I was talking with someone who has worked in car manufacturing as a line worker for the last 12 years or so. He works for one of the Big Three, and so of course had to join the UAW as a condition of employment.
He said that absenteeism and sheer laziness are constant problems. He is one of the ones that works, but at least half the people working there are constantly trying to game the system–usually by getting some sort of bogus medical note that allows reduced work loads–and exerting more effort avoiding work than they would have done had they just done their jobs.
Often, he said, they have 2 people trying to do the jobs of 7 since 5 people called in “sick”, which amounts to “not wanting to work today”.
He said the Union bureaucracy is enormous. There are a great many people employed by the UAW who produce literally NOTHING, but whose salaries are paid by those who do, which is to say, ultimately, by Ford, and even more ultimately, by those consumers who still choose to buy Ford vehicles, despite the patently better quality at similar prices of Japanese vehicles assembled here by American workers who are NON-unionized.
This system is idiotic. It indulges the worthless, and punishes the productive. It leads to massive, regular layoffs, since Ford is constantly having to retool to compete.
Here is my net conclusion, studying most unions: unions lead to increased levels of unemployment, since by increasing costs for job-creators, they lower the overall demand for labor. Less buildings are built. Less people are employed, in the United States, by the Big Three.
Now, I work alongside union members on job sites all the time. They are noticeably more professional than non-union members, and in particular it has long seemed to me that where electricians in particular are concerned, there is clear benefit to buying union; but this is, and should be, a process of free markets. Where a given product–here, labor–makes sense even at a higher price because of higher quality, then no coercion is necessary.
As things stand, though, there is no difference in what the UAW does–in having negotiated a collective bargaining agreement across three large corporations, and having gotten government protection for this patent collusion and labor monopoly–and what would be the case if Ford, Chrysler, and GM got together to force wages DOWN, through lockouts and similar methods. The first just happens to be legal, and the second illegal. Further, unions are tax exempt, yet still allowed to contribute to political campaigns, whereas corporations have to pay taxes.
I have repeated Goldwater/Bozell’s ideas in “Conscience of a Conservative” often, but here they are:
1) One union, one company. Let each union work out its own deal with its own company. No more labor monopolies.
2) Union membership needs to be voluntary. If it is a good deal, then it will be a no-brainer. However, take the guy I was talking about at the beginning: if you told him that he could make what he’s making, put it into a FORD backed pension plan (versus Ford-funded UAW administered plan), and do away with all the malingers and whiners, he would jump on that in a heartbeat.
3) If you don’t pay taxes, then you don’t get to lobby or contribute to political campaigns. If you think about it, what unions do, in using union dues for political campaigns, is force people to contribute to political causes they may not believe in. Since union membership is compulsory, then there is no way out of this, if you want to work, and can’t find another, better job. This is ludicrous.
To this I would add that it is logical that all tax payers should have a voice in the political process. Corporations pay taxes, and therefore are entitled to make contributions. However, the same logic applies: it is a violation of the principle of individual sovereignty in the political process. You may work somewhere, but not approve of the use to which the income you help generate for that entity is being put.
My conclusion is that corporations should not pay ANY taxes. Zero. And their ability to make political contributions should likewise be ended.
Most Ivy Leagueish intellectuals will never have tried to form a corporation. They don’t really understand how business works. It is all crass to them. Money grows on Ivy League trees, as far as their practical knowledge goes.
Some years ago, though, I investigated the advantages of various forms of incorporation, which mainly act as legal barriers in law suits. There are two principle types of standard corporations: S Corps and C Corps (I’ll leave aside LLC’s and other forms of organization). In an S corporation, intended for very small businesses, the net profit/loss flows to an individual, who pays taxes on the profits, if any, of the corporation as ordinary income. That is the way I recall it.
In a C corporation, on the other hand, which is what most large corporations are, the corporation pays taxes on its own profit, but every individual in that corporation ALSO pays taxes on their income.
Let us take as an example a C corp consisting of one person. Let us say that I invent a new mousetrap, and go out to market it. First year I have $200,000 in sales, and $100,000 in costs. My corporation has made $100,000. The corporate tax rate is something like 30%. I don’t know if it is progressive, but let us use that number. That means that I pay $30,000 to the government. If I then distribute the entirety of that $70,000 to myself–which is probably a bad idea, since reinvestment is generally need for growth–then I get taxes AGAIN at something like 30%, so my $100,000 in apparent profit is reduced by another $21,000, so that out of $100,000 in apparent income, I have only made $49,000. This is very discouraging.
What people forget is that no business is destined for success. For every Bill Gates there are a number of John Smiths, who nobody remembers because he FAILED. Now, success would be much more likely if you only paid the 30% on your income, and not both your corporate AND individual income, no? The more cash you have in ANY business, the more likely you are to endure the vicissitudes of business cycles.
All of these things–everything I just stated–is to my mind blindingly obvious. I am left to wonder once again just how such stupidity as we see daily in our media became such an endemic parasite on the quality of our shared lives.