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All I see unions do is to be destructive to their workers/ members.
A very long time ago, unions did a lot of good, before there were laws protecting workers. That is no longer necessary because of the huge number of laws now in effect protecting health, safety, over time, benefits.
I disagree with your entire premise.
From the book "Why Unions Matter" by Michael D. Yates:
unionized employees make 14.1% more than their non-union counterpart
In the early 2000s 71.9% of union members had pensions vs.43.8% for non union workers
getting fired requires just cause, meaning that your boss can't wake up and say I think that I'll fire oregonwoodsmoke today.
The advantages are still there and will become more important as time goes on.
Private sector unions are fine but no one should be required to join them to keep a job.
Like FDR, I think public unions should be outlawed as they are contrary to the public interest in several very critical ways.
Private sector unions are fine but no one should be required to join them to keep a job.
Like FDR, I think public unions should be outlawed as they are contrary to the public interest in several very critical ways.
i agree with this. one reason private sector unions dont bother me as much is because the company is required to be able to sell a product at a competitive price and still be profitable. so theoretically, a union can only do only so much damage because they would cause the company to go out of business if they are too aggressive.
clearly, there is a problem with forcing people to join a union if they dont want to. however, i cant pretend that this freedom to choose doesnt pretty much destroy the ability of unions to exist (at least in their present form). perhaps they could exist in a better form that gives the employees an option only when a group deems it is needed vs a large political organization that primarily exists for its own benefit not so much the members.
Private sector unions are fine but no one should be required to join them to keep a job.
Like FDR, I think public unions should be outlawed as they are contrary to the public interest in several very critical ways.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainNJ
i agree with this. one reason private sector unions dont bother me as much is because the company is required to be able to sell a product at a competitive price and still be profitable. so theoretically, a union can only do only so much damage because they would cause the company to go out of business if they are too aggressive.
clearly, there is a problem with forcing people to join a union if they dont want to. however, i cant pretend that this freedom to choose doesnt pretty much destroy the ability of unions to exist (at least in their present form). perhaps they could exist in a better form that gives the employees an option only when a group deems it is needed vs a large political organization that primarily exists for its own benefit not so much the members.
Governments can be as hostile and as miserly as private companies. Protections from the whims of politicians are as important as protections from the whims of private companies.
As far as joining or not joining a union is concerned, any group that doesn't present a united front may fail. Caesar knew that divide and conquer would work in Gaul, and the British almost made it work here in the USA. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a divided work force is easier prey than a united one.
I belonged to two unions, the UFCW, and Teamsters. At the time, (late 70's and early 90's) I didn't see any negative effects on productivity - everyone worked their butts off and if not they didn't last. The dues that I paid out were more than offset by the higher wages that the unions were able to negotiate. Plus, a part time job with full medical insurance was hard to find as a college student.
Since I moved to the white collar world, I don't see them as good or bad, but serving a necessary purpose. Sure, there are labor laws, but that doesn't mean that one person can easily bring a case against a giant corporation and come out a winner. It's been proven time and time again that companies do not always act in good faith when it comes to workers' rights. A person who desperately needs a job will put up with a lot before blowing the whistle.
We've all heard the stories about lazy union workers, but how many have actually seen it first hand? A lot of those tales are apocryphal.
i agree with this. one reason private sector unions dont bother me as much is because the company is required to be able to sell a product at a competitive price and still be profitable. so theoretically, a union can only do only so much damage because they would cause the company to go out of business if they are too aggressive.
And yet that is exactly what happened in my home town in rural PA. Growing up my hometown was like a Norman Rockwell painting. A great place to grow up. There were four factories in town through mid-eighties. If you weren't a farmer you worked one of those factories. Pretty stable.
Then the Unions started getting aggressive. They kept pushing and pushing the owners for more and more over the course of a few years. Everyone in town was like what are they doing? if they keep talking like this we are likely to lose our jobs. Pay was growing, pensions seemed like a dream come true, lots of vacation... It was to the point that a janitor was making $25/hr in 1985. But people were very concerned that it can't last. Payscale was completely out of whack for the area. Sounds great at first but eventually the owners had enough. The factories were loosing so much money because the wages and benefits were consuming any profits. So one by one they closed the factories over the course of five years.
Today my hometown is a waste hole. All the grocery and clothing store fronts closed replaced with "Women, Infant children assistance" and church charities. 70% of the populace is on some sort of gov assistance, and meth has absolutely destroyed the community. The HS drop out rate is triple what it was in the mid 80's.
The union fat cats got theirs and are no where to be found in that community. They pushed until the there was none left to be had and a community was destroyed.
Governments can be as hostile and as miserly as private companies. Protections from the whims of politicians are as important as protections from the whims of private companies.
i can understand that perception but i dont think that is really how things play out. one big issue is deferred expenses. things like retiree healthcare and pensions. they are given generously because the politicians and unions are smarter than the citizens. they have a limited short term cost and then they bankrupt the entity many years later. i know a lot of that is changing because of the financial situation of government entities but they never should have been allowed to begin with. but politicians care more about short term results than the long term pain since they are long gone by then.
Unions are a mechanism by which a free market makes corrections. Investors and business people work collectively in corporations and trade associations to further their economic interests. It makes sense that employees should work collectively in unions to further their economic interests.
Those who don’t like joining a union as a condition of employment are free to seek work somewhere else.
That some unions are poorly run is no more a valid argument against unions than to argue that because some corporations are poorly run we shouldn’t have corporations.
And yet that is exactly what happened in my home town in rural PA. Growing up my hometown was like a Norman Rockwell painting. A great place to grow up. There were four factories in town through mid-eighties. If you weren't a farmer you worked one of those factories. Pretty stable.
Then the Unions started getting aggressive. They kept pushing and pushing the owners for more and more over the course of a few years. Everyone in town was like what are they doing? if they keep talking like this we are likely to lose our jobs. Pay was growing, pensions seemed like a dream come true, lots of vacation... It was to the point that a janitor was making $25/hr in 1985. But people were very concerned that it can't last. Payscale was completely out of whack for the area. Sounds great at first but eventually the owners had enough. The factories were loosing so much money because the wages and benefits were consuming any profits. So one by one they closed the factories over the course of five years.
Today my hometown is a waste hole. All the grocery and clothing store fronts closed replaced with "Women, Infant children assistance" and church charities. 70% of the populace is on some sort of gov assistance, and meth has absolutely destroyed the community. The HS drop out rate is triple what it was in the mid 80's.
The union fat cats got theirs and are no where to be found in that community. They pushed until the there was none left to be had and a community was destroyed.
And this story repeats again and again across the rustbelt.
My hometown where I was born used to have multiple factories employing tens of thousands of people. Today, those areas are empty fields with miles of desolate old homes and shuttered business surrounding them.
Unions are a mechanism by which a free market makes corrections. Investors and business people work collectively in corporations and trade associations to further their economic interests. It makes sense that employees should work collectively in unions to further their economic interests.
Those who don’t like joining a union as a condition of employment are free to seek work somewhere else.
That some unions are poorly run is no more a valid argument against unions than to argue that because some corporations are poorly run we shouldn’t have corporations.
I think you mean, unions distort the free market and then the free market steps in and makes the correction.
See: towns exactly like me and the previous poster mentioned.
You can’t force someone to pay you more than you are actually worth.
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