It is not charity. It is, however, fairly basic to state that, especially after this spectacular bust, were I not employing these people, they would not be employed. No one forces these men to work for me, no one forces me to hire them. The arrangement has been reached because it is mutually beneficial. My business could not exist without their labor (as it is impossible for me to do all aspects of my business alone), but so too would they not be able to live without receiving payment for their labor.So you feel that society owes you, entitles you, to the profit of their labor? You feel like you have an unimpeachable right to a livelihood derived from their product rather than your own labor; and your defense for that position is the fact that you pay them?
What do you pay them with? Do you hire them the way I would hire house painters, with money I made through my own trade, or is what you pay them merely a portion of the profit of your company? The profits derived, at least in large part, from those employees.
It never ceases to amaze me how men such as yourself can act like it is an act of charity or some kind of fair bargain to be taking a portion of the working man's produce and call it you "paying" them! They're paying you. Your position, your employment as a manager and man of business, is dependent on their labor. You require them far more than they require you, they literally employ YOU. You would have no purpose in life were it not to "manage" the product that they create.
But they created it - they should get to decide for themselves whether they would rather their labor union manage their product, or a government that represents their interests manage their product. How would either be less desirable than allowing a self-appointed - or rather capitalist State appointed - bureaucrat such as yourself steal as much of their property as he, that is you, see fit?
And I should clarify further, lest the fire you breathe consume you entirely - they do not "produce" anything, strictly speaking. They move product from ship to shore, and vice versa. What, exactly, is there for your precious union to manage? If they do not like the amount of reimbursement I and my company give them for their labor, they are more than welcome to seek out better wages, or organize in the same manner that the New York longshoremen did. But to insinuate that I am some monster seeking to keep my employees subsistent and subservient is nothing short of deceptive.
Mr. Weaver, my company is privately-held. There is no board for employees' representatives to sit on. Their wages are themselves already profit-sharing. I pay above the industry average precisely because I was once a worker. But, again: my company is no charity. Nor should it be. Nor will it ever be. It is a company, run for profit.