[Erik Latranyi]

It may be that the union and management both share some blame - the organization for inflexibility and the company for not anticipating changes in its key markets (as when police forces and military units began to move to the 9mm round). Whatever the cause, quality has certainly suffered after they reorganized as an LLC.

I am getting a bit sick of blaming management for out-of-control unions.

The deck is stacked in favor of unions...the laws, regulatory agencies, etc. Management has little chance standing up to them.....especially in a company that does business with government, like Colt.

This whole "blame unions and management equally" is like being afraid to say that crime runs rampant among young, black males, so you blame youth of all races.

[andy58-in-nh]

Unions are certainly responsible for a great deal of mischief, but don't underestimate the ability of management to screw up as well. They make plenty of unforced errors that have nothing to do with unions (remember that more than 90% of private business are not unionized).

In my experience, many of those errors have to do with short-sightedness often abetted by the need to meet a government mandate rather than a market requirement. That's one reason why the unions love big government - they benefit financially from expenditures that add no value to the product and often reduce its quality while the cost is passed along to you, the consumer.

In that way, government bureaucrats get to act like they're doing something important, businesses act like they're doing their customers a favor, and the unions get to act like they give a Bleep about anything other than lining their own pockets.