Perhaps the clearest example of the self defeating nature of unions and the bloody minded self delusion that unionism is built on is the fact that unions increase unemployment, and the vapid arguments which unionists will use in an attempt to counter this.
Unfortunately for the unionists, the job market is not magically exempt from the effects of supply and demand. If you artificially increase wages, either through government or union action, the inevitable result is fewer jobs than there would have been if market forces had been left to run their course. This is why neither the government nor the unions are able to wave a magic wand and double everyone's salary, either in real terms or on paper - it would put people out of a job. Yet unions devote their existence to doing exactly this on a smaller scale - colluding to increase wages by a smaller amount, and inevitably destroying some people's jobs in the process. Then congratulating themselves for being knights in shining armour while attacking honest job seekers as being scabs.
In the scab thread, the resident unionists were happy enough to argue that their fellow Australians should voluntarily choose unemployment in order to maintain whatever modest salary increase the unions could achieve through collusion, and happily attacked those Australians who had the nerve to believe they should be free to choose to work for whoever would freely choose to employ them.
Yet in the same thread they managed to delude themselves into thinking that their actions do not put people out of work. This was not just coming from one or two rusted on supporters, but a significant minority.
For example, a blatant lie by John Smith and Dna:
Dnarever wrote on Oct 17
th, 2020 at 6:47pm:
freediver wrote on Oct 17
th, 2020 at 6:39pm:
Quote:That's funny, I recall hearing the same argument FOR cutting penalty rates. But when rates were cut, it was found that they didn't create a single job ... instead there were more unemployed.
Do you think there were more unemployed than there would have been without the rate cuts?
Yes definitely the loss of jobs was industry specific. People walked and it hurt the industry.
The data shows that employees voted with their feet. This next lie is particularly stupid. Who but a unionist would believe that a company only ever needs a fixed amount of employees, regardless of the cost of them or how profitable they are?
Dnarever wrote on Oct 17
th, 2020 at 8:35pm:
There is a mountain of evidence that shows wage increases do not impact employment numbers, the employer side make the claim with every wage increase and when it happens the outcome fails to support this claim.
The reason is that business will employ the number of people that they need. They do not employ people they don't need when wages are low and they do not sack people that they do need when wages increase.
Jest accusing Friedman of lying and backing it up by agreeing with him:
Jest wrote on Oct 20
th, 2020 at 6:17am:
It was Friedman's biggest lie; that tax cuts and business profitability leads to more jobs and higher wages. Business profitability can lead to more jobs but the effect is very minimal.
The quintessential unionist - being confused is no barrier to the absolute conviction that you are right:
Dnarever wrote on Oct 20
th, 2020 at 10:28pm:
freediver wrote on Oct 20
th, 2020 at 8:03pm:
You are confused.
Yes confused but I am still right.
When John Smith finally produced the evidence everyone had been talking about, it was immediately apparent why they had been reluctant to do so for so long. From the article John presented:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/penalty-rate-cuts-did-not-create-jobs-labor-20200522-p54vn7.html
Ms Birch cautioned against assuming causality between the penalty rate changes and the jobs data.
Ms Mousina said the retail sector had seen disappointing jobs growth in both part-time and full-time roles but this was shaped in part by the broader struggles of the retail sector and the structural decline in department stores.
“Before COVID the consumer backdrop was already weak in Australia – low wages growth, high household debt and poor confidence, which doesn’t bode well for the retail sector,” she said.There was nothing in the evidence to back up Dna's claim that job numbers went down because people were voluntarily resigning, or his even more absurd claim that businesses do not grow or shrink, or John's claim that the rate cuts did not create a single job, or that there were fewer jobs than their would have been without the rate cuts.
All it demonstrates is the misleading, transparent and simple minded propaganda that unions are built on - in this case trying to attribute a retail sector shrinking as a result of competition with online sellers and a struggling economy to a single cause that does not even make sense - cheaper labour.