Z, re: They should reform, but so should the corporations and nobody in power is pushing for that. So if the union leaders don't stand their ground, the the members would in fact lose a hell of a lot.
The union's effectiveness is based on their scale and competition for jobs. Reagan declared war on the unions when he fired the air traffic controllers, an incredibly ballsy move considering they would have to replace them with trainees, and put air traffic safety at risk. Soon after, Caterpillar had a strike and replaced most of it's workforce with non-union folks. It was the start of war between labor and management. Immigration control, legal and illegal, was softened to allow more competition for lower end jobs, and skilled labor jobs over the longer term. The unions scale was gradually reduced, the competition for jobs was gradually increased, and the unions lost the war. They no longer have ANY leverage against management.
And now we have a recession recovery where wages and jobs are not increasing at typical rates. Workers, skilled and unskilled, have no leverage, they have become commodities. And that's migrating up to white collar workers. So S&P 500 profits are setting records... the workers are not sharing in the fruits of the recovery as they always have in the past.
It's interesting, I've read that some white collar workers are starting to form unions; even doctors. That might be a trend that could reverse the trend.
John |
