BIG UNIONS Shoot Themselves in the Foot...Again.
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liked seeing that unions are alive and well in this country. IMO, the single thing that government can do to improve quality of life the most is to strengthen unions.
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In college I had to take a labor relations course.
Mgmt and unions do NOT negotiate on a level playing field. The current federal labor laws GREATLY favor unions. I remember one case study where a company wanted to get rid of their union. So they got the idea to to set up a mgmt committee that would compete with the union for the workers favor by treating them better. The project was a success and many workers left the union (why pay union dues when the company is now treating you well). The union took the company to court and forced them to disband their employee program. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] LOL! The lesson is unions are like herpes. The courts and pols will fight like hell in favor of the unions because the worker bees have more votes than the owners.
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I think it also proves that unions are not necessarily a competitive disadvantage: the dispute is over how much to cut from the old contract instead of what new goodies the unions are getting.
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The auto unions did TOO good of job in the negotiations. Heavily capitalize companies like auto unions are VERY vulnerable durin labor negotiations because work stoppages are extra painful towards their bottom line (interest rates on the equipment kill them). So in the 70s,80s,90s.....Big auto caved more than they should have.
Health care costs are KILLING them. The CEO of GM claimed he spends more time on the workers health care costs than he does building cars....
The govt needs to butt out. Too many mfg jobs are being chased away by bad laws that are suppose to help union workers. The result is the companies get pissed and ship the jobs overseas.... Having overseas factories are bad for the comapanies as well. Look at Mattel in China. Corrupt govt can screw companies anytime they want...
Also companies they get unions deserve them. Usually by being arrogant and neglectful towards the workers. The problem is once the unions get in, it is almost impossible to get rid of them and union workers tend to be lazier than most. Afterall they all get paid the same no matter how hard they work. In my experience, the more militant a union worker is...they lazier they are. And you can't reward the harder working employees because the union fights tooth and claw for compensation based on tenure rather than productivity....
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