COMMENTS:
Better still. unions aren't the creature of american industry but rather they are the backbone of the public sector.
I know your obtuse regnum but really this is too obvious.
I can see both being true -- background of American industry and a creature of the public sector. That said, unions do a lot more good than harm.
Alright. Name some.
Mobsie are you drunk?
what exactly have you got against Unions?
They are products of government coercion and most would not exist in a free society.
unions exist to stop people getting shit on by employers and the govt, dont see whats wrong with that. At least in the UK they did, dont know enough about the ones elswhere.
Well, they are both. And their role has changed over time.
Organized labor has become as monolithic and fundamentally useless as government bureacracy.
And, because the labor leaders deal almost exclusively with management and the government in labor matters, they have gradually become more like government and big business: Large, unwieldy, overblown, dinosaurs who do little to help the people they were invented to help.
Unions, IMO, have largely benefitted the working stiff, particularly in the second half of the 20th Century. Without labor, the American middle class would be much, much smaller.
I guess my answer to your question is that unions were initially "the backbone of American industry," but as time went on they became spineless sellouts to big business and big government.
Started out good, but once they became legally recognized entities they went too far and ended up be glorified criminals. Would you tolerate a monopoly in business? No of course not, so why tolerate one on labor? Unions can require that anyone who wants to work in their specific field join their union, then they use the dues collected to lobby politicians to pass laws that benefit them. Seems a little unamerican to me.
Chomsky it would take too long to tell you what I have against unions. But primarily, the problem I have with unions is that they will do almost anything to protect their little fiefdoms. And when that works to the detriment of everyone else it is time to stop having such a fawning respect for them. My grandfather was an organizer for the Teamsters, my dad was also a teamster, and I did organizing for one of America's biggest unions today. They aren't really interested in helping anyone but themselves, and I mean workers in this case as well.
Chomsky,
both herzog and griffon007 make execellent points about the flaws of unions.
I hear what you are saying. i remember I read somewhere about the unions and the Mafia in the US, though as I said I dont really know enough about it to do it justice. What I would say is that Unions have had their flaws, that Unions can go too far, but the actual principle of a unionised workforce I am in favour of. I'd have Arthur Scargill any day over Margaret Thatcher.
All I know is that when i work for employers with unions i get paid better and have rights. I dont really care what effect that has on a government that spends more on war than anything else. That surely falls under regnums "And when that works to the detriment of everyone else it is time to stop having such a fawning respect for them." So if governments cant do the job right, why would you expect unions to be better?
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