Just Fred wrote:

I understand, flowergirl, but I guess my point is that unions are neither 'good' or 'bad', but necessary.  I think most people equate unionization with dealings concerning wages.  That's only part of it.  Unions get involved with working conditions, safety in the workplace, etc. and I think workers deserve a collective voice whether in the private or public sector.

I'm not denying that management and administration can be fair to workers, but I view unionization as a way for workers to voice their collective concerns without the danger of retribution.  It's not always about money.

 
I agree that, originally, unions were formed to champion workers rights especially child labor, working conditions and safety concerns. However, over the years,unions and especially union executives, have morphed into a business of their own. It reminds me of Orwell's Animal Farm where the pigs eventually moved into the farm house and started acting like humans while still expecting the other animals on the farm to continue doing the work. Unions became kind of like a record or book club where the primary concern is to recruit more dues paying members. The fact is that union membership has severely declined over the last couple of decades, with the slight exception of public unions.

Having been involved in contract negotiations over the years with UAW, USW, unions that represented salaried engineering and clerical groups, my experience showed me that the dance that is called 'negotiations' between labor and management is basically management trying to control costs and labor trying to maintain or increase membership. It's just too bad that there is little or no trust between labor and management that is the basic reason for people feeling that they need somebody/some thing/some group to stand up for them against management. That just shows me that there is a failure of both groups to communicate and cooperate to maintain an ongoing business concern that provides a quality product or service to the public at a reasonable price while fairly compensating the employees of that company. Unfortunately, both groups (labor and management) sometimes descend into such mistrust that they form an adversarial rather than a cooperative relationship and the two groups compete with one another within the same organization. That situation does not result in a healthy working conditions.

Bottom line for me is that greed and hubris by corporate and union executives have resulted in a sorry state of affairs for unions in the private sector. In the public sector, unions have been taking advantage of poor management. The moment of truth for many union members will come when the problem of under funded retirement/pension plans surfaces and a lot of people come to the realization that they will not have the money they thought they were going to have upon retirement. Union members will blame the company or government for the shortfall, but their union bosses will be just as guilty.