I think that may be because, for the most part, they are the ones holding the vast majority of the risk.
We are speaking fo the Steel industry?
Right?
This isn’t like trying to get a move from Facebook to Google.
We are speaking labor that is in a lot of ways geographically locked into where the labor has opportunity.
It never works. It’s been tried dozens of times. It never works.
Ya macro economic discussions can be pretty useless. Industrial microeconomics is usually more grounded.
I never understand why some will take management’s side over labor in all cases.
I mean… there are times when labor’s demands are way off… but stuff like that doesn’t happen all that often. As a whole labor has taken it on the chin for decades while management’s bonuses continue to grow.
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That is in fact a red herring argument used by the GOP and conservatives all the time.
It is ■■■■■■■■ though in about a dozen different ways.
No they didn’t.
It’s a matter of ownership and power. Also, it’s way more risky for workers to quit or lose their jobs so employers have most all of the leverage.
After retiring from the military at 40 years old, I took a job with a class one railroad as a Boilermaker this is a dispute between one Union and several company’s. The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Blacksmiths, Iron Ship Builders, Helpers and Oilers we just received a five year contract that is better by far than the one we got why Osama Obama was in office. Voting to strike is a long way from actually doing it. Do your homework this hasn’t even gone to a arbitrator yet.
What is even funnier is we probably have more environmental regulations and wages for steel workers here is over 60 k.
But health care costs are lower due to single payer.
Just speaking in general, not any one industry.
i understand your point, some jobs have specific skills, which may only be transferable within the same industry. Changing jobs in this case, might mean you have to pack up the family and move to another state. I’ve done this a few times.
I got lucky 15 years ago, and have been working for a good company, with good people and friendly management. I could have gotten a crazy employer like my last job, so it’s a gamble.
Good… at least you see what I am saying and I appreciate that.
I avoided joining the Union for years… got burned by a different IATSE local than the one I am in. Joined in the 2008 economic downturn when all of my corporate clients dried up.
I make a lot more money, I have good health insurance and a pension. Looking back I don’t know why I bought into the anti Union propaganda I grew up with.
Wow. I have had 6 jobs since I was 18. A part-time employee while going to college (4 jobs)
and two since then…current job I have worked since 1987. although I have had 5 internal promotions to different postions
I am a slacker.
Allan
I would suggest that it was related to a transformation in the economy that really can be traced back to WW2.
In the war we helped bomb much of the developed world’s industrial capacity into rubble while at the same time greatly expanding our own industrial capacity. But it is important to note that with only a few exceptions the sort of industrial technology used was by preference the tried and true sort, that in war neither the government that was paying many contractors nor the industry executives had much patience for anything that needed to be sorted out (look up GM’s Eagle fighter plane to see what a company might do in wartime to avoid having its productive capacity reassigned in ways it doesn’t want).
So at wars end the United States had many physical plants that were relatively new but with old technology.
Not just that but what may have been an expediency in wartime had become a bit of hideboundness postwar.
Not that it mattered at the time because it was a moment when huge pent up local demand funded by years of austerity and savings plus the wealth of much of the world that was rebuilding from war that was flooding into the country.
But of those rebuilding countries, notably Germany and Japan, as they rebuilt often did so with the latest ideas and technologies and this created a significant imbalance in the normal economic attrition rates between countries.
Whereas before WW2 the cycle of building or updating industrial plants was all happening at more or less comparable rates in the developed world, the divergence I’m speaking of is what helped to fuel the economic post war miracles. So while our old tech but newish capacity aged the advantage we’d gained waned until things like the rust belt started settling in. At that point US industry should have long been on an upgrade and replacement trend but with growth of government in general and industry supporting the military consuming more and more available funds and credit and investment some things that seemed good enough just soldiered on too long.
The 1970s were going to happen no matter who was President. Even without OPEC.
But it was in the 70s that much of the necessary reinvestment in productive capacity was happening … so, broadly speaking, in the 80s we had (for what had survived) the young new fangled capacity while the Germans and Japanese were starting to feel the pinch from their need to see normal economic attrition through.
And so it has gone ever since: the United States has been (though it is slowly diminishing) out of sync with the economic attrition cycles of other countries. As an industry upgrades, too often after putting it off too long, there are downturns that then naturally becomes booms … provided you survive of course.
But I would, to answer your query, call your attention to one vital aspect of the Rust Belt happening and it is this: those industrial jobs had long formed a sizable middle level of wages paid and as the industries that paid them suffered they suffered too. The new high tech industries and service businesses that emerged didn’t emerge to replace them, they would have come up anyway even without the Rust Belt happening, and the sorts of jobs they supported and investing opportunities they offered had different realities attached to them. They were frequently in different parts of the country and required different skills.
I would also point out that a great driver of this inequality of wealth distribution that the Left loves to go on about, the financial industry, is also something that they really, really helped along!
By this I mean that the whole benefits ideology, if with insurance or retirement, which also really started around the WW2 era, created huge piles of money looking for an investment with a hopefully quick return … and of course the money people were happy to get rich off of the churn.
In short, the 70s and 80s represented a kind of a perfect storm of opportunity and malaise, of going forward and being left behind, and they produced winners and losers just as, IIRC (my history), the 1880s to the 1910s had done and the results have persisted too. Like that earlier era the results were widespread, and even fewer were left behind; and, also like that earlier era there were those who made great strides … only this time there are similarly a lot more of them.
(consider: our government no longer tracks outright hunger but food insecurity, or our poorest are asking “when shall we eat” rather than “how shall we eat” on my 4 questions that people ask that tell you how affluent your society is scale … “what shall we eat” and “where shall we eat” being the two steps up from when.)
What red herring?
If you own a small or medium sized business, and for whatever reason, your company fails, you are the one stuck with the lease payments, the loans payments, and any other contracts and commitments. you also are the one paying all the benefits to your employees. Your employees do lose their jobs, but they get unemployment and can just get a new job, but you still have the same bills to pay.
Where did you get this idea that a business owners has no risk?
…and somewhere there are probably people your age who have had 10 or more different jobs.
Okay. one size doesnt fit all. what good for one person doesnt make it right for another person.
Allan
It’s employees who have no risk. If some small business dies because all the employees were jerks when the boss wasn’t around (trust me, most customers don’t complain, they just get mad) the so-called wage slaves can move on to screw over the next dewey eyed hopeful and ambitious small businessman on their next job.
You may be one of the lucky ones.
We just had a retirement planning seminar at my company. The person doing the presentation was showing us data that fewer and fewer employers offer a pension, and a 401k, or Roth IRA. Most employers are getting away from pensions and offer only a 401k .
I have both… the thing is that my 401k is entirely self funded… no matching amounts.
I use it as a way to reduce my income for the year because my taxes are really crazy.
