I like to think that I’m a very knowledgeable organizer, so if folks want some advice ask me in the comments!
Its crazy for me to think that there is a first world country with big companies that have no unions. In europe this is practically unheard of as far as I know.
German here. The percentage of unionized jobs has fallen to around 18% here. So it’s not as great as you think. We didn’t see any real raises (corrected for inflation and productivity increase) for many years. Might be one of the reasons the far right is on a rise here.
Who would guess that by the end of the Merkel Chancellorship, unions would emerge weak?
She was always going on about the need to build strength for the working class, and to protect welfare and wages by fighting against the austerity narrative propagated by elites.
She was a true friend to workers.
Pole here. Only about 10% of workers are in a union. Most of them are in Solidarność which is notoriously a right wing union and a comprador to capitalists and capitalism.
It’s very, very anti communist. And a socdem-ish union like Związkowa Alternatywa is being threatened and attacked by the government constantly, wasting their resources.
So I’d say the figure of truly unionized workers is even lower… not to mention our weak labor laws…
our rights were fought for with guns, its still the same today
The party of unions is also the party of no one needs a gun, unfortunately.
The party of unions in the US is a massive coalition party. I’m not a Democrat, but it’s really the only option that isn’t actively regressive. Just remember that you get your guns back when you move far enough left
The bosses will never pay us our fair share unless we force them to.
No. The bosses will never pay you your fair share. Ever.
Ok doomer.
You disagree?
I’m not quite sure what it means for someone not to act as forced.
You seem to be negating the possibility of advancing beyond the status quo.
My view of their argument is, you can’t have a ‘fair’ share while you have a boss that controls the productive forces, while you are forced to either work under their employ or starve. The arrangement itself is unfair. Though I definitely still would advocate for better worker’s rights, wages and such right now.
Sure, but the post is simply asserting that any advances for workers would require force against bosses.
The way I understood the objection is that eliminating the bosses would never be achieved.
The objection that fairness for workers requires completely eliminating bosses is parsing the semantics, which is a confusing way to respond.
Maybe I am misunderstand this whole conversation haha, but it seemed you thought it was a pessimistic view that the bosses won’t pay a fair share, so I was replying that it seemed like a realistic view because in the position that bosses have, there is little incentive for a proper fair share. Though on reflection their comment was doomer-y regardless of the underlying intention.
It is pessimistic to predict that worker advancement would reach some particular point at which the bosses could no further be forced into retreat.
I’m not quite sure what it means for someone not to act as forced.
I don’t understand what you mean by this.
You seem to be negating the possibility of advancing beyond the status quo
Some things can be advanced beyond the status quo, for example degrees of exploitation. Some things can’t be advance beyond the status quo, for example the existence of exploitation.
Some things can’t be advance beyond the status quo, for example the existence of exploitation.
You are expressing doomerism.
You disagree?
Of course I disagree that deposing the oligarchs is impossible.
At any rate, everything ends eventually.
I don’t take that as a doomer view at all. It’s the view that we must eliminate bosses. Which, to me, is actually a far more positive view than the one that sees having bosses as inevitable, but simply wants slightly higher compensation from the slave masters.
It is confusing, though, to give such an objection, because the post is not advocating against eliminating bosses.
What does a living wage mean exactly
A living wage means that you have enough money to afford your basic needs, with enough left over to save some money and enjoy life. This number changes depending on the area, for example the living wage in my city is $28/hr but a place like San Francisco has a living wage of $36/hr
A society has a living wage if no one is too poor to live.
Biden is playing the union card: is it all genuine?
Of course it cannot be all genuine.
Biden’s performances might help build sympathies for unions from among those who have been doubtful, for those who are on a journey away from neoliberal ideology, but the actual power of unions comes from within them and from their allies.
It is best to encourage everyone to continue fighting on the ground, and not to be distracted by elite pageantry.
Ultimately whether it is genuine or not is irrelevant. This is politics so the real question is: what effect will it have on the movement? How will it affect the negotiations going on?
How about making any kind of move to reverse “right to work” laws that make it essentially impossible to even try to unionize? I’ll pay attention when someone is willing to go to bat against these anti-worker abominations.
Considering stats, 90% of US workers should agree with this https://g.co/bard/share/762650f80d5c
At least in regards to the UAW, I think he is actually genuine. It’s actually a major historic landmark for a president to join a picket line. I know some people that are organizers for the historic unions in the games industry, they were invited to the white house to discuss labor and the working class. The one and only major blow to this historic support was shutting down the rail workers. To me, he’s meeting the incredibly low bar of being “the most pro union president”, however the way the rail workers were forced to accept their contract highlights that he is still a center-right liberal.
It’s a good view right now in this instance, and although historic what is the concrete effect of him joining a picket line? He can easily still be working against the ultimate goals of the unions. Though the backlash if he took obvious action against the unions could be much worse now that he has been seen in such a way. But yeah, we shouldn’t be too critical because it is still above what most politicians do in regards to unions.
