A few hours prior to when the date was set, the feared rail strike had been resolved. It’s a good choice because it could have caused even more chaos on an already sluggish economy. Insufficient supply would have driven prices higher. Regarding the settlement is concerned I’m not aware of the details yet the headlines sounded fairly reasonable. In essence, it’s a 24- percent wage increase in five years which is retroactive to midpoint of 2020 and lasting to 2024, contingent on the position you’re working in. Annual increases for the year are expected to be between 3-7 percentage increase. There is a retroactive back pay reward of £11,000. The unions initially requested an increase of 31%, however, they agreed to a lower. It is worth noting that is that this is the Atlanta Fed wage tracker is 6.7 percent in the last year. The CPI obviously is 8.3 percent. In some traditional circles it’s trendy to criticize wage increases for unions However, as the truth is that they’re trying keep up with the rising cost of living. Bidenflation is the main reason for the wage hikes. It’s not the fault of workers in recent years that the federal budget has exploded in inflation in the past, and also that the Federal Reserve, until recently and in recent years, has embraced it. The unions aren’t in control of the congressional purse strings , nor the national money supply. They could like to, but as of now they haven’t. Real wages in the last year have dropped 3.4 percent this is a significant wage cut for people who work. Therefore, in this situation I don’t think anyone can blame the typical family of workers in trying to purchase food items, keep the fridge in their homes or to heat it or even buy a brand new automobile. They’re struggling to pay the bills and to get through. The government is the biggest issue, not the workforce and, in this instance that’s the union, not the workforce.
In the event that we had a reliable King dollar, a balanced budget , as well as growth-oriented policies on the supply side that reduce taxes and regulations, we wouldn’t be experiencing this constant inflation. This is why I’m a defender of the workers also, as in the present instance in this case, the union. They are of course private sector union employees and not government employees. You can call me sympathize with the former however, I am not sympathetic to the latter.
But I do want to mention this: it is true that the Biden administration has been throwing anything except the kitchen sink at unionists. This is an entirely different aspect. I would like to address the union’s leadership because they are far from the majority of employees in the ranks.
For instance for instance, the National Labor Relations Board has been the most aggressive pro-union policy over the last half century. They’ve partnered with union officials in union elections, doing everything they can to prevent employers from presenting their version of the truth. They’ve called elections reruns in a number of instances which includes the Amazon incident in Alabama.
The NLRB has backed what’s known as cards checks, which bypass fair secret ballot elections. They are trying to block employers from having private meeting with employees. The most egregiously is that the Biden administration has imposed Davis-Bacon wages on every kinds of new construction.
Davis-Bacon, which goes all the way back to the 1930s, requires contractors to pay inaccurate, bloated government-determined wages and benefits on taxpayer funded construction projects. That is, they are not markets that have been determined competitively but rather government-set wages which are always higher.
For instance, in the recently passed CHIPS Act for the semiconductor industry, it mandated Davis-Bacon wage rates for all structures that are eligible in federal tax credit. There are no Davis-Bacon wages, and therefore there is no tax credits.
The entire Green New Deal spending on massive taxes and subsidy”the “Inflation Reduction Act” allows the Davis-Bacon wage incentive for union-owned shops. No union shop – no Davis-Bacon bonus. These types of regulations can increase the cost of construction. They could impede employment and will certainly hinder business from small enterprises and hinder competition in market for labor. Minority workers are typically the first ones to be affected.
I’m fine with working people getting better wages to offset the higher cost of living However, I’m not happy about the Biden administration’s expensive efforts to favor unions over market competition. All of this is one of the main causes of inflation.