Stagnating wages
03-18-2015, 04:41 PM
#61
Line Holder
Joined APC: Sep 2011
Posts: 99
There seem to be some here that do not understand that if the "private sector" must compete with a "public sector" for capital, with an increasing drain on limited capital, the result will be: 1. the rich will get richer (happening now) and 2. the government (big bureaucracy) will get bigger and even less efficient - thus consuming more capital, continuing the "squeeze" on capital (also happening) that frankly has been the historic rising tide for growth of the middle class - in both wage and reward for small business risk.
Indeed, the "free market" is the most efficient way to allow fair and successful capital utilization as well as wages - but what is becoming less and less in the USA is the free part of free market, both freedom from government interference and freedom to succeed.
Those are my observations - please direct me toward historically successful big bureaucracies (government of any type, big businesses, etc) that have actually not been self centered profit centers - rewarding the few at the expense of the many. I can't come up with one.
Indeed, the "free market" is the most efficient way to allow fair and successful capital utilization as well as wages - but what is becoming less and less in the USA is the free part of free market, both freedom from government interference and freedom to succeed.
Those are my observations - please direct me toward historically successful big bureaucracies (government of any type, big businesses, etc) that have actually not been self centered profit centers - rewarding the few at the expense of the many. I can't come up with one.
03-18-2015, 05:45 PM
#62
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Position: 767 FO
Posts: 8,047
Originally Posted by FoxHunter
Marx? Groucho? Soviet Union? You talking about the same place that is screwed up under a guy named Putin?
We are talking about a place called the U.S.A.. The U.S.A. I grew up in was a place where the average guy could get a job, support his family, earn a small pension, and pay his bills. We have evolved to a place where the average guy now works from pay check to pay check, and then only because his wife also works at least one job. They are just too busy to realize the reason they are getting nowhere because all the rules have been changed, the game has been rigged so the can run at full speed and never get to where they want to go. Jungle, you can't understand what has happened. Even with your lack of understanding some day you may be able to accept the facts as they are presented. You cannot do the same job as your father and be compensated in an equal manner. You accept you and your fellow age mates have to accept 30-60% less for the same work. Glad to have you around for a good laugh.
We are talking about a place called the U.S.A.. The U.S.A. I grew up in was a place where the average guy could get a job, support his family, earn a small pension, and pay his bills. We have evolved to a place where the average guy now works from pay check to pay check, and then only because his wife also works at least one job. They are just too busy to realize the reason they are getting nowhere because all the rules have been changed, the game has been rigged so the can run at full speed and never get to where they want to go. Jungle, you can't understand what has happened. Even with your lack of understanding some day you may be able to accept the facts as they are presented. You cannot do the same job as your father and be compensated in an equal manner. You accept you and your fellow age mates have to accept 30-60% less for the same work. Glad to have you around for a good laugh.
03-19-2015, 10:04 PM
#63
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Sep 2007
Posts: 355
[QUOTE=jungle;1845310]In your world or THE world? Take a look an non-Union wages overseas in growth markets.
My question <<1. If playing the "game" is a fools errand, why are corporate lobbying expenses at an all time high? Because it works. See the Powell letters and the initiatives that it started.>> referred to your earlier post on 3/14 saying "the only way to win is not to play", and inferring that politics doesn't matter. The article highlights the change in apportionment of corporate resources away from labor. The article did not go into the political activism against collective bargaining and anti-labor legislation.
If your compensation emanates from a collectively bargained agreement, then "we" are losing badly. Corporate management decides how to allocate those resources where collective bargaining as a counter, that has been neutered as a result of active lobbying and legislation. ALEC, resourced by well financed corporate interests is in your state house and on the hill actively writing "model legislation" for your legislators to rubber stamp to benefit their financial interests.
In fact just today congress voted to ban rules issued by the NLRB. In going after the rule, the GOP used a rarely used tactic, employing the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, to keep Senate Democrats from blocking the measure. The CRA lets Congress formally disapprove of regulations with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes normally required to hold off the threat of a filibuster. Congress takes aim at new union election rules - CBS News
The gop house is pushing HR 612, and the gop senate a similar bill.
For all your writing that is a non-answer. I have yet to read a definite and discrete answer from you on this question
2. If collective bargaining is ineffective, why do corporations spend so much $ and time for union busting activity?
2a. Why do politicians spend so much effort for anti-collective bargaining legislation?
