What have UNIONS done to / for the U.S.A. ?

Question

Does it seem like they have voted to raise their own salaries/hourly wages, till all the big companies are moving out of the United States and going to Mexico - so they can pay cheaper wages?. Of course we can not work that cheaply, but what in the world is going to happen to us?. Will we just use credit cards to buy stuff cause we have no jobs to make money? (except selling imported goods to one another) Will we import everything and be dependent on other countries? If we were to shut down all imports now, could we survive?
Then what?

Answer 1

When unions first started 100 years or so ago, they were needed to protect workers' rights and safety... Today, they are just another organization trying to exploit the worker by collecting dues for their own management... Unions today only protect the workers who screw up!

There are plenty of laws protecting all employees, so the union is no longer necessary. Want to make more money? Fire your union!

Answer 2

I used to think unions were a terrible thing and that all they led to was laziness and shoddy workmanship. Since I have started working at a union factory both in the union and now as a member of management I really see the benifits of unions. People are treated the same, all the rules apply to everyone, workers know exactly what management expects from them, workers are protected from unsafe practices. From a management standpoint it makes your life alot easier to be able to point to the contract and say see this is what you have to do. I definately think unions have raised the standard of living in the USA. I think they have done a lot of good for workers in general. The problem is it promotes an us against them mentality in the workplace. If management and the union works together both sides can be happy. It is when one side or the other becomes greedy or hard headed that problems happen. Wages would have gone up in the USA even without unions and we would still be at a disadvantage to countries with lower standards of living. There is not much we can do about that until these other countries have raised their standards of living to the point that we have in the USA. It will happen it will just take time. We could not shut down imports, it would hurt our economy just as badly as it would hurt the exporting country. The problem is the USA is at the end of the industrial revolution and these other countries are just in the beginning phases of their industrial revolutions. The only thing we can do is become more educated and to keep technology at its highest level in the USA.

Answer 3

You concerns are misdirected. Unions have very little to do with jobs moving out of the U.S. Indeed, some of the faster-moving jobs (including software development and stock market research) are not unionized. And some of the unionized jobs (such as those in automotive manufacturing) are mainly created by foreign companies these days (BMW and Hyundai are expanding their U.S. plants, while GM and Ford lay people off left and right). Yet in other industries (such as construction), union or not, jobs simply cannot move.

Shutting down imports is probably about the stupidest thing to do under the circumsances. Not only will it hurt the workers in import-dependent industries, it will also hurt workers in exporting industries, because other countries won't be able to buy U.S. exports since they won't be able to earn dollars by exporting their goods and services into the U.S.

You ask, "what is going to happen to us"? Well, consider this: the U.S. population is aging, so more and more people work in elderly care...

Answer 4

um, Unions have way too many restrictioins for American industries to surive without serious help from the governemnt. I have taken a bunch of Econ classes at a major University. The best way is the let the free market decide the salary and quanity. Mathmatetics show that free market with no restrictions almost always works out to benefit the people MUCh better that the governemtn will ever do.

Answer 5

I am not a union member, never have been & do not plan on becoming one.

Unions came into existance because large USA industries basically screwed their employees & the government did nothing to stop it.

Now unions have become bloated, corrupt & inefficient orginazations & are rapidly disappearing in the USA. Between the unions disappearance and the current administrations anti-worker strategy, Big Business will soon be doing all the screwing they want again.

Answer 6

the 40 hour work week
minimum wage

workers should not be competing with workers in other places seeing who will work for the least until it is not enough to feed yourself.

we need a worldwide minimum wage! then workers could pay for what they need and improve their own countries. and no prices would not rise because it only costs .05 to make a fashion that sells for $20. so they are not basing the price on costs anyway

Answer 7

What about the 8-hour work day, collective bargaining, paid vacation, medical/health care, OSHA, FMLA, removal of child labor practices?

Doesn't count for anything? Nothing?

Answer 8

They have caused prices to rise and service quality to decline. they have especially negatively effected the education system.