ReadabilityDid the Bakers Union go Galt?
Russ DeKuyper: You know how much I got to make to keep $300 cash in our tax bracket? I got to make $800– maybe a thousand dollars that’s why I want that check. Now, you give me that thousand dollars!
All in the Family Edith gets a Mink 1972
O’Reilly: your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there’s nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage.
The Magnificent Seven 1960
We’re not going to take it Anymore
Twisted Sister 1984
I’ve been pretty hard on the Bakers Union concerning the Hostess strike but I’ve noticed one consistency in people who have worked either as drivers for Hostess or other places.
All seem to agree that the Bakers had a point, I spoke to a driver from a rival company that has all the work he can get with Hostess gone, and he said if it was him, he wouldn’t have taken the deal, not with big bonuses going to execs. He said with the cuts they would basically be working for nothing.
I disagreed with the premise under the 92% of something is worth more than 100% of nothing but it occurred to me: Could these bakers have decided they were “Going Galt”?
After all is one perceives they are not getting the reward for had and increased labor it makes no difference if it is government or management that is taking the surplus, the net effect is the same.
Of course in theory if it is management one can find another employer but to the baker with a more specialized profession they might not see it that way.
So in that sense the bakers are no different that any other professional who has decided they just aren’t working anymore for less.
That is as it may be, but if it is true I believe there are three factors that I believe they are forgetting.
1. There are 18,000 people not in the union that might have disagreed that are now unemployed a month before Christmas. In fairness to the union they are not their responsibility, in the words of a man named Vanderbilt: “The public be damned I work for my shareholders.”
2. If the bakers made the deal there is nothing to stop any of them from looking/applying for a different job while still working. Anyone can tell you it’s a lot easier to find a job if you have one then if you don’t.
3. I suspect that unlike the higher end folks choosing “Going Galt” over government the bakers are unlikely to find quicker employment or have the kind of money to be able to “Go Galt” comfortably.
One might argue that the principle is not the same, I would argue if you still have a mortgage to pay and a family to support the fact the principle is the same is irrelevant to the bottom line of paying your bills.
You could say: “That’s not fair.” This is true but irrelevant, life isn’t fair and if people choose not to take the necessary steps to pay their mortgages or rent the judge in the eviction/foreclosure court is not going to find: “life’s not fair” a winning argument.
Now maybe these guys will manage to find other work, maybe they will go into business for themselves, maybe when Hostess is sold off, some will be rehired (likely with less pay and extras.) but I’m betting a lot of them are going to be a lot worse off and their wives and families will pay for it…
…along with 18,000+ others.
Russ DeKuyper: You know how much I got to make to keep $300 cash in our tax bracket? I got to make $800– maybe a thousand dollars that’s why I want that check. Now, you give me that thousand dollars!
All in the Family Edith gets a Mink 1972
O’Reilly: your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there’s nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage.
The Magnificent Seven 1960
We’re not going to take it Anymore
Twisted Sister 1984
I’ve been pretty hard on the Bakers Union concerning the Hostess strike but I’ve noticed one consistency in people who have worked either as drivers for Hostess or other places.
All seem to agree that the Bakers had a point, I spoke to a driver from a rival company that has all the work he can get with Hostess gone, and he said if it was him, he wouldn’t have taken the deal, not with big bonuses going to execs. He said with the cuts they would basically be working for nothing.
I disagreed with the premise under the 92% of something is worth more than 100% of nothing but it occurred to me: Could these bakers have decided they were “Going Galt”?
After all is one perceives they are not getting the reward for had and increased labor it makes no difference if it is government or management that is taking the surplus, the net effect is the same.
Of course in theory if it is management one can find another employer but to the baker with a more specialized profession they might not see it that way.
So in that sense the bakers are no different that any other professional who has decided they just aren’t working anymore for less.
That is as it may be, but if it is true I believe there are three factors that I believe they are forgetting.
1. There are 18,000 people not in the union that might have disagreed that are now unemployed a month before Christmas. In fairness to the union they are not their responsibility, in the words of a man named Vanderbilt: “The public be damned I work for my shareholders.”
2. If the bakers made the deal there is nothing to stop any of them from looking/applying for a different job while still working. Anyone can tell you it’s a lot easier to find a job if you have one then if you don’t.