If these folks are that smart, what are they afraid of that they will undertake efforts expense and lobbying?
So is your answer conceding that anti-labor political activism, and lobbying is effective, resulting in that "WE" are losing badly?
Citizens v United- more $ buys influence, just check out the gop budget proposal- follow the money.
I was not referring to ALPA PAC, more like the example of $1M that the kochs' pac put into the National Right to Work Committee- a $21M annual legal & lobbying firm whose sole purpose is weakening collective bargaining & labor laws. The group was founded by Fred Hartley, the co-sponsor of the Taft Hartley Act. Take a look at who is sponsoring the latest legislation and who has sponsored/resourced their campaign and lobbying. Seems to be working pretty well for them. ALPA PAC is outgunned financially, and must lobby smarter with discrete objectives.
True- but much (not all) of the decline was the result of constant political activism. The Taft-Hartley Act was a huge weakening of collective bargaining & weakening of labor. President Trumann called it the slave labor act. The National Right to Work Committee has been litigating & lobbying since 1955, ALEC is writing anti-labor legislation (gee who pays them???). The Landrum-Griffin act was another labor setback. Corporations moving south (where active politics enabled weaker collective bargaining laws vs northern states) and offshoring contributed as well.
Educate us on "ineffective tactics"
Corporations decide how to allot their capital as they should. As a member of a collective bargaining group, I want my union to have the "freedom" to "bargain" and negotiate for a commensurate slice of the wealth pie we created. In the fedex case- having cash for $5B stock buyback during one of the worst economic periods since the great depression with increasing dividends tells me that the company management & labor are executing well. As individuals -asking for a raise or benefits, they wouldn't get past the SCP door.
1. Your article says you are losing badly at that game.
If your compensation emanates from a collectively bargained agreement, then "we" are losing badly. Corporate management decides how to allocate those resources where collective bargaining as a counter, that has been neutered as a result of active lobbying and legislation. ALEC, resourced by well financed corporate interests is in your state house and on the hill actively writing "model legislation" for your legislators to rubber stamp to benefit their financial interests.
In fact just today congress voted to ban rules issued by the NLRB. In going after the rule, the GOP used a rarely used tactic, employing the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, to keep Senate Democrats from blocking the measure. The CRA lets Congress formally disapprove of regulations with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes normally required to hold off the threat of a filibuster. Congress takes aim at new union election rules - CBS News
The gop house is pushing HR 612, and the gop senate a similar bill.
2. See 1.
2. If collective bargaining is ineffective, why do corporations spend so much $ and time for union busting activity?
2a. Why do politicians spend so much effort for anti-collective bargaining legislation?
If these folks are that smart, what are they afraid of that they will undertake efforts expense and lobbying?
So is your answer conceding that anti-labor political activism, and lobbying is effective, resulting in that "WE" are losing badly?
3. What did that effort obtain?
4. That doesn't seem to be working either.
Private sector unions have bit it over the last seventy years, if you don't understand why you don't need to explain it, it is the result of ineffective tactics
Educate us on "ineffective tactics"
Labor is a commodity and is priced at the market rate. This is a point most people can't fathom just as they don't understand why very high earners don't want or need unions.
There is some truth to this but a commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. I would contend that the piloting profession is more on the partial fungibility, otherwise why is there differentiation between military-civilian, type rated -non rated, ATP, regional/mainline, heavy jet/light civil etc. As a whole, people in Technical fields tend to be historically illiterate. Just look at how Corporations treat their Engineers. They don't get any of the royalties on their inventions and are generally forced out on the street by age 45. Yet they aren't historically literate enough to understand what is being done to them and their fellow engineers to form a real Union. Just look at Boeing, I worked with an ex Boeing engineer after Boeing put him on the street at age 49. Very high earners have attorneys negotiate, and there are exec compensation committees doing their "bargaining".
Who is to allot capital? You? The gov? Unions? The individual as he sees fit? Which of those would not be corrupted?
There is only one correct answer.
There is only one correct answer.
03-20-2015, 06:17 AM
#64
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2005
Position: 757 Capt
Posts: 2,418
IMO-the law of unintended consequences is why Executive compensation has dramatically increased in recent history (which also impacted Shareholder income)
It wasn't all that long ago when Congress decided they needed to 'fix' the disparity between CEO compensation and workers compensation. They did so by capping the tax deductibility of Executive compensation. Which resulted in large corporations finding other ways to compensate their Execs by 'aligning' CEO compensation with shareholder compensation via stock options.
