What happens if America loses its unions???

Dixie said:
Nope, not for a trend that's been happening for over 40 years. But it's okay, I have a fairly lengthy list of things I do blame Obama for.
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I'm sure you do. Did you blame Bush for anything?
 
\\()// said:
But the decline of American manufacturing is solely due to unions?
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It's a bit closed-minded to think that anything is SOLELY the cause of anything else. It's usually a combination of several factors, converging to create a problem. With the problem of losing manufacturing sector jobs, the actions of the unions is the driving force, but there are others. Increasing restrictions and regulatory burdens from government, for example. Mandates for health care and other benefits, yet another factor. And you can even include trade resolutions like NAFTA and GATT for part of the problem. But the main driving force, is the collective bargaining of unions, which drove the price of American labor too high for the market.
 
\\()// said:
And you can provide evidence of that?
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Self-evident. What is the 'average' cost per hr. for US labor currently, versus the cost abroad?

You see, what you have to do, is look at American labor as a commodity. Our labor has to compete with labor provided by others globally. Now, there are a lot of advantages to our labor as opposed to others, but there are also many disadvantages. Let's think of them as automobiles... A Cadillac is more expensive than a Yugo, but it has a much better ride and doesn't break down as often. A Rolls Royce is better than a Cadillac, but is it worth the extra 3x in price? Maybe, for some. But what we have with American labor at the moment, is a Volkswagen being sold at Rolls Royce prices. Now of course, it's completely incidental that Rolls Royce owns Volkswagen, but the point is, a VW isn't a Rolls, and the market won't purchase it as such.

We have to again make American labor competitive with the rest of the world, and we CAN do that. We have a lot of things to offer, and ways we can be more competitive, but the first priority has to be coming to terms with unions and collective bargaining. Until we can achieve that, nothing we can do will ever fix this problem, it will continue to get worse and worse. Blaming past presidents or political parties, doesn't fix this problem. Being dishonest and hyperbolic, doesn't fix this problem. Refusing to acknowledge the role unions have played in driving up the cost of American labor, is not going to fix this problem.
 
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