re: #610 ggt

Because when I look for a job, I look for a wage that will allow me to pay my bills and put something in savings. I don’t understand how someone would arrive at a “value” of a worker —compare to what non-unions workers are making in the same field?

No. A simplest example is that of a skilled woodworker.

The company knows it costs them $1 in overhead per day for that woodworker, for the space, light, rent, etc.

They know that he can produce $300 worth of chairs in that day.

So, the profit they make from that worker is $299.

The goal of the company is to pay him as little as possible, so that that money is profit.

The goal of the union is for them to pay him as close to the true value of his labor as possible.

Workers want a living wage —more if they can get it.
Companies what to pay as little as possible to preserve profit and make stockholders happy.

The idea of unions was actually to break away from the idea of sustenance wages and towards workers earning their fare share, the value of their labor. What you’re describing was the attitude labor had back in the days before unions.

That unions have become so powerless and corporations so strong of late that unions are pleading with wage increases up to the level of a sustenance wage is a sign of the weakness of unions and the strength of companies. That’s not how it’s ‘supposed’ to work.