No, Union Workers Are Not "Over Paid"

What's a hard day's work worth? In dollars and cents, that's a relative discussion. In terms of life-quality, is it worth food on the table? A roof over your head? Clothes to wear? Health insurance? A retirement plan? Raises? Vacation time? Family leave? I would argue someone who works hard every day and is a loyal employee deserves all of these things. Some would obviously not.

This is the central difference between conservatives and liberals on the economy in the United States- who deserves the fruit of the labor. Over the last forty years, as corporate profits have soared in the United States, all of those things have fallen off. The reaction of some people to this has been to attack those who still get some of those things- like pensions, health benefits, sick and vacation time, and automatic wages. The people getting those are largely in unions, both private and public sector workers. People point at these union workers and ask what right they have to continue enjoying those benefits. In the zero-sum game of who gets a bigger cut of the pie in the "pro-growth" economy, many workers aren't getting these things anymore, in the name of bigger profits for shareholders. If they are going to constantly get a bigger profit every year than the year before, then the workers have to take a smaller and smaller slice of the pie to make it work.

The real question is why the working class accept this as a status quo? Is there any good reason that the profit has to be bigger than last year? Is there a reason that people who don't work on the product, but kick in early capital, have to get such a larger slice of the pie than the people who do the work? Is there any real reason that someone who goes to work every day and works hard has to be on public assistance while executive compensation and share prices continue to go up? Is this necessary?

What this really comes down to is this- is someone who is getting to enjoy some semblance of success for working hard being over-compensated just because you are getting less? If you say yes, are you not accepting a system in which you will continue to get less and less for your hard work? If they make too much now, why don't you make too much later? If minimum wage is too high now, will it not be too high later, even at a lower level, because the profits have to continue to grow into forever? In short, if you accept that the people who are earning a middle-class living for their labor are making too much, won't we just simply continue to go down and down forever?

I think maybe you are under-paid.