3. I suspect that unlike the higher end folks choosing “Going Galt” over government the bakers are unlikely to find quicker employment or have the kind of money to be able to “Go Galt” comfortably.
One might argue that the principle is not the same, I would argue if you still have a mortgage to pay and a family to support the fact the principle is the same is irrelevant to the bottom line of paying your bills.
You could say: “That’s not fair.” This is true but irrelevant, life isn’t fair and if people choose not to take the necessary steps to pay their mortgages or rent the judge in the eviction/foreclosure court is not going to find: “life’s not fair” a winning argument.
Now maybe these guys will manage to find other work, maybe they will go into business for themselves, maybe when Hostess is sold off, some will be rehired (likely with less pay and extras.) but I’m betting a lot of them are going to be a lot worse off and their wives and families will pay for it…
…along with 18,000+ others.
I have 14 years in at the Hostess Bakery in Lenexa, KS and I have
been hunting down misinformation against the Union all over the
web. It seems the company press releases are being treated as the
gospel truth in the mainstream media. Both Fox and MSNBC have
botched the story and left out the voice of the Union.
No story is complete without both sides. In my travels across the
web this post may be the first accurate attempt to visualize the
mental state of the Baker’s Union from an outside source. You are
the only right of center site to come close. You are looking at
it in the same way I am, you just describe it differently. And
better than the main stream media, especially Fox. I am shocked
to see it happen on a right wing site. A site who’s users are
likely anti-Union to begin with.
I will never understand the right wing aversion to something as
capitalist as a Union. The right can scream ‘commie’ all they
want but on a fundamental level being in a Union is about using
your leverage to get paid what you deserve. That is 100% true
for every member of a Union. It is about getting paid what you
deserve for your role in wealth generation. I am a capitalist
first and foremost and going on strike was the most American
thing I have ever done. You may be the first right winger I
have come across to see this obvious connection between Unions
and self-interest.
You have nailed it on style. Your substance and conclusions
however, are missing some details. That is not your fault
though, the main stream media has done everything they can to
portray the company spin as accurate. They have done a
horrendous job of presenting the chronology of events or the
concepts of ’cause and effect’. Your 3 ‘factors’ are skewed by
this misinformation paired with the lack of details from the
other side. Except for number 3, which is dead on. And proves
our commitment. Every Union member has more at risk than any
executive.
There are 18,000 total employees. 8500 are Teamsters who got
stuck with the deal. Presumably the vast majority of the rest
are in the Baker’s Union and some are in the various Engineering
Unions. The Engineers also turned it down, we weren’t alone.
Less than 3000 Teamsters voted for the offer. The other 5500
Teamsters either voted no, had their ballots disqualified, or
didn’t vote. The Bakers voted 92% to strike nationwide and 72-0 at
my location. The Baker’s used a secret ballot box, contrary to the
main stream media story of a voice vote. Be sure to forever
question any source in the media you see a voice vote mentioned.
It is bull. I have never cast an important vote by voice unless it
was a non-controversial point. Which, frankly, this would have
qualified.
I may be a liberal but my coworkers run the gauntlet. I have
argued politics for years with these people and many are Fox
news/Talk radio lovers who come to me with the most predictable
FAUX news crap. Thes trike is one of those rare issues that
brought all stripes of people together. Again, it was 72-0. One
of my closest coworkers and friends is a life long conservative
who has been on Bill O’Reilly’s side of every argument we ever
had. It is, after all, more fun to debate people you don’t agree
with. He has been instrumental in orchestrating this strike
locally.
The Union has handled this the best way possible considering the
circumstances. I realize that may sound ridiculous to many but
that is only because they haven’t been properly exposed to our
side of the story. What the company has done to us is wrong and
doing it proves their total lack of respect for our skills as
mass food producers. We were forced to show them the role of our
skills in the business of bread.
Being a Baker may sound like something anyone can do but that is
true about everything until you do it. Not everyone can handle
the heat, hours, paperwork, and hard physical labor. There is no
making up for our collective skills, training, and experience as
Bakers. It is the only leverage we have.
Whoever the new owners are, if they want to meet the demand of
the $2.5 BILLION in sales from last year they will have to reopen
most of the currently closed Hostess bakeries. With the Union
they can be back on the shelves in 2 weeks. Without, it will take
years to replace the current supply of the over 30 brands up for
sale. Some production may move to the other facilities of the new
owners but no one in the industry has enough capacity to handle an
increase of $2.5 Billion in production without most of our
Hostess facilities.
