Ok folks, here is a real life example of how unions protect the weak at the expense of the strong: the Honda plant in Lincoln, AL.  I mentioned recently that the UAW was talking to some employees there and that UAW infestation there would spell ultimate disaster just as it has in Michigan.  An editorial in the B’ham News provides a little insight into the meeting between UAW officials and some plant workers.

Because the UAW is itching to organize the Honda plant, the more workers who show interest, the better the prospects look for the union. Even so, 300 workers aren’t 7 percent of Honda’s Lincoln work force of about 4,500 employees. Subtract several hundred managers who wouldn’t be in a union, and that still leaves fewer than 10 percent of the work force.

Any company as big as Honda will have a few disgruntled employees. Those pro-union workers contacted the UAW, which would like nothing more than to start organizing Southern automobile manufacturing plants. So far, they’ve struck out big time in Alabama.

Meanwhile, the great majority of workers at Honda appears satisfied. Many came to the plant from old jobs that paid about $20,000 a year; in 2005, the average salary at Honda was $54,443 - well above the $34,500 average wage for Alabama workers. Benefits are good. Safety isn’t an issue. The company emphasizes teamwork.

Wait a second: One worker complained she couldn’t take days off anytime she wanted. Another said workers are blamed when they complain about a problem. Sounds like slaving in the salt mines, doesn’t it?

The 10% number is interesting.  Jack Welch of GE fame employed (pun intended) a method often referred to as “rank and yank” in which all employees were ranked and the bottom 10% were canned.  The philosophy behind this was that employee quality was distributed according to a bell curve and that the bottom 10% were of sufficiently poor quality that they did not need to be retained.  This was one of the management decisions that earned him the nickname Neutron Jack.

So, back to 10%.  What we’re seeing here is the bottom 10% of the Honda plant - the flotsam and jetsam - seeking out the union.  Why?  Because they know that their skills, work ethic, and job performance are probably not good enough for career advancement and may even lead to them getting shown the door.  They understand that unions effectively restrain the upward mobility of the talented, are ambivalent to the employees in the middle, but preserve employment for the bottom feeders.  Look no further than the “job banks” demanded by the UAW (and granted by short sighted management) during the 1980’s for a good example.  As recently as 2005 the big three and Delphi were paying full salary plus benefits to over 12,000 fired workers while they sat around doing crossword puzzles.  That’s a great idea - for the losers.  The company and all of the workers worth keeping are the ones suffering.  It’s one thing to get fired, but how much of a loser do you have to be for your employer to decide to get rid of you even though he still has to pay your wages and benefits?

On a lark I decided to see if there was a correlation between union membership and unemployment.  I used unemployment rate by state from CNN and union membership by state from the AFL-CIO website.  I plotted union membership vs. unemployment rate for all states and then added a linear trend line.  Although there are exceptions (as always), the trend clearly indicates that higher unemployment rates are found in states with the greatest union membership.  I should add that the lowest unemployment rate (2.4%) was in the state with the highest union employment (24.7%).  The state?  Hawaii, which is something of an outlier due to its isolation and tourism heavy industry.

By the way, Alabama’s unemployment rate for June 2007 was 3.5% and our union membership is 8.8%.

Tell me if I’m crazy, but I think Bob Riley might be horse trading with the AEA.  First two year college chancellor Bradley Byrne, who was of course appointed by Riley, pushes to reform legislative double dipping.  This of course infuriates the AEA and they are tying to kill the plan.  Even steadfast liberal editorial boards, like the Decatur Daily’s, support reform.  But I’m sure even the governor feels some trepidation about taking on the AEA.  I just realized that it was the day before Byrne’s op-ed in the Mobile Register that Riley called for a massive expansion of government schooling in Alabama.

Coincidence or attempt to placate the AEA?

The UAW has set their cross hairs on Lincoln, AL in an attempt to unionize Honda workers.  Car manufacturing in Detroit has been substantially damaged thanks to unions and spineless, shortsighted managers.  I guess the UAW wants to level the playing filed by bringing successful, efficient foreign manufacturers down a peg as well.  Honda employees would be wise to give the UAW reps the finger.