I agree with the comment currently below mine not to let this sort of gesture diffuse the drive for deeper changes.
What do you think it means, though, for Biden to be genuine?
Capital consistently uses all its muscle to press political leaders to strengthen corporations and to repress workers. F. Roosevelt is often credited with building the welfare state in the US, but did so only once labor had become strong enough that he and other capitalists feared a revolution. Later, the dismantling of welfare and unions occurred in tandem. For politicians to apply their power in favor of workers, we must have the power to press them even more strongly than capital.
Is it really possible that Biden can help achieve worker objectives impelled merely by his own personal conviction?
I think that Biden believes he is personally doing what he believes is right to support US workers, which is what makes him genuine. As someone previously confined to the liberal mind prison, I can also see how a liberal would justify breaking the rail workers strike. FDR was evolutionary in capitalist society with SocDem. At the time, we moved away from resource backed currency to fiat currency. This liberated the US from debt, as the money essentially had the same amount of worth as the resource and labor capital available to the state. The federal government was completely and fully aware of this, and the first red scare confined workers to liberal ideas of labor-capital relations. Biden is also evolutionary in this situation. He is not doing anything to directly or materially improve conditions for workers, but he is instilling into the minds of future generations that organized labor is the only way forward.
I think he may be “personally doing what he believes is right”. Only, I feel doubtful that such a characterization has any significance for future events. POTUS may be more powerful than others, but his power, like all power, comes from within a system of power. Development of the broader structure with the overall system seems to me far more interesting and relevant than what Biden believes is right.
I’d say more that there’s no such thing as a fair share as long as bosses exist. But yeah, also true: to take real steps in the right direction definitely requires exerting power, not begging.
Many responses seem to be targeting semantics more than intention.
If you’re going to make a poster like this, you really need to spell check it. " Bosses " is plural. " Boss’ " is possessive.
I think he wanted bosses’ - plural and possessive
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I didn’t make it, but I don’t know who did so unfortunately I can’t credit them
Somebody hasn’t heard of inflation. If all wages go up, all prices also go up, so your purchasing power either stays the same or gets even worse.
Inflation has many causes. Workers deserve to be paid a living wage. A CEO shouldn’t make millions while the lowest paid workers get paid dirt.
Nobody is even asking for huge raises. They just want to be able to pay their rent, which a lot of people can’t do.
If you have another solution by all means, feel free to share.
We should fight to end precarity and poverty, but as long as there are oligarchs who bounce around in yachts, jets, and rockets, we should keep fighting.
Universal affluence accompanied by abundant leisure is a possibility now within reach.
That’s definitely not true at all, but even if it was inflation is going up anyways without wage increases.
Yes, it is definitely true.
Literally, cost push inflation was just explained to you. In this case it is wage costs that increase, causing businesses to increase costs to adjust, causing increase in inflation which your wage cannot afford.
All businesses exist for profit. There is no other reason why they exist. But this does not mean all businesses exist for insane profit. Demand for higher wages because of record profits of corporations could see small businesses fail as they lose business from raising prices to stay on top of the new costs to remain operating,. This would ironically make the situation of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer even worse, making your current situation retrospectively seem desirable.
There is much more to economics and inflation than “You make more; I make more.”
Before screaming for more wage, you’d need to understand if your employer, your source of income, can actually afford it. If they can and aren’t doing their bit to keep the economy healthy, then by all means, unionise.
The article you referenced contains the following excerpts:
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The existence of cost-push inflation is disputed. Dallas S. Batten described it as a myth…
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Milton Friedman criticised the concept of cost-push inflation… Friedman wrote, “the inflation arises from one and only one reason: an increase in a quantity of money.”
Yeah. That’s why it’s a concept, not a rule. Economics is organic. There are many concepts that are applicable at times and not at others. Anyone that tries to conservatively apply a concept as a rule to something as organic as economics would be a moron.
Supply and demand; this much is true. The rest is conceptual. Inflation itself is a concept that can be argued if applied like it’s a rule. It has many variables, but in most cases, cost and demand pushes are the concepts that can explain or understand different parts of it.
Of course, if greed is the main drive, neither cost or demand push concepts apply and go out the window.
The term used to describe cost-push inflation was not rule or concept, but myth.
Ultimately, as conceded by Friedman, hardly an advocate for workers rights, average prices ultimately reflect simply the relation between total real wealth and supply of money.
Well, since you read so many details of someone claiming it as a myth in the article, you’d have also astutely read the parts where real world examples were provided of it happening.
I think you’d find that someone claiming a concept as a myth is more focused on academic definement.
The Big Bang Theory is a theory, it does not make it a myth, though many would claim it is. Do you want to highlight them too? We run with it based on real world evidence supporting the concept, but it’s not a rule.
Edit: Also, I’m not linking it to worker’s rights. I don’t know why you are. Simply providing further explaination of how workers costs can cause inflation like any other cost to businesses, be that oil, infrastructure, tax, etc. This is why we protect small and medium sized businesses as much as workers. Bad things happen if either are in financial dire.