Even if the new owners offer us non-Union jobs, and they will be
offered to us first, we still win if we are paid more than the
contract offer we just had jammed down our throats. Our pension is
already stolen, whether we stay with these owners or are sold to
new ones. It is more than likely that any of the Baker’s Union
members who are rehired will make less than they used to but more
than they were offered. If that happens, we won and the strike was
clearly the right thing to do. It that doesn’t happen, which is
unlikely, then it was at least worth the risk.
The CEO and hedge funds only pretend to be Galt, insisting all
along that they didn’t need us. They said we could walk if we
wanted and they would replace us with new hires over time. The
entire management crew, not just supervisors but all steps of the
management food chain, were brought in to the big bakeries to run
them at least 12 hours a day without the Unions and keep the main
brands on the shelf. They were unable to do so.
They had at least 6 months of preparation for us walking, adding
and ‘training’ new hires all along the way, and yet they were
closed within the week. They were told we would walk if they
imposed the contract, in other words, they controlled the date of
the strike. They couldn’t run the most efficient and high tech
bakeries in the world with their best and brightest (and well
paid) for even a week. Some leadership.
Make fun of Marx or Rand if you want, but they both represent
subsets of human economic behavior well.Marx was right that
workers control the means of production and we have to protect
our value. Rand thought the competent should be rewarded and the
incompetent would be cast aside to the trash. Goodbye hedge fund
owners. This time they were both right. Smith was right too, the
strike is the balance that has emerged from all parties searching
for their definition of the greater good.
Perhaps economic truth lies in the middle of a triangle of
economic extremes, with Rand, Marx, and Smith at the corners (and
no, Smith and Rand are not in the same corner). Some issues may
require answers from different corners of the triangle, always
grinding, seeking balance. In that case the strike is nothing
more than the invisible hand smacking a failed ownership in their
deserving face. It is leverage being used and nothing more
complicated than that. It just sticks out in an era when Unions
have been losing battles and numbers for 30 years.
The company could have sold us at anytime prior to the strike,
they knew the sale of the company was our stated goal. Yet they
miscalculated that we wouldn’t follow through. Another management
misstep. And for the myth that there were no buyers around, they
fought off a bid of almost $600Million in 2007 from Bimbo’s to
hold out for more from someone else. They would have made 100′s
of millions if they had done it and the Union would be in place
and confident in leadership with a baking background. Hostess
would be profitable by now, had Bimbo’s/Sara Lee taken over. Not
only that, but since the liquidation announcement there are
reports of over 110 possible suitors.
If the Bakers are right, then the invisible hand will guide them
into the reopened bakeries one at a time because of the obvious
role of quality work for production in the marketplace. If
experience and training is valuable in the mass production of
safely baked goods then the Bakers will be successful capitalists.
If we fail, then put us on the list of failures and we’ll try
something else. Sounds awfully capitalistic to me.
My personal belief (experience) is that most right wingers are not
interested in details of a story if they don’t support their
pre-existing beliefs. It is a remarkable trait that pops up
everywhere. Most right wingers will embrace any ‘fact’ from a
friendly and disregard out of hand anything that contradicts the
accepted fact. Do not try to tell me both sides do it, it ain’t
even close. That is not just a generalized dig at right wingers, it
is what the right wing media has proven to me with their reporting
of the Hostess strike and the harsh anti-Union comments that
inevitably follow below, leaving out the entire Union side of the
equation.
You appear to be the rare rightie who can acknowledge that the
Union actually does have a side to their story. I have been
immersed in this for weeks and it is sad that so many people,
especially on the right, know so little of what has happened and
yet have these set in stone opinions about the Union being at fault.
Blaming the Union for Hostesses failure is not analysis no matter
where it comes from, it is conclusion jumping based on wishful
thinking. Anyway, hope I don’t make right wingers hate you by liking
your analysis. Thanks for actually thinking this issue through. And
sorry for the occasional dig at right wingers, it’s what I do. And
I’m not really sorry.
If you want to know why we did it from the mouth of one Baker’s Union
member then read here. It is just me, I speak for no one else.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/18/1162786/-Inside-the-Hostess-Bankery?detail=hide