Do any of you actually belong to unions? You pro-union guys?

Because I do, and have done so for over 40 years.

The Musicians Union.

And I have had extensive experience with other unions.

Actors, stagehands, so-called "electrical workers" (network video editing), etc.

I am sure that they reflect the same problems as the industrial unions, and those problems are basically as follows.

They are as crooked as the companies that they unionize. Just as venal, just as unimaginative, just as weak-minded. And they reflect their membership in these regards, just as corporations reflect their stockholders. The whole system is bloated and essentially rotted out.

End of problems.

Now that is not to say that they are all that way, any more than one can say that the entire corporate world is totally without merit. Nor are the problems necessarily permanent. Positive changes do happen. But then again sometimes there is a regression.

I personally live on both sides of the union thing. The musicians' union only does a "good" job...and it's not all that good really...in areas where the amount of money being spent on the music is sufficient for the union to make a profit. (Unions are businesses, too.)  And it does not spend much time dealing with minority musics, either. Why?  Both because most musicians of races  other than white simply do not trust the union, for starters, and because since the political culture of the union is almost entirely white the union organizers simply do not really have much of a grasp on how music works in minority cultures. Plus of course the money being spent by white middle class people on Broadway and classical forms dwarfs the amount being spent on latin and jazz styles, as does the mainstream Hollywood and pop recording system.

Mechanization?

The entire commercial recording scene got mechanized (synthesizers and digital recording techniques) right out of existence in the '80s + '90s, and the union was as lame in its response to the problem as  have been the industrial unions in dealing with similar issues. Broadway shows are next. Bet on it. Google "virtual orchestra" for all you need to know on that matter.

The spread out from heavily unionized areas (LA, NYC) to less unionized situations? just exactly the same as what is happening in the auto industry. Work follows wages. All the way to Sumatra if things get really out of hand.

I offer no solutions, other than government applying pressure to unions to improve the same way that it is now applying pressure to the corporate and financial worlds. They are all intermingled, really. And a further problem is that government itself has been involved in the same downward spiral over the past 40 years or so.

When I say that the whole system is rotted out, this is what I mean. Kneejerk support of "unionization" is no more intelligent and will be no more effective than equally kneejerk support of free market corporatism.

Only support of overall excellence...including governmental prosecution of criminality...will begin to change things.

Why did so much industrial work leave the U.S.?

Basically because it could be done cheaper elsewhere.

Why is that?

Because the American standard of living became inflated.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but there it is. We got soft and bloated, and it is time to trim on down.

You think that wages will decrease in the southern auto plants if the UAW goes down?

Could be. If they decrease suufficiently,, then a new union will appear and the same cycle will commence once again.

Would it be "better" if the union survived so that the unionization wheel does not have to be forever reinvented?

Sure.

Then the union has to trim down, too.

We are ALL too fat.

"Leaner and meaner" said Barack Obama recently.

Speaking in a taped interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama seemed to be trying to brace the nation for tougher economic times. But at a news conference in Chicago later Sunday, he tempered his remarks with a dose of optimism.

"I am absolutely confident that if we take the right steps over the coming months that not only can we get the economy back on track, but we can emerge leaner, meaner and ultimately more competitive and more prosperous," he said.

"...leaner, meaner and ultimately more competitive and more prosperous."

Yup.

This is where he is right on the money.

The unions, the corporations, the financial system and government as well.

It ALL has to lean on down.

And kneejerk support of bloated unions is not the answer.

Peace.

It's what's for dinner.

And prosperity as well.

But not in gluttonous proportions, please.

We done already bogarted the world's joint to a point where we are Public Enemy #1 across the globe.

Time to back offa the feed trough a little.

We be bettah off if we do.

Leaner and meaner.

Bet on it.

Later...

AG

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

Perfect.

More confirmation.

Good piece from Barnes. Of course, he makes it quite clear that in return for no unions in the foreign-owned plants, the workers are paid really well. Dunno why, but I somehow sorta get the feeling that American executives "copying" the foreigners will try to skimp on paying their employees any more than they're paying now. They'll try and get everything their way without any reasonable quid pro quos.

   So when there is no one left with money to buy a car in the US? Well Nissan and KIA will just move their factories to another country. A country that can enrich them with cheap labor costs relative to the price of the automobiles they sell.
   Its easy to realize a profit from $2000 cars if you only pay $10 an hour in labor costs. As long as the profit is there its cool. Hybrids? Forget about it, they are too expensive for the workers whose salaries we pay. Goodbye you are no longer useful. We want to destroy living standards across the world. Its just more insanity from the shortsighted idiots.
   The south? They have never been particularly loyal to the Union when labor costs are involved. BTW....Fuck you Corker.

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; now we know that it is bad economics;" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Anyone know what kind of health benefits or retirement benefits these non-union auto workers get?

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

thanks for this info

They have been going after Unions since they were first enshrined.  UAW is the crown jewel.  Off shoring has been directly targeting union jobs for a long time.  Directly attacking the democrats funding base.  Obama's campaign via small donors must've been a shock.  We will have to see what they do to prevent that kind of campaign in the future.  

Thom Hartmann made an interesting statement on Olbermann's show Friday:

We have gone, when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufactured goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And the largest creditor. More people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now just twenty eight years later we're the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods, exporter of raw materials which is kind of the definition of a third world nation and we're the most in debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics.

So here we are facing 2009 and it doesn't look like things will change anytime soon.

The Republicans have kicked the UAW in the face by not supporting the Big 3 auto makers. Now, unless the TARP is hit for support of the auto industry by Bush's Treasury Department, we will see at least GM and Chrysler go bankrupt (Ford is apparently in a little better shape... but not much) and unemployment in the industry, including suppliers and dealers and even the waitresses in the restaurants where employees get lunch, will grow quickly.

Obama's election may signal change, but such change will not upset 28 years of deconstruction with any immediacy. And, remember, we still have people like Mitch McConnell in the Senate who will work very hard to get us into the Depression that the Republicans seem to be aiming at something they have not been able to pull off since Herbert Hoover.

It seems to me that it is necessary now to start planning to remove more Republicans in the 2010 elections... even though we know that mid-Presidency elections often swing to the opposing party. Keeping America focused on its real needs is a very hard job, but it will offer progressive blogs a deep and important subject to which we may commit our ongoing work.

Under The LobsterScope

Just to refresh your memory on the definition of "mean", as it applies here:

mean 2  (mn)
adj. mean·er, mean·est
1.
a. Selfish in a petty way; unkind.
b. Cruel, spiteful, or malicious.

2. Ignoble; base: a mean motive.
   
3. Miserly; stingy.
   

4.
a. Low in quality or grade; inferior.
b. Low in value or amount; paltry: paid no mean amount for the new shoes.

5. Common or poor in appearance; shabby: "The rowhouses had been darkened by the rain and looked meaner and grimmer than ever" Anne Tyler.
   
6. Low in social status; of humble origins.
   
7. Humiliated or ashamed.
   
8. In poor physical condition; sick or debilitated.
   
9. Extremely unpleasant or disagreeable: The meanest storm in years.
   

Yeah ... way to go Obama - a "meaner" society is just what I'm looking forward to.

This society has got far "meaner" over the last 30 years than I care to think about. We don't need to get "meaner" still.