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Without unions who will represent the working class? Without unions who will champion labor laws? Without unions who will train the work force? Without unions to help keep management in check will race towards a 2 class society. Anyone who work for a paycheck that thinks unions are evil is a fool.
I represent myself as a worker. I obtained an education, work hard and am rewarded with a nice salary, nice home, money to travel and enjoy culinary delights. I did not need a union to get where I am and work 9-5 for a paycheck in a mid level position.
Unions had their time, they accomplished what they needed to then wore out their welcome with an abundance of corruption. Too many unions became exactly what they fought against.
I am persuaded that there is a place for collective bargaining, which should be the basic function of a union. I have worked at jobs where I worked my lil butt off, did a bang up job, and yet was severely underpaid. When I finally quit, they offered me a raise. I quit anyway. It was then that I realized that the mantra of "work hard, and it will pay off" does not always pan out in the real world.
My problem is with the public sector unions. It is in essence a kickback scheme, where the public sector unions donate to political campaigns, who in turn get to negotiate the public sector union contracts. With private sector unions you have a fair bargain with management having to negotiate with labor on how to slice the pie. Generally the pie gets sliced right down the middle. With public sector unions it is a rigged deal--two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for lunch.
I agree with the above post, I have no problems with private sector unions (Although I would never join one) but there should be no public employee unions. When people are paid with taxpayer dollars they are in jobs that produce no income at all. And as mentioned they are just political wallets.
Public sector unions are not a good idea since there's really no control over it. You can't "choose" a different school district in your state because the current one has a corrupt union, while you could choose to buy a car from a company that doesn't have UAW membership.
That being said, private sector unions, if done right, are a fine idea. Sure, some of the current ones are corrupt while some are not, but saying that "unions need to die off" because some are corrupt is like saying "corporations need to die off" because some of them are corrupt. The problems need to be weeded out, but the reality is that people should have the right to organize - if they wish - to collectively bargain with the corporation.
Also, while correlation is not causation, it is interesting to note that union membership is a very low level in this nation currently... and many jobs continue to be shipped overseas, wages continue to stagnant, and part-time jobs at poverty wages have become the new normal. One cannot honestly claim that unions are the cause of this given the low levels of union membership. If anything, the reverse is more likely - people are no longer organized and can no longer stand together against the company that so eagerly wishes to get rid of their jobs or reduce them all to part-time poverty wage workers. Similarly, when union membership was much higher decades ago, so were wages (adjusted for inflation) and the overall stability of the middle class.
Finally, while everyone can tell a union horror story, their efforts many years ago gave us the 40-hour work week and helped cut back on unsafe work environments, child labor, and so on. All you need to do is look to 3rd world nations - where many of our jobs have gone - to see what the workplace would look like for us if the unions had not been successful in their efforts.
I like unions when they represented worker's rights... the unions nowadays are like crony Big Business, seeking expansion, extorting owners, using politics for their own benefit... its funny how liberals hate crony business but love crony unions...
I like unions when they represented worker's rights... the unions nowadays are like crony Big Business, seeking expansion, extorting owners, using politics for their own benefit... its funny how liberals hate crony business but love crony unions...
If business was playing by the rules and not employ illegals and respect employees we wouldn't need unions.
Since that no the case unions have to stay
Quote:
Originally Posted by evilnewbie
I like unions when they represented worker's rights... the unions nowadays are like crony Big Business, seeking expansion, extorting owners, using politics for their own benefit... its funny how liberals hate crony business but love crony unions...
I'd rather see legislation making it ILLEGAL to force union membership/dues payment as a requirement of
employment/continued employment.
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