But, how to unring that bell....nice as it would be to return to simpler economic times, just don't think it will happen.
Perhaps lobby Congress for longer vesting time requirements on stock options, or employee match. Feel free to give your Execs 1M shares with an additional 1M spread amongst the employees.
It wasn't all that long ago when Congress decided they needed to 'fix' the disparity between CEO compensation and workers compensation. They did so by capping the tax deductibility of Executive compensation. Which resulted in large corporations finding other ways to compensate their Execs by 'aligning' CEO compensation with shareholder compensation via stock options.
But, how to unring that bell....nice as it would be to return to simpler economic times, just don't think it will happen.
Perhaps lobby Congress for longer vesting time requirements on stock options, or employee match. Feel free to give your Execs 1M shares with an additional 1M spread amongst the employees.
03-20-2015, 08:18 AM
#65
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Position: 767 FO
Posts: 8,047
Originally Posted by kronan
IMO-the law of unintended consequences is why Executive compensation has dramatically increased in recent history (which also impacted Shareholder income)
It wasn't all that long ago when Congress decided they needed to 'fix' the disparity between CEO compensation and workers compensation. They did so by capping the tax deductibility of Executive compensation. Which resulted in large corporations finding other ways to compensate their Execs by 'aligning' CEO compensation with shareholder compensation via stock options.
But, how to unring that bell....nice as it would be to return to simpler economic times, just don't think it will happen.
Perhaps lobby Congress for longer vesting time requirements on stock options, or employee match. Feel free to give your Execs 1M shares with an additional 1M spread amongst the employees.
It wasn't all that long ago when Congress decided they needed to 'fix' the disparity between CEO compensation and workers compensation. They did so by capping the tax deductibility of Executive compensation. Which resulted in large corporations finding other ways to compensate their Execs by 'aligning' CEO compensation with shareholder compensation via stock options.
But, how to unring that bell....nice as it would be to return to simpler economic times, just don't think it will happen.
Perhaps lobby Congress for longer vesting time requirements on stock options, or employee match. Feel free to give your Execs 1M shares with an additional 1M spread amongst the employees.
03-20-2015, 09:21 AM
#66
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2012
Position: ERJ, CA
Posts: 718
Originally Posted by andreas500
There seem to be some here that do not understand that if the "private sector" must compete with a "public sector" for capital, with an increasing drain on limited capital, the result will be: 1. the rich will get richer (happening now) and 2. the government (big bureaucracy) will get bigger and even less efficient - thus consuming more capital, continuing the "squeeze" on capital (also happening) that frankly has been the historic rising tide for growth of the middle class - in both wage and reward for small business risk.
Indeed, the "free market" is the most efficient way to allow fair and successful capital utilization as well as wages - but what is becoming less and less in the USA is the free part of free market, both freedom from government interference and freedom to succeed.
Those are my observations - please direct me toward historically successful big bureaucracies (government of any type, big businesses, etc) that have actually not been self centered profit centers - rewarding the few at the expense of the many. I can't come up with one.
Indeed, the "free market" is the most efficient way to allow fair and successful capital utilization as well as wages - but what is becoming less and less in the USA is the free part of free market, both freedom from government interference and freedom to succeed.
Those are my observations - please direct me toward historically successful big bureaucracies (government of any type, big businesses, etc) that have actually not been self centered profit centers - rewarding the few at the expense of the many. I can't come up with one.
The lack of capital argument doesn't work in the current environment. The US govt. has been creating money like crazy since 2009 through QEs and "Operation Twist". It is the allocation of that money. It is all going to banks who then dump it in the stock mkt in order cause a bubble and give an illusion of prosperity. I don't think there can be a free market under our current political situation (Citizens United) and the existence of a Central Bank run by private banking interests. There is no country in the world with a true free market, because the political fallout would be too great.
03-20-2015, 10:01 AM
#67
"blue collar thug"!
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Position: A proponent of...
