely supportive of all the rent seeking from GM these days. I've posted on this subject often here. I want GM to declare bankruptcy and renegotiate all of its labor agreements, or have new owners of the resources negotiate new agreements, as well as admitting that it can't pay its bondholders, pensioners and other claimants everything they expect to receive.

You probably wouldn't see much collective bargaining in a free system because it signals mediocrity, ...

I not so sure about that. Again, all business corporations are collective bargaining agents. Combining resources with other individuals can be valuable, but this synergy requires some orderly association among the parties. Ideally, everyone freely agrees on the rules of the association, but in practice, no two people fully agree on anything, so associations involve a lot of compromise, and some parties to the bargain are more influential than others for many reasons, not least because they're entitled to more protection from the state. The line between voluntary cooperation and submission to authority is always blurry.

... and employees wouldn't want to send that signal to the employers.

In most cases, the employers they're signaling are already bargaining collectively, so I can't take this assertion seriously.

That is why they need to have legistated monopoly status to survive. If the employer is forced to deal with the collective, the employee doesn't bear the cost of signaling mediocrity.

So if I form a partnership with other investors or if I simply purchase one of millions of shares in a corporation, I'm signaling medocrity, because I'm not conducting the business entirely on my own? Do you reserve this logic only for collective bargaining agents representing laborers?

Everyone who works for or otherwise invests in Microsoft, including Bill Gates, is also signaling mediocrity? I'm not sure I buy that.

Re: Not so fast

Kevin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:43:45 -0000

Crusader, you write:

Martin - are you saying that government has a duty to insert itself in employee vs employer negotiations?

I wouldn't take that from anything he's said. He raises the question of why anyone would favor state intervention, particularly one-sided state intervention, in employees' negotiations with their employers. He does it with his usual level of charisma, pointing out others' arguments with their straw men while arguing with his own straw man's endorsement of the status quo (again, as usual). As such, he will probably tell you that either you or your straw man asserts this government duty and perhaps the two of you can confer and get back to us when you've come to agreement.

Also as usual, he examines the kernel of the matter and casts aside the prejudices that cloud the common narrative. I find it helpful.

Re: Not so fast

Crusader — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:34:01 -0000

Martin - everyone is free to bargain individually or collectively. It's just that the government should stay the heck out!

Re: Not so fast

BoscoH — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:32:57 -0000

Chris O'Leary nailed it by noting that this is simply a payoff to unions. Plain and simple, you are for this if you think that it would increase union representation and that such a result would be a good thing. It's kinda like reinstituting the uptick rule. You're for that if you think it would deter short selling and you think short selling is a bad thing.

Let's face it. If the current state of affairs was a sign up sheet and union bosses thought a secret ballot would give them more leverage, the bill under consideration would institute a secret ballot for union formation. This debate is really about if you want more unionization or not. The specific mechanisms are just noise.

Re: Not so fast

Chris O'Leary — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:53:37 -0000

"Furthermore, EFCA doesn't require public sign up sheets in a break room, so this statement is beside the point."

Your naivete (or worse) is breathtaking.

To deny the possibility of coercion is to ignore hundreds of years of history.

The secret ballot is one of the most important inventions in all of human history because it enables people to express their true intentions free from coercion (by either union thugs or company thugs).

Re: Not so fast

kebko — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:48:52 -0000

Martin:

"capitalists bargaining with all sorts of capital, other than labor, may organize to bargain collectively."

It's not about bargaining collectively. It's about having a monopoly. GM can't decide to start hiring non UAW members because the UAW has a legislated monopoly. You are right that if I want to provide janitorial services to Wal-Mart or buy paper towels from them, I have to negotiate collectively with the Wal-Mart shareholders. But, I am also free to provide my services to or buy paper towels from other stores also.

The reason there is violence & coercion from employers & from unions is because the entire process is unnatural & they are fighting over the control of rents. If there were true freedom to contract, the violence wouldn't be nearly as pervasive, because the players would be free to find agreements legally. You probably wouldn't see much collective bargaining in a free system because it signals mediocrity, and employees wouldn't want to send that signal to the employers. That is why they need to have legistated monopoly status to survive. If the employer is forced to deal with the collective, the employee doesn't bear the cost of signaling mediocrity.

Re: Not so fast

Crusader — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:41:01 -0000

Martin - are you saying that government has a duty to insert itself in employee vs employer negotiations?

Re: Not so fast

Martin Brock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:21:31 -0000

However, I believe the government should NOT get involved between employees and employer.

I'm seeing no evidence of this belief here.

Government arbitrators automatically side with unions for obvious reasons.

Nonsense. What obvious reasons?

Re: Not so fast

Martin Brock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:19:51 -0000

It is also the right of a company to not negotiate with any union if it so chooses. Reality will force a compromise.

No, rights are what the statesmen say they are, and the statesmen say that capitalists bargaining with all sorts of capital, other than labor, may organize to bargain collectively. All of the forcible proprieties comprising this right don't seem to bother you. Only you can explain why you reserve your indignation for laborers bargaining only with their labor. Why do you argue so?

