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December 21, 2003 UNIONIZING DONE RIGHT....Harold Myerson has a case study of the unionization of the Las Vegas hotel industry in this month's The American Prospect that's both informative and readable. You should go read it. The key to success in Las Vegas has been ceaseless organization, but I'd like to highlight a couple of other things that, although less important, are interesting in their own right. For example, there was this about the union's first deal with a mega-hotel:
And this:
Different unions have different issues, of course, but this strikes me as a genuinely 21st century approach. Focus on wage increases and skills training, cut through outdated work rules that management hates but probably don't provide a lot of benefits to workers, and demonstrate that the union is genuinely beneficial to both its members and — in some ways — to management as well. As Myerson points out, unionization can't always protect manufacturing jobs, which can be shipped overseas, but it can and does improve the lives of service workers: Las Vegas hotel workers earn about 40% more than hotel workers in nonunion Reno, for example. Roughly speaking, that means a dishwasher or housekeeper earns about $480 a week instead of $340 a week, which, for many, is the difference between literally having to scrounge every week to make the rent or pay an unexpected doctor bill, and living something close to a middle class life. In the big picture of the economy this is a small amount of money. In the small picture of people's lives, it's an unparallelled blessing. It's something that you'd think a compasionate conservative could embrace. Posted by Kevin Drum at December 21, 2003 10:05 AM | TrackBackComments
Yeah, yeah, you commie libs love your weepy, bleeding-heart touchy-feely wishy-washy bullshit. Us True Muricans know it's all about Us vs Them. Posted by: scarshapedstar at December 21, 2003 10:19 AM | PERMALINKI'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the size of the money. Given the movement toward service jobs, particularly in retail, this ought to be a focus of the union movement. It's no wonder Wal-Mart fights unionization so hard, since it's got so many employees. Posted by: Linkmeister at December 21, 2003 10:28 AM | PERMALINKYou're absolutely right Kevin, this is 21st century unionism. The best part is that the employers, even paying 40% more, undoubtedly comeout way ahead. How? Well, what's the cost of good HR and training departments, and good 1st level manager? The union basically takes over those functions for you. If you can eliminate one body of overhead for a 40% premium on revenue producing labor, that seems like an excellent trade-off to me. Posted by: Jon Gallagher at December 21, 2003 10:30 AM | PERMALINKI think John has hit this directly on the head. If unions can position themselves as being an instrument by which employers can acquire good workers and decrease overall costs at the same time ... wow. Posted by: Aaron Gillies at December 21, 2003 10:48 AM | PERMALINKGood locals have been doing this for 20 years, it's not all that new. The building trades union apprentice programs have been in place longer than that. It's simply taking some old ideas and using them in new industries. Posted by: Melanie at December 21, 2003 11:03 AM | PERMALINKIf /everybody/ makes 20% more won't rents just go up to capture the difference? cost. of. living. ... that's what it's all about. Posted by: Troy at December 21, 2003 12:20 PM | PERMALINKI'm not a big fan of unions ... but this seems like an approach I could get behind. Posted by: SRock at December 21, 2003 12:22 PM | PERMALINK"It's something that you'd think a compasionate conservative could embrace." Yes, you would think that, but you'd be wrong. Since a certain "compassionate conservative" has never, ever had to scrounge to make the rent or pay an unexpected doctor bill, nor does he likely encounter anyone who does, don't hold out any hope. Posted by: marty at December 21, 2003 12:31 PM | PERMALINKA good reminder of what unions are really all about, and generally always have been... Remember this the next time you read about some union official who gets caught in some sleazy low level financial scam. Think twice about joining the rush to condemn unionism in general. Solidarity forever! Posted by: bobbyp at December 21, 2003 12:46 PM | PERMALINKThis reminded me of a piece on NOW last Friday, about how non-union Wal Mart competes with unionized markets. One of the ways it keeps its costs low is by evading paying medical benefits to its employees and shunting their care to taxpayer-supported organizations and charities. The transcript isn't available on their site yet, or I'd post a