If Unions were abolished, what would protect workers from their employers?

Question

It seems like everyone hates unions. If unions ceased to exist, how would you be protected?

Answer 1

It's unions that gave us minimum wage, the 5 day work-week, 8 hour work days, overtime pay, stat holiday pay....

If there was a recession or a depression, and we were hit with a high unemployment rate, there would be nothing stopping companies from treating workers like ****.

Unions are essential, because without them, the real people that keep a business running - the workers - suffer.

Answer 2

Unions were necessary when pregnant women were working 23 hour days and when employers were really abusing the work force. When working conditions were atrocious and workplace deaths were ridiculous. Unions played a major part in advocating for the working class in the early part of the 20th century. But at this point Unions are standing in the way of progress. Do we need to pay a toll worker 120,000 a year? Should school teachers be unionized when they care less about the student and more about workplace issues? I just think it is no wonder manufacturing jobs are fleeing the US when you have an American auto worker who puts the same bolt in the same spot for twenty years making 100,000 a year. Thank goodness only 12% of the workforce belongs to unions.

Answer 3

One of the main reasons for the marked decrease in union membership is that government at all levels has subsumed the role of protecting workers' rights through legislation.

For example, child labor and fourteen hour work days were the norm until the passage of the Fair labor Standards Act (federal law). Minimum wage laws are yet another example as are workplace health & safety requirments (Note: Fatalities averaged more than one worker PER DAY in certian Carnegie steel mills in the early 20th century!)

Answer 4

unions are an important part of the workforce without unions companies would treat employees terrible and with no respect with the decline of unions the workplace is getting worse for a working person wages vacations and other benefits most non union shops would not get what they get if not for the union shops there are a few exceptions but most employers are more interested in making more money than treating there workers fairly.

Answer 5

Unions are good. It gives workers representation however, some unions take advantage of their influence. They coddle workers who don't work properly or force new workers to join them. They should change some of their rules, other than that I'm okay with unions.

Answer 6

Unions don't need to be abolished. They will be eliminated by attrition. All the jobs going to Mexico and China are union jobs.

Answer 7

Unions have not protected anyone in the last 30 odd years.

Answer 8

Market forces.

I did my own employment negotiations. If one has skills and work ethics, one has value as an employee.

If all one is looking for is a paycheck, one ought to get what one deserves.

Answer 9

Maybe the government would step in (how's that for a sense of humor?)

Answer 10

OSHA, and a lawyer on every street corner.