Posts: 1,614
Originally Posted by bedrock
The lack of capital argument doesn't work in the current environment. The US govt. has been creating money like crazy since 2009 through QEs and "Operation Twist". It is the allocation of that money. It is all going to banks who then dump it in the stock mkt in order cause a bubble and give an illusion of prosperity. I don't think there can be a free market under our current political situation (Citizens United) and the existence of a Central Bank run by private banking interests. There is no country in the world with a true free market, because the political fallout would be too great.
We have a winner.
03-20-2015, 10:02 AM
#68
Line Holder
Joined APC: Sep 2011
Posts: 99
Originally Posted by bedrock
The lack of capital argument doesn't work in the current environment. The US govt. has been creating money like crazy since 2009 through QEs and "Operation Twist". It is the allocation of that money. It is all going to banks who then dump it in the stock mkt in order cause a bubble and give an illusion of prosperity. I don't think there can be a free market under our current political situation (Citizens United) and the existence of a Central Bank run by private banking interests. There is no country in the world with a true free market, because the political fallout would be too great.
I am however also very concerned with the huge debt that we as a country are continuing to create and do not seem to have much stomach to address - political or electoral.
03-22-2015, 09:12 AM
#69
With The Resistance
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Burning the Agitprop of the Apparat
Posts: 6,191
[QUOTE=olly;1846152]
olly, I find it amazing how much some people can talk and how little they can really say or do. Ever thought about running for a political office?
Originally Posted by jungle
In your world or THE world? Take a look an non-Union wages overseas in growth markets.
My question <<1. If playing the "game" is a fools errand, why are corporate lobbying expenses at an all time high? Because it works. See the Powell letters and the initiatives that it started.>> referred to your earlier post on 3/14 saying "the only way to win is not to play", and inferring that politics doesn't matter. The article highlights the change in apportionment of corporate resources away from labor. The article did not go into the political activism against collective bargaining and anti-labor legislation.
If your compensation emanates from a collectively bargained agreement, then "we" are losing badly. Corporate management decides how to allocate those resources where collective bargaining as a counter, that has been neutered as a result of active lobbying and legislation. ALEC, resourced by well financed corporate interests is in your state house and on the hill actively writing "model legislation" for your legislators to rubber stamp to benefit their financial interests.
In fact just today congress voted to ban rules issued by the NLRB. In going after the rule, the GOP used a rarely used tactic, employing the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, to keep Senate Democrats from blocking the measure. The CRA lets Congress formally disapprove of regulations with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes normally required to hold off the threat of a filibuster. Congress takes aim at new union election rules - CBS News
The gop house is pushing HR 612, and the gop senate a similar bill.
For all your writing that is a non-answer. I have yet to read a definite and discrete answer from you on this question
2. If collective bargaining is ineffective, why do corporations spend so much $ and time for union busting activity?
2a. Why do politicians spend so much effort for anti-collective bargaining legislation?
If these folks are that smart, what are they afraid of that they will undertake efforts expense and lobbying?
So is your answer conceding that anti-labor political activism, and lobbying is effective, resulting in that "WE" are losing badly?
Citizens v United- more $ buys influence, just check out the gop budget proposal- follow the money.
I was not referring to ALPA PAC, more like the example of $1M that the kochs' pac put into the National Right to Work Committee- a $21M annual legal & lobbying firm whose sole purpose is weakening collective bargaining & labor laws. The group was founded by Fred Hartley, the co-sponsor of the Taft Hartley Act. Take a look at who is sponsoring the latest legislation and who has sponsored/resourced their campaign and lobbying. Seems to be working pretty well for them. ALPA PAC is outgunned financially, and must lobby smarter with discrete objectives.
True- but much (not all) of the decline was the result of constant political activism. The Taft-Hartley Act was a huge weakening of collective bargaining & weakening of labor. President Trumann called it the slave labor act. The National Right to Work Committee has been litigating & lobbying since 1955, ALEC is writing anti-labor legislation (gee who pays them???). The Landrum-Griffin act was another labor setback. Corporations moving south (where active politics enabled weaker collective bargaining laws vs northern states) and offshoring contributed as well.
Educate us on "ineffective tactics"
Corporations decide how to allot their capital as they should. As a member of a collective bargaining group, I want my union to have the "freedom" to "bargain" and negotiate for a commensurate slice of the wealth pie we created. In the fedex case- having cash for $5B stock buyback during one of the worst economic periods since the great depression with increasing dividends tells me that the company management & labor are executing well. As individuals -asking for a raise or benefits, they wouldn't get past the SCP door.
