One fact you cant argue is that unions have helped the worker and their families immensely,both union and non union.
oh, they really helped tens of thousands of workers loose their jobs and have them shipped over seas or to non-union locations.
Unions are like anything, good and bad parts to them.
I have worked in several union places in the manufacturing sector.
One place I worked for had 7 different unions. It had to be really great, I mean if a union is good 7 unions ought to be the workers paradise.
I was in engineering and it was union too.
Without a doubt it was the most inefficient poorly run place I have ever worked, alot of the blame goes to management but also alot of it was the unions.
Alot of the management came up from the ranks so they had a union mindset. Don't work too fast, if the job is quoted at 40 hours take 40 hours.
If you get it done in 20 hrs they make you rework or redo your work till you've spent 40 hrs, then its good.
Your dept is responsible for one thing, pass the work on to the next dept, they do their job they pass it on and so forth.
When the job gets to the end of the line the last dept has to make it work. Because its been designed and made as they always do it it has the same problems.
The last dept tears it all apart, redesigns it and remakes it. I saw it done several times.
When I mentioned this to my boss his reply was "its not our responsibility, we just design it, don't worry about it".
No concern about doing anything so that the company can be profitable. I guess everyone thought the place was invincible.
The place is now nothing but a empty dirty lot that once held a large manufacturing place that employed thousands of workers. AO Smith Automotive in Milwaukee if any of you are curious.
Incidentally the workers that came out of that place had the reputation of being a joke. The longer someone worked there the less desirable they were to other employers.
If unions would work with the company instead of always against them they would be useful. If they were smart they would offer to take over hiring, firing, training and the quality of the work done. Get rid of the bad employees, train and help the new employees and hire from referrals from within. If the workers had a vested interest in working efficiently and productively and got paid for that then employers would gladly have unions.
Then they would have something worth a higher price. As it is now they have nothing beneficial to the company. In fact they fight to keep the bad employees and brow beat the good employees to slow down so they don't make the leakers look bad.
I know of a manufacturing place that paid bonuses based on output above targets. The bonuses were paid by the dept and divided equally among the dept. The employees worked together and made the place tick. They would go to management and tell them to fire other bad employees. If only union workers were smart enough to figure that out.