link. Posted by: DanM at December 21, 2003 01:50 PM | PERMALINKAlso, Steve Wynn is a very smart, cagey casino owner. Posted by: Slothrop at December 21, 2003 02:26 PM | PERMALINKThat sounds like really sensible stuff. Genuine mutual benefit, makes a libertarian's heart go pitter-pat. :) Seriously, though, thanks very much for the summary and link! Jon Said: "Well, what's the cost of good HR and training departments, and good 1st level manager? The union basically takes over those functions for you." ... Guess what? Even if that were true, and I can't imagine that it ever could be, it's a horrible thing. If I run a business, I want to train and manage according to my own specifications. The fact is, unions exist to: 1) Raise their own wages, and 2) Stymie changes of any other sort. Exception to those two rules undoubtedly occur, but must be regarded as exceptions only. Posted by: me oh my at December 21, 2003 04:00 PM | PERMALINKThis is a model that's been used for quite some time in the building trades. However, at least as described here, it sounds very unlikely to be sustainable. Unions that allow relatively open enrollment, if they have succeeded in bidding up wages and benefits, quickly find that they have members far in excess of the numbers needed, which means that a majority, or substantial minority, of their workers find themselves unable to procure full time employment. Unions that are up the value chain of skills have the problem in spades -- people have expensively acquired (for someone) skills that produce an impressive return if you get a job, which discourages surplus workers from exiting. So while this may help some workers, in the long run, the way its described here seems likely to produce a large surplus of labor doing low wage non-union work while they wait for the big strike -- a chance at a casino job. Nor is this merely a continuation of the way things work now -- construction workers who can't get work eight months out of the year are probably materially worse off than those who leave the trade to find steady work somewhere else, but emotional inability to write off the sunk costs of years of waiting often keeps them tethered far beyond rationality. Posted by: Jane Galt at December 21, 2003 04:15 PM | PERMALINKMe Oh My:
As I am starting up a business, I know that I do not want to have people learn on my dime (this includes consultants of course, pace Kevin :-}). I need them to hit the ground running. Having to explain DNS to engineers who said they understood networking makes me grumpy. Training people in simple configuration management wastes my time, and makes me insane. I would love it if software engineers had a union and graduated from apprentice to journeyman to craftsman, and I have no doubt that if people really knew how software was constructed most end-users would agree with me. Which leads me to Jane Galt: ... people have expensively acquired (for someone) skills that produce an impressive return if you get a job, which discourages surplus workers from exiting. This differs from the surplus labor pool left from dot coms how? Like a snake eating an elephant we (the snake) are slowly and painfully (digesting the elephant) moving through the detritus of that, the telecomm bubble (my personal favorite) and other failures of the market economy. Does all of this pain mean that acquiring good, (usually) marketable skills is somehow a bad thing? Since I can see how it saves casinos money, and it gives union
members training, I am still not seeing the downside to unionizing
casino workers. Amen Jon! Your point may well be demonstrated in the upcoming push for outsourcing in IT, which may have many libertarian-leaning techies rethinking their politics. Although labour costs may be significantly lower abroad, there are standards and practices that will always command a premium. A good union could increase, through continuous training, the quality of its members who possess those advanced skillsets. Michael Moore had a chapter in his book, "Downsize this!", called "Why are unions so #*%((^& stupid?" wherein he described some of the self-destructive behaviours exhibited by some unions: this Prospect article is an encouraging contrast to those actions. I believe that it is not uncoincidental that the greatest strides in the advancement of the quality of life in America occured with the rise of unions. But much like emerging democracies must go through re-evaluations periodically, so must other social organizations. Should the union movement realize this transformation, it should restore balance to our capitalist system which has destabilized over the past quarter century with the consequent increase in income and wealth distribution distortions. Posted by: Dazir at December 21, 2003 05:57 PM | PERMALINKIsn't a huge part of the reason why this can be so successful tied to the fact that gambling is an inelastic commodity? In most casino gambling I'm not even sure that your average gambler can tell exactly how much entertainment he is getting for his money on a short term basis. So direct price point comparisons won't cause the union's company problems. Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at December 21, 2003 06:24 PM | PERMALINKThe fact is, unions exist to: 1) Raise their own wages, and 2) Stymie changes of any other sort. Management exists to: 1) keep wages and low as possible, and 2) stymie changes of any other sort. Well, Jon, it sounds like you've got software engineers doing system administration. There's your problem! :) (I am joking, but I know a few who apparently thought the boxes they managed would never reboot. Since they were up for a year and a half and since the engineers in question did quite a bit of development and customization, we had a lot of fun getting them working properly when they did reboot. And one of them had started out as a systems administrator!) Anyway, I'm glad to see unions focus on something besides the seniority system and the God-given right of union workers to spend their time arguing about who is supposed to do the job instead of actually doing it. Posted by: M. at December 21, 2003 06:34 PM | PERMALINKSebastian, could you explain what you mean by "inelastic commodity?" Thank you. Posted by: Slothrop at December 21, 2003 06:41 PM | PERMALINK"Management exists to: 1) keep wages and low as possible, and 2) stymie changes of any other sort. " ... Sometimes. Engineers, on the other hand, want to change things as often as possible. Posted by: me oh my at December 21, 2003 07:29 PM | PERMALINKKevin- Great post. But old news. Most trade unions have been involved with sort of thing for decades. IBEW comes to mind. Also, the UAW partners with the big three for all sorts of joint training. GM's "Quality Network" is a great example. (A joint TQM program) You comment: "Roughly speaking, that means a dishwasher or housekeeper earns about $480 a week instead of $340 a week, which, for many, is the difference between literally having to scrounge every week to make the rent or pay an unexpected doctor bill, and living something close to a middle class life." Claiming that $20K/year is "something close to a middle class life." is just plain wrong. Maybe it can sustain a single person in reasonable comfort, but add in just one child and it becomes borderline poverty. And Me Oh My- Nobody is forcing your "new" business to unionize. If you treat your workers well there would be no need. Unions usually exist to protect workers in larger organizations which tend to be faceless and heartless. Unions only level the field by taking the face off of the worker and creating an entity with a little bargaining power. It also prevents "whip-sawing" and "divide and conquer" tactics. Your logic has been challenged on this topic many times before and you have never adequately defended your positn other than to say 'unions bad. business good' and 'i'll run my business any way I want to.' Those workers who are in unions OVERWHELMINGLY support their unions,
including doctors, nurses, pilots, as well as dishwashers and
electricians. def: "Your logic has been challenged on this topic many times before and you have never adequately defended your positn other than to say 'unions bad." C'mon, def, if I did say such a thing I would have at least been grammatical: "unions ARE bad". *** "Those workers who are in unions OVERWHELMINGLY support their unions," Hey, hey, members of the Mafia is 100 percent in favor of the Mafia...what does that prove? It proves that you're the one with logic problems. Posted by: me oh my at December 21, 2003 09:29 PM | PERMALINKCorrection: Looks like I do have grammar problems. "members of the Mafia ARE 100 percent..." Posted by: me oh my at December 21, 2003 09:30 PM | PERMALINKMOM- If a union member quits his job, he doesn't end up dead. (except for Jimmy Hoffa, but that goes back to my point.) If a pilot wanted to quit his union job, he could go to work for Southwest. Somehow that doesn't jibe with the 98.5% of Northwest Airlines pilots who voted to strike a few years back when management went back on all the promises it made when the employees gave $900 million in concesions. THAT is overwhelming VOLUNTARY support. For that matter, workers do not have to belong to unions, even in union shops. In anti-worker states, the law allows employers to try and divide workers by not withholding union dues. However, unions still exist in the such states. Why? Because, on the whole, they benefit the employee. Posted by: def rimjob at