UAW screws up

[Grandpa Pipes]

Originally Posted by stillkit

It's sad to see so many people here applauding the cutting of their own financial throats. Nobody recognizes the value of a union any more and they are content to take whatever crumbs fall from the tables of the elites. With such an attitude, what does the future of this country look like?

Here's what it looks like: GE is in the process of expanding manufacturing in this country and even bringing some products back from overseas. Why? Because as their Chairman says, American labor costs have gotten more competitive. In other words, the average income of American workers has fallen to the point that we can compete with Chinese workers. The rising tide of globalism does not lift all boats...it reduces every worker in the world to the lowest common denominator. And, a key event in that reduction of workers value has been the destruction of unions.

If you think that's progress, and are happy that your children will never be able improve their lot in life because the value of their work will always be measured against the cheapest worker on the planet, then good for you. But, some of the rest of us will continue to fight for the right to organize and combat the unrestrained greed of those who would be our masters.

You may willingly go into that dark night, but I won't.

Today's anti-union sentiment was caused partly by unions themselves when they forgot that their job was to represent the worker not control the worker.
The UAW, in particular, was guilty of this.

Unions are a business that needs to serve better than they have in the past instead of making sweetheart deals in the back rooms.

[stillkit]

Originally Posted by Grandpa Pipes

Today's anti-union sentiment was caused partly by unions themselves when they forgot that their job was to represent the worker not control the worker.
The UAW, in particular, was guilty of this.

Unions are a business that needs to serve better than they have in the past instead of making sweetheart deals in the back rooms.

I won't argue that the unions themselves are part of the problem, but so is management. Sweetheart, back room deals require two players, each as willing as the other to shortcut workers.

[stillkit]

Originally Posted by nc2sc778

It is a good thing you retired when you did though, because the Union trend of people getting paid twice what the free market would pay is quickly coming to an end.

I hope you realize that before the unions were crushed, union scale WAS the market standard. And therein lay the benefit of having unions, even for those who were not union members.

Nice try, it still does not answer the question- If a Teacher does not want a Union "helping them" why can they simply choose not to join the Union.

If that teacher is willing to negotiate her own, individual contract for however much she can get, fine...let her stay out the union. But, if she takes advantage of the union negotiated base salary and health benefits, why shouldn't she pay her share of the union costs? She's certainly benefiting from it, isn't she?