Should Government Control or Outlaw Unions?

This would make sense if designing a light bulb to fail required any government intervention what-so-ever.

 

I may check that out. Is it a suppression of invention movie though?

If you have netflix you can see the zachary movie on netflix. Hard to tell you what it is about without ruining it a little, but dont look up what it is about. It is a story that changes as the story is being told because of continuing events, and it is a suspenseful documentary. That alone makes it worth it. You will like it, people of either political persuasion will identify with it, it isn't political.

 

Very much so, but it is with simple technology, so the waters can't be muddied.

A basic undestanding of electricity, and materials allows a person to see very clearly how business colludes to set pricing, and for products to fail.

 

ok will check it out, but see the other movie. you know patents run out right? How old is the invention? Why can't you make a competing model? $1000000s in regulation and compliance costs? etc...

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ok will check it out, but see the other movie. you know patents run out right? How old is the invention? Why can't you make a competing model? $1000000s in regulation and compliance costs? etc...

 

Its anything but dishonest; factually I'm correct. Furthermore, if you elect not to join the union, you have the right to register as an agency fee objector and you will pay approximately 20% less dues and fees as members. So again, you don't pay to the penny; the only reason you pay anything is because the union is required by law to represent you and there are costs associated with that.

 

So that lightbulb pattent is gone and has been for some time.

However the investment required to enter the lightbulb market is huge, so there is no competition.

This is like the arguement that if there was a better alternative to fossil fuels, the market would have provided it. This is absurd, as the investment vs risk ratio just needs to make it not a sure fire bet, when there are investments available that are.

 

Don't know anything abount engineering, do you?

pretending the movie is about your typical incandescent light bulb, the are two distinct regimes of thermal stress on the filament. There's the major on-off cycle of the light, and there's the 60 Hz frequency of the lit lamp that introduces a 3600 cycle per hour cycling about the mean temperature. Since the filament is typically tungsten, of extremely low diameter, the stresses are actually fairly high. The engineering choice is then between mimizing the per-unit cost and having a product of sufficient durability to be competive with similar products from other vendors.....balanced, of course, against the need for a given resistance to heat the filament to incandescence, current draw (using larger diameter tungsten to extend the life of the filament will require greater amperage to heat that less resistive filament to the same temperature, of course).

In the typical five year life of the incandescent bulbs the Mayor has owned and loved.....he's determined that his annual light bulb cost is expended mainly on those crappy Christmas string lights.

There was never a "conspiracy" to play games with the incandescent light bulbs. Planned obsolescence isn't a myth, but it isn't light bulbs. Sometimes the damn things will last over a decade.

There's a reason other companies find it difficult to get into the lightbulb market....the competition that already exists keeps the price of the product so low a new competitor can't find a chance to make a profit entering that market...so potential competitors find a different market to enter.

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If someone has the good sense to not join a goonion, he should pay 100% less in fees and dues. After all, he doesn't owe them to anyone.

 

Democrats give contracts to non union workers over union ones? They are no closed shops? They have free places like you mention. Called right to work states and the unions fight them. In many cases though even they don't extend fully to government union monopolies.

 

The 1930s trouble they talk about in the movie:
One of the bloodiest events occurred in May 1931, when union miners ambushed a convoy of cars escorting a non-union miner near Evarts.

Three deputies and one miner died in the shootout, Hevener wrote.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/08/21/1852406/100-years-of-coal-in-harlan-county.html#storylink=cpy"

Seems this is a family owned mine, and they have been trying to keep unions out for generations. Those people moved to that part of the country, the mine preceded the workers:

 

There are no closed shops; they are illegal.

 

Back in the day when unions were first organizing it was the cops (as well as the pinkertons and National Guard) which were used by the corporations to kill and maim those who advocated unions. Read up on the Haymarket affair, or the Harlan County War.

 

No, you're full of it again! I looked into this: I would have had to pay a "fee" that was and is exactly equal to the regular dues, to the penny.

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You're lying again! I work in a closed shop!

 

Read Beck Vs. CWA.

