Monday, March 02, 2015
IF RTW Raises Wages, How Do Unions Hurt Businesses?
In an interview segment of "Here and Now" hosted by Frederica Freyberg, comes a frighteningly parsed yet laughable string of statements from the WMC's VP Scott Manley.
Under a basic line of questioning, Manley delivers a dumpster full of convoluted corporate hack talking points that simply doesn't square with reality. The amazing thing here is, Manley attempts to sell his entire pro-RTW meme on the reconstruction of a few soft facts, A) wage growth is faster in RTW states vs non-RTW, B) rate of job growth is better vs non-RTW, and C) RTW gives businesses "flexibility."
Of course even the street level little guy knows Manley's iterations about rates of growth are measures of speed and lift from a new "dropped" bottom and have nothing to do with actual wages or quality of jobs.
So, after Manley opens by building his foundational argument with RTW bringing higher wages and greater union membership, Freyberg follows through with a few simple questions in an effort to square the circle.
She asked, "how do wages go up?"
Manley, "It's based on the market ...and in RTW states, keep in mind they're growing jobs twice as fast and ...when you have more jobs available and the same number of employees, that creates higher demand for employees, and when you have higher demand for employees, those employees can command a higher wage."
Hoo ...hoo,hoo,hoo,hoooo.
The main problem is Manley begins his response with a giant hole by failing to explain the cause of the demand for jobs in RTW states. The demand he's talking about is not market demand for product ...it's demand for a rock bottom wage environment for employers.
With some deductive reasoning applied, half of the giant hole is an economic environment tapped out and incapable of creating more jobs through generally accepted supply-and-demand principles. What he won't say is RTW creates an artificial way to add jobs without increased product demand while cutting the payroll at the same time. Manley of course can't bring himself to the truth of the matter because his house of cards would instantly collapse.
My other point is, IF the endgame of RTW is to foster an economy of higher wage employees circularly creating more demand, we're already there with unions. So why go through all the trouble?
Well, we know RTW is primarily about the confiscation of earnings and political power.
Freyberg then asked, "...How do unions hurt businesses...?"
Manley spins the question completely around in his reply, "it's not about hurting unions ...a lot of people assume that right to work automatically results in a bad outcome for unions and that hasn't been the case."
Of course, Manley never answered the question and a lot of people have it all wrong. cough ...cough. There's no question in my mind his entire RTW meme is dripping in bullshit.
But the question every RTW supporter should answer is, SINCE RTW brings higher wages and benefits unions, "how do unions hurt businesses?"
The Freyberg/Manley interview, only 4 minutes long, is highly recommended viewing and can be seen here.
3 comments:
I noticed that "market" talking point this morning on WPR, and had to laugh. You beat me to the punch on this story. When a government injects itself into private businesses with RTW regulations, that's anything but "the market." It's Orwellian.
Manley lied blatantly at the Senate hearing. He said employers pay 95% of training costs. The truth is that union worker elect to have a portion of their pay deducted to go towards training. They have the employer hold these funds to be sent to a specific training center or program at a later date. Thus Manley is claiming that when the employer forwards this money to the training center the employer is paying for the training . When I pointed this out to Sen. Nass he said Manley wasn't lying that the training money was coming from the employer's compensation to the employee and therefor the employer was actually paying for the training. These clowns can only function with lies and falsehoods and they don't even want to deal in truth and facts. Manley is a despicable human being!
John, Freyberg beat us to the punch. At first I thought Freyberg was throwing softballs at Manley during that interview but she has an ease and knows how to challenge guest's foundational logic without challenging them personally. It's like Manley was given a spool of rope and instead of squaring the circle, he tied it into a noose for himself. But how many people can see that?
anon, when people sell out, they'll lie straight-faced to their mother as long as stacks of money keep flowing in. But playing off of Manley's logic that employers are paying for training simply because they payroll the entire operation, also means that employers are paying the union dues, not their employees and its part of the total compensation. So, employers should give the dollars they pay in dues, (as part of compensation) to employees who reject the union.
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