The case against unions in America.

Vic Biorseth, Saturday, May 02, 2009
https://www.catholicamericanthinker.com

We’ve all heard the clichéd pro-union talking points most of our lives:

• Unions built this country.
• Unions got better work conditions and pay for non-union members too.
• Union workers build the best products in America.
• American union workers are the best workers in the world.
• If it were not for unions working conditions and pay would be horrible.

And so forth and so on. Are all these statements that we’ve all heard all our lives really true? In a word – no. The main problem here involves the view of what the purpose of a business is.

To the business man, or the would-be business man, the purpose of starting a business and running it is to make profit; the more the better. Every potential entrepreneur begins with the notion of, first, being his own boss, and second, of making more money than he could ever make by working for someone else for wages. That’s the business view of the very reason for the existence of the business.

To the union, just as to the Marxist, the purpose for the existence of a business is to employ workers to produce a product or a service, and profit has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Indeed, profit is a bad word. Any businessman who seeks to profit from his business is seen to be evil. Where the union and the Marxist differ is in what to do with excess revenue. The union would prefer that it all to go to the workers, and the Marxist would prefer that it go to the dictator – I mean to the Party – ostensibly for the support of all of society. (But really, for the dictator.)

The goals and the purpose for being of the union is antithetical to the success of the private business. The goals of the union and the goals of the private business in a free market are at cross-purposes. They oppose each other, straight up. The only way for the union to fully succeed in its purpose for being is if the private business stops being private or otherwise stops seeking private profit, as if it were owned by someone other than the union. If that point were ever reached, where the union fully controlled the business, of course, the business would soon die.

Customers drive the marketplace, and the customer will be pleased; as soon as the customer is no longer pleased with the product or service – or the price of it – the fickle customer will turn to competing businesses for the same product or service, which will always be provided better, faster and cheaper by competitive private businesses. That’s just the way it is. Union guys don’t want to accept it, but that’s still the way it is.

Patriotism – the “buy American” slogan – has nothing to do with it. Cold economics, especially in hard economic times, trumps bumper sticker slogans. Nobody is willingly going to pay more for less of a product or service, and that’s just never going to change.

Unions consistently and continually seek higher wages and more benefits for less work. They do not care what that does to the competitive price of the product or service the business in business to produce. So long as there is any profit visible, they want it applied to more pay and benefits for union members. Unions actively instigate work “slow downs” in which members under-perform or take longer to complete tasks, to force the business to hire more workers in order to increase union membership, just to meet business work quotas. Unions, which are big businesses, profit from union dues, the more the better.

When I came home from Vietnam, the first civilian job I got was at the GM Fleetwood plant in Detroit. I was mildly surprised to learn that I had to join the UAW. ??? It was what they called a “closed plant,” which meant that all employees had to be UAW members before they could be hired as employees. No choice in the matter. The union dues would be automatically deducted right straight out of my paycheck. I didn’t like having nothing to say about it. The biggest surprise, to me, was that it was a law. The government was involved in this.

The law said closed shops were legitimate. The law bound stalled contract negotiations to government “arbitration,” in which the government would almost always lean to the union position. Historically, businesses always yielded and unions just about never lost any ground; they always gained, even if only a little. The courts and the government seemingly joined together to gang up on “big business.” And the SLIMC¹ joined right in – you can guess who’s side they were always on.

There was a purely union man, who had no “company” tasks, who was on the payroll and made more hourly than the rest of us, but who did nothing involving the production of Cadillacs. He was called the “Committee Man” and his sole function was to walk around or hang around making sure that no union rules or contracts were in any way violated. He was always anxious to write up “grievances” against the company. GM had to pay him to do that, and there were many more like him; every section of the whole assembly line had one. What do you think that did to the price of a Cadilac?

On the matter of loyalty – meaning to whom it was owed – you would think that it would be GM. But no. The logos you saw on hats, jackets, shirts and so forth were predominantly UAW, not GM. It was the same with bumper or window stickers on their cars. Workers were more proud of being union men than of being GM auto-workers. They felt less loyalty to the one who paid them than to their union.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that every big and famous union in America was originally organized by:

1. Organized crime families or other gangsters;
2. Communist organizers; or,
3. Both of the above.

If that is not true of any major American union I’ll be very surprised.

There has always been a close relationship between Marxism and the criminal element. Marxists need criminals, from the lowest levels of society, and from the highest. Marxism draws the criminal element. Major crime leaders, corrupt politicians and officials, corrupt big businessmen come from the top levels. Petty criminals from the lower social levels become the grass-roots “organizers” and trench-soldiers at the street level. Every historical Marxist dictator, especially the bloodiest ones – Stalin and Hitler – surrounded themselves with and inner ring of ruthless thugs, sociopaths and killers.

