Poet, Unions start out as the friend of the underpaid, overworked and risked workers.
As the unions prosper, they increase pay, decrease work load and decrease risk(increase safety).
There comes a point where the operation of the business suffers and the workers lose their jobs. Look at baseball unions, airline unions, auto unions. These unions have reached the point where they endanger jobs by their greed.
There are still places where unions can be of value.
Remember, a liberal need not be a fool. A union is not automatically good. A friend of mine worked in a place where the union borrowed(stole) the pension funds, so when he reached 65 he had nothing.
You may have heard of the Malthusian law or rule that says an organism expands in population until it runs out of food?
Well, there is a similar rule with unions, they expand until they take all available money. Now in a corporation, it goes broke. In a city or state, it raises taxes and people/businesses leave and you have a Newark or Buffalo.
The workers laid off are unemployable in other businesses, as they want to get very large wages for minimal work, and so will organise and kill any company that hires them....so no body ever hires laid off union men. In addition, if you do hire them they will leave in an instant with zero notice if they get recalled.
Never make the error of feeling the union is the friend of workers at large. It is only the friend of those in the union or in other unions.
Just because I am a liberal, does not blind me to reality.
Most modern unions have some idea of this and try to reach a reasonable settlement. Public employee unions seem to see no limits and they are runing city economies with greed. What large city do you live in? small city?
Bill |
