Inflation 👂👂📌📌

This of it like this:

Your time and labor are a commodity, right? It can be bought and sold on the open market place. Correct?

The First Amendment give people the right to peaceably assemble, which includes the right to associate. So things like technical guilds would be legal. (You should look up the history of the large cracker company called Nabisco! It started out literally as a guild of bakers back in the early part of the 20th century.)

So. To review:

Time and labor are a commodity that can be bought and sold on the open market place. The right to assemble and to associate is a protected right spelled out directly in the very first amendment.

We also have the right to enter into contracts. That's how business in a free market is typically done.

So. What's a union, then? It's everything that is exactly described above.

Disallowing union dues, such as so-called "right to work" laws have been doing, is entirely unconstitutional. It violates the rights of a legal entity (unions) to operate freely. It would be like the federal government telling Ford Motor Company they cannot charge more than $25,000 for a brand new F-150.

As for McDonalds workers making more than whatever other profession you want to compare it to, all I can say is....

And.....? Pick up trucks these days cost as much as the house I grew up in did 20 years ago! There is no point to this argument at all. It's called "capitalism." McDonald's has a certain required need for a workforce. They want work to be completed so they can earn a profit. They have to pay what the workforce demands that it's worth. Nobody is willing to sell their previous commodity of time and labor for an outdated $7.25/hour minimum wage that hasn't increased in....what...? 15 years...? Even though the prices of virtually all goods have been increasing the entire time.

If a group of workers think they're time and labor is more valuable than McDonald's workers', then it's their responsibility to do something about it.


I forgot something:

Unconstitutional "right to work" laws are only meant to destroy unions. Sorry, but you do not get the advantages of a union (legal representation, and a workforce that has your back), if you don't pay union dues. These laws are meant to make it optional to lay the dues, while requiring the union to continue to use precious resources to pay for attorneys and court fees to protect it's members from illegal corporate policies.

To show you how bad inflation has bitten for renters, I offer you this example. In the early 1980's I began working as a professional electronics Technician for Honeywell. I made $10 an hour, $20,000 a year, and $25,000 a year with the overtime I put in. The rent for my apartment at that time was $350 a month, about $4,200 per year. That worked out to me paying 16.8% of my salary for rent.

Today, with people earning $20 an hour, $40,000 per year, and $50,000 with overtime, they have to pay $1,700 per month for the same apartment, $20,400 per year. And that's 40% of their income.

As per the American Dream of home ownership, it has disappeared for most. Houses in most areas are running $400k and higher and the prices continue to rise fast at 12% per year. So no matter how much a young couple, both working, can save up yearly, they can't save up enough to keep up with the rising prices.

Things didn't used to be this way. I was in high school, working part time washing dishes and earning the minimum wage of $1 an hour in 1966. One day, the short order cook, the hamburger griller who made $2 an hour, asked me to help him over the weekend. He wanted me to help him paint a very nice 3 bedroom house he'd just bought as he was getting married and was ready to move in. But, today, there are no unskilled workers who can afford to buy a house.

My father was a career military man, not college educated and rose to the rank of Major. The pay for the military in those days was very poor. My mom was a stay at home mom with plenty of work to do, raising 5 children. But our family always owned our own home, they were affordable in those days. And our family never really wanted or lacked for anything, food/clothing/etc. The last house my father bought was in 1963, for $17,000, less than 3 years of his salary. Today, that same house is rated at about $500,000. And there's no family with 5 children or a stay at home mom that could afford to buy a house like that.

So, with housing prices rising 12% each year, very few can afford what was taken for granted, the American Dream of home ownership.

I'll give you an example of union vs non union (same job)

My grandson. Master Electrician.

Non Union. Same work.

$24 - $38 / hr
pays own health care
pays own tools
provides own transportation
pays own retirement
no vacation or sick leave
out of work 2 to 3 months / year

Union
$36 - $60+ / hr after dues
union pays family health care (including up to 12 months lay off)
union pays for his tools
union provides his transportation
union provides remote site to home trip every month
union provides retirement fund and allows him to invest additional money into it.
rarely out of work more than a month.
union pays sick leave and vacation.

My personal experience.

Non union set up for a conference. Haphazard and rarely on time.

Union set up for the same type conference. Ready when we got there. Supervisor on site to keep things running smoothly. All our equipment was at the loading dock ready to pick up three hours after conference ended.

I'll gladly pay the union for the quality of work that I've always received.

Your premise is that a union has a right to make a contract with a company, but I do not have a right to make a separate contract with the same company.
To say "right to work" is unconstitutional is incorrect. Courts have ruled differently.
Every person has the right to work without paying some third party for that right.
Everyone should have the right to sell his skill and labor without some union restricting his pay to what other less skilled and less productive are payed because of some union contract.
What advantage is there when according to union contracts ALL are paid the same without any regard for that employee that exceeds the production of others.
That is communism. Everyone gets the same pay.
Unions promote the idea that all are equal, should be paid equal, no reason to work hard, improve your skills, improve your productivity and be rewarded accordingly.
As for those over priced trucks---
Over paid UNION workers are main reason.