Union boss Paul Hubbert purportedly sent out the following email to AEA members over the weekend.

Dangerous policies will cost Alabama educators their right to public service! Take Action!  ETF, school funding, and programs in danger 

Discriminatory attacks on educators, which threaten the future of public education in Alabama, has elevated to a new and dangerous level by Montgomery politicos.

Gov. Riley has proclaimed that he wants to prohibit any educator from serving in the Legislator and he says the first step is for the members of the State Board of Education to adopt policies to prohibit two-year college employees from serving in the Legislature, and make it almost impossible to serve in any public or appointed position locally. The targeted education legislators, Republicans and Democrats, are strong protectors of the Education Trust Fund, as well as being strong supporters of paying educators living wages, protecting PEEHIP benefits, guarding the integrity of the Teachers’ Retirement System, and improving classroom conditions for all students.

If the governor is eventually successful, over 100,000 teachers, support professionals, and administrators, will be denied the same rights that every other citizen has under the Alabama Constitution. Who will then serve? Those who are retired or independently wealthy? Those who work for big corporations?

Act now to protect your rights and future of public education. The critical vote by the State Board of Education is August 23.

Please contact you [sic] state school board member by email, fax, or letter.

Tell them not to adopt any polices that discriminate against educators or make educators as a disenfranchised class.

Now that sounds pretty extreme, right?  Well, I thought I would help you out by translating his message from the frantic, union-eze language he used into something a bit more understandable.  Here is what Hubbert actually meant:

Alert!  Our rented legislators might be in jeopardy!  Take Action!

As you well know, I’ve spent years and countless dollars of your earnings installing a large number of pliable legislators on Goat Hill.  These men and women will do my bidding without asking questions and will gladly grant AEA members anything I request regardless of the negative impact on the state or the cost to taxpayers.

Alas, simply lavishing these lapdogs with campaign contributions has not been sufficient to ensure their full compliance.  Fortunately we have been able to use the state’s two year college system to supplement the income of my specially chosen legislators.  This method allows us to use Alabama taxpayer dollars to fund cushy, fake jobs for my acolytes.  Even though they receive a paycheck from the state for fulfilling their legislative duties (and don’t forget they passed themselves a 62% pay raise this year) our slick little double dipping operation lets us further pad their pockets and turn them into de facto lobbyists for our cause.

I know you might be thinking that it isn’t fair that these legislators get paid more than many of you even though they essentially perform no work.  Yes, Rep. Ken Guin was paid nearly $100,000 from two different schools for writing two or three page reports occasionally.  And yes, he often gave both schools the same report.  But that is the price of renting a legislator.  Think of it as an investment in our own special interests paid for by the citizens of Alabama.

Unfortunately, the new chancellor of the two year college system, Bradley Byrne, is threatening our gravy train.  He is essentially threatening to force all employees under his jurisdiction to serve one master - and that master won’t be me.  This is unacceptable!  I am the lord of Alabama!  I don’t care if 60% of Alabamians agree with Byrne.  If I am not able to manipulate and control my pet legislators then we face the very real possibility of having to justify our future compensation.  We cannot allow independent minded legislators to serve in Montgomery!

Contact your state board member and tell them not to adopt any policies that would make me lose control of my puppets.

I just wanted to clear that up for you.

As James Taranto points out, teachers unions like to put up the pretense that the children are their primary concern.  Obviously this is hog wash since their primary objective is to enrich themselves, as this article highlights.

HOUSTON - The school district that runs the nation’s largest merit pay program gave oversized bonuses to nearly 100 teachers and is asking them to give it back. The president of Houston’s largest teachers’ union is telling members not to return the overpayments, which range from $62.50 to $2,790.

A total of almost $75,000 was overpaid because a computer program mistakenly calculated the bonuses of part-time personnel as if they were full-time employees, according to the Houston Independent School District. Less than 1 percent of teachers were affected, the district said.

Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said the district can’t force the 99 teachers to sign forms authorizing it to deduct the money from their paychecks, and promised legal action if it attempts to do so.

“If it’s the district’s error, then the district should bear the loss,” she said.

So the position of the teachers union is that they would rather take $75,000 away from the funds available for educating children than repay their unearned income.  I wonder if Ms. Fallon would take the same position if the district inadvertently withheld too much from some teachers’ paychecks.  Would she still use the same elementary school logic of “finders keepers, losers weepers” and let the district off the hook?

This analysis of teacher compensation by Dr. Richard Vedder of Ohio University is a must read.

The highlights:

Teachers earn more per hour than architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, statisticians, biological and life scientists, registered nurses, university-level foreign-language teachers, and editors and reporters.

Typically, teachers’ retirement and health insurance benefits are more generous than the average professional’s, particularly those who work in the private sector. Federal data suggest that, on average, teachers receive a package of benefits valued at more than 26 percent of their salaries. By contrast, the average for “all domestic industries” is about 19 percent; for private industries it is even less, below 17 percent.

Teachers experience more job security, rarely suffering layoffs or firings. An architect’s income falls with recession-induced declines in construction spending, while the economy is currently littered with unemployed computer programmers, whose jobs disappeared when the dotcom bubble popped. Most risk-averse persons would gladly accept some decline in average annual income in order to avoid unexpected adverse shocks to their standard of living. Thus, in a “risk-adjusted” sense, teacher pay is often substantially higher than that of comparable occupations.

Writing in 1776 in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith complained, “The usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the lawyer or physician.” He attributed this to the move away from market-based funding of education, noting that in ancient Greece, where all education was private and financed by tuition payments, great teachers were often extremely well paid relative to their less-talented counterparts.

The most compelling evidence that teachers are not on average underpaid comes from the world of private schools. The last comprehensive analysis, performed during the mid-1990s, indicated that average private school salaries were slightly less than 60 percent of average salaries in the public schools.

The unions’ persistent quest to raise teacher salaries, carried on under the banner of improving education, looks more like a ploy to redistribute income from one group of adults—the general taxpayer—to another—teachers.

Read the balance for your own edification.

About 15,000 unionized employees of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. have been on strike since October 5th of this year.  The company has reacted by utilizing nonunion labor, training temporary workers, and shifting production to international plants.  The strike isn’t influencing Goodyear, so now the union has resorted to annoying people at retail stores.

My general outlook on unions is that they protect the weak at the expense of the strong and that they therefore have a negative impact on society.  I am amused when workers demand more than they are worth, don’t get it, then go on strike only to find out that they are expendable - hence proving they didn’t deserve what they demanded.  Just think back to when the Northwest Airlines mechanics went on strike last year.

If the tires on both of my cars didn’t have a lot of tread left I would go out and buy a set of Goodyear tires to help the company out.

I shouldn’t be surprised by now, but every time I read an article in the paper with obvious political bias I get livid.  Today’s culprit: U.S. productivity, profits soar, while wages decline by Niala Boodhoo.  It’s a McClatchy Newspaper article and appeared in the print edition of today’s HSV Times, although it wasn’t in their online edition.  This article so clearly belongs in the Opinion section of the paper that it approaches a complete lapse of journalistic integrity for it to be printed on the front page.

The article is basically a glorified press release for a study by the Economic Policy Institute, which is described as an “independent Washington think tank.”  Wikipedia describes the group as a “leftist” think tank whose board of directors consists largely of labor union officials.  Their funding comes largely from far left organizations (Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and The Barbara Streisand Foundation) and labor unions (AFL-CIO, teachers unions, and Service Employees International).  Even the New York Times calls EPI a liberal group!

The thrust of the article is that wages have not kept up with productivity.  You may have read or heard about a NY Times article (see previous NY Times link) decrying low wages.  A few days later the Times had to backtrack when the Commerce Department released revised numbers.  Conveniently, the EPI choose not to release a revised study.

