Are Unions outdated?

[UnemployedMay2001]

Living here is SE Michigan, it is that time again when the Big Three have to kiss the collective barganing asses of the UAW.

My question is, and I am VERY biased on this one, do you all feel that ANY one in this country should be guaranteed a job? I am sorry, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander. In this crappy economy, especially as much as the auto industry is hurting, these people should happy that they have a job to go to every day. If they don't get their way every time contracts are up for negotiation, they strike like little spoiled children. So to that end, I say SCREW unions.

Discuss

 

[CADsortaGUY]

IMO? - yes.

"Protecting" which workers?

I wonder if these people will get their Union dues back?

CkG

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: UnemployedMay2001
Living here is SE Michigan, it is that time again when the Big Three have to kiss the collective barganing asses of the UAW.

My question is, and I am VERY biased on this one, do you all feel that ANY one in this country should be guaranteed a job? I am sorry, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander. In this crappy economy, especially as much as the auto industry is hurting, these people should happy that they have a job to go to every day. If they don't get their way every time contracts are up for negotiation, they strike like little spoiled children. So to that end, I say SCREW unions.

Discuss

No one is entitled to a job and high union labor costs have been moving UAW jobs to mexico.
UAW is protecting fewer and fewer jobs as the years pass.

 

[Jmman]

Your question is easily answered . Just look at the decline in union membership...........

 

[UnemployedMay2001]

No one is entitled to a job and high union labor costs have been moving UAW jobs to mexico.
UAW is protecting fewer and fewer jobs as the years pass.

Agreed as a whole. But there are PLENTY powerful here in SE Michigan. They can pretty much shut all 3 down if they put their minds to it. Unions were a very neccessary tool 60-70 years ago to get line workers the pay and benefits they deserved. But over the years they somehow gained the power and now the mouth seems to be feeding the hand. If that makes any sense?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: UnemployedMay2001

No one is entitled to a job and high union labor costs have been moving UAW jobs to mexico.
UAW is protecting fewer and fewer jobs as the years pass.

Agreed as a whole. But there are PLENTY powerful here in SE Michigan. They can pretty much shut all 3 down if they put their minds to it. Unions were a very neccessary tool 60-70 years ago to get line workers the pay and benefits they deserved. But over the years they somehow gained the power and now the mouth seems to be feeding the hand. If that makes any sense?

As with anything, when one group gets too much power bad things will happen.
UAW which is spread across the big 3 and its suppliers, is an example of a union having too much power.

New car plants are opening up in the south in right to work states that do no allow union only shops.
Or moving to mexico.

UAW is reaping their rewards now.

 

[LeadMagnet]

Since non-unionToyota is the largest manufacuter on passenger cars in the USA are the big really the big 3 anymore?

 

[NesuD]

Originally posted by: LeadMagnet
Since non-unionToyota is the largest manufacuter on passenger cars in the USA are the big really the big 3 anymore?

I don't think so. show me the stats to back up that one.

 

[sandorski]

I think Unions are possibly outdated in certain sectors of the economy, but as time goes by they are increasingly needed in other sectors. Most Union problems occur by a slow grasping of newer realities, but in time even the slowest of Unions will adjust.

 

[Ferocious]

Unions are generally a good thing as they help keep a middle class.

Without unions the middle class would never have existed as it does today.

Much of Europe, South Korea, Japan....and many other areas have respectable middle classes because of good unions.

 

[LeadMagnet]

Originally posted by: NesuD

Originally posted by: LeadMagnet
Since non-unionToyota is the largest manufacuter on passenger cars in the USA are the big really the big 3 anymore?

I don't think so. show me the stats to back up that one.

Actually I miss understood an olr article - it says Toyota is now the #3 manf - not Dahmler - Chrysler, and honda is close to bumping them down even further.



article

 

[Red Dawn]

It depends. I think they are a necessity for the building trades.

 

[mastertech01]

Do you think NOT having unions would save our jobs from being exported? Not until Americans are willing to live in poverty, have no workers rights, have no OSHA safety regulations, no benefits, no health care, no unemployment protection, no workmans compensation insurance, and are happy to see the management live like kings at the same time for starters.

 

[Linflas]

The problem is not so much the unions but rather the laws in the non right to work states that give them the power to shut down businesses. It is really no different than when the shoe was on the other foot and the laws all sided heavily with the companies. I have no problems with the idea of a union but I have big problems with union initimidation and violence to accomplish their goals especially when it is watched with a wink wink nudge nudge attitude by the local authorities.

 

[tcsenter]

Unions themselves aren't "outdated", but the thoroughly discredited 19th Century leftist ideologies that consumed early labor movement leaders (and a fair number of them today) certainly are. Its not 1850 anymore, nobody is breaking knee-caps to discourage bathroom and water breaks.

The most corrupt, instransigent, and pernicious unions that in fact run companies out of the US and hurt entire industries are the ideologically driven ones. Those which hold that capitalism is evil, corporations are the enemy, and unions are locked in some kind of 'mortal combatant' with the corporations. Michael Moore was raised in precisely this kind of union environment, which is why Moore has been characterizing every imaginable issue for 20 years now in terms of a war ("this means war").

I've been told unions exist that are less ideologically-driven and more pragmatic; unions that view a role as stewards of American industry and believe they have a responsibility to help the company stay competitive. I won't dispute that, except to say I've never seen one in person.

The ideological union's answer to a company's competitiveness concerns is to unionize all companies and make them equally unproductive and inefficient. Nice.

I would say its labor and collective bargaining laws and regulations that are outdated, not unions. Current laws and regulations were formulated in another era long ago as a response to labor conditions of a magnitude and urgency that simply doesn't exist today in the US.