December 21, 2003 09:50 PM | PERMALINKAn inelastic commodity is a good which when the price is increased the marginal returns increase. Let's take gambling. Say a slot machine is set to return 99% of money bet, given various fixed costs the casino isn't doing very well. A slot set to return 93% will do better. Since the majority of casino games don't have the odds posted it is impossible, in the short run (and difficult in the long run), to discriminate between various forms of gambling entertainment, based on cost. For this reason casino games in Las Vegas are regulated as to the amount of payout. Posted by: Drew at December 21, 2003 10:49 PM | PERMALINKdef said: "Because, on the whole, they benefit the employee." ... Well, I agree with you, as long as "The employee" is the one in a union. (My Mafia analogy was, of course, flippant...but membership has its benefits, to the detriment of the aggregate, yes?) I don't know anything about the airline industry, but evidently Northwest's profit margin is -6.46%, while its dividend is 0.00%. Clearly, the company is on the rocks... Not that they should be breaking promises, however...if you mean legal promises. mom- I don't know anything about the airline industry, but evidently Northwest's profit margin is -6.46%, while its dividend is 0.00%. You are about three years out of date. The pilot strike was back when NWA was quite profitable. And the promises were legal, and in the "contract". Currently NWA is trying for a new round of concessions from the various unions and according to my sources, their "unprofitability" is not nearly as dire as the company would have you believe. Last time I checked, NWA is not publicly traded in the traditional sense. It is only held by management and in employee pension funds, so there is little downside to tanking the stock. (and the "Preferred" shares, held only by execs, reportedly continue to pay very nice dividends.) Well, I agree with you, as long as "The employee" is the one in a union. Then why are you so "anti" union? Do you believe that when a majority of employees vote to bargain collectively they are somehow imfringing on the rights of others? Posted by: def rimjob at December 21, 2003 11:52 PM | PERMALINKIn Denmark, a country which is heavily unionized, many employers
prefer to bargain collectively with unions rather than individually with
all employees. Every four years (two in some rare work fields) the
Unions meet up with the Employer Organizations and agree on the basic
guidelines for the next four (or two) years. This way are so widespread
that there isn't even a law-based minimum wage in Denmark, it's all
worked out during the talks between the Unions and Employer
Organizations. It's a rare thing that there are major conflicts between the two partners, but it happens once in a while, and last time there were an all-out strike was less than 10 years ago. Two more famerous of the type were the ones in 1920 against the King and his try to disrupt the democratic process, and in 1943 against the Germans. Posted by: Kristjan Wager at December 22, 2003 12:13 AM | PERMALINK"Do you believe that when a majority of employees vote to bargain collectively they are somehow imfringing on the rights of others?" ... "The rights of others"...in a sense, yes. Using a very loose definition of the word "right". A scab is a person, and somehow preventing that person from working is such an infringement...though such actual prevention is pretty rare. Why am I so anti-union? I like to think of myself as pro-worker. If a guy doing inventory on the west coast is making 100,000+, then everybody else pays for it...and "everybody else" is a worker. Same with grocery clerks getting 15/hour, and coal miners 60/hour (or whatever they get). *********** Kristen said: "...the King and his try[ing] to disrupt the democratic process" What the heck is a King for, if he can't behead everyone in parliament now and then? Posted by: me oh my at December 22, 2003 02:15 AM | PERMALINK"If a union member quits his job, he doesn't end up dead." Of course, the question wasn't whether he was 100% in favor of being employed. You've ducked one of the most fundamental issues for people who dislike unions, their obstructing the employment of non-members. If he quits the union while trying to keep his job, he might not be killed. More likely get his tires slashed, perhaps get roughed up a bit. That said, this sounds rather less self-destructive than the unions I've been forced to join during my career. I suppose they actually COULD be a positive thing if they get past the "strike for higher wages, and threaten to hurt anybody who works during the strike" model. Act as a job service, not a labor cartel. Posted by: Brett Bellmore at December 22, 2003 