Saviordd1 said:
Fox12 said:
Yeah, seriously, fuck Unions. They're almost as bad as corporations at restricting art. I can't understand why an artist would want to join a union, unless it somehow restrict their employment opportunities.
This, this, a thousand times this.
I like the idea of Unions, I really do. But it seems like whenever they show up in the news its ruining peoples lives or restricting things that shouldn't be restricted.
There is nothing wrong with Unions overall. The idea is that through coordination and collective bargaining you can ensure fair pay and decent working conditions by making it so people wanting the service can only choose to obtain it through the union. This of course means not only bargaining collectively, but acting against those who don't join the union and try and undercut it. After all when there is a union out there indie contractors can charge less than the union rates in an area and make more money through volume, and of course this can actually cost those in the union money and defeat the entire purpose.
When your dealing with NATIONAL unions this can get nasty because different places in the USA can have radically different standards of living. Living in a huge city in California is cheaper than living in one in Texas and of course living outside major cities and such is cheaper yet. State taxes, the cost of property (and taxes on that), the ease of transporting goods and local services across the board contribute. The idea of a Union is to set prices high enough across the board that people in the most expensive areas can earn a fair/comfortable wage. With a national union that deals with a service employers will shop around for nationally the entire idea is to make it so guys providing the service in LA won't be at a disadvantage due to people being able to hire the same service for half the price otherwise given that the people providing it don't need as much money to live.
Of course the problem with Unions though is that they inherently rely on the threat of violence and criminal activity en-masse to work on any level, today people have a lot less guts and backbone, wanting the benefits without the risks or costs. What's more the whole idea of a "Musicians Union" is a complete joke when you really think about it. Whether it's state, local, or national the basic idea is that the workers team up to demand what they want. If they do not get it, they "strike" and refuse to work. If an employer decides to try and bring in other people, the union assaults/kills/intimidates them, indeed unions strive to force everyone doing a specific job within their sphere to become a member "or else" for the benefit of all. Those who continue to work during a Strike are "scabs" and even after a strike such people are to be targeted for retaliation. In long strikes where it's impossible to wait out a huge company by depriving them of profits, violence against the company, it's property, and reps becomes a watch word.
The whole thing with Unions is that while the government can come in to deal with small groups of people, it can't deal with large scale incidents without starting a war that will level the area. Likewise it doesn't want companies trying to keep workers in line with private armies "old school". This is why the government tends to support unions and acts as a mediator.
Texas having anti-Union laws at all shows how weak Unions have become, collective bargaining only works when you have an effective "or else" and can even intimidate the state/government, increasingly unions have become entirely bureaucratic and thus impossible to ignore because fundamentally the government only passed the laws many of them try and rely on under duress. What's more a union has to be scary, a bunch of hipsters and artists united by a love of music, and scattered through the country just doesn't present much of a threat to anyone which makes it kind of funny. On the other hand a bunch of say rural miners, or factory workers, all in the same area and armed with guns and machinery can be huge. The Teamsters (really infamous) not only have the manpower and huge trucks they could start driving through things but even today all they have to do is refuse to work and the flow of goods through the US stops since at the end of the day everything distributed needs to be put on a truck at some point.
Basically while they might win legally they won't accomplish much in the big picture. I just can't see the Federal Musicians union whacking Texas judges and politicians to get the law changed (even powerful unions nowadays are too limp wristed). What's more legal or not a REAL union would have sent guys with names like "Vinnie" and "Guido" to take sledge hammers to the hands of the musicians who undercut union rates, ensuring they would never play music again, as a lesson to anyone else who thinks they can play music non-union.... and I just don't see it happening. A lot of the real/powerful unions get/got a lot of their muscle from organized crime who of course got a cut from the business and of course a degree of control of it. The relationship between the mob and Teamsters being particularly infamous, and tends to include a share of everything transported by truck (unofficially) hence the old statement about stolen goods that "fell off the back of a truck" and it's also the origin of a lot of flea markets and stuff that wind up with brand name stuff for cheap (rapidly turning stuff taken from trucks into cash).
In a general sense I'm a big believe in Unions when they work properly, I see them as being the lesser of evils, and the negative aspects of unions largely being countered by the corruption of big business.
Even in this case put it into perspective, your a musician working in LA where your rent is crazy. You wouldn't think it's fair to lose all of the big contracts for video games and such to guys working in other states and never even get a chance simply because the people there can live more cheaply and charge less. By standardizing the rates The Union ensures everyone gets a shot at the big contracts. It also means companies look for the BEST people, not just the cheapest people, after all in this article the reason why the guy went to Texas to begin with is that the costs were half what they were in LA. Obviously he considered LA first, realized union rates wouldn't be any better elsewhere, and then went and hired people in Texas outside the union due to non-union rates. Sending lawyers after him is pretty much the limp wristed version of Guido and Vinnie, and may or may not work due to Texas protection, all they can really do is throw him out of the Union (the big threat if he doesn't pay the fine) legally, which might not matter if he can easily contract non-union labor. A few decades ago his body would be buried in the desert somewhere with a bag of lime... assuming it was a real union, and of course those non-union guys would likely be told to join or have their hands broken as a living lesson. I doubt the Musicians could intimidate Texas of all states, but that's part of the threat too... you need to have enough guys where the authorities can't viably fight you without starting a minor war, and individual politicians and judges realize they could wind up buried under a goal post if they piss off the union(s) too much as a result.... something which of course balances out by the Unions ultimately remaining fairly reasonable (simply pushing for fairness) and the understanding that if they do push too far eventually the cost of dealing with them will become worthwhile and someone will call in The National Guard if need be.
