If the Target employees wanted a union bad enough, even to the point where they would jeporadize their chances for "favorable treatment" from management, or worse, taking the risk of losing their jobs, then obviously, management would had to have treated them badly enough to cause their employees to seek strength in numbers through the collective bargaining process. That they haven't speaks to Target being one of those companies that treat their employees well enough that their employees don't find the need to seek union representation. Surely, there are so many other factors that influenced the outcome of that situation, but after all was said and done, it looks as if Target convinced their employees that it was better for them to remain non-unionized. So let it be.
Because of all the "rights" unions fought, bled and died for, we now have federal rules and regulations that are derived from those very "rights" that unions negotiated for themselves years ago, of which every non-union worker in similar occupations enjoy and obliviously take for granted, including those at Target.
So those "rights" that unions fought for and acquired at great personal expense became rights that are federally protected......for now. The problem is that unionized workers, more so than non-unionized workers are under constant attack from big business at the federal/state/municipal levels where they exert overwhelming influence and not at the bargaining table where parity is more in evidence.
Ergo, we now have a majority of non-union workers occupying positions that were formerly traditional union protected jobs. They are enjoying "rights" that they casually take for granted because they are now being protected by the federal government.
That protection is now being pulled right out from under them as big business gains ever increasing control of the very government that's supposed to protect these non-union workers. Scott Walker eviscerating the public unions powers in his state is just another stepping stone down that road toward eliminating all unions. Along with the well-funded propaganda machine that's being run by big business and the political leaders they own, it seems inevitable. Once the unions are eliminated, their influence in the realm of setting benchmark wages and benefits for the non-union sector will be eliminated, providing big business their golden opportunity to cut wages and benefits at will in the well coordinated and organized effort that they've displayed up to this point.
So it looks as though the pendulum is swinging over to the side that favors big business, where they will, as they are ideologically programmed to, squeeze every profitable penny they can out the overworked and underpaid workers they lord over, and it will take another round of more painful than ever union organizing to swing it back the other way.
For sure, there are those companies that really do care for their employees, good AND bad, unionized or not. As well, there are companies that find themselves in the very envious position of having struck a good balance between acquiring and maintaining a strong and reliable manual labor workforce, all the while being very profitable.
But the battle will go on and on so long as one entity tries to unreasonably exploit the other rather than find common ground like so many other successful businesses have done, unionized or not.
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