The problem with unions. (salary, companies, elect, government)
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This is so true. I'm waiting for someone who calls unions useless & unfair to respond to this report. I'd love to hear how they justify this.
The moment you get away from US 23 you enter another world. That area is extremely depressed since most mines are played out.
The sweetest thing I saw was when a very old and very disabled lady came up and stood at the store's doorway. Herman Webb excused himself walked over to a shelf got a loaf of beard and took it to her. No money changed hands, just friendly greetings and a bless you. You see, without Webb and his gift that lady wouldn't be alive. In that little holler he is the wealthy man, because of visitors like us, and he shares that freely.
After the mines are played out the wealthy mine owners disappear leaving behind the environmental mess and exploited workers behind to pick up the pieces.
Ever time I hear a wingnut say how great this country is I wonder what suburb they're stuck in. I want to say get off your butt and take a trip, stay off the interstates, go thru a couple of hollers. A large chunk of America has been discarded by the wealthy and is living like a third world country.
The problem is that people assume unions are unions only if they are "trade" (or "workers") union. By any other name, people tend to be just fine.
Workers unions are bad, corporate unions are good. It goes down to the basic philosophy that rich people are hardworking, smart, and have great worth ethic, while middle class people in general are not as hardworking, lazier, and dumber
The biggest problem with unions is they illed Michigan and the Rust Belt economies, by and large. The reason: No opportunity for major new plants. All transplant auto facilities are in RTW. Try finding out the last time a plant of major size moved from a RTW state to a closed shop state. The inverse happens regularly.
Union members simply discovered the market does have a price for every type of labor, and when they exceeded it, as Springsteen said "Those jobs ain't a-comin back".
Now w/o new manufacturing facilities or technology centers, such as Caterpillar's Ga plant to come or GE's New Orleans technology center, as the union shops closed, the alternatives were Wal Mart and the like.
Unions also hold the good/best employees back from negotiating better pay and benefits for themselves.
What gives them the right to do that?
if you took a company and got rid of the union, you think any one of those union members would end up with a much better pay and benefits package, negotiating alone, than they had under the old agreement under their union? First thing the company would do is cut the former union members pensions, make them pay more towards healthcare, decrease raises, etc. But - unions are most useful in the area of workplace conditions, fair treatment, etc. Not everything is perfect, for sure. And some have grown to act just like the companies they are countering.
Let's assume you're right about the middle class. So what? I'm still against unions. Because I have principles.
This is the old liberal "why do people vote against their self interest" argument. Well, I know it is difficult for liberals to understand but conservatives actually value personal freedom. As shocking as it may be, I would rather have my freedom of association rights respected than make $3 more an hour.
so you'd rather have your personal freedoms while going to work in unsafe conditions, working whatever hours your employer told you, without any compensation, etc? vacation, sick days, safety, 40 hour weeks, all the things unions have achieved, you'd be happy to go back to a time where none of that happened, and see how things work out for employees?
It's a pipe dream to think that employees would be treated this well if not for the accomplishments of unions over the history of this country.
People that are against unions usually never had a union job or just worked at one for a short period of time not long enough to realise the need for a union.
Others work in fields where they really do not have the issues that require a union so they have a hard time figuring out what good is a union.
Living in Northern Virginia outside of D.C. I know alot of people that have these six figured jobs working for the government/military or for a contractor that has a government/military contract, so they have a difficult time figuring out why people need unions or the plight of everyday people, the war economy has been very good to them.
MAYBE, you haven't spoken to everyone who is against unions.
SOME people do not want to join a union, just to work somewhere. FORCING them to do so, is akin to extortion.
My "X" while we were married went to work part time at Caldors, a department store in Groton Ct. She was told that to work there, she HAD to join the union, and pay union dues, no exception. Some weeks, she only worked 10 hours, (2, 5 hour shifts). On those weeks, her Union dues ended up being more than ½ of her take home pay.
On weeks she worked 20 hours, after taxes, her take home pay was reduced by 1/3, so the union dues could be paid.
The problem with unions is that they served their purpose at one time, but today are largely unnecessary. Pro-union types will say that if unions were to vanish we would be back working 14-hour shifts in unclean, dangerous conditions for slave wages, as if those working non-union jobs today find themselves in that situation. We have government regulations in place today to protect all workers from those types of working conditions.
They're not afraid of that; they're afraid of losing their unrealistic salaries and benefits, like toll collectors making over $60k or police officers retiring with pensions in their 40's.
I see your point, and you've made the best points against unions today, but you can see examples in industries where unions were most common of some slippage back in time as union membership dropped. We do have regulations in place, and that's a good thing. And it does make the overall purpose of unions less necessary. I personally don't know a lot of toll collectors making over $60k (i know the averages are sometimes high, but i have never actually seen something to support this), and what's wrong with police officers retiring just like veterans can after 20-25 years of service? If they started working at 18, that would make them young, but should we increase the years of service required for earning your pension in those professions? I've always seen it as a way to attract people to risky professions.
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