Re: Not so fast

Crusader — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:10:23 -0000

However, I believe the government should NOT get involved between employees and employer. Government arbitrators automatically side with unions for obvious reasons.

Re: Not so fast

Crusader — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:09:36 -0000

I have to agree with Martin Brock, if a person wants to belong to a union that is his right. It is also the right of a company to not negotiate with any union if it so chooses. Reality will force a compromise.

Re: Not so fast

Martin Brock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:09:14 -0000

Last week, the New York Times reported ...

So what? You think I can't find some newspaper article reporting heavy handed tactics by some employer? Your selective obsession with the sins of only one group of corporatists doesn't persuade me that the corporatists you prefer are all sugar, spice and everything nice. Why would it?

For the record, I have no doubt that any number of union bosses are thoroughly unpleasant people and do all sorts of nasty things.

Now, will you be equally honest and concede that any number of bosses in other organizations are unpleasant people?

Re: Not so fast

Martin Brock — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:04:04 -0000

When I choose to go to work for an employer, it is for terms and conditions that *I* agree to, for better or worse.

But your employer probably is not an individual. It's a collective bargaining agent itself.

If you want to be an individual bargaining with a collective comprised of many individuals joining forces for their mutual advantage, you can do that, but many people obviously don't want to bargain so, particularly the people comprising your employer.

So why do you, through your political partisans, want to construct forcible constraints binding labor collectives differently than collectives of other capitalists? That's the issue we're discussing in reality, not what you personally choose to do.

Now, according to EFCA, another organization that CLAIMS to be in my best interest is unilaterally inserting itself into that agreement.

No. EFCA doesn't have this effect particularly. Your coworkers may already organize to bargain collectively with the collective of capitalists employing them.

If you live in a right-to-work state, as I do, nothing compels you to join a union, even if your coworkers choose to bargain collectively. The EFCA doesn't affect this situation one way or the other.

Furthermore, if you don't want to work for a company wherein the employees choose to bargain collectively, you are free to find another employer, just as you're free to find another employer if you don't like some policy of the collective of capitalists employing you.

I don't understand why you make this distinction between one collective of capitalists, your corporate employer bargaining with shareholder's equity, vs. another collective of capitalists, your coworkers bargaining with their labor (which I consider a form of "capital"). Why do you want forcibly to impose rules on one of these collective bargaining units but not on the other?

That's a specific question. I'd like a specific answer.

In many cases, that third-party is NOT fomented from within, a groundswell of my coworkers; it is instead the work of outside recruiters who wish to negotiate for me (provided they get their cut.)

And the shareholders in the corporation employing you are not "outside"? The corporate officers nominally "representing" these shareholders are not "outside"? What are you talking about?

Your assumption is based on the notion that all labor organization activity emerges organically, from the bottom up. It is false.

No. I've never suggested such a thing and don't believe so. Labor organizations occur in much the same what that other organizations occur. If you want to bicker with your straw man, you can do that without attributing his mindless views to me.

Instead, EFCA is a government imposition on behalf of a cluster of vested self-interested organizations that want to make it easier to do the business of recruiting union members.

You can say the same of all regulation of corporate governance. You just don't. You focus exclusively on labor organizations, because you just do, because you have some ideological agenda.

What's the difference, you ask?

No. I didn't ask. I say there is little difference between a collective bargaining agent for a bunch of laborers and a collective bargaining agent for a bunch of other capitalists. Are you saying there is?

There is no difference -- provided YOU admit that the labor organizations are just that: self-aware corporate organisms that conduct business opaquely.

Of course, they are. Where do I ever suggest anything else? You think that the corporate employers they're bargaining with are not self-aware corporate organisms that conduct business opaquely? Will you be equally honest and concede that they are? I'm waiting.

And yes... having publicly-listed sign-up sheets in the break room makes it VERY easy to see who is and is not on board with the Union.

So? Why is this a bad thing? At least, it's not opaque. I thought you didn't like opacity.

Furthermore, EFCA doesn't require public sign up sheets in a break room, so this statement is beside the point.

Re: Not so fast

Crusader — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:59:41 -0000

BTW, why does anyone think Obama cares if the DJIA falls to 0? He doesn't. His socialist agenda IS about destroying capital markets!

Re: Not so fast

Mcwop — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:56:36 -0000

Martin it happens all the time:

Last week, the New York Times reported that Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. ordered a one-year continuation of governmental oversight of the New York City carpentersâ union, citing recent bribery convictions of several local bosses, extensive off-the-books work, and an incident where union militants beat up a worker outside a Catholic school until he was unconscious (because he had the gall to challenge the insiders in a union election).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008...

