American Labor Unions Play a Huge Part in Jobs Moving Overseas

Like it or not, American labor unions play a huge part in American jobs leaving our shores. What gets me is how so many either do not accept this due to their ideological position or truly do not grasp this very simple fact that relates to trade, wages and production costs.

Historically anything used by an American was cheaper made in the US. Before modern shipping and trade, for the most part anything an American desired was better, more available and cheaper. Once shipping became a more private business as opposed to a mostly pseudo-governmental enterprise, private shipping entities were willing to move any product for which they would be fairly compensated.

Modern trade opened the world and greatly contributed to the concept of being more one world than totally isolated and disparate entities. National borders and indeed the world's oceans became less of a burdensome mountain to climb and as wealth exploded into the hands of citizens in the First World, trade was a natural result. With increased contact and consumer driven trade, naturally competition over product manufacture would come into conflict and here we sit today experiencing all that entails.

For all the good of the American labor movement at the turn of the 19th and into the 20th century, today these same once valid entities have moved from useful to redundant and exceedingly dangerous to the economic viability of our nation as well as to the American body politic as well.

When the globe is both the market and the location of a product's manufacture, it is natural and completely expected - at least to those of us sans a hopeful ideological agenda - that all things being even, cheaper labor will be able to produce products for worldwide consumption far cheaper than can be made in the US considering our level of wage and especially the American labor unions.

If the quality and availability of a product is similar when we look at a foreign or domestically made item the only real issue left is price. If the Chinese laborer makes one tenth the hourly wage of an American worker that will play a huge part in the overall retail price, thus the "attractiveness" of a consumer item. So long as the quality is similar to an item made on a domestic assembly line, then clearly even with the cost of traversing the world's oceans taken into account, the item is still cheaper than a domestic one, well it's easy to see the result.

As to who to blame, of course I blame the labor unions for the continuation of this situation. That is not to say I believe Americans should take a pay cut. I am merely pointing out the facts so the more obtuse and ideologically wed can free their minds and catch a clue - facts are facts.

Let's examine steel and the infamous middle American Rust Belt. What happened to American steel? Did we forget how to make it? Did our supply of ore run dry? Natural disaster destroy the manufacturing plants? No, none of the above. What did happen was that other nations could make steel and ship said steel to the US cheaper than American companies could make it. Why? Two reasons...foreign nations' tendencies to subsidize their industries to make them competitive and of course the price of labor. And not just the wages of a steel worker, but all of the workers in the supply chain.

American miners are the best paid in the world. It costs more to mine American minerals than it costs the Chinese to mine their plentiful natural deposits of various ores. It costs more to ship American minerals to their end user destinations. It then costs more to pay American steel workers to do the work of making steel from the ores. At EVERY LEVEL there is a union involved...American mine worker's unions, the trucker's unions and of course the steel worker's unions. Add in elevated wages of each of these union entities and the costs pile up rather quickly and the result is American's being priced out of their own steel markets. Get it?

This effect applies across the American manufacturing base. The most heavily unionized industries were manufacturing and the natural and inescapable result was a higher cost of American goods. So what happens when companies with a moral and legal obligation to their investors must make a profit? Do they go out of business because they can't afford to stay in business and pay high union wages or do they do the common sense thing and send some jobs overseas where the labor is a fraction of the cost of American labor.

Keep in mind it is the lefty that goes on and on about one world and all that yet when it comes to union wages and earnings they pretend we should become an isolationist nation and subsidize and employ tariffs. Isn't this so obvious it makes one's eyes bleed if they look too closely? Why are these same lefties so want to redistribute MY wealth yet no one better touch their union wages? What's up with that? So my wealth is worthy of worldwide redistribution, cause I am so rich and acquired it so unfairly and all, yet don't touch unions or their wealth, right?

Many lefties refuse to accept the facts that are so obvious and elementary. If American labor unions continue to demand wages so out of kilter with the rest of the world and if they continue to refuse to make real and meaningful compromises, then when they loose their jobs to foreign workers, why is this an issue they angrily attack Republican's over? The truth is American labor unions are and were greedy. They have PRICED THEMSELVES out of the competitive markets. No one but their own greed led to this situation and their own current greed keeps it alive.

Again, I do not pretend to have the answer, but I must address the topic because of the never-ending denigrations from the left on this issue. They blame NAFTA. They blame big business. They blame greedy American stockholders, as if a lefty is all for their own stocks being lessened in value to suit some ideological desire they have...I have never met a lefty in favor of HIS portfolio taking a hit, ya know, for ideological desires or purpose, so once again my favorite word comes into play - HYPOCRITES!

As long as American labor unions refuse to accept that wages are part of the problem, these problems will only magnify.