Even Castro, mild among Marxist dictators, had his Che Guevara, chief of his political murderers, who could have ordered all on the enemies lists killed, but who so often preferred to pull the trigger himself, and who so enjoyed killing people’s children before their eyes, before finally killing them. We can only guess who Obama might use in a similar capacity to “purge” his Party of enemies.

Now, some might think I’m going a bit far a-field here, but I don’t think so. “Workers Unite!” is the fundamental battle cry of Marxism; it is the grass-roots starting point of social revolution. But when the Marxists take the field and win the victory, everything changes for the workers. Take long, hard look at the Solzhenitsyn Speaks page to see how Marxism deals with worker negotiations in a full-on Marxist society. The chief labor negotiating tool of Marxism is the machine gun.

This is quite serious.

Look at the authority Obama is now exercising over formerly private industries and formerly private banks, with no opposition, and take fair warning.

Pray for America, Western Culture, and the whole world.

Get down on your knees and pray.

===============

Addendum Sat Jul 11 09:09:14 2009

Church teaching, a sense of justice and common sense should tell you that workers have every right to organize unions to collectively secure just compensation and working conditions.

We do not quarrel or argue with that obvious right. What we argue against is the “right”, or power, of a union to force someone to join against his own free will. When unions attain the size, power and scope that many American unions have attained, the Rule of Subsidiarity is violated just the same as when a government, or a monopoly, interferes with it. No union should become a monopoly itself. No union should be able to shut down an entire industry over the problems of one local workshop.

The conditions in Eastern Europe leading to the eventual fall of the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union were somewhat different. There, the Solidarity Movement was an organization of workers who resisted the owners of the means of production, which is to say, the state. Worker-citizens of a so-called Socialist and so-called Communist absolute dictatorship stood up to show the world the true nature of their “Worker’s Paradise.”

Up until then, no workers had ever dared to participate in a determined worker’s strike against a ruthless dictator and survived.

=====

Sarcastic Acronym Hover-Link Footnotes: For the convenience of those readers using devices that lack a mouse, these footnotes are provided for all webpages, in case any webpage contains any hover-links. (If you don't have a mouse, you can't "hover" it over a link without clicking just to see the simple acronym interpretation. Click any footnote link to see the acronym and a detailed explanation; "Hover" the mouse over it just to see the simple interpretation.)

SLIMC¹ Secularist Liberal Intellectual Media Complex
GESGOEAEOT² Gradually, Ever So Gradually, Over Eons And Eons Of Time
PEWAG³ Punctuated Equilibrium's Wild-Assed Guess
TTRSTF⁴ Them There Real Scientifical-Type Fellers
TTRSPTF⁵ Them There Real Smart Perfesser-Type Fellers
TTRSJTF⁶ Them There Real Smart Journalistical-Type Fellers
SNRTACBT⁷ Surely No Right Thinking Adult Could Believe Today
STNSEACPB⁸ Surely Today No Serious Educated Adult Could Possibly Believe
WDN⁹ We Don't Know
BMDFP¹⁰ Baboons, Mongrel Dogs, Filthy Pigs and ...
HBAACOTE¹¹ Human Beings Are A Cancer On The Earth
ACLU¹² Anti-Christian Litigation Union
FLORMPORIF¹³ Flagrant Liar, Or, Mindless Parrot, Or, Innocent Fool
MEJTML¹⁴ Marxist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
IEJTML¹⁵ Islamic Ends-Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
MPAV¹⁶ Marxist Principles And Values
WBESSWG¹⁷ Wise, Benign, Elite, Super-Scientific World Governance
TRMITM¹⁸ The Reason Man's In This Mess
IYI¹⁹ Intellectual Yet Idiotic
TTRSCBTF²⁰ Them There Real Smart Catholic Bishop Type Fellers
IACMPVND²¹ Illegal-Alien-Criminal Marxocrat-Party-Voting Nation-Destroyers
PEJTML²² Palestinian Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
PSYOP²³ "Psychological Operation" Mind Trick
CDC²⁴ Covid Developmentally Challenged
LGBTQ+ Every Letter Represents A Serious Psychotic sexual Identity Disorder
HEJTML²⁶ Hedonist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
SEJTML²⁷ Scientistic Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar

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Date: May 03 02:06:55 2009
From: PiperMac
Email: danfmcneill@hotmail.com
Location: North Cape May/ NJ/ USA
Comment:

The American union movement is NOT associated with Marxism. To the contrary, most unions consist of patriotic Americans, ex-military veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

Truth is in a perfect world we would not need unions, but just as the Molly Maguire’s, Mostly Irish immigrants, working in Pennsylvania Coal mines in the mid-nineteenth century found out ... greedy company executives, interested in maximum profit at their expense and safety, the union was a necessary evil. Sure there are corrupt union officials whom become hungry with power and greed. But one has just to look at the current financial crisis to see that corporations and large conglomerates put profit above all else, including the welfare of their employees. Outrageous salaries for their CEOs and executives, even as the company fails had become commonplace.

