The Gini Index and US Tax Rates

[alienlovechild 75]

I'd agree with that. Looking back to the 1920's, Unions were effectively destroyed and as you said the 1930's were so bad that people did show a renewed interest in organized labor.

Nonsense. Union membership dropped in th 1930s because there was a little thing called the Great Depression. Union memberships peaked in 1958 after they were "effectively destroyed" in the 1920s.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/lm-unn2003.htm

BTW, unions don't create jobs and if you grew up in the Rust Bowl like I did, you'd see an economic graveyard caused in part by unions.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Nonsense. Union membership dropped in th 1930s because there was a little thing called the Great Depression. Union memberships peaked in 1958 after they were "effectively destroyed" in the 1920s.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/lm-unn2003.htm

BTW, unions don't create jobs and if you grew up in the Rust Bowl like I did, you'd see an economic graveyard caused in part by unions.

Union busting?

[Dan J 277]

Nonsense. Union membership dropped in th 1930s because there was a little thing called the Great Depression. Union memberships peaked in 1958 after they were "effectively destroyed" in the 1920s.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/lm-unn2003.htm

BTW, unions don't create jobs and if you grew up in the Rust Bowl like I did, you'd see an economic graveyard caused in part by unions.

Unions were never suppose to create jobs. All the did was give workers collective bargaining power against their employer. If a union was across an industry, no company would be at a competitive disadvantage negotiating with the union. Unions are the probably the largest single reason for a middle class in the US. Up until industrialization, most people were living in poverty substance farming. During early industrialization, people were not much better off, but instead in dangerous factory conditions, being paid very little.

The two biggest reasons for the decline of unions are technology and globalization. Technology automated a lot of manual labor processes eliminating the need for as many workers and globalization meant that companies no longer needed to negotiate with unions, they could just move operations overseas.

Unions can't do much about either problem, technology is going to happen, the best you can do is adapt. The only way unions can do something about the second problem is to to form worldwide unions. Which is basically politically impossible.

With globalization, we have taken advantage of the parts of it which benefit companies and shareholders, but have done little to make sure workers are not exploited in the process. The unemployment rate is currently at 10% officially, but if you look at who is unemployed, you can see the effects of this. Workers with 4 year college education have an unemployment rate hovering around 4%. But for workers with less education, the rate in some places climbs as high as 20-25%

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Unions were never suppose to create jobs. All the did was give workers collective bargaining power against their employer. If a union was across an industry, no company would be at a competitive disadvantage negotiating with the union. Unions are the probably the largest single reason for a middle class in the US. Up until industrialization, most people were living in poverty substance farming. During early industrialization, people were not much better off, but instead in dangerous factory conditions, being paid very little.

The two biggest reasons for the decline of unions are technology and globalization. Technology automated a lot of manual labor processes eliminating the need for as many workers and globalization meant that companies no longer needed to negotiate with unions, they could just move operations overseas.

Unions can't do much about either problem, technology is going to happen, the best you can do is adapt. The only way unions can do something about the second problem is to to form worldwide unions. Which is basically politically impossible.

With globalization, we have taken advantage of the parts of it which benefit companies and shareholders, but have done little to make sure workers are not exploited in the process. The unemployment rate is currently at 10% officially, but if you look at who is unemployed, you can see the effects of this. Workers with 4 year college education have an unemployment rate hovering around 4%. But for workers with less education, the rate in some places climbs as high as 20-25%

Great post.

I do think there is room for service sector jobs to organize, and it has been happening. Janitors have been organizing, cafeteria workers. While I agree that technology and globalization has changed the job market, we have also experienced explosive growth in service sector jobs. These are not jobs that can simply outsourced or replaced with technology. Service sector jobs need the negotiating power of organized labor.

[Dan J 277]

Great post.

I do think there is room for service sector jobs to organize, and it has been happening. Janitors have been organizing, cafeteria workers. While I agree that technology and globalization has changed the job market, we have also experienced explosive growth in service sector jobs. These are not jobs that can simply outsourced or replaced with technology. Service sector jobs need the negotiating power of organized labor.

Its all a matter of what the technology will cost vs what labor will cost. In the US, most car washes now are automatic. If you go to a carwash with any manual labor you probably will pay a premium. In Indonesia, the balance is on the other side, labor is still very cheap, that you can't find any automatic car washes.

The same thing will happen in other sectors. Stores have begun to adopt self-checkout lanes in some cases and it probably wont be long before getting a mcdonalds order involves punching into a kiosk.