Posted on 02/20/2008 5:48:45 PM PST by Miztiki
My dad is 56 and lives in Michigan. He worked as an industrial electrician for nearly 30 years in the auto industry. He's been out of a job and on unemployment for two years now because of foreign competition shutting his department down.
My dad got all worked up after the call and when it got to the subject of unions, I had to leave the room so I could educate myself a bit.
He was a UAW member and thinks unions are wonderful, blah blah blah. I don't know enough about them to have a good argument with my dad.
So tell me, what's wrong with unions?
There’s a healthy balance to be struck between unions and management. One problem in Michigan is that this balance isn’t healthy, but weighted too much in favor of the unions.
They restrict access to work - union members can’t take non-union jobs. Also, they have negotiated benefits in excess of company profits so much so that the airlines have had to declare bankruptcy and divest themselves of their pension obligations in order to stay in business. The car companies are next.
Oh boy, the stories you can get on this one.
Because the Clinton administration sold us out, and pushed through legislation that allowed corporations to have overseas labor make all kinds of things for pennies a day instead of $$$$$$$+benefits American workers got.
Good luck to your family!
That's just for starters.
A friend of mine used to work on a maintenance crew at a zoo. Maintenance workers were represented by AFSCME, the Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees' union. He had a guy on his crew who was a terminal alcoholic. Showed up drunk most of the time. Got dozens of warnings, and finally, a supervisor fired him. The union stepped in, filed a grievance, and basically got the guy not only his job back, but back pay and damages to boot. On top of that, no sooner did he come back than, in a drunken stupor one night, he ran into another employee with a floor buffer and injured him. Now the zoo had to pay workman's comp for the injured party, plus stave off a negligence lawsuit. They ended up giving the drunk an office and a title and telling him to do nothing. Then they had to hire another guy to do the job this guy wasn't doing ... because the union said so.
That's what's wrong with unions.
Well, for one thing, they are largely responsible for the outsourcing of labor to foreign countries.
When you make unreasonable demands of your employer, he might just look for some employees who are happy to work and don’t bitch, shut down the company, and drive you into bankruptcy.
I was a union member too. In my opinion the worst thing about unions is the political power they wield. In my experience they tend to destroy any wish to do better or be creative.
On the other hand, unions are the global warming of the right. I see more fantasy than fact about them posted here. I only wish I had been making the money many FReepers claim I was making as a union member.
problem was, they never actually did. they sat around, ate food, drank beer, told racist jokes that would make a sailor blush, and talked of their impending strike like it was a forgone conclusion with seemingly no regard for its effects.
the $250.00 tab was put on the union credit card and they proceeded to play quickdraw (a lottery game) for the remaining time.
i only saw them during their lunch. perhaps they came from a meeting where business was discussed.
My brother in law is an avid hunter and shooter. He also has a ccw permit. He is a Christian pro-life elder in his church. He is a fiscal conservative, anti-gay......... etc.
But he is also a union member and always votes straight Dem tickets.
Go figure.
Why can't someone work on an automobile assembly line without joining the union? When you can answer that question you'll know what is wrong with unions.
Companies move overseas BECAUSE of strongarming unions who demand more and more until a company has no choice but to move or fold.
Simple.
Unions are run by parasites who produce nothing but vitriol and bile against capitalists who generate wealth by investing their assets for posterity and a better future.
If you really are uninformed but are interested then simply stay tuned to this very thread.
Meanwhile, if you’d like to read something profound, try “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. I finally read it myself just a couple of months ago. It is amazing.
Perhaps I only think so because I spent more than half of my life working with (managing) religious zealots who worship violence and humiliation in their anti Christ organization also known as the Teamsters.
Unions today are nothing even remotely close to the what was visioned by true worker supporters from back in the days of the Pullman strikers, or the Triangle fire victims, and more.
Union leaders of today are scummier than even the slimiest Democrat (Republican too) professional politician that you have ever heard of.
That sounds like the auto workers I used to see get drunk at lunch nearly everyday. I asked my dad how they kept their jobs and he told me that being a union member makes them bulletproof.
Kinda like tenure I guess.
see:public education, teachers union
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