The unions are needed more today than ever as secularism debases the culture of Jude-Christian values which if adhered to by both unions and companies alike, would work to the benefit of all. Hard work and loyalty by an employee would result in equitable reward and sharing when the company does well. AS well as sacrifice when things are down.

Unions do not have a monopoly on greed and unreasonable demands. The companies which put profit above all else, which is the antithesis of true capitalism, are responsible for the very existence of unions to start with.

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Date: May 03 07:45:18 2009
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Pipermac:

The greatest part of the problem regarding the association between Marxism and the American labor movement is that the overwhelming majority of the American workers do not see or recognize the existence of the relationship. American workers are not the first to be duped and manipulated by the slick language of the MEJTML¹⁴ s among us. Patriotism has nothing to do with being duped. Decent men tend to be trusting men; they tend to believe what is preached to them from the unions more than what is preached to them from their own employers, for the simple reason that the unions always seek to get them more pay and benefits, while their employers always seek to increase the market share and profitability of the company.

We are agreed that there is and has been corruption and greed on both sides of the argument, and there have definitely been American examples of greedy employers endangering and exploiting workers. The fact remains that the goals of unions and the goals of industry are at cross purposes, and unions act to hinder their own employers in producing goods and services out in the otherwise free marketplace, to the benefit of all non-union competition.

Cases of corruption and scandal can be found on both sides, but it always seems to predominate on the union side, where union bosses even abscond with union pension funds. Look at where the big money goes after the big shots get it, on both sides. Look at the names associated with major public works; public libraries; university buildings and even whole universities; poor houses; charitable foundations; scholarship funds for bright students who otherwise might not be able to afford higher education, and so forth. Note how many times you see a name like Jimmy Hoffa, versus how many time you see the names of the worst of the American “Robber Barrons.” You will find names like Melon, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Ford, Kaiser, Hudson and so many others.

I’ll grant you that no one is without sin on either side. But one side seems to predominate when you look at charitable works and contributions. Union leadership – not union membership – is far more greedy than charitable.

This present economic crisis was brought about almost exclusively by our own government, not by bad management, or by greedy capitalists, although some incidents of those may be pointed out. If our government had never gotten involved in this private market matter, the whole situation would have naturally straightened itself out and we would not be in this economic mess. The more our government does to fix it, the worse the situation will become; mark my words. The statement that “we have to do something” is nothing but a lie. Marxists never fail to take advantage of any crisis, even if they have to invent one, or worsen one. Marxism needs crisis.

Regarding the pay and benefits and bonuses of the industry top dogs, as a union member, you should very well know that a contract is a contract, and if that is what the employee – whether a laborer or a big shot – signed on for, then that what he fully deserves to be paid.

At least until we go completely Marxist.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Mon May 04 22:43:19 2009
From: Allen
Email:
Location: Pontiac MI
Comment:

Nobody needs the amounts of money paid out in bonuses and salaries of the Big Three executives. They have always been way out of line.

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Date: Tue May 05 17:07:59 2009
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Allen:

”Needs?”

Are you the new Commissar of Needs and Abilities?

This is still America. Nobody gets to decide what somebody else needs.

I think the major problem here may be the ongoing failure to recognize the purpose of business and the responsibility of the business man. The chief responsibility of the business owner and/or operator is not to the employees, but to the risk takers and shareholders.

A man starts a business to make more money for himself and his household. A partnership starts a business to make more money for the partners. A corporation goes public or starts up to make more money for the investors and risk takers, who are footing the bill and taking the financial risk involved in getting it going. They will be, or they will hire, the best executives they can afford to buy to accomplish that end, and the free market sets the price, not you, and not me, and certainly not Obama.

Note well that our President is hiring and firing executives of private enterprises, directing reorganizations, ordering investors around, manipulating stock, and doing things remarkably similar to the things that Hitler did.

Including making imperial decisions regarding who needs what.

