why do people always say there was a time for unions but that time is over.?

Question

COULD IT BE that for the last 40 years they have made governement responcible for the work place activitys .UNIONS were only needed because of un-safe practices by employeer's and that has ended.DUE largely in part to osha .A huge government agency to protect workers from unsafe working conditions. Now that we have the government running things we no longer need the unions.
UNIONS where about more then working conditions. They were about equality of life and wages that reflected the workers ability to produce goods and sevices that made a profit for the owners and investors balanced against the pay they would recieve.IF owners posted huge profits and investors got paid back workers wanted more pay that simple .they deserve the fruits of there labors and to have this stolen by greed tyrants who only sought to make money wher forced to cough up some profits and pay the workers a fair wage for the work that generates all the profit. Whith out workers no money that simple.pay them or else

we need strong unions today more then ever to keep the profit mongering upper class from destroying america and sending all the good jobs over-seas or south of the border.creating nothing but work as service employeer's to the rich .

Answer 1

I am a mid level manager at a fortune 10 company. I will give you my take.

When I first started working here, I was anti union. I now realize that Unions are helpful in protecting workers rights, wages, and working conditions. Not only do they help protect those rights for themselves, they also, by proxy, protect some of the rights of mid and lower management.

Unfortunately, with Global competition, union contracts result in costs to companies that are much higher than non union workers in other countries.

The result: GM, Ford, etc...

The fact is if you have guys working at Toyota for $15 an hour, and making a better product, domestic car companies can't compete with a crappier product that costs two times as much to build.

Global competition will crush the unions for now. They won't dissappear, but if a company has high costs from unions, they will move their production and jobs to a lower cost country. It is not a great trend for US employees, but I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Answer 2

Yeah, I think that we need unions more than ever. The people who say the time for unions is over, are the people who regard working class people as less than human. We have a Prime minister like that in Australia. They are happy to get rich on the backs of the workers. They craftily pay their middle-manages high wages to keep the workers down. Perhaps now, with the new industrial relations laws, they see their way clear to cutting out all this extra expense and we'll see middle-managers being economically demoted now! It's happening in all western countries I do believe, not just the USA!

Answer 3

Because corporations hate unions. Since corporations own the mass media, vilifying and degrading unions is in their best interest. Without unions, the corporations would have a free hand "turning back the clock", bringing back the "good ol' days" of 12, 14, and16 hour workdays, child labor for a fraction of what they would pay adults, working in hazardous conditions (workers are expendable and making things safe cost money), and loans and "company credits" at high interest that the workers will never be able to repay.

Answer 4

I worked as an engineer in a company that had unions. The union workers on the whole were good workers, but they had a lot of dead weight. The problem was that you couldn't fire anybody becaus they had seniority, and people that may have been better for the job couldn't get the better positions based on merit or results.

They also got very beligerant when it came time for contract negotiations, and they'd wear shirts with snake son them and a slogan "We're not afraid to strike!" Nice. Threatening your emplyer with work stopage is the most assinine thing I've ever seen.

I was never guaranteed a job, and put myself through college. As an engineer, I had to produce to keep my job, not just pay union dues and take a smoke break ever 10 minutes.

If you want to keep your job, be good at it, improve yourself, and take responsibility. Waiting for handouts or thinking that you deserve something is selling yourself short.

Answer 5

People are quick to forget the past and why we needed them in the first place. And when you forget, history can repeat itself.

True many union reps have taken advantage of the situation and have become lax in protecting workers contracts and civil rights, but without them we would be back at square one.

Just look at the companies without unions who fire people just because they don't like their personalities or the ones who make you work overtime without prior notice and make it mandatory unless you are fired. Or the ones who only hire men etc. We need them, but they need to have a reality check and reestablish their intended purpose.

Answer 6

Unions are making a come back. Pharmacists are trying to unionize in Chicago, bankers, finance companies. The progress will be made among professional groups at large companies.

Answer 7

Unions have lost a lot of power because of the government. Everytime the Unions try to exert power, the government steps in and squashes them. So what good is it to have a union.

Answer 8

Dude.. UNIONS ARE A BUSINESS! They do not care about WORKERS, they care about PROFITS for themselves! If unions really cared about workers they would not force them to do walkouts where it is the workers that are not getting paid! If they really cared about workers, they would fight for ALL WORKERS not just those covered by the union. But no.. they fight laws that are intended to protect all workers.. .they are as bad as the mafia!

Answer 9

i think some of these people are either A-owners or managers at a business or B-taking republican talking points instead of thinking for themselves.

Answer 10

cos of immigration and low cost labour