1900luxuryliner

She's not right. She has an opinion. Don't confuse opinion and right-wing political belief with fact. By the way, I've never read a business or economics textbook that specifically said anything bad about unionism. If there is one out there, it is horribly slanted, presenting opinion as fact, and should be removed from the shelves. If it was fact, there would be no such thing as a left-wing, democrat economist. It's a difference of opinion with very valid arguments on each side of the issue; not something that can be directly quantified and proven as fact. Each side of the issue can work the numbers to show the validity of their argument.

sandlapper223

There appears to be a second part to this gentleman's question. Am I reading this right? No one has addressed this yet:

Is this to say, that your wife is asking if you would cross picket lines and return to work during the Pinnacle pilot group authorized strike?

Am I reading this correctly?

Lab Rat

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. (and no, I am not in management)

Put yourself in the shoes of a manager running a regional airline. Realistically, we can surmise that there is no shortage of people willing to
take flying jobs for low pay, low benefits, and lousy QOL issues. With that being said, where is the incentive for management to raise the bar when there is a surplus of people willing to lower it even further?

I would say a natural product of capitalism is supply and demand.

Bond

Unions are only as good as their members, which often gets lost in the middle of all these arguments. Hence the reason why IMHO the ALPA leadership at XJT has been very successful at working with management to improve and/or resolve any issues through out the years. Conversely, if you look at a union leadership like that of MESA a few terms back, well not exactly who I would want in my corner, and they were also ALPA. So again, the union is as good as the people in it, supporting it.

As far as the original poster's question, one word for you...Lorenzo. Have your wife read jflying the line vol 1 & 2, and if that isn't enough, have her take a look around, Tilton, J.O., Bedford, need I say more?

Lab Rat

Yes. Your examples cited above are unique only to the airline industry. The original poster is posed with a question regarding the effects of unions on business in a much broader sense.

Again, as I alluded to earlier, where is the incentive to offer high pay and excellent benefits when people are lined up out the door willing and ready to accept flying jobs for even lower pay and work rules? How many kids coming out of aviation colleges would accept a job right out of school at a major without even caring about pay and benefits?

The reason why people like Lorenzo and J.O. are able to do what they do is because the collective pilot work force gives them a blank check to do so.

1900luxuryliner

Incentives: Higher quality employees (less risk of an accident), fewer bogus sick calls, less turnover and attrition, higher productivity, lower training costs, including retraining pilots who don't care about the quality of the work they do, as well as training new pilots, due to attrition, etc.

By the way, a natural product of capitalism is supply and demand. But, just because I don't want to be a victim of that fact, doesn't make me a communist, or socialist, or whatever right-wing slanted propaganda word is being recklessly and incorrectly thrown around by Fox News these days.

Bond

All sectors of the transportation industry in the United States are covered by unions, cab drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, pilots, delivery drivers, train operators, now why do you think that is? Could it be that although not the same, the business models are similar across the board..hmmm...imagine that? CEO's trying to maximize profit and in absence of positive margins, creating yields by attempting to take concessions from their work force. History has shown that to be the case at one point or another in all sectors of the transportation industry in the US.

As far as your reasoning behind folks like Lorenzo and J.O., well J.O. does fall under the category of pilots being our own worst enemy to a certain degree but not entirely; Lorenzo on the other hand, I suspect you're either too young to remember or do not know your history. You may want to brush up on your history.

macflyer

While I see the argument you are trying to support, I do not think you are thinking about the entire picture. In a healthy capitalist free market system, the driving force, what the smithians know as the “invisible hand”, is driven by greed and the natural incentive to want more and not less. This can “greed” can be satisfied in many different form and not just limited to monetary terms, such as a sense of fulfillment, happiness, desire to succeed, or simply not having to feel the pain of poverty.

As to your example of the farmer, though a good example, it fails to ignore the “greed” factor. It ignores the fact that the farmer is energized by the incentive to be better or earn more if he possibly can. If the farmer, in a free market, decides to take a job which feeds his family on rare occasions, the farmer has done so willingly and knowingly. In the absence of the unlikely even that the farmer is masochist or a sadist to his family, this represents the fact that the current choice of opportunity is the best for the farmer at the given time. He simply has no better offer then the 5% the land owner is willing to throw at him. If he did have a better opportunity he would most certainly take advantage.

The farmer has exercised his choice and the land owner is under no obligation to pay him any amount more then the farmer is willing to work for. Its not charity, its business.

The farmer has the option to make due with the current situation in blind hope of a brighter one in the future or make himself more marketable either by education or learning future trade or skills in areas that are in demand and will be in the future.

The problem with a union setting is that the incentive for bettering yourself is completely eliminated. This incentive is replaced by an arbitrary rules of compensation not associated with actual merit or production value. Further more, as we all know, no one person can force anyone to hire them as an employee, yet, what the unions do is force an employer to enter into CBAs that are not forcable and are considered inapporpriate under individual circumstances.

This totalitarian approach along with lack of incentive for competing on a open forum drives down production, raises costs, and shrinks industry.

In short, your wife is right.

As to wether this is politics, facts, or opinions....

This is not politics. Politics has no place is economics or business but unfortunately our government is very blind to that fact, more so today then ever.

I have read many books, college text or otherwise, which on bases of business and sound economic theory advise against unionization and promote free market. They do this with long and solid theories backed by simple mathematics, but as you said they are in the end “theories”.

Unfortunately for you or anyone who is in chase of “facts”, they do not exists. After many years of studies in physical sciences and economics, I myself cannot think how to distinguish a “fact” from a theory. Its a very thin grey line.

Also, once again you are correct in saying that unless something is a “fact” its an opinion. Theories are opinions, but they are opinions of the educated type vs. less educated or very commonly, none educated.

Your wife has a great opinion, Im not sure if it is of the educated relam or not. I would assume it is of the kind. Nevertheless, she is correct in her humble opinion.

ZDub

Ah, wasn't the general idea behind labor unions to protect those that really needed to be protected? Vis a vis, those poor, drooling uneducated masses didn't have the captiol or clout to be represented against those that sought to exploit them and use them under serf like conditions, and therefore required the benefit of an orgaization with that clout to do that for them? Now, for clarity, there is all the room in the world for representaion at every level, and payscales should be negotiated according to education, experience, skill set and, big one here, competency. $12/hr labor should not be paid $40/hr by sole virtue of having a negotiated contract, but you're not suggesting that only the top bun of the burger should enjoy the protection and QOL enhancements that orgaization can provide?

ZDub

Gotta' tell 'ya, not in complete agreement with this, but, VERY well worded, and certainly some food for thought. Great post, and thank you for excercising intellect.