I read the article.
The discussion is descending even below the level of pointlessness.
You are not even understanding basic terms.
A scientific theory is given as…
an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method…
In turn, a myth is given as…
A commonly-held but false belief, a common misconception; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing; a popular conception about a real person or event which exaggerates or idealizes reality.
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When workers demand higher wages from bosses, they are demanding in effect that they realize a greater share of the value generated by their labor, diminishing the share claimed as profit by owners, who contribute no labor toward generating the value they claim.
Bosses may try to recover some of their losses by raising prices, but as long as workers continue to realize a greater share of the wealth they create for society, they are gaining purchasing power.
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That’s a common argument surrounding worker activities that rings quite hollow because inflation happens because the money supply is being increased or because the money supply is being devalued for some other reason. Higher wages can in theory contribute to inflation but in practice inflation is caused by price increases by vendors. If there were no such price increases we would just see higher wages… and possibly lower profits… which is what we want.
in practice inflation is caused by price increases by vendors
You are literally reversing cause and effect.
Price inflation is prices being increased, and prices are set by vendors. Whatever other changes also may be occurring, raising prices is a choice made by vendors or manufacturers to raise their profits.
Thus, your objection is not broadly meaningful.
When workers have more income, prices may tend to rise as a ramification under our current systems. Workers fight for better wages, however, because employers profit from the labor workers provide, instead of allowing them to realize the full value of their labor. Thus, workers fight for higher wages, and regardless of inflation, continue fighting for higher wages.
Placing blame for inflation on higher income for workers obfuscates broader understanding over the structure of our society.
Anyone concerned with the workers’ struggle may have reason to advocate for broader measures to control inflation, but not among them is repressing the fight for higher wages.
All value in society is generated by the labor provided by workers. Support workers, by supporting their struggle to realize the full value of their labor.
From a response I wrote to another commenter:
Inflation refers to the increase in the monetary supply without at least a corresponding increase in the available amount of goods and services. It’s this increase (inflation) in the monetary supply that causes the increase (inflation) in prices.
Your are not engaging the substance of the discussion, as much as reiterating explanations you have encountered in other contexts, and which you have not understood adequately to apply more generally.
We can try another approach.
A living wage is an income that supports a particular standard of living considered socially as an acceptable base. Therefore, the nominal value for the living wage at any time will depend on the price of goods.
Even if the price of goods rises, that is, if inflation is occurring, there will always exist some nominal value suitable to be considered the living wage. Anyone who has an income equal to or greater than the value, at some particular moment in time, will have, at the particular moment, a living wage.
The nominal value of the living wage is not fixed, but rather adjusted over time.
Therefore, a living wage and inflation are not incompatible.
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No I’m not. Prices for products or services drive inflation. Consumer price index (which inflation is) is literally derived from goods.
But even from a less pedantic point of view and examining the causes for inflation, wages are only a small part of what determines the price for a product. Wages among the people who extract rubber for your tires are extremely low and fixed by the buyers of this rubber. The local buyer then processes it and takes a markup, but the huge price increases is when they in turn need to sell the processed rubber to world corporations and they buy it for extremely cheap and then toss in a huge markup and sell it to the west. The meaningful wages in the product that goes directly to workers might be as low as 10% of the price of the final product.
The ultimate goal here is to costs, and primarily wages so they can extract a maximum amount of surplus value from the workers, and there’s nothing in this world that guarantees that workers will be paid a certain percentage or even a reasonable amount. The claim you make is downright laughable because it’s so wrong both in practice and theory.
Therefore, the claim that wages are the only drivers for inflation or even the primary driver is a complete lie! We are drained for billions of dollars to the capitalist parasite class every step in the production chain until it’s finally distributed. This extraction is so valuable that entire countries can be financed through VAT alone.
It’s truly disheartening that there are still people like you roaming around and spreading misinformation and citing neoliberal think tank pseudoscience.
Inflation refers to the increase in the monetary supply without at least a corresponding increase in the available amount of goods and services. It’s this increase (inflation) in the monetary supply that causes the increase (inflation) in prices.
That’s a basic understanding of inflation that is taught to children in elementary school, but it’s not correct as I’ve explained to you earlier. Also people don’t set prices or wages from the money supply for the simple fact that pretty much nobody knows how large money supply is compared to their good or service or what the price of wage should be compared to the money supply.
In fact it’s entirely divorced from the money supply which we can see an example of in the rampant price increases of property which haven’t followed inflation but rather increased unproportionally fast.
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Oh really? Because I did a presentation of inflation in grade 8. I didn’t have the same understanding of it back then as I did later when I decided to study macroeconomics through college literature so I kind of regret what I said during that presentation. You sound like you’ve been especially unfortunate and lagged behind on your studies and I thought my teachers were holding me back, but in your case I assume you might not have had any real interest in learning anyway. That’s at least what you show evidence of during these conversations.
