People forget why manufacturing was moved out of the US. Manufacturing jobs sucked major ass. Then they sucked less ass, when unions started gaining power. Then the companies saw their employees had prosperity, said “fuck you”, and left.
We’ve crippled unions to such an absurd degree that the reality is that, if manufacturing came back, the quality of life for average Americans would go down significantly. It’s not 1955 - you’re out of your goddamn mind if you think a factory worker can maintain the quality of life now, let alone afford a suburban home on one income like in the past.
Okay, then we'll have unions then. I don't see what the issue is here. I have heard this reasoning several times, even in person, it seems to misunderstand the action of protectionism in the first place.
You can't have an industrial economy if workers don't have any leverage to demand sufficient wages or if unions have so much power that they bring the balance of labor negotiations to unprofitability.
I don't think manufacturing jobs suck ass. They probably aren't great for your physical health, but it is better for society spiritually in the long term to have the majority of society focused on producing something real rather than just having an endless network of fake jobs as a means of wealth distribution.
The factory worker of today can't afford anything because they are competing with third world wageslaves to outsource manufacturing to our geopolitical rivals.
America wont have unions nor consumer protections. For that matter, it wont investigate crypto scams either and will accept industrial pollutions to save factory owners money. Meaning, workforce will be less healthy due to impact on air they themselves are breathing.
There is no planned change to create protections for low level employees, but there are many changes allowing owners to do whatever. Once competition ranks up, they will be forced to pollute and mistreat workers or go out of business.
>it is better for society spiritually in the long term to have the majority of society focused on producing something real rather than just having an endless network of fake jobs as a means of wealth distribution.
OK, you want to sacrifice health of some for "spiritual benefit" of others. But those jobs will be as fake as healthier jobs those people have now.
Why not? I would vote for it.
IDK how consumer protections fits into this, but avoiding crypto scams is pretty easy, just don't invest in crypto if you don't know what you're doing. It's only on the utility/monopoly scale that the government needs to be involved in consumer protections. Net Neutrality is a great example of the dems having the right idea.
I think democrats would have a decent chance of winning elections if they abandoned idpol stuff.
>There is no planned change to create protections for low level employees, but there are many changes allowing owners to do whatever. Once competition ranks up, they will be forced to pollute and mistreat workers or go out of business.
Okay, then we'll change regulation to better suit this. The purpose of protectionism is to reduce this competition.
>OK, you want to sacrifice health of some for "spiritual benefit" of others. But those jobs will be as fake as healthier jobs those people have now.
I don't think so. The end purpose of industrial jobs is to produce something real. The purpose of most jobs today is to do literally nothing while acting as a wealth distribution mechanism: our country basically makes money by selling our currency to be used by other nations as the global reserve currency.
David Graeber has a good book about this called "Bullshit Jobs" if you are interested in this theory.
Each worker can negotiate easily on their own behalf or simply work elsewhere. Unions are unnecessary and always end up corrupt and wasteful.
This is a complete re-writing of history.
Unions were not "abusive". Typical union negotiations pushed for safe(r) working environments and reasonable wages.
Companies moved overseas not because they were abused (Jesus Christ). They moved because there's lots of parts of the world where you have access to psuedo-slave labor.
I don't want to be a slave. My fellow Americans don't want to be slaves, either.
> Each worker can negotiate easily on their own behalf or simply work elsewhere.
This is delusional.
Let me put this bluntly. If you're not even willingly to acknowledge the obvious asymmetry in leverage during labor negotiations, then your opinion on unions is worthless. You're not an honest party, or maybe you have trouble coming to terms with reality. Unfortunately, that means your opinion is better suited for the loony bin, and not any serious discussions.
As an aside, there are lots of great arguments to make against unions. Do that instead.
I disagree with forcing employees to join a union who do not want to. I disagree with forcing a business to negotiate with a union that does not want to.