03:07 AM | PERMALINKThe earlier comments in this thread were a bit more interesting than what the comments evolved to. It seems that rather than Union = Good, or Union = Bad there is room to say that some unions do very good things for their workers, while other unions do very bad things for competitiveness and allocation of resources. I really wanted to comment on Wal-Mart unionizing. Unions are counter-productive in situations where the labor market requires a lot of flexibility. I don't see this being the case for Wal-Mart, they are not in the process of replacing their workforce with automation (it seems this has largely been done), they are not in a sitution where the jobs that need to be done in a store are changing, and they are not in a situtaion where the needs of their customer are changing rapidly. These are all reasons why a Wal-Mart union would not be bad for the long-term competitiveness of the company or the economy overall. To read about why it would work for Wal-Mart, just click over to my blog because the explanation gets a bit too long for a comments section. Posted by: Rich at December 22, 2003 05:23 AM | PERMALINKIf he quits the union while trying to keep his job, he might not
be killed. More likely get his tires slashed, perhaps get roughed up a
bit. It's been a while since unions were run by thugs. (See the Hoffa coment) However, in the RARE event of a strike, a scab is viewed as someone who is screwing with the employee's livelyhood and emotions can get ugly. There is no doubt about that. Strikes hurt both sides and are a tool of last resort. That said, most of the high profile work stoppages of late have been management declared "lock-outs". Groceries in CA - 1 strike and 2 lockouts. Longshore workers - lockout. NBA - lockout. Think about it. and mom- Your list of average wages is management propaganda, and you know it. But even if it wasn't, your use of it as justification to eliminate a right granted in law comes across as jealousy. The truth is quite the opposite. Over the past generation management has moved many formerly well-paying jobs to "right-to-work" states becuase the economy is much more mobile. Who has hurt who? Posted by: def rimjob at December 22, 2003 05:37 AM | PERMALINKThe usual adversarial relationship between management and workers is unfortunate and short-sighted. Both have goals that can be conincident and beneficial to the other. Missing the opportunity to take advantage of common goals is another symptom of unenlightened society. Posted by: spec at December 22, 2003 05:42 AM | PERMALINK"It's been a while since unions were run by thugs." As they say, "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt". LOL I live only a few miles from a newspaper printing plant, and the Detroit newspaper strike isn't exactly ancient history. Or perhaps you meant that union officials are careful that their own hands don't get dirty. That much is true. Posted by: Brett Bellmore at December 22, 2003 06:09 AM | PERMALINKBrett- Actually the folks who sprinkled tacks in front of the trucks at the Sterling Heights plant were copywriters:) And why were the Sterling Heights police forcibly and illegally breaking up picket lines? Please see what I wrote about scabs and emotions. Black Jack Tocco or Tony Provenzano (Detroit mafia bosses) were not calling the shots. Rich had a point. This once was a productive thread about joint efforts between companies and unions. I will restrict my comments to that from here on out. Posted by: def rimjob at December 22, 2003 06:27 AM | PERMALINK"Scabs" and emotions. Ever occur to you that the unions deliberatedly foment that hatred? That it's their way of obtaining the thugery they need without being prosecuted? "Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?" Unsuprisingly, somebody will. As for breaking up the lines, you must be aware that the union doesn't REALLY have a legal right to obstruct the driveways of plants... As difficult as it is to persuade them of that. As I say, I was a witness. Don't try to BS me. Posted by: Brett Bellmore at December 22, 2003 06:57 AM | PERMALINKHey Def "If a pilot wanted to quit his union job, he could go to work for Southwest" Or are you saying that southwest is not unionized? I am under the impression that SW's pilots are not organized. I could be wrong. Perhaps I could have used Jet-Blue as an example. And yes, if you want to fly for another airline, you need to apply. required that a machinist be on hand to physically watch every united plane as it pulled away from the gate. Sounds like work rules that the company agreed to in the contract. I'm not sure what your point is. Was it a "slowdown"? Brett- I'm not trying to BS you. I happen to know quite a bit about Gannett, Knight