My question <<1. If playing the "game" is a fools errand, why are corporate lobbying expenses at an all time high? Because it works. See the Powell letters and the initiatives that it started.>> referred to your earlier post on 3/14 saying "the only way to win is not to play", and inferring that politics doesn't matter. The article highlights the change in apportionment of corporate resources away from labor. The article did not go into the political activism against collective bargaining and anti-labor legislation.
If your compensation emanates from a collectively bargained agreement, then "we" are losing badly. Corporate management decides how to allocate those resources where collective bargaining as a counter, that has been neutered as a result of active lobbying and legislation. ALEC, resourced by well financed corporate interests is in your state house and on the hill actively writing "model legislation" for your legislators to rubber stamp to benefit their financial interests.
In fact just today congress voted to ban rules issued by the NLRB. In going after the rule, the GOP used a rarely used tactic, employing the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, to keep Senate Democrats from blocking the measure. The CRA lets Congress formally disapprove of regulations with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes normally required to hold off the threat of a filibuster. Congress takes aim at new union election rules - CBS News
The gop house is pushing HR 612, and the gop senate a similar bill.
For all your writing that is a non-answer. I have yet to read a definite and discrete answer from you on this question
2. If collective bargaining is ineffective, why do corporations spend so much $ and time for union busting activity?
2a. Why do politicians spend so much effort for anti-collective bargaining legislation?
If these folks are that smart, what are they afraid of that they will undertake efforts expense and lobbying?
So is your answer conceding that anti-labor political activism, and lobbying is effective, resulting in that "WE" are losing badly?
Citizens v United- more $ buys influence, just check out the gop budget proposal- follow the money.
I was not referring to ALPA PAC, more like the example of $1M that the kochs' pac put into the National Right to Work Committee- a $21M annual legal & lobbying firm whose sole purpose is weakening collective bargaining & labor laws. The group was founded by Fred Hartley, the co-sponsor of the Taft Hartley Act. Take a look at who is sponsoring the latest legislation and who has sponsored/resourced their campaign and lobbying. Seems to be working pretty well for them. ALPA PAC is outgunned financially, and must lobby smarter with discrete objectives.
True- but much (not all) of the decline was the result of constant political activism. The Taft-Hartley Act was a huge weakening of collective bargaining & weakening of labor. President Trumann called it the slave labor act. The National Right to Work Committee has been litigating & lobbying since 1955, ALEC is writing anti-labor legislation (gee who pays them???). The Landrum-Griffin act was another labor setback. Corporations moving south (where active politics enabled weaker collective bargaining laws vs northern states) and offshoring contributed as well.
Educate us on "ineffective tactics"
There is some truth to this but a commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. I would contend that the piloting profession is more on the partial fungibility, otherwise why is there differentiation between military-civilian, type rated -non rated, ATP, regional/mainline, heavy jet/light civil etc. As a whole, people in Technical fields tend to be historically illiterate. Just look at how Corporations treat their Engineers. They don't get any of the royalties on their inventions and are generally forced out on the street by age 45. Yet they aren't historically literate enough to understand what is being done to them and their fellow engineers to form a real Union. Just look at Boeing, I worked with an ex Boeing engineer after Boeing put him on the street at age 49. Very high earners have attorneys negotiate, and there are exec compensation committees doing their "bargaining".
Corporations decide how to allot their capital as they should. As a member of a collective bargaining group, I want my union to have the "freedom" to "bargain" and negotiate for a commensurate slice of the wealth pie we created. In the fedex case- having cash for $5B stock buyback during one of the worst economic periods since the great depression with increasing dividends tells me that the company management & labor are executing well. As individuals -asking for a raise or benefits, they wouldn't get past the SCP door.
03-22-2015, 09:15 AM
#70
With The Resistance
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Burning the Agitprop of the Apparat
Posts: 6,191
Originally Posted by bedrock
The lack of capital argument doesn't work in the current environment. The US govt. has been creating money like crazy since 2009 through QEs and "Operation Twist". It is the allocation of that money. It is all going to banks who then dump it in the stock mkt in order cause a bubble and give an illusion of prosperity. I don't think there can be a free market under our current political situation (Citizens United) and the existence of a Central Bank run by private banking interests. There is no country in the world with a true free market, because the political fallout would be too great.
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