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Originally Posted by thingstodo
I read half way through all this and then had to say something.
At one time, unions were needed. Employees were exploited in a very bad way during the industrial revolution, which lasted a long time since it just migrated from the north auto factories to the southern textile industries.
However, and there has to be a big however, that was then, this is now.
Unions cause most companies that declare bankruptcy to do just that. Companies are unable to make the changes needed to compete in today's marketplace. Moreover, unions constantly focus on the employee rather than what the employees are there to do...produce a product or service. And then they go on strike for higher wages. Which leads to the price spiral of higher prices and then the need to strike again.
Isn't it interesting that the majority of union employees are in fairly unskilled lines of work. I mean, if you can do something on an assembly line, how does that transfer to another field?? No skills., so what do you deserve for your hard work? Minimum wage...certainly not high wages and tons of benefits that aren't supported by the prices the company can charge the marketplace.
Of course, there are unions for teachers, journalists and the like. But...if the employees were good at what they do rather than good at dealing with union rules, their business would prosper.
Basically, things have changed, there is a global economy and many jobs are going/have gone overseas. Many airlines...Pan Am, Eastern to name a few, don't even exist anymore. You can chalk that up to unions.
It's simple...if you don't like where you work and have a marketable skill, go to another company. You don't need a union to make your own choice. And if you don't have those skills, get them or be quiet.
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Your post is rife with misconceptions.
1. If your tasks do not translate to another field of work, that is
skilled labor. You may not think the person's skillset is very valuable, but a skill is defined by the fact it must be learned--not whether you think it's a good skill to possess.
I'm going out on a limb and assuming you never worked on an assembly line. Then you list a number of professions that are considered by most rational people to be among the most skilled professions in the US. Even labor intensive jobs require skill; try this experiment: go down to your local construction site and ask if you can lug tools around for 6 hours. Then imagine what that would feel like if you did that every day for the next few months. Whether you like it or not, even jobs like that require muscle training to maintain appropriate production rates. Yes, I'm arguing that even tool caddies at construction sites possess skills. They are skills I value, btw, since I'm very much appreciative of the fact that I haven't had to build any home I've lived in. I don't have to unload ships, nor do I know how to do it very efficiently. I don't drive boats or fly planes, I don't drive trucks across country, I don't know how to cut meat in the most tasty and efficient manner, either. I don't even know the best cuts of meat, but I can always ask my skilled meat cutter at the supermarket for that info before I BBQ. I don't ever plan on picking up trash for my city, or supplying the residents their water. I never had to build a vehicle, nor do I know much about repairing them.
It would be asenine of me to think any of those workers are easily replaceable or that they don't possess knowledge about their jobs I neither have nor want.
2. The airline industries are going bankrupt because of greedy CEO's--not the unions. The unions keep taking paycuts and benefit reductions, and the government keeps giving them handouts. Yet every year for the past few years the administration of major airlines keep getting larger pay checks and bonuses while they are in danger of bankruptcy. In the spirit of capitalism, they really should just collapse and let someone (like the employees, for example) run the damn business themselves more efficiently. Imagine that: lop off the top of the corporation and allow the workers to keep doing what they've been doing for decades with the same amount of payscales they had a few years back. That would free up lucrative amounts of capital for the shareholders.
3. The need for unions was then, but is no longer? That doesn't make much sense to me. Despite the fact that all kinds of rollbacks are currently in the works, such an assertion doesn't even stand up to the common sense dictum: the reason the need for unions isn't apparent is because they exist. One wouldn't know their necessity until they are gone and all the workers' hard won rights are rolled back.
4. If unions no longer serve a purpose, won't they eventually erode without external manipulation? Invisible hand and all that jazz.
5. If employees were good at their work, their businesses would prosper? Being employees, they don't have a business, first of all. Secondly, unionized businesses do prosper. You need to check your data more carefully. In fact, some of these businesses outrank non-unionized businesses on almost every single economic measure Wall Street analyzes.
6. Recommending that people up and leave their companies to go work somewhere else on a whim indicates to me that you haven't been on the job market within the past decade. What exactly would an industrialized worker do now that our nation is on a course of deindustrialization? Go work at burger king? apply at a law office? where are all these jobs just waiting for capable workers?