The dividing line between the private sector and “our” government is now gone.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Thu May 07 08:11:12 2009
From: Nate
Email:
Location: Langley, VA
Comment:

Sir:

You are quite correct in your observations regarding gangster and Communist involvement with early major union organization and control. Preceding and during WWII the government, FDR presiding, secretly negotiated with and even bribed major crime figures and Communists just to be able to ship goods in and out of the New York waterfront. We obtained critical military intelligence of use in the Mediterranean theater in return for substantial bribes that came out of tax revenue. As part of these negotiations the infamous Lucky Luciano was let out of prison. It was then common knowledge that Luciano and the Anastasia family absolutely controlled the waterfront, along with the ILA.

God bless you.

Nate

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Date: Fri Jul 10 22:47:59 2009
From: Anthony
Email:
Location: Detroit
Comment:

Church teaching, a sense of justice and common sense should tell you that workers have every right to organize unions to collectively secure just compensation and working conditions.

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Date: Sat Jul 11 09:09:14 2009
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Anthony:

That is absolutely correct. See the Addendum I just added at the bottom of the article, quoting your precise sentence.

I do not quarrel or argue with that obvious right. What I argue against is the “right”, or power, of a union to force someone to join against his own free will. When unions attain the size, power and scope that many American unions have attained, the Rule of Subsidiarity is violated just the same as when a government, or a monopoly, interferes with it. No union should become a monopoly itself. No union should be able to shut down an entire industry over the problems of one local workshop.

The conditions in Eastern Europe leading to the eventual fall of the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union were somewhat different. There, the Solidarity Movement was an organization of workers who resisted the owners of the means of production, which is to say, the state. Worker-citizens of a so-called Socialist and so-called Communist absolute dictatorship stood up to show the world the true nature of their “Worker’s Paradise.”

Up until then, no workers had ever dared to participate in a determined worker’s strike against a ruthless dictator and survived.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Tue Aug 31 10:00:31 2010
From: Chazz
Email: dbt.vito@att.net
Location: Dayton, Ohio USA
Comment:

As a Catholic, this right wing talk does not surprise me at all but you need to get your facts straight. Yes there is some corruption in a few Unions, hopefully that is [all] in the past.

Unions do not constantly ask for more and more- just a fair shake. Unions have trained more skilled trades workers than all of the so called trade schools, Unions give back to the community and help the needy Unions are nothing more than a group of workers united. the Union leaders only do what the rank and file vote for.

I guess Dr. Lawyers and the Chamber of Commerce are allowed to have Unions but not the working men and women of this country.

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Date: Tue Aug 31 19:50:57 2010
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Chazz:

Some corruption? I submit that the whole history of unions in America is loaded down with corruption. Hoping it’s in the past doesn’t make it so.

Why do unions need to ask for a “fair shake?” Couldn’t a non-union worker simply be worth his pay in an openly competitive job market? I disagree with this statement entirely. When I was a union member, the committee-man came around warning people about the company “time and motion man” who was watching them, and ordering workers to slow down and not work so efficiently. The warning was real. A man would do his job well at his own risk.

Nobody needs a union to be trained to do any kind of work. All anyone needs is job experience supervised by more experienced workers.

You say that unions “give back” to the community, which raises the question, what did the unions take from the community?

Unions do not do what the rank and file vote for. If they did, unions would not be supporting our dear leader Comrade Obama. The rank and file do not support him, but their union dues do.

I never knew that lawyers or the chamber of commerce were unionized. Working people are allowed to unionize; no one is stopping that. I am merely presenting an argument against unions, and against anyone being forced to join one in order to get a job. The market should be free.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Fri Dec 24 12:02:27 2010
From: Jayson
Email: Joyfull40@shaw.ca
Location: newwest canada
Comment:

Wow, you are a complete nutcase. You spout total crap. I had a union job until retirement. Because of that, I was able to care for my family in a decent way. They didn't have everything, but they did not go without. Unlike many non union workers making next to nothing so their families suffers. I'm amazed you get away with this this.

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Date: Mon Dec 27 06:35:34 2010
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Jayson:

Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s really what it’s all about: doing better than the next guy. Kind of like the capitalistic bourgeois pig who employed you and paid you more than the next guy, so that you could be a little more bourgeois than the next guy. Right? Your union has turned you into a very nice and obedient, mindless and dependent little pet.

I still “get away with” saying what I say because Comrade Obama has not completely succeeded in destroying America and the free market. Yet.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Mon Dec 27 07:01:38 2010
From: Curmudgeon
Email:
Location:
Comment:

Jayson,

You’re amazed that he can “get away with this”? Don’t you have freedom of speech in Canada?