 

What does this have to do with the fact that they show the lightbulb and the tech that makes the bulbs last a really long time, and the increase is pennies on the production cost for the bulb?

Shill technique known as techno babble!

Riever likes to use this one in the economic threads!

 

Oh, gee.

Let's put it this way.

It's ILLEGAL to enter the country illegally (hard to believe, but not one person that voted for King Obama, Fascist and Traitor, can understand that sentence...).

"Illegal" only has meaning when the law is enforced. The Beck vs CWA decision is not enforced, hence "closed shops" are illegal only in people's imaginations.

 

Why would libertarians be against unions? If people wish to organize that is their right. The issue is when that organization gets government protection, or vise-versa when the business gets the government to act as union breakers. A conflict between workers and employers is their business and need only enter the courts when crimes or damages can be assessed.

 

Becuase most people don't like paying $500 to light their living rooms. Which is what has to happen to created infinite duration light bulbs. And if it was only "pennies", then one light bulb company would apply the technology, and ramp up the cost of their bulbs to reflect the expected added benefit, and lose their shirts because Silvania would have been cranking out those good old cheap and durable-enough light bulbs that people loved so much.

The Mayor just loves it when fascists and other socialists decide they're going to discuss the evils of the free market. Long duration bulbs wouldn't sell because the old bulbs lasted long enough that most people can't remember when they last bought a light bulb, so when they buy light bulbs they buy the cheapest ones on the shelf and don't waste time reading the labels. They grab a box of 100w bulbs and head for the beer coolers.

Oh. So you're ignorant of engineering yet want to discuss an engineering economic issue with an engineer....and don't expect to spend your time mopping the floor.

When the Mayor decides that a technical discussion is relevant, he's going to write a technical discussion. If you object to the technical discussion, ten your proper role is to cite the technical facts or conclusions the Mayor presented that are in error, or cite additional technical material that reveals some issue the Mayor overlooked. The Mayor is not an electrical engineer...then again, it takes a left-wing video to treat incandescent light bulbs as complicated technology. The rest of us understand that electrical resistance is expressed as heat, and a sufficiently high heat flux will, by the Boltzmann Equation, peak in the visible light range.

 

Libertarians are opposed to unions if they:

Attempt to forbid the employer from higher non-union workers.

Attempt to coerce people into joining, especially when the goons get active with their boots, their arson, and their threats agaisnt family and home.

Attempt to prevent access to the employer's place of business during their periods of work refusal.

Otherwise attempt to coerce, intimidate, or interfere with the owners' operation of their business or their use of non-union employees, either as temporary or permanent replacements for people who are presently refusing to work.

 

Yeah, and why wouldn't they? Those are all clearly acts of coercion and illegal. That said if a bunch of workers want to get together and collectively bargain then I see no problem. If they want decide to protest the company rather than work (go on strike) so be it (so long as they don't block entrance or harass customers).

 

Your correct. People have a right to organize and bargain collectively; if they decide to strike (not the best option these days) as long as whatever they do is legally permissible under the law, then there should be no issue.

Btw, if I were you I wouldn't waste my time in here attempting to debate those who are primarily interested in insulting others. I wouldn't dignify their post with a response.

 

You're pretty much right in what you say but you hit on a good point I want to follow up on.
Unions need to abide by the law, there is no doubt and there is no excuse for them not. to do so. But if unions abide by the law and still hold onto some power to represent the interests of it's members, then the approach is to change the laws.

And it doesn' have to be explained how that will be accomplished because it could include everything everything right up to taking away a union member's right to withold his services. He must do that however in a manner that will be within the bounds of the collective agreement. And the collective agreement, being a legal and binding agreement must not be violated. One such violation of that agreement will be the employer bringing in scab labour in order to fulfill it's needs.

If an employer refuses to enter into a collective agreement then it will not be bound by one of course. But if it does then it will.

If there is little or now sympathy for unions anymore then most employers can legitimately refuse to be bound by a collective agreement. Or more simply put, if that's what the citizenry desires then it will be so.

Is it? Is a situation where people will be working for a minimum wage or less be desirable?