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| They are important and effective and everyone should be a part of one | 35 | |
| They are pointless and counterproductive by design | 13 | |
| They're a good idea in theory but in practice they're too destructive | 49 | |
| They need to turn it up a notch because they aren't doing enough | 19 | |
| Other (Add a comment) | 13 |
I like them a lot. They are very important in protecting worker's rights. Sure there are some problems with them, but it is much better to have them than not. I'm sure most people will disagree with me though ;)
To say they are not needed today and that they are responsible for outsourcing is untrue. Capitalism and corporate hierarchies of greed need to be counter-balanced by workers rights through unions, and environmental protections, and business regulations and the like.
Without controls capitalism will destroy its own markets and itself. How much is sold in these wretched countries that are outsourced to where people earn barely enough to eat? If there is no market capitalism dies. Henry Ford paid employees enough that they could buy his cars. Smart man.
When they were started they were there for great reasons.
Read a book called "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair sometime. It is an eyeopener about meat-packing in the turn of the century.
At that time and before, there were serious issues in the workplace which needed addressing.
Nowadays...no. Not since like the mid 1900's have they helped. It is thanks to many of their demands in the 1960's that a lot of manufacturing started to leave the United States. The outsourcing began then.
I also think that it is because of United Auto-Workers union and other factors that in the 1970's the US Auto Industry suffered and has never fully recovered. The Japanese ate us alive because they went too far with their demands.
You ever wonder why a car is easily $20,000.00 these days? A great deal of that, probably 45-55% pays for pensions, retirements, and healthcare. Those aren't bad things but people shouldn't be guaranteed a paycheck after they are retired. That is what a retirement fund is for! And they should have to pay co-pays for prescription drugs and doctors' visits. Everyone else does.
With the adoption of OSHA, the labor union became obsolete and did not simply go away. The reason that things got out of control is because those in power in the unions didn't wish to relinquish their power. What is bad is that the people they claim to help become their new victims.
From the bit I read they sound like the expression of a problem rather than the solution to it. Cure the wound and flies disperse.
Cure whatever problem causes these people to gather out of self-interest and they too will lose the need to band together.
They are bullshit! Some of those people have had it too good for too long, and sometimes people that have no business keeping their job can't get fired. Its just bullshit.
Nice idea, realtively pointless, doesn't do much and is destructive in the long term
Work for yourself and you don't have to worry about it. Who gives a fuck? Fuck unions, fuck the man.
I like the idea of unions, especially since it seems corporations are motivated disproportionately by profits, even at the expense of the community or the employees. So relatively powerless workers need advocates. Enter unions.
And then the same thing that happens with other human groups happens. Unions become powerful and wealthy. The new corporation. A few weeks ago I heard a professor say that unions are responsible largely for creating living wages for their members who'd otherwise be living on the scraps most others have to scrape by on. So maybe they're a necessary evil.
At the root of nearly every human socio-moral problem is ... humans.
Unions are ok and are needed to help provide livable wages and benefits. Unfortuately,
I dont want them to use MY money to support Politicians involved in Socialists agendas.
With the infiltration of Communists in our Government since 1917 and working daily
to destroy our country,our rights and freedoms and our mode of life...The unions are
part and parsel of these objectives. Our institutions are breaking down, and social chaos
raises on every side. In that context Unions are needed. But the breakdown of morality
especially honestly, replacing it with epidemic narcissism, selfishness, materialism..i
ts callousness. Its Nihilism promoted by Lenninst-Marxists policitical culture...
have a good day..if you can. If your having problems...wake up!
Very important in some lines of work, construction for example, without unions the major construction companies would hire foreign workers while local people remain unemployed, they pay these workers as little as possible in environments that no union worker would feel safe working in.
Sometimes unions get a little carried away and make a bad name for all, but in general, they make sure that the employers can't walk all over you.