Death Knell of the Labor Unions

A recent NYT article, "Unions Pay Dearly for Success
, paints grim picture for the future of labor unions. Evidence is there that the unions have done what they do so successfully that they have nearly put themselves out of the market. By obtaining great wage and benefit packages for their members, they have forced the employers and corporations to look for alternatives.

Businesses closing, moving out of the country, going non-union are a few of the symptoms. It is almost a national disease. I have been employed by both union and non-union shops, and I would agree that the unions have basically dug their own graves. What to do now?

Or is it too late? I don't know the answer to that, but an old adage comes to mind.

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

Nancy J – January 31, 2006 – 1:33pm

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Another old adage (re: Death Knell)

o ceallaigh's picture

What goes around comes around.

Labor and management is a never-ending dynamic. Both sides want to make the largest amount of money for the least amount of work. Neither can get all it wants or both will perish.

American industrialists once established the principle of the "company town", where the company provided for its workers in return for minimized labor costs. Problem was, the managers stiffed the workers at every possible opportunity: as Tennessee Ernie Ford sang in the song Sixteen Tons, "I owe my soul to the company store". Laborers turned to unions, and/or thugs, in response. The adversarial system continues to this day, with various swings depending on the general state of the economy and attitudes of citizens.

In the years after WWII, Asian states like Japan and Korea copied the American "company town" model. With one crucial difference. The managers accepted responsibility for their workers, pledged to look after them, and made sure they knew that mutual prosperity resulted from mutual cooperation.

Who made the car you're driving?

o ceallaigh – January 31, 2006 – 2:54pm

Dodge

Currently a Dodge, have driven lots of Chevys, never a foreign car....but who can tell any more. Aren't they all made somewhere else now, at least in part?

There is much truth in what you say, but still, there has never been a mass exodus of jobs like we have seen in the past year....make that 2 months. Looks like someone killed the goose that laid the proverbial eggs.

Nancy J – January 31, 2006 – 8:40pm

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