Why should everything be a compromise? If an idea is bad, shold we compromise on an idea that is just half as bad? And if you're going top claim a relationship between the decline in unions and the income gap you need to do better than merely showing correlation. You have to show causation.
So? Those days of gross employer are gone, and they're not coming back. Workplace safety, discrimination, etc. is enshrined in law. Union membership is declining because unions simply can't offer what they used to be able to offer. Today, most union members are public sector employees demanding and getting contracts that would have bankrupted private institutions.
So you want corrupting public union intereests to balance corrupting business interests.
Balderdash. Unions are democratic institutions. Corporations are not.
Bad is an opinion. Certainly many people don't think it is bad. I don't think it's simply a bad idea. On the contrary.
I think the negative correlation is much stronger (societies without unions are negatively correlated to income equality).
I would say it's the degree of the growing gap. Unionized industries typically have a much higher wage.
Assertions. Even if I grant you the premises the unions can offer better wages and protect against ever decreasing benefits and job insecurity.
Where is your evidence?
You haven't shown the income gap is less in unionized industries vs. non-unionized industries.
Yes, every claim you have made in this post is an assertion without any evidence being offered.
They may offer better wages for some, but they offer lesser wages to others. Not all employees are equal.
Do you claim that unions do not offer higher wages than non-union ones? You seem to be arguing two sides of this issue. On one hand the benefits of unions make companies less competitive and the other there is no evidence that these benefits exist.
Evidence that unions prohibit companies from being competitive?
Thanks. I've conceded that I know of no evidence that Walker has broken any laws.
I'll go out on a limb here, and assert that the issues on unions and Wisconsin are not based on ethics of "public sector unions" being good or bad, and they are not based on "unions being good or bad".
Not necessarily. They mat get more benefits instead. They may get more restrictive rules as to how an employee can be fired.
So assume a non-union company executive makes $10 million, and his average employee makes $30k. Now suppose a union company executive makes $10 million, but his average employee makes $40K.
They certainly can. GM is a prime example. Then there's Eastern Airlines and US Steel. The US steel industry as a whole was crippled by union contracts that prevented them from automating and adopting modern practices that produced better steel with fewer employees.
Who's being denied the right to negotiate?
I'm entirely at a loss as to how this addresses the point at hand. My only point is that union wages are on average higher. That's it. The gap is only meaningful if incomes for the lower wages are shrinking while the wages for the upper classes are rising. If both are rising but the upper classes are rising at a faster rate then no one gives a damn.
"Can" is not the point and not in dispute. A union don't mean that a company can't or won't be able to be competitive.
Oddly enough there are public sector unions around the world without the respective govts going bankrupt. Perhaps it's not as automatic as you suggest. But you argue against yourself. The check was the threat of stripping rights. Right? Wouldn't that bring a union to the bargaining table to know that they could lose their rights?
"Collectively".
Your exact quote was "I would say it's the degree of the growing gap. Unionized industries typically have a much higher wage."
It certainly is, your attempts to push me into absolutes will fail. Show me someone who deals in absolutes, and I'll show you an ideologue. I'm certainly not an ideologue. Unions and corporations are run by human beings with all the diversity of opinions and personalities that comes from being human, absolutes do not apply to human behavior. We are not robots.
There you go again, calling on your wingman Mr. Straw.
Only if the standard of living for the lower classes is falling.
Given that they were willing to give him the concessions, that was reasonable.
GM is private sector. I thought we were talking about public sector? I thought private sector had a check? I'm not an absolutist. I don't claim unions cannot result in failed business. But then neither can business. Workers are having to live on less and less. One way to reverse that trend is collective bargaining. It's not perfect but it is effective.
Walker's actions brought the unions to the bargaining table but he didn't want to bargain. He just wanted to unilaterally strip them of bargaining rights. Sorry you don't like the results of this discussion but your claim that there is no checks is demonstrably false. At the end of the day you can't have it both ways.