The 62-page indictment details a brutal and sustained campaign by union officials to terrorize employees and employers, in an effort attack employers whose workers haven't chosen unionization, and to force employees into forced-union dues paying ranks. Included in the indictment is a 33 page list of 75 individual acts of thuggery that includes:

* A stabbing

* A broken windshield that cut an employee's face

* Hundreds of thousands of dollars in vandalized construction equipment

* Threats against nonunion workers

* Running the license plates of nonunion employees

* Slashed tires

* Threats against going to the police

* Locking employees in and out of their workplace

* Throwing coffee at employees and their vehicles

* Sabotaging construction equipment

* The use of "star nails" to flatten employees' tires

* Death threats

http://www.nrtw.org/files/n...

Re: Not so fast

colson — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:51:18 -0000

"Current" said:

In a truly classical liberal society employers should have no power over how their employees congregate.

True. And unionized employees wouldn't have the power that they do.

Re: Not so fast

Current — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:42:23 -0000

Ike,

"As a communicator, I'd like to point out that Current should be disqualified from this discussion.

Americans don't spell 'behavior' with an extra U."

Fair point. We know a bit about Unions in Britain though.

What you are opposed to is a Union become official without the consent of each member of the workforce. I agree with you there. But that means the law should be changed on that point. It should allow dissent and prevent injection of a Union into an existing employment contract without the employees individual consent.

Martin,

A company is not only a collective bargaining organization. The shareholders don't collectively bargain with the employees. Though that is often what happens when a company is founded. The correct analogy is between the union and the cartel.

The ballots done by companies using "them cards you fill out and return" are considered secret ballots. They are similar to those Unions use in the UK.

"Can you present some evidence supporting this conjecture?"

Let's cut the crap. The reason for this law is so that employees can be bullied by unions into voting for unionisation.

That though is not a bad thing. Read about the Miners Strike in the UK.

Give the Unions power and they will show their violent character, then people will reject them. Just as they did in the UK.

Re: Not so fast

Ike Pigott — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:09:58 -0000

As a communicator, I'd like to point out that Current should be disqualified from this discussion.

Americans don't spell 'behavior' with an extra U.

As for Martin Brock...

When I choose to go to work for an employer, it is for terms and conditions that *I* agree to, for better or worse.

Now, according to EFCA, another organization that CLAIMS to be in my best interest is unilaterally inserting itself into that agreement.

In many cases, that third-party is NOT fomented from within, a groundswell of my coworkers; it is instead the work of outside recruiters who wish to negotiate for me (provided they get their cut.)

Your assumption is based on the notion that all labor organization activity emerges organically, from the bottom up. It is false.

Instead, EFCA is a government imposition on behalf of a cluster of vested self-interested organizations that want to make it easier to do the business of recruiting union members.

What's the difference, you ask? There is no difference -- provided YOU admit that the labor organizations are just that: self-aware corporate organisms that conduct business opaquely. EFCA is a political gift to such organisms to make it easier for them to get what they want.

And yes... having publicly-listed sign-up sheets in the break room makes it VERY easy to see who is and is not on board with the Union. Even though, as I pointed out above, this is tantamount to a third-party injecting itself into my previous arrangement without my consent.

Re: Not so fast

Chris O'Leary — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:59:40 -0000

"Here's a proposal. Let's compel all corporations to use secret ballots of their members/shareholders. No more sending them cards to fill out and return. Why impose this compulsory process on corporations representing labor but not other capitalists? Why do you want to do that?"

I agree that the whole board and proxy system is clearly dysfunctional and full of self-dealing, but that's a totally separate issue.

Re: Not so fast

Chris O'Leary — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:58:10 -0000

"I also know that employers are demanding practically all of these elections, and in the meantime, 80+% of these employers are conducting mandatory, one-on-one interviews with employees. Why is that, do you think?"

While this certainly borders on harassment, people are free to tell the company that they won't vote for the union in meetings with the company and then vote for the union on the ballot.

The fact that unions want to change the rule tells me that this isn't how it's working out. People are telling the union reps yes and then voting no, and the union reps want to know who the traitors are so they can punish them.

This is the definition of a Thugocracy, but you and Martin don't appear to get that.

"...but all of this nonsense about the sanctity of the 'secret' ballot is nauseating..."

Yeah, this while democracy thing is TOTALLY over-rated.

Are you listening to yourself?

"You don't advocate any similar, compulsory process for the other collective bargaining agent involved, nominally representing the collective interests of shareholders. Of course, the corporate officers involved are no less self-interested than union bosses."

That's an important, but totally separate, issue.

Re: Not so fast

Chris O'Leary — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:53:51 -0000

"Can you present some evidence supporting this conjecture?"

Have you ever worked in a union environment?

Some people can be very "persuasive", if you know what I mean.

In the face of physical intimidation, most people would just sign the card rather than face psychological or physical punishment.

The secret ballot gives people the power to say "yes" to the bully in public and then say "no" in private.

That's the whole point of the secret ballot.

This is something that wad figured out at least 250 years ago, so I'm not sure why it's so controversial all of a sudden.