Canada! and Unions! the solution to every engineers dilemma

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

<p>Socialism does not even work in theory. It does not account for human nature. Numerous writers (see Austrian Economics, Socialism-Mises, Road to Serfdom-Hayek,) have written polemics on exactly why and how socialism fails.</p>

<p>If by free you mean mediocre, yes. I love how leftists/socialists think that their repressive policies like union formation, minimum wage, employment "protections," create wealth. Hey, let's legislate a billion dollar an hour minimum wage! We'll all be rich! </p>

<p>If you're lucky, unions will make you a little richer in the short run, but in the long run, the affected companies/industries may lose out to foreign competitors due to high labor costs, eliminating the jobs that unions sought to protect. To wit, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Delphi vs. Japanese automakers. Besides, you surely have different desires than the rest of your coworkers. Perhaps you would like more pay but less healthcare coverage? Or less pay, less work? You cannot negotiate because of collective bargaining.</p>

<p>The real way to help both you and your company is by becoming more productive. Supermarkets in my neighborhood sought to lower wages to compete with Wal-Mart, but that yielded strikes and picketing. Everyone likes to assail companies that try to obtain a monopoly, but relatively few assail unionized labor for doing the exact same thing.</p>

22

<p>...or, when you have unionized labour, there is NO incentive to be a stellar employee, or even a mediocre employee. It's hard to get fired and hard to get more pay for your work - unions are quite resistant to salary differentials. </p>

<p>There are studies that show that increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment. At the very least, min. wage should be a state, not a federal, issue. Just compare the cost of living in California with the cost of living in North Carolina or Tennessee - you could live quite comfortably on about $20,000/year in the latter states, but would starve in CA. </p>

<p>Health care, IMO, is a different issue because of the way we penalize companies that provide it. Every insured person covers not just himself, but also picks up the tab for the uninsured. Therefore, companies that do the right thing are surcharged for the companies that don't do the right thing. There's no incentive to provide health insurance. Sure, the liberals will scream for universal health care, but what they won't do is scream for mandatory health insurance, provided by companies of a certain size, or elimination of the insurance surcharges.</p>

<p>Universal health care, by the way, is nothing that anyone who cares about the middle class would want. Let's think about this one, folks:
Businesses currently pay for, out of their profits, the health insurance of about 70% of Americans. That's good, right? Why would we want to change that so that health care is paid out of taxes on individuals? Big businesses will reduce their expenses (very considerably, I might add); all workers will pay higher taxes (to cover not just themselves in health care, but the uninsured); and workers will, realistically, not receive higher salaries to correct for their higher taxes and reduced benefits. </p>

<p>End result: businesses have higher profits and the middle class pays more in taxes. Yes, folks, brought to you by the libs.</p>

<p>It's comical - just like the Kelo v. New London decision, it proves that, deep down, the liberals are really acting in the interests of Big Business. </p>

<p>Rant over.</p>

23

<p>You seriously think minimum wage is an oppressive thing?
That it oppresses people to be guaranteed a basic amount of money for their work? <em>sigh</em></p>

24

<p>"You seriously think minimum wage is an oppressive thing?
That it oppresses people to be guaranteed a basic amount of money for their work? <em>sigh</em>"
Oh no, I must be wrong because, gasp, you self righteously sighed. If you could truly "guarantee people a basic amount of money for their work," would there not be no upper limit to a minimum wage? Why not set in the 6 digits, because surely that will make those greedy employers give us what we "deserve." Government does not create wealth; it consumes and redistributes it.</p>

<p>Here's one simple scenario: Youve got 2 workers, and all other relevant factors being equal, one with absolutely no experience (A), and another with 2 years' worth (B). If you had to pay them equal wages, you would obviously pick the more productive one, the more experienced. A, if he truly wanted the job, would negotiate lower wages than B, to compensate for his lack of experience. B could choose to either respond by cutting his wage demands, or seeking employment elsewhere. But by imposing a minimum wage, you are not letting the employer decide (if A's wages would be under the minimum wage). This distortion of the employer's options helps unions, because union members are often those experienced workers. The Davis-Bacon Act was instituted with the direct intent to hamper the employment of blacks, as they were usually less skilled and less experienced, so their pay was less. See here for more <a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-017.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-017.html&lt;/a> (Admittedly, Cato is very partisan-its libertarian, but the background of the act enumerated there is honest) . Granted, the minimum wage as it is does not distort too much, because inflation has lessened its impact over the years.</p>

25

<p>nerdex,
great poem</p>

26

<p>My question is, if unions are so great for engineers, why stop there? Why not also have unions for the Art History majors? Or the Film Studies majors? Or the Leisure Studies majors (yes, there really is such a major as Leisure Studies)? Perhaps Leisure Studies students should all get the right to have guaranteed jobs paying 100k a year and also not ever be subject to being fired.</p>