And here is the problem--
You do not see that $60 per hour does not add to inflation.
These people who make $60 per hour are the same that complain about the increased price of a hamburger so that McDonald's can make $14 per hour, or the price of milk because that grocery store clerk makes $15 per hour.
Seems to be the attitude of so many, I need more money, but do not raise the price.
It has never worked that way. It can not work that way.

You mean...the right wing anti-union courts have ruled those laws constitutional. Those laws are very clearly Unconstitutional, because they require those unions to continue to represent those are not paying dues! That's how the GOP has gone out of its way to bankrupt the unions. Trying to force them to expens resources on those not paying into the union.

Also, you're charactizeration of union corruption is entirely exaggerated to the point of being an outright lie. Just because the teamsters in New Jersey that were run by the Italian Mafia from New York City was corrupt for a decade in the 1970s, does NOT mean that's actually a thing unions do. Or how they're run.

And here is the problem--
You do not see that $60 per hour does not add to inflation.
These people who make $60 per hour are the same that complain about the increased price of a hamburger so that McDonald's can make $14 per hour, or the price of milk because that grocery store clerk makes $15 per hour.
Seems to be the attitude of so many, I need more money, but do not raise the price.
It has never worked that way. It can not work that way.

Again, your characterization is cartoonishly exaggerated here as well. Companies are making record-breaking profits. Year after year, a larger and larger percentage of the nations wealth continues to accumulate at the very tippy-top.

If you think McDonald's workers making $15/hour raises prices (even though prices have very clearly outstripped wages!) Then why doesn't corporate CEO pay and profits also raise prices (which HAS outstripped the rising prices!)

In other words:

Corporate CEO pay is greater than the rising CPI.

Worker wages are less than the rising CPI.

Yet, worker wages are causing the prices to rise?

Impossible!! It is mathematically impossible for a stagnant wage to be the cause of rising prices!

So as an individual I do not have a right to negotiate pay and benefits with an employer that exceeds those negotiated by a union, even though my skill and productivity exceeds those union employees.
If you need a third party to negotiate for you because of your lack of skill and refusal to work hard, go for it. But to stop me from negotiating for myself is wrong, and should not be allowed.

Again, your characterization is cartoonishly exaggerated here as well. Companies are making record-breaking profits. Year after year, a larger and larger percentage of the nations wealth continues to accumulate at the very tippy-top.

If you think McDonald's workers making $15/hour raises prices (even though prices have very clearly outstripped wages!) Then why doesn't corporate CEO pay and profits also raise prices (which HAS outstripped the rising prices!)

In other words:

Corporate CEO pay is greater than the rising CPI.

Worker wages are less than the rising CPI.

Yet, worker wages are causing the prices to rise?

Impossible!! It is mathematically impossible for a stagnant wage to be the cause of rising prices!

ALL increase in production contribute to price increases and inflation.

I suppose these record prophets the companies are making is the reason so many are no longer with us today.
If unions had their way, every one, regardless of skill, would be making $100 per hour and gas would still be $1 per gal., bread $1 a loaf, a new car $10,000, and a 3 bedroom home $100,000.

OK Francis... you say union wages are the cause of inflation, yet you want to negotiate even better raises for yourself. Seems a bit incongruent.

By all means, you should have the right to not join a union. You should also then not be privy to ANY benefits the union negotiates, and you should have to negotiate your own compensation package.

As we can see with what's happened to worker compensation since union busting became prevalent, good luck wit dat.

I thought in a free market, increased supply in the face of consistent demand causes prices to drop.

ALL increase in wages and benefits, including CEO's contribute to increased prices.
ALL increase in production contribute to price increases and inflation.
Only a blind person can not see that.

ALL increase in wages and benefits, including CEO's contribute to increased prices.
ALL increase in production contribute to price increases and inflation.
Only a blind person can not see that.

Again, no. Stagnant worker wages CANNOT have contributed to the increase of the CPI!

Again, the CPI has been rising faster than wages. This suggests you are incorrect. If I'm making $17/hour this year, the price of gas goes up by a dollar, and I'm still making $17/hour this year....how the heck did my wage that went nowhere help to raise the price of gas?

Meanwhile, gas companies are taking in even larger profits from last year! Take this, and compound it over the course of 40 years!

Do you seriously not see the problem here?

I cannot put in words how much I loathe unions.
Especially public sector unions, which absolutely should be illegal.

I was in a private and public sector union. I KNOW how awful and corrupt they are. Not to mention the very idea of unions are anti American at heart.

Paying the laziest, most incompetent the same as the best and hardest working people.

SO...You're saying that unions are "anti-American" in one breath, then turning around and saying "unions in public sector jobs should be illegal" in the very next breath?

I came here to try and come to understand right wingers a little better, but I cannot seem to be making any sort of headway here.....

The Constitution of the United States, very specifically protects the right to assemble and to associate! It's in the very first amendment to the constitution!

You want to make it ILLEGAL for certain people (public sector employees) to associate and assemble with each other? And you call THEM anti-American?

Oy vey...