The Union lament

 

The story of Norma Rae is about unionizing the mills in the south...

ah the good old days when working class folk were not the enemy.

The irony of this?

The textile industry in New England became unionized, which led to higher wages and working conditions. (I knew one of the union organizers, who had met the Kennedys before they were famous, because they had ties with the unions)

but the long term result was that the textile industry moved to the south, where wages were low and unions were not popular... this Atlantic article from 1954 is about that issue. and it notes how JFK saw the problem .

In his first year as the Junior Senator from Massachusetts, JOHN F. KENNEDY in three incisive speeches hit hard at the unfair competitive practices that have led industry to migrate from New England to the South. He argued that substandard wages and tax subsidies are no foundation on which to build a stable economy, and then presented his program for a fairer competition—a program which he has graphically illustrated in the article which follows.

so the textile industry moved to the south, where people were anti union and were willing to work for lower wages.

and the Atlantic article notes this paradox: short term, loss of good jobs, long term, other businesses took their place in the north, and the increase in prosperity led to more customers to buy stuff...

I saw this in my own family: My uncle ran a small hosiery mill and saw this coming... so instead of holding on, he retooled his hosiery mill to make small parts and became a millionaire: but many others just went bankrupt).

So the unions, who initially helped the worker, actually harmed them in the long run. Because the better wages led to higher costs, and fewer people could afford the product. 

And voila; Globalization expanded. So the larger companies merely moved their factories overseas: which is why, if you look into the label on your clothing, you will find it was made in Pakistan, Guatemala, etc. and a lot of other thing made in China.

Ah, but despite the cries of sweat shop and worker exploitation, the long term result was the elimination of poverty.

And that is the paradox: because it also led to family disruption and cultural changes, both good and bad.

This is not a new problem: if you ever heard the term "Luddite", this refers to the industrial revolution that replace home weavers with huge factories that made textiles (often working long hours in horrific conditions). 

But it also relieved women of the never ending work of spinning thread or weaving cloth and sewing it for the family: which is why the word Spinster refers to the unmarried women who helped out their family at home by spinning and doing other chores.

and although the factories are often "sweat shops", the dirty little secret is that often they are better than the rural poverty which was the alternative for these workers. 

Unionizations was the response to the sweatshops and bad financial compensation for workers... and although often the unions were tainted by socialism/Marxism, even the Popes supported the idea. LINK a philosophy that is still being seen as a part of the church outreach to protect ordinary folk.

(Rerum Novarum) discusses the relationships and mutual duties between labor and capital, as well as government and its citizens. Of primary concern is the need for some amelioration of "the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class."[5] It supports the rights of labor to form unions, rejects both socialism and unrestricted capitalism, while affirming the right to private property.

One of the ironies of the Trump era is that he tried to protect American workers by stopping the importation of cheap labor who, because they were undocumented, were vunerable to exploitation in many different ways.

No one wanted to admit that the drop in unemployment was because the competition was stopped and companies had to pay decent wages, and his "anti China" policies were about stopping the importation of cheap goods (and often shoddy goods) that destroyed American jobs. enables more jobs, etc.

this went against the religion of the globalists, who saw his policies as a threat to their plans.  LINK2.

the jobs sent overseas hurt American workers, but lifted millions aout of poverty. And it also let Americans buy cheap goods that otherwise would be beyond their budget.

So there has been a huge drop in poverty, thanks to the capitalists moving their factories overseas.

and this is especially true for China, but is also true for other Asian countries.

Here is a propaganda film by the Chinese government that pretends it was their plan all along... ignoring other factors of course.

Africa has been lagging, partly due to corruption, but also due to the fact that those doing development work tend to be green in orientation. (for example, encouraging small farmers to grow like their ancestors did).

China is the exploiting African minerals and agriculture, a policy that some call neocolonialism.

But one does hope that the huge increase in Chinese investments in Africa (and in Afghanistan) there will in the long run result in a drop in poverty.

The bad news? The covid epidemic, and especially the overblown shutdowns in an effort to stop it's spread, has resulted in a lot of people out of work, and a huge increase in poverty, especially in third world countries.

And there are rumbles of an economic collapse of the stock market in China that bodes ill for the future.

 Sigh.

Bless the child of the workin' man 

She knows too soon who she is 

And bless the hands of a workin' man 

He knows his soul is his 

So it goes like it goes and the river flows 

And time it rolls right on 

And maybe what's good gets a little bit better 

And maybe what's bad gets gone