What do you think of unions?

Are they good, or bad, for our country and economy? I was reading the responses to the "At will employment" thread and started thinking about them.

I know today it is popular to say unions have outlived their usefulness. I beg to differ. Time worked in the mining industry many many years. Without unions he probably wouldn't have survived the experience. Unions are the only reason mines have any kind of safety, and they are the reason anyone gets paid more than minimum wage. An American Margaret (Miss Piggy) Witt, came to the farthest reaches of the North , she opened the Giant Mine. She ignored all safety regulations, the mines inspectors didn't want to go all the way to the Northwest Territory so she got away with anything she wanted. It ended in the deaths of several miners. She moved on and Time had the misfortune of working in one of her mines. She was so bad that she finally fled Canada and can't come back ,if she does come back she faces trial. A good strong union would have kept her in check. The CEO's of companies really want you to believe that unions are bad, that they get too much money for the workers. But then many of those same CEO's are the traitors who took American jobs to China , India, etc, and caused the economy to drop so precipitously. Really have you noticed any of your favorite's going down in price since it is made elsewhere? Last night on a news show they took all of the foreign made household items out of a 3 bedroom home ,the couple and kids stayed in a hotel I guess. When they were finished the only thing left in the house was a vase with some fake flowers. Even the appliances were gone. They then replaced everything with American made products. A coffee table cost $1,000.00 now if all coffee tables were made in the USA by union members it might have cost a couple of hundred bucks.

Suzi wrote:I know today it is popular to say unions have outlived their usefulness. I beg to differ. Time worked in the mining industry many many years. Without unions he probably wouldn't have survived the experience. Unions are the only reason mines have any kind of safety, and they are the reason anyone gets paid more than minimum wage. An American Margaret (Miss Piggy) Witt, came to the farthest reaches of the North , she opened the Giant Mine. She ignored all safety regulations, the mines inspectors didn't want to go all the way to the Northwest Territory so she got away with anything she wanted. It ended in the deaths of several miners. She moved on and Time had the misfortune of working in one of her mines. She was so bad that she finally fled Canada and can't come back ,if she does come back she faces trial. A good strong union would have kept her in check. The CEO's of companies really want you to believe that unions are bad, that they get too much money for the workers. But then many of those same CEO's are the traitors who took American jobs to China , India, etc, and caused the economy to drop so precipitously. Really have you noticed any of your favorite's going down in price since it is made elsewhere? Last night on a news show they took all of the foreign made household items out of a 3 bedroom home ,the couple and kids stayed in a hotel I guess. When they were finished the only thing left in the house was a vase with some fake flowers. Even the appliances were gone. They then replaced everything with American made products. A coffee table cost $1,000.00 now if all coffee tables were made in the USA by union members it might have cost a couple of hundred bucks.

My husband works for a major corporation that is not unionized, and their major competition is. There are all kinds of battles going on about it right now...I do believe that the CEO of the company said that he would run the company into the ground before he let the company unionize.

Until recently, this company had many of the same benefits of the competition, to keep the employees happy...The past few years things have changed. It's now still one of the only companies that I know of that you can work and make a living wage at without a college degree, but many of the benefits have been reduced and it's easier to get fired, stuff like that. I don't know if they will ever unionize or not, there were even congressional hearings about it.

Certainly the CEO's of companies do not want unions, because that would mean they would have to treat workers fairly and with respect. Benefits would be bargained for then they couldn't take them, away. And yes the CEO probably would destroy the company before he let a union in. Here in BC at one big Walmart the employees wanted a union, Walmart simply closed the store and moved else where. They are a big enough company that closing one store doesn't hurt them.

Suzi wrote:Certainly the CEO's of companies do not want unions, because that would mean they would have to treat workers fairly and with respect. Benefits would be bargained for then they couldn't take them, away. And yes the CEO probably would destroy the company before he let a union in. Here in BC at one big Walmart the employees wanted a union, Walmart simply closed the store and moved else where. They are a big enough company that closing one store doesn't hurt them.

Now, I don't think he could actually do it, because of the shareholders. Everything is for the shareholders now...

I realize that they do have a purpose but in the modern age, I think they've largely gotten way out of control.

Forgiveness Man wrote:I realize that they do have a purpose but in the modern age, I think they've largely gotten way out of control.

Yes of course that is exactly what the CEO's want you to believe. I've even heard people say that Unions killed Detroit, nonsense. What killed Detroit was the fact that the car companies were building the cars they wanted to build not the cars people wanted to buy. Ford got that figured out and this year for the first time in a few years they are making a profit.

thepossiblepolice wrote:Are they good, or bad, for our country and economy? I was reading the responses to the "At will employment" thread and started thinking about them.

LOL, anyone who thinks it's 'bad' is a fool.

I think they’re a balancing act. Suzi brought up the exact example (coalminers) I would have given for why unions were necessary and in some occupation still are for worker‘s safety. But I’m not going to sign on that labor unions are always for the best. It makes absolutely no sense to me that a piece of equipment gets delivered to a job site by one union, gets taken off the truck by another, gets transported to where it needs to go by a third and set up by a fourth. I used to have to go to the Atlantic City Convention Center to set up a booth for the company I worked for. If I had to use so much as an Allen wrench to set anything up, we had to pay some teamster to do it (and take 5 times longer than I could have done it.) We had to pay another union member to unroll the 10’x12’ roll of carpet that went on the floor. Early on, we learned who needed to get greased to get us in the door (even though we were sometimes third in line.)

Suzi wrote:

Forgiveness Man wrote:I realize that they do have a purpose but in the modern age, I think they've largely gotten way out of control.

Yes of course that is exactly what the CEO's want you to believe. I've even heard people say that Unions killed Detroit, nonsense. What killed Detroit was the fact that the car companies were building the cars they wanted to build not the cars people wanted to buy. Ford got that figured out and this year for the first time in a few years they are making a profit.

Or maybe that's just what the Union bosses want us to believe?

Unions are good....I definitely support them.

Unions are becoming a joke.

I think there are pros and cons, both of which I've seen. It all depend son the people in the unions and how things are handled. There are times when they really suck but times when they're good, so I guess I'm not much help in this discussion, as I'm sitting on the fence.

Mixed feelings. Right now I can think of only one compelling reason that collective bargaining should exist - to maintain the status quo. In the private sector average employees (non-union) don't have the ability to negotiate benefits.

Unions were created when businesses were taking serious advantage of employees; unsafe working conditions, usurious housing options and company stores. The Federal government has actually done a decent job of rectifying and regulating those issues: OSHA, Dept of Labor, etc. Additionally, unions were created at a time when communication methods were limited and/or expensive. There was not Twitter or Facebook. It's a different world now. It has been a different world in private business for decades. It's time for the public sector to recognize that it's time to change and adapt, or die.

To quote Nstyle709 "LOL, anyone who thinks it's 'bad' is a fool" or just never had a job.

I'm in a large nurses union in NYC and it's definitely good to have especially since I work in a private "teaching" hospital where if the union didn't exist "management" would run right over you.

I feel like it's a big complicated issue, but at the moment I'm inclined to say that we still need unions. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing and it's so huge that I really feel the middle class is disappearing and the only thing that the workers have going for them is that unions won't let that happen to EVERYONE. I feel like people are so desperate for jobs in this economy that employers hold all the cards.