The Best Case For Free Labor & Capital A Unionist Ever Heard

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – In today’s transcript Caller Joe berates Mike for being anti-union and tries to convince Mike that people who invest their time in a company (not investing capital or for a paycheck) are the ones that the company and unions should take care of.  Sounds like a lot of collectivism to me Joe.  Check out the transcript for more.

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike: Joe is in Pennsylvania on a Wednesday, Mike Church Show. Hello, Joe.

Caller Joe: How you doing, Mike?

Mike: All right, Joe.

Caller Joe: I’m a union member, a truck driver. It sounds like you’re making us all look like we’re evil that we’re in the union.

Mike: I didn’t say you were evil. Did I say evil?

Caller Joe: No, but it’s coming across that way, like all the union members are all bad.

Mike: Wait, wait. No, dude, you’re just sensitive. Why is it coming across like that? Refute this statement. Don’t deal in presuppositions or what you thought you heard, let’s deal with what I actually said. What I said is that in the private sector, what a union does is it levels the playing field for all that can earn. There are no overachievers, unless unions have changed since my father was in one, there are no overachievers in a labor union. You’re at your pay scale, you’re at your level, you get to it and that’s where you stay. Maybe there’s one above it, maybe there isn’t. Maybe there’s seniority, maybe there isn’t.

If you’re a private contractor, though, in the same industry and you kick mortal butt of those that you would compete with, if you believe in free markets and you believe in an individual society where merit is rewarded, you are then going to have an opportunity to earn more than someone who’s not as good at what you do. That’s all I said. That is a statement to me of economic fact. That’s not my opinion. I think that’s the way it works. I’m sorry that it offended you, but that’s what I said.

Caller Joe: Don’t freak out on me. I just want to have a good discussion here with you.

Mike: I just wanted to have the proper grounds of discussion here. You are free to engage in and join a labor union. I am simply giving you free market principled reasons why I think if you’re really good at you do, you shouldn’t. That’s all.

Caller Joe: I’m really good at what I do, but I was fired from a non-union company because they wanted me gone. There was no reason for it.

Mike: Life sucks; get a helmet. I was fired five times from non-union radio stations and radio operators for what in my humble estimation were things that I actually didn’t do, but so be it. That’s the way it works.

Caller Joe: So somebody can just, because they don’t like you —

Mike: You’re not entitled to a job, sir. You’re not entitled to a share of some man’s creative vision and dream and the use of his capital. It’s a good deal that you can make if you don’t want to have your own company to use someone else’s capital to pursue what it is you enjoy doing. That’s what we’re doing here. Andrew and I don’t have enough money to launch a satellite unless Papa Gruss is going to loan it to us. Andrew, can we get a loan for a satellite?

AG: Not sure if it’s going to cover the costs.

Mike: You want to put that prospectus together and we’ll see. You see where I’m going with that. We’re using the investors of Sirius XM satellite radio who invested the money to launch the satellite. I love radio. I love broadcasting. I don’t have enough of my own capital to put the satellites in orbit and have my own satellite broadcasting company. I will make a deal with the person or entity that does have the money to do so and I will take advantage of that fact. They have satellites; they need broadcasters; let’s have a deal. I am in no way entitled or have some sort of grant or claim on those satellites, unless I’m a stockholder and I am, and even then, unless I’m a major stockholder, I still don’t have a grant. We’ve got to separate the emotional from the pragmatic reality of it, Joe. That’s all. I don’t begrudge you and don’t think you’re evil or anything of the sort for being in a labor union. I would never use that word.

Caller Joe: Are you even listening to me?

Mike: I’ll shut up. You go.

Caller Joe: The companies can break the backs of their employees — this is how unions all started. Companies would break the backs of their employees and employees wouldn’t get nothing. They’d just be thankful to have a job. That’s not how it works.

Mike: It isn’t? If a company needs employees in order to get its product to market, and if it as you say breaks the back of all the employees, who’s going to get the product to market?

Caller Joe: Let’s see how unions started actually started back —

Mike: I simply refuted what you just said. I just responded to what you just said. Who’s going to get the product to market?

Caller Joe: In a hard economy, do you know what the companies do? They hire less people and they force the workers to work even harder.

Mike: They don’t force you to work —

Caller Joe: It’s a bad economy now and I’m working harder than I did five years ago when George Bush was in.

Mike: Joe, you’re free to quit. Quit and go find a company that doesn’t break your back and work you harder, if such an entity exists, sir.

Caller Joe: I’m invested in this company. This company is invested in me. It goes hand in hand. They invest in me and I invest in them and we become a profitable organization.

Mike: You invest your time. Did you actually invest capital in the company? If you did, you ought to have a say so in its administration.

Caller Joe: Everybody, when they go and work for somebody, they really are investing in that company. They’re investing their time in their work.

Mike: They’re not investing their time in their work.

Caller Joe: Yes, they are.

Mike: They’re doing it to get a paycheck. No, they’re not. If you’re investing your time, then there ought to be an agreement. I don’t have any investment agreement other than the voluntary one that I voluntarily entered into to enter the 401k program. There’s a lot of collectivism in what I’m hearing from you, brother, a lot.

Caller Joe: You are just so anti-union. You’re so anti-union —

Mike: Joe, you can phrase that any way you want, sir. You don’t know me, so you don’t know that. As I said, my father was a union member, died a union member, died with an ABF patch on his shirt. Don’t tell me what I am and what I’m not. I am simply stating to you the pro-free market, free individual case. You, sir, are not entitled to a job. You are not entitled to the use of my capital. You may, if I like you and I think you’re going to be effective at using my capital, you may hold a position in my company, but I am under no obligation to have to extend that to you or to anyone else. As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations, my interests are served by serving your interests, so I may hire you. That is the extent of our agreement. If you’re really good, I may say, “Joe, you’re the greatest driver I’ve ever had. You’re a commander and a leader of men. You called Mike Church up and you cursed him out on the air. I love ya, man! I’m going to make you a partner.” It’s not entitlement, you’ve earned it.

That is how it should work. Is that the way it works today? Of course it isn’t. Of course that’s not the way it works. You have many different variables here in this equation. I’m simply stating to you, and I’m not going to refute it, I think I made a pretty good defense of what a free market and what labor’s role is and what capital’s role is. Coming from your end of the spectrum, this is the end of the spectrum that the progressives got their start in. The arguments that they made are the exact same ones that you just made to me. You’re free to make them, don’t get me wrong, I just happen to disagree.

End Mike Church Show Transcript