Baby Steps

The article below reports the close vote of the Indiana Senate to abolish the fees forced on non-union employees.  An analysis follows.

Indiana Senate votes 28-22 for right-to-work bill

Published January 23, 2012

| Associated Press

Senate has voted to approve the right-to-work bill that has prompted the legislative boycotts by House Democrats.

The Republican-dominated Senate voted 28-22 in favor of the proposal Monday evening. The bill prohibits companies and unions from agreeing to contracts that require workers who aren't union members to pay representation fees.

Republican Sen. Carlin Yoder of Middlebury argued the bill not only would help attract business to Indiana but also give workers freedom to decide what to do with their money.

Democratic Sen. Vi Simpson of Bloomington questioned whether the law was needed. She says good companies such as Honda and Toyota have expanded in Indiana in recent years without it.

Nine Republicans joined all 13 Democratic senators in voting against the bill."""""""

Just think of the insanity of all this.  We got our current jumble of labor laws from years of collectivist courts and legislative action, all driven under the premise evil big business was abusing the worker.  Nevermind, that without the effort, time, and minds of the business creators, those 'workers' would still be lighting tallow lamps, tilling the ground behind a donkey, and threshing wheat by hand.  The only perk to be seen if you could erase the business man from history would be the shorter life span to suffer.   So, for the genius of efficiency and production, that led all those workers into the era of unheard of salary for a fraction of the work previously required, and the immeasurable benefit provided by the businessmen by producing a vast array of time and life saving products for the workers to buy with their new earnings, what is their reward?  Immolation by government force.  Specifically, our laws force one man to deal with another - to trade with him whether he likes it or not - salary for work, regardless of whether the man seeking to trade money for work agrees that it is a fair trade.    What is the result of this breach of freedom?  Injury to all, as is always the case, when real individual rights are trampled.  We get no or very little real increase in buying power for the workers forced on the employer.  We get not the best workers employed, but those with pull in the union or government, because now the hiring and firing of workers is based in the realm of influence, not in the realm of merit.  This yields a dramatic drop in efficiency across any industry.  This leads to higher prices, poorer product, and a cost of living increase that outstrips even the forced rise in wages for the government imposed workers. (It also leads to generation after generation of young men and women learning not the self-esteem and righteous pride of a job well done and the rightful attendant rewards, but rather the soul rotting pessimism of injustice in the workplace, progress by seniority regardless of merit, and bitter resentment of wealth since they have learned it is somehow always come by through some sort of theft.)   Of course, the union workers feel the  rise in costs (that they have caused) slightly less because of their forced higher wages.   Those not in a union end up paying for the 'advantages' the union workers have forced, via the higher prices now necessary for their lives.  (Non-union Bob pays the higher prices for his car, that then are used to cover the greater number of inefficient union John, Joe, and Larry's who work at forced higher salaries.)  The  higher union wages themselves are initially just another cost of doing business to the employer, initially just passed on to consumers, but the drop in his ability to maintain the highest quality (efficient) workforce is very damaging.   As the labor laws, minimum wage laws, insurance and benefit requirements, and taxes expand, the employer's profit (the wealth created by any endeavor - think: the # of potatoes grown above the # planted) shrinks, as does his ability to improve, grow, expand, research, compete, and, eventually his reason to stay in business.  There is a french word for this process, it's called  "DETROIT"  (day'-twa)......   
Once we are all in such a pickle, the Unions of course can't let avoiding the union be attractive in any way.  So they've managed to, by pull, get laws that enforce fees on non-union employees, such that the heavy dues they charge their members (so as to have a $ war chest for political pull) are not viewed by their members as an avoidable burden.  Heaven forbid that a worker see and be able to enter into a free, mutual contract with an employer!  
Then, for the govt to pay for all the handout programs to assist those in need during the resultant dreadful economic state of affairs, what do they do - Raise taxes, of course -- on whom most - on the rich, the producers, the businesses.  In the context of their businesses, though - they don't pay taxes - they just collect them for the state.  Those taxes are simply added to the price of the products sold to cover the new cost of doing businesses.  This is why it is so silly when 'right-wingers' grumble about the "50% who pay no taxes" -- Oh no -- they pay taxes.  It's just that most of them don't know it.  They pay them, and at a MUCH higher percentage of income rate - in the form of higher prices for consumable goods.   The irony is fantastic!  The liberals who really understand must have a hard time not blowing their soup out their noses every time they hear a poor constituent cry to raise taxes on 'the business or the wealthy.'    Short of shooting a poor person in the leg, NOTHING could better keep them down.  
So in the end, we all suffer -- all except the moocher type of union employee who does as little as possible and counts on the law given power of his union to keep the feed bag (paid for by all others) in front of him -- and the mass of union organizers and govt bureaucrats who live and breathe and make their ill gotten living from this rotten structure.   The rest of us -- we pay for it -- higher prices and taxes for worse and less stuff, for their retirements, for those bureaucrats' schmancy dinners, for the expense of the legislators who keep it in place, for the courts to settle disputes arising over which pressure group should win any particular non objective legal battle over which group of individuals' rights should be breached and how much,  for enormous bailouts when the irrationality of it comes crumpling down every decade or so, for the unemployment benefits when the businesses flee overseas, and on and on and on....  
When will we learn:   The rights of the individual are NOT ever to be breached in the name of the group, the tribe, the class, the 'society,' etc. without great injury to some men (usually many) for the unjust gain of others (usually few.)      We did not intend to trade the tyranny of the king for the tyranny of the majority.... We intended real individual freedom.   Europe never has realized this.   It is a shame that we have forgotten it, or, in some cases, willfully distorted or hidden it....  
Yes - Indiana did something good.   Baby steps, I guess,  Baby steps....