Sure were the days, some of my best friends Dads worked at the Bethlehem or Republic steel plants. They earned top bucks back then, even got 13 weeks paid vacation, full medical and life insurance, yep it was great. SOme of my friends followed their Pops into the plants, or went to work at places like GM's Harrison Radiator and Trico. Everyone paid that high rate and offered competitive benefit packages. Life got even better, wow what a ride.

Today not one of those plants exist, the high labor costs sent the steel making first to Michigan and Alabama, then overseas. The guys that I went to school with suddenly lost their jobs, benefits and pensions. Sure was good while it lasted, but someone didn't understand the old proverb about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Maybe you should read it some day, because you're advocating taking the same damned path.

 

That is an interesting spin on things. Please explain how the economic policies of the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II benefited your friends. When labor unions were stronger, when the minimum wage was worth more in terms of constant dollars, and when the top tax rate was higher, your friends were better off.

 

Yup, that's what did it, all right. Imagine! Ordinary, rank-and-file workers wanting to get paid higher wages, to have better working conditions, even health care, fercrissakes! And they actually ORGANIZED to try to extort these benefits from their poor, downtrodden, god-fearing employers! What NERVE!!

/sarcasm

Tenguy, why do you impute almost unlimited power to labor unions, and almost NO power to manufacturers?

 

There jobs evaporated in the 60's and early 70's you know the era. Reagan, Bush and Bush had nothing to do with it, if anything they were trying to rebuild American business, not bleed it to death.

My friends all went on to other things, most of them did alright, but they never duplicated those good old days. My path took me in a different direction. In my 50+ years of working, I was never unemployed, rarely made less than the prior year and never went without protecting my families future. In that time I had several businesses go under for multiple reasons, usually market changes and economic conditions. But, I would start another one and hit the ground running.

 

Is it really necessary for me to post my article from The Wall Street Journal again? Since the administration of Lyndon Johnson, job creation has always been greater under Democratic presidents. Bill Clinton set the record for high job creation. George the Lesser set the record for low job creation. Now President Obama is blamed for not working economic miracles. It ought to have occurred to at least a few Republican deep thinkers that when Bush II started two expensive wars he could not win while cutting taxes he was during durable damage to the U.S. economy.

 

Most people who lose factory jobs with strong unions and good benefits end up with lower wage service industry jobs with no benefits.

What you are really arguing is that a thriving economy requires a high percentage of employees to accept a standard of living that is close to third world levels. When I point out that Western Europe is doing will with less economic inequality than the United States, you claim that their welfare states are not economically sustainable. Nevertheless, you think it is economically sustainable for the United States to continue to spend 40% of what the rest of the world spends on the military while paying lower taxes than practically every other affluent democracy.

 

A couple of things have to do with the union system being totally different in Europe.

Unions again are an exponent of political streamings. You've got the Socialists, The Christians, The Liberals and the Independent Unions.

Those Unions sit together and work out "Collective Workers Agreements" with the different sectors, like, Profit, Non-Proft, Horeca/entertainment, Steel Industry (which covers a lot of sub-industries), Chemical Industry', etc...

The only reason why in Europe you would end up with a lesser paid job, would be if you switched, for example, from the Chemical Industry (very high minimum --or starters-- wages) to the Transport Industry (lowest starters wages around)...

Wages are also calculated in respect with age, experience and/or diploma. You could go to work at a GM assembly line with a Civil Engineer's diploma, but the comapny would have to pay you 4 times as much as an 'average' worker, because of the diploma...

 

Absolutely right, I would not wish the racism, homophobia, bullying and basically having an education beaten into me, onto my son.

I agree with this also so there is hope. Whether this will continue through this current recession, I am not sure.

Thinskin

 

i enjoy most of these, but i am glad somethings that where in the 50s have changed

i do not think the cure us worse then the diseas then it comes to civil rights...but it is getting close

 

Nah, sorry Kimiko, girls can't get into fights and be friends afterwards, they just end up hating each other.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and try and figure out a way to (as safely as possible) take a bump of a fifteen foot scaffold and through a couple of tables... ... that will be on fire.

 

Aye, that's what I was thinking. People have a romantic vision of something that didn't exist... In those days people didn't talk about shit that went on behind close doors. These days people shout about their woes on forums like this... What ever happened to a stiff upper lip?

 

Kimi, I do not impute anything of the sort. What I was talking about is reality, what actually happened, not what I wanted to happen.

Labor Unions have served a great place in our country, without them, most of the advances in workers rights would have been slow coming, if at all. But that does not excuse the high handed pressure tactics used by the more powerful unions against wishy washy management, such as what happened in the steel industry.

Believe me, I have disillusions of why the steel industry moved out of our country. The glory days of American heavy industry were waning immediately following WWII. The corporations had been able to charge what ever they felt like charging for most of the 40's and all of the 50's, workers want $25/hour, gie it to them, we'll just pass it on. Thirteen weeks paid vacation, sure hire some more guys and pass it on. Then India and Japan got into the act and competition reared its head. US made steel could not compete, so the Prez said put import duties on the foreign steel, but then they stopped buying what we had to sell, finished goods and we relented. Goodbye steel industry.

The same happened in the auto industry. And in a very similar manner happened to health care costs.

 

If you didn't live it, it didn't happen.

Oh, why do we repeat history so often?

 

If all that is true, then you should stop demonizing labor unions for doing their job. Management should have done ITS job, which is to figure out what it takes to be competitive and profitable.

 

Yeah, the 1950's were the glory days, weren't they? Living in constant fear of being vaporized by the evil communists, the Red Scare, none of those pesky minorities being uppity about wanting to marry white women or have decent jobs and educations (or, God forbid, President!)...

The Good Ol' Days!

 

Not only that....I don't know HOW those people in the '50s ever got their hands on good porn.

 

Hey, they didn't have sex in the 50ies... Kids came out of the sky by means of Storks, remember?

and when they ran out of Storks because shooting the lot off of their chimneys, the kids grew from cauliflowers...

Sweden put yee ol' rockin' and rollin' back on the map in the sixties, thanks to Lasse Halstrom...

 

Thank you for explaining that to me. Many Americans think that the United States has nothing to learn from the rest of the world. I think that if we want to learn how to do something correctly, we should see how it is done in Western Europe.

 

I forgot to add that those "Collective Workers Agreements" cover a lot of ground, like the minimum/maximum wages to be paid, again per age/experience/diploma category, how many payraises and when those payraises shoul/could occur, the amount of hours in a day/week/month to work, etc.

Union leaders are elected among the peers. Those Union leaders are representatives of the workers, who sit in at company meetings and Union meetings alike.

Unions also put up Safety Commitees in all the different companies, in co-op with the board of directors, etc...

The only reason why there are different Unions is because of the different backgrounds of people, to make 'em feel more comfortable, because the Unions all work together to get better working conditions...

Oh, and "HoReCa" is the Hotel/Restaurant/Café" branch of the "industry"...

 

i did not live in the 50's just like most of you so i find it funny thet you feel the need to degrade a time period by what you learned on tv and in history class.