Ridder, the JOA, etc... I delivered the Free Press for 7 years when I was kid. My mother worked for the News. A very good friend used to be an editor. (until the strike) Yes, the pickets got ugly. I was witness to several lines. Oddly you don't mention the incidents that precipitated the vandalism. But my point was that there were average workers walking the line, NOT thugs as you implied. So if you insist on insulting me, you can stick it. And the cops were not 'just clearing the driveway'. (It's illegal to hit someone with a vehicle, even IF they are blocking your path) The photo of a 50 year old woman with a black eye and a bloody nose is still quite clear in my mind. BTW, I forget the exact amount, but the News paid 10's of thousands of dollars to the SHPD as "reimbursment", but *in advance* of the pickets. The accusation was that they bought the PD off to act as their personal security force. OK I'm done with the off topic posts. Sorry Kevin. Posted by: def rimjob at December 22, 2003 08:30 AM | PERMALINKGreat post, Kevin; unions doing good. Jane Galt "might" be right about unsustainability of union training, but it's less certain than the unsustainability of the social security coming crisis, or the unsustainability of Bush's deficits (much as I like Bush booting Saddam). Unions should be getting involved in every aspect of their business, including capital raising -- and watching the stock prices, and watching the evaluation of the management. I'm not so keen on closed shops, but am generally mildly pro-union. WalMart workers should unionize, and strike for more benefits - at least profit/ revenue sharing. (Revenue is much harder to manipulate than tax accounting "profit".) Unions should get better at supporting performance pay, and all forms of evaluation: top-down, peer-peer, bottom-up. Unions and management are on opposite sides in dividing the company benefits pie (zero-sum); but they're on the same side in trying to make THEIR company's pie as large as possible. Posted by: Tom Grey at December 22, 2003 08:55 AM | PERMALINKYou know, the unionization effort sounds a lot like the Dean campaign. Posted by: Matthew Saroff at December 22, 2003 12:17 PM | PERMALINKDef, Looks like your "impressions" could use a little more fact checking. Posted by: William at December 22, 2003 06:46 PM | PERMALINKJane Galt is right: there is a contradiction between a union's need to keep enrollment open and its skill-building programs in the long run. In the long run, programs such as HERE's in Las Vegas, aren't sustainable. Over the period of time covered by the article Kevin has blogged, though, Las Vegas has not been a steady-state system; it has been growing by leaps and bounds. The growth cannot continue forever, of course, but while it continues, if the union is to maintain its foothold among the city's workers, it needs to be run on a growth footing. When the growth comes to an end, the union will need to change it's profile. So workers in Las Vegas earn 40% more than workers in equivalent jobs in Reno. If this were so terrible, wouldn't the casinos be booming in Reno while limping along in Vegas, rather than the other way around? As a lefty, I can't think it such a terrible thing that the union's efforts mean that more of the billions of gamblers' squandered dollars wind up in workers' pockets rather than those of Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, and the Gaughan, Boyd, and Binion families. Posted by: Alan Bostick at December 22, 2003 07:50 PM | PERMALINKGreat discussion here !!! I am a 21 year member of UFCW 135 that is involved in the So. Ca. grocery strike... 21 year member & Albertsons employee/associate/customer service manager/etc... Undeniably pro-labor, pro-union, pro-business, but becoming more and more anti-corporate every year. What disturbs me most are the comments that any worker that performs an honest days labor should be paid less than a living wage, blue collar or white collar. Bickering between these two groups is not only counterproductive, it has created a division that is the ideal objective of the forces that don't want us to see or resolve the real problems that are causing this often heated discussion in the first place. I am not "un-educated", nor are most that I work with. Part of my education was completing a tiered apprenticeship program with ongoing training on a yearly basis. Yes, this has been a "career" for me, just as it has been for many others. We all make career choices for our own indvidual reasons, but in no way is my choice any less valid or less deserving of a living wage than someone that chose to go into an IT career. Managing or working in a grocery store is no less or more important than any other job, at least not as long as we all have