The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Another Community Organizer Non-Victory In New York

Posted on | January 14, 2014 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Via Insty, Richard Epstein alludes to a bummer of a tale in New York:

“After Winning a Raise, 175 Workers At a Queens Casino Lose Their Jobs.” That result would never have happened if the workers had won their raises by demonstrating higher levels of productivity to their employer, The Resorts World Casino. Instead, these wage increases were dictated by a labor arbitrator who doubled the base wages for workers in the casino under the living wage arrangement that he imposed on the firm.
No one should be thrilled that restaurant workers have to settle for wages of $5 per hour plus tips. But a steady job at that level is better than no job at the $12 base pay ordered by the arbitrator. The casino sought to raise food prices to compensate for the increased costs, but the law of demand applies to consumers as well. In hard times, they won’t stand for the increased prices, so the casino closed a food operation that could only operate at a loss, leaving 175 union members to scramble for jobs.

I’m no fan of casinos, not being bothered even to play the lottery. For a better rebuttal, and lest you think me too pious, allow me to introduce a bit of Frank Zappa, with a reggae-driven rebuttal for union idiocy everywhere. This is FZ, which is short for NSFW for those not In The Know.

You can enjoy the tune before or after reading the whole of the article.

Category: Unions

Comments

10 Responses to “Another Community Organizer Non-Victory In New York”

  1. Charles
    January 14th, 2014 @ 9:30 pm

    You ought to be able to sue for negligent organizing in a situation like this, in a country where you can sue for anything, but that of course is against the union rules.

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 14th, 2014 @ 10:47 pm

    Now we know RSM gambles, but he has a certain roulette system…

  3. Proof
    January 14th, 2014 @ 11:34 pm

    You don’t mess with the law of supply and demand!

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    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:54 am

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  5. Adjoran
    January 15th, 2014 @ 1:46 am

    Unions are not about getting people work. They are about controlling jobs, and thereby the workers who fill them.

    Union actions over the last half-century have proved time and time again that the union prefers no jobs at all to non-union jobs, or to union jobs where their influence is severely restricted.

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  7. richard mcenroe
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:36 am

    It’s probably unkind to feel schadenfreude at the sight of any broke jobless people, but if they didn’t see this coming, they’re probably not bright enough to deserve to get paid more.
    The funny part is the casino will probably bring in an outside franchise operator using immigrant labor who work even cheaper.

  8. Ronald J. Ward
    January 15th, 2014 @ 9:47 pm

    Resorts World, a sister company of Malaysian owned Genting Group that operates a network of casinos and resorts in Britain and Asia, came into the city promising good paying jobs in return for being allowed to operate a gambling casino.

    And after record revenues, they reneged on their promise.

    And while 175 slave wage paying jobs may have been lost, another 1100 are now working at a living wage as a result of the arbitrager’s ruling as 1375 employees saw their wages double.

    As far as I’m concerned, they can either pay up or get the hell back to their own country to make their money.

    And
    it kinda pisses me off that these foreigners come into our towns and
    makes huge profits and workers like me subsidize their workers because
    they’d rather send their profits back overseas.

  9. Stout Broux
    January 16th, 2014 @ 10:48 pm

    It kinda pisses off a lot of people in other countries that the USA comes into their towns and make huge profits and their workers subsidize our workers and send their profits back overseas.
    It’s called karma, what goes around comes around.

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