Given the source of the study, its no surprise that the article featured a UPS driver who is feeling the pinch of only getting a 4% raise despite claimed 5.8% inflation in his part of Florida.  Read this crap:

UPS, the world’s largest shipping carrier, earned more than $1 billion in its most recent quarter, a 7.6 percent increase over the year before.

He [the driver] thinks he gets some share of that, but only because he’s with the Teamsters. “We’re better off than some,” he said.

What a shameful plug for the Teamsters!  That is to be expected in an editorial, but not in a front page “news” story.

Now, what “solution” would you expect a leftist, pro-union group to come up with?  If you guessed more government then you win!

Among the ways to help reverse the disparity [between wages and corporate profits] are raising the federal minimum wage, creating universal health care coverage and increasing union membership, he said.

I could not believe my eyes when I read that.  For the purposes of this article their first and third solutions are tied together because in most union contracts salaries are indexed to the minimum wage - i.e. an increase in minimum wage is an automatic pay raise for union members.  The EPI didn’t mention the drawback of inflation and increased unemployment, which is currently below 5%.  I don’t even see how universal health coverage has anything to do with income disparity.  Maybe liberals are becoming so conditioned to reflexively say “universal health coverage” that they interject it into any discussion.  I’m kind of surprised he didn’t mention global warming.

While on the subject of perceived income inequality it is instructive to read this op-ed from the WSJ.  It points out how the percentage of total income earned by the top 1% of all earners steadily increased during the Clinton years and fell during the Bush administration and has not reached pre-Bush levels.  As the author points out, curiously there was a dearth of headlines decrying income disparity during the Clinton term.  I’m not pointing a finger at Clinton, I think the income disparity argument is simply an anti-capitalism, populist tool.  But, the media should be held accountable for their disproportionate reporting.

From the WSJ piece:

The truth is that there has been a modest widening of the income gap in recent decades, regardless of which party is in power. That gap seems due largely to growing returns on education and skills in the global economy. Americans without a high-school diploma are losing ground against those who have college degrees. But this argues not for higher taxes on the rich, who already pay the vast bulk of U.S. taxes. It argues for reforming K-12 education so even the weakest and poorest students can compete against the world.

And how to reform K-12 education?  Bring market forces to education.  Tie the money to the students, not the schools, and give parents the choice and kids the opportunity to excel.

No surprises in the election yesterday - all the incumbents won.

The closest two-person race was the Robinson vs. McGinnis showdown for the District 3 school board seat.  Robinson won 2,035 to 1,666, claiming 55% of the votes.  Voter turn out was fairly strong in District 3 considering this was the only contest.  Nearly 18% of the 21,052 registered voters in the district went to the polls to vote.

Robinson was quick to point out the message from the voters:

“I think it’s an indication that the voters are wary of the teachers union.”

I’ll be honest; I was concerned about this race.  The teachers union in Alabama is a very, very powerful political machine.  Robinson’s victory has restored my faith in the ability of the electoral process to defeat such a powerful, yet dangerous and counterproductive, force.

Pinch me, I must be dreaming. Or having a nightmare.

THE liberal, George McGovern, is speaking out against unionized labor's destructive quest for "more" of everything.  Does this mean that McGovern is tacking to the right, or am I now an unabashed liberal?  I was hoping it was the former, but as I neared the end of his op-ed piece I realized it was none of the above.

McGovern is right that the plight of many unionized companies is due to the combination of greedy unions and spineless management.  Defined benefit pension plans that many of these unions secured years ago are crippling companies.  The problem with that kind of program is that they promise guarantees and as the old saying goes, "there are no guarantees in life."  As the business climate changes many of these companies aren't able to adapt because of the crushing weight of the required payments of their pension programs.  Eventually the companies go bankrupt, which hurts not only the pensioners, but also the current employees and investors.  And by the way, social security is a defined benefit program.  Yikes.

After correctly identifying the problem of labor unions he used that fault as a rationalization of "universal" (i.e. government) health care.  Government health care would be a good way to depress the quality of U.S. health care while making it more expensive.  It is a horrible "solution."