Mr. Independent – again, stop defining a different perspective as a lie.
Oh, speaking of ‘lies’..
Please read your post #21, where you state that Mexico has ‘virtually no organized labor’. Please note the absence of the qualifier ‘in the private sector’. And also #12, where you again state ‘there is virtually no organized labor in Mexico’. Again, note the absence of the qualifier. hmm.
Oh, and you didn’t provide any evidence for your above noted opinion.
Defining a union as ‘providing representation’ as its only benefit is trivial. There is no need for a worker to pay the massive dues for ‘representation’. You can achieve the same result of representation with a shop steward, with participatory management. No need for the dues, no need for the development of massive parastic corporations that move into political lobbying, that force wages up, force prices up, result in lowering of the quality of work..etc.
And comparing a union to a legislature is an invalid analogy. A union does not act as the administration of the company, while a national legislature does. A national legislature defines the economic infrastructure of the ‘company’ (i.e. the nation); its internal and foreign relations and infrastructure. A union does none of the above and is supposed to represent only the factors of the workplace. Your analogy is weak and again, there is no need to set up a union to act merely as ‘a representative’.
Friedman and Sherk, among so many others, point out that unions DO harm the economy. You have nothing to say about their research that concludes how, exactly, unions harm the economy. By the way, are you, like them, an economist? Check out Sherk’s references to his article. He knows what he’s talking about.
Oh, and you provide no evidence for your conclusions that unions don’t cost jobs, increase costs etc..in Canada. Why don’t you provide this evidence?
The private sector unions in Canada cost jobs and increase costs of the goods- as evidenced by the loss of jobs in the auto industry in Ontario, in the forestry in BC, manfacturing in Ontario and Quebec, etc..and in the public sector, in health care, education.
The public sector tries to raise taxes to pay for its bloated staff..but..this eventually runs out (as in California).
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2009/12/c6633.html
The above is from the public sector union Executive in Canada, insisting that unless the govt comes up with more money, massive public sector job losses will result. More money? Is that because the unionized job wage increases are 3% more than the non-unionized private sector? Is that because of the cost of the extra benefits..which include such ‘goodies’ as banking your sick days and taking them as up to SIX MONTHS extra salary when you retire? Oh..and the fact that the unionized companies and the public sector..can’t pay the cost of the bloated pensions of these union workers?
Your ‘rebuttal’ to the experts of Friedman and Sherk, has been to provide only example (your Canadian example is invalid because of the large loss of jobs in Canada). And your example of Mexico is invalid because both the public and private sector in Mexico are unionized and you totally ignore that the poverty in Mexico is not related merely to unionization but to its late industrialization ..Europe, US and Canada were industrialized in the 19th c..not 1930..and its embeddedness within the US economy..and its corruption and its refusal to develop an economy outside of the main cities.
Again, how do unions benefit the workers? And your claim that they ‘provide repesentation’ is not merely weak but trivial. Further, your rebuttal arguments citing Canada and Mexico are filled with inaccuracies (no, I’m not calling you a liar;I’m an adult and I don’t play the schoolyard game of ‘liar, liar’).
Your sentence” If the vast majority of union members in Canada do not work in the economy how are they causing the harm to it’..is totally unintelligible. Obviously a ‘union member’ who is working IS in the economy. And my point is that a union harms the economy. Just because one is working within a union doesn’t mean that the union isn’t harming the economy..with its unequal wages, benefits, increase of costs.