to eat, or as long as we are not willing to fly to China to buy our groceries at a cheaper price. We all work for a business that sells products and/or services, which translates into employees, which translates into consumers to buy those products and/or services, which creates a taxpayer, and therefore creates more employees/consumers, all of which translates into success and profits for the businesses that fund our Corporations. I do not have an economics degree, but it seems to me that the process is quite simple. If I had to look at the categories of employee, consumer, business, & corporation, the one key element that is the foundation of our entire economic structure is the employee. Without the employee, there is no consumer, and if there is no consumer there is no need for a business let alone a corporation. Not only is the employee the key element, the ratio of success of an employee as translated into a consumer is directly influenced by how much this employee is paid, which translates into what the level of disposable income is. It is my belief that our economic woes are far more based on the loss of jobs, coupled with the erosion of real wages, which is in large part due to insourcing and outsourcing to pursue additional labor cost savings after draining decades of wage erosion in the U.S. that has all but dried up. It doesn't get lower than minimum wage unless you hire illegals. The massive shift of wealth in this country is undeniable, as is the numbers of unemployed and/or underemployed working in minimum wage jobs like Wal-mart. The Wal-Mart mold is spreading like wild-fire and is devastating our entire economic and wage structure. Our corporate agenda of meeting performance by cutting labor and/or labor costs is in effect eroding their own consumer base, which in turn creates the necessity for prices to decline in order to maintain profit margins with volume sales as opposed to percentage sales. Of course we have to calculate in the necessity of merger/acquisitions to boost those corporate numbers as well. The problem is not that our businesses are not profitable. They are immensely profitabe until our corporations outspend and overspend earnings, demanding and taking obscene compensation packages despite the lack of fullfilling even their own minimal responsibility to performance. This will continue until such time as our corporate executives focus on performance of the business, as opposed to performance of the corporations. Take care of the business, and the business automatically will take care of the corporation and it's investors. Unfortunately, as evidenced in every form of media, our businesses have become little more than a front for what really goes on in Corporate America, and no where in this equation does labor have any consideration other than something to slice and dice. What all this boils down to is that if we are looking for perfection, unions, labor, or corportions will fall short of ever attaining perfection. But, once again, my view is that labor is the undeniable king of the hill, and if choosing between the corporations or the unions as which side best protects labors interests, that is undeniably the unions. Corporations have a history of self-serving protectionism, while historically unions are not only on the side of labor, they have empowered every improvement that labor has achieved over the last 60 years or so. The forces that caused this movement back then is the same force we are fighting today... the names may have changed, but it is still the corportions that are totally self-serving, just as the republicans are self-serving to themselves and the elite in this country. Factually, they can not survive without us "little people", and if history repeats itself, they will soon find out the consequinces for impoverishing a large percentage of the U.S. with slave wages. Sadly, many more will suffer, many more will become desperate. I sincerely hope I never live long enough to see humanity sink to that level, but not a doomsdayer type, I strongly believe that good things come out of desperation and anger. So history will repeat itself... shows we aren't as smart or advanced as we arrogantly think we are. Walk a day or week, or month, in the shoes of someone before you pass judgement on the value of their labor, or criticize, demean, and invalidate anyone elses right to a living wage. For me, if I see someone beat and kick you to the ground, I will not only defend you, I will extend my hand and help you up, and then carry you until you can make it on your own. Maybe I'm living on the wrong planet, but I would rather exhaust every effort to lift you up than exhaust every effort to tear you down. 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