Unfortunately, years of union benefits piling on union benefits have made many of the companies they work for unviable. For instance, if Ford wants to lay off union workers, they still must 90% of their salaries and benefits for years. To unplug a computer in the Philadelphia Convention Center requires that a union electrician does the work (the actual unplugging). SEPTA union employees pay not one dime in co-pays or deductibles for their medical benefits and are willing to shut down the entire mass transit system in Philadelphia, indefinitely, to keep it that way.
When companies can not make a profit or compete because they are being squeezed for every golden egg, they have two options. Either go out of business or go to areas where unions are not as strong. This used to mean going to the mostly nonunionized Southern United States, where for the last 20 years every major automobile manufacturer has chosen to build new manufacturing plants, but now means to go overseas in search of the most competitive place to do business.
Management is not innocent, they have created this mess. They have made many unwise decisions of putting short term profits over the long term health of their companies. In the same vein, they have also agreed to outrageous union contracts because the bills and heartburn for them would come due on some else’s watch in the future.
Now the bills are coming due. And all the union iron clad contracts mean nothing if the company they work for goes out of business. Just ask the workers of steel and airline companies. And ask their retirees. All wish that the company they work for or retired from was a healthy and profitable company.
Unions need to focus on how they can make the companies they work for as strong as possible. This is the only way to keep union jobs, pay and benefits around for the long run. And that doesn’t mean massive pay cuts. Flexibly in work rules, retraining for new jobs when technology changes the old jobs, plugging in and using membership brains/experiences to make the company more profitable are all foreign concepts in many union shops. Their company’s future is their future. For instance, when union workers in Japan go on strike, they wear arm bands that proclaim “On Strike” as they continue to work. They understand that to cause unneeded financial damage to the company they work for, in these days of global competition, is one way to lose their jobs forever.
Unions also need to get out of politics. All of the major unions are strong supporters (both in money from mandatory union dues and “forced” volunteers) of the most liberal of democrat candidates. They have publicly taken positions of being pro-abortion, anti-gun and anti-tax cut (among a plethora of other social issues). None of these issues has anything remotely to do with how a union operates. But it serves to isolate unions from over half the population of America who want nothing to do with them just based on their political stands on these controversial issues. Many people actively avoid buying union made products because they feel they are financing their political enemies.
The union’s heritage is of the craftsman guilds. When you hired a craftsman, you knew you were getting value – someone who was trained, knew what they were doing and did the job right. Today, hiring a union person to do a job is synonymous for expensive, inflexible, sloppy work and belligerence. That is the image that needs to be changed for unions to flourish – what can we do to provide value.
Regards,
2banana
That way, at least the most visible cost of union presence would be removed, and the unions could at least claim they were concerned less with socialistic greed than with worker welfare.
Just a thought ...
Unionized companies were essentially a conspiracy between the unions and the companies to fleece the consumer. As long as the consumer did not have an alternative to the artificially high prices necessary to support profitable business with union wages, the conspiracy could go on.
Once consumers had an alternative, due to deregulation of airlines, importing of cars, non-union firms entering the field, etc.; the artificially high prices could not be sustained and the foundation necessary to support the high wages and benefits of the union workers disappeared.
IOW, union workers did quite well for several decades by shifting the costs to everybody else. In the process they reduced everybody else's standard of living by at least as much as they increased their own.
Yes, sadly, to a great degree in many businesses. And most union members know it to be true, but can not actually admit it -- a truth that must not be spoken. The free market will force the required adjustments.
Not affected by a free market, however, are government (public school) teachers. Their union must be addressed, starting with the NEA, and in detail. They have high regard for themselves and low regard for stakeholders. Tenure causes apathy. They fill our children's heads with new age, anti-American, anti-Christian, pink triangle, eco-fearmongering, ADHD-diagnosing, everybody-gets-a-blue-ribbon psychobabble. The NEA has a questionable social background and agenda, going back to The Frankfurt School. They're now trying to get our children under their care almost from birth. Scary stuff. Teachers are in every community, in every county, in every state. Public schools are often the largest employer in a community.
I once worked in a research lab that had UAW maintenance staff. The union filed a grievance because I opened a window myself, without getting a UAWQ member do it for me. (They actually liked me personally, but there was a principle involved, LOL!)
Unions are also stabbing their members in the back by pushing for open borders and amnesty. They would rather increase their member count (with attendant voters and dues payers)with millions of illegal aliens than take care of their existing American members.
It is union members that are hurt most by illegals, being displaced in the trades and services by the illegals or having their wages and standard of living reduced.
If the Bush Administration would wise up and realize that it is distressed union members (Reagan Democrats) where they can get the most votes, not welfare state aliens owned by the Democrats, they might still be in the majority and White House over the next few years.
You wonder if they really care, knowing that their cheap labor corporate masters will all be offering them cushy executive jobs after they are kicked out of office because of this amnesty obsession.
Or, phrased a bit differently by those of a similar bent, "Can't you see that the Earth is flat?"
You trusted them, idiot.
It's called a "wage." That's your reward.
The only benefit to the consumer today is higher prices. Having worked at more than one union shop, all I saw was that the average union employee is not exactly an artisan, nor is he terribly concerned about a quality product. Far more important to the daily routine was break-time, maximizing their paid down-time, and complaining about their lives.
And yes, I am ardently opposed to the teachers' unions, as well.
bump