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Date: Mon Dec 27 08:31:58 2010
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Curmudgeon:

I’m not sure that freedom of speech is codified into Canadian law or their constitution as it is here, but I think they are fairly free, although not as free as here. The most important thing to note here is that all forms of Marxism oppose free speech and seek to suppress it. And Jayson is a philosophical Communist who in all likelihood doesn’t even know what he is. That’s fairly typical of the species.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Wed Mar 02 08:18:39 2011
From: Chazz10
Email: dbt.vito@att.net
Location: Dayton, Ohio
Comment:

Comment:: You are completely off base, Unions started because of Greedy Business owners, like the ones of today’s world. Yes there have been a few Unions that were corrupt, but a very few. We need Unions more today than in the 1930's I am not surprised by your views, one only need look at your web page and see all of the anti-Obama messages and ads for Palin etc. You make me ashamed to be a part of the Catholic Faith.

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Date: Wed Mar 02 11:18:55 2011
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Chazz10:

Excuse me, but you are the one who is completely off base. Modern organized labor got its kickoff from WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! which was and is the last line in the Communist Manifesto. None of it ever aimed at any particular “Greedy Business Owner” because it was a global, international movement from the beginning. We never needed unions in the past, and we have no need of unions today. Not sure where your problem with Catholicism is, but your practice of faith should not be affected by any exercise of my own free will.

Do you believe that only organized union thugs have the right to free will, and that free will is a collective thing rather than an individual thing? Those of us not in the organization are to have no political voice?

What did you say your faith was?

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Tue Mar 22 22:43:38 2011
From: Jim Holbert
Email:
Location:
Comment:

I'm so sorry you had to come home from VN and then undergo the trauma of union employment. No doubt the high wages the union won for you helped ease the pain. You did take the money, didn't you? Then since unions are un-American and just plain wrong in your eyes, consider yourself an accomplice in the communist takeover of liberty. Perhaps the statute of limitations is past. In conclusion, I don't know what you do for a living now but don't forget, your job can also be eliminated or outsourced by your union-busting capitalist mentors, and if you're retired, don't think they aren't coming for your social security, because they are. Folks like you are helping to screw over folks like me and that wouldn't be a total downer except that folks like me are America, so no support from me on that one, pal.

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Date: Wed Mar 23 06:32:03 2011
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Jim:

Yeah, yeah; such a trauma it was. And yes, I took my wages, just like you. Detroit has been dominated by unions and Democrat politicians all of my life; there were and are virtually no jobs to be had in Detroit that do not require paying off a union, which meant and means paying regular union dues, from which payments were and are regularly made to the Communist Party. I mean Democrat.

You will never understand this, totally helpless and completely dependent little creature that you are, but I never felt more liberated than the day I changed careers, left that union shop and competed in the open job market.

And yes, you make a good point: I could be outsourced, and I could loose my investments, and I could loose my pension, and then, my heavens and goodness gracious, whatever would I do? And you won’t come to my aid either! Well, gosharooties and holy cow, whatever would I do, and however might I even survive?

You, on the other hand, can always, always, depend on your Socialist, criminal and government support system. After all, that’s what you’ve done all your life, isn’t it? So just rest well, have another cookie, and don’t worry your little head about it.

Regards,

Vic

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Date: Sat Jan 07 06:53:15 2012
From: tiredof1945
Email:
Location: Anniston, AL
Comment:

I agree completely with the author. I have seen first hand the strong arm tactics, intimidation and coercion of the union against employees and managers. A union in Alabama through their constant harassment and support of poor employees will be the cause of an entire base being closed through promoting inefficiency, support of employees whose work performance is poor and lawsuits. Corruption leads the way in Anniston, Alabama.

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Note:

Sunday, September 30, 2012

As part of the ongoing effort to upgrade this whole website, upgraded this webpage to the new BB 2.0 - SBI! 3.0 release and to make use of the new reusable code features.
An earlier phase of this major conversion corrupted or adversely affected some fonts, alignments, quotes and tables in the previously published webpages. Not to worry; this phase is converting them all, one by one. Eventually, every webpage on this site will have the same look and feel as this one.
LOVE this new release!

Regards,

Vic

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Date:   Fri Jul 11 2014
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Changes pursuant to changing the website URL and name from 
Thinking Catholic Strategic Center to
Catholic American Thinker.

Pulled the trigger on the 301 MOVE IT option June 1, 2014. Working my way through all the webpages.  . 

Regards,

Vic

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