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Some time ago, companies would sometimes really take advantage of employees. Working conditions were deplorable, hours were extensive and unfair, pay was dismal. At that time, labor unions helped. They gave the working man strength in numbers.

In today's age of OSHA and fair labor laws and minimum wage, there no longer is a need for labor unions. It is my opinion that they do little more than bully the employer into paying more for an unskilled job than the "fair open market" would demand otherwise. It's the flip side of price fixing!

I realize that the $70 per hour number that the auto makers have been quoting to the media for labor is wrong. The actual numbers break down more like this:

$40 per hour (actual pay)
$15 per hour (benefits like health care)

...and the figure that I don't think should be calculated into this measurement:
$15 per hour (the cost for the retirees)

(ref:URLs rewritten, remove parenthesis (http:)//www.dollarsandsense.org/blog/2008/12/more-on-myth-of-73hour-auto-worker.html)

Using the flat number WITHOUT benefits, $40 per hour works out to be well over $80,000 per year. This is for the AVERAGE auto worker. Average. This is for a job that anyone can walk in off the street and be doing in mere days. No college. No advanced math. No unique skills. No unique talent. By the way, this wage is DOUBLE that of the average American. How in the hell is this possible?

This same job in an open market would pay half that (or less). Why? Because it SHOULD. The skillset and brain power required for such a job is minimal.

My argument ties into the minimum wage argument as well. Should a job at McDonalds pay enough to feed a family of four? NO. If you work at McDonalds and you aren't making enough money, BETTER YOURSELF and make your skills WORTH MORE. The job at McDonalds is meant for the teenagers who need spending money. I never understood politicians who can't understand this point.

By making every job a great paying job, we are taking away the motivation for people to better themselves. People should EARN higher wages, it shouldn't be GIVEN to them.

The fair market should work both ways. I am a professional. I have worked very hard to get where I am. I have invested a tremendous portion of my life building a skillset that employers are WILLING to pay for. This is how the system should be. This is the system that promotes hard work and ingenuity, rewards the good and weeds out the bad.

The labor unions have completely nullified the whole fair market system.

Typing this message has made me want to go on welfare.

The private sector unions have a way of breaking the camels back. But the public sector unions keep crying for more taxes or bonds (financed taxes) to support their habit. Lets not leave out early retirements at amost full pay with COLA built in.

If there is anyone in a union who is reading this who doesn't know of a lame-o at their work that they can't get rid of because he is in a union. Ther you go. That by itself proves unions are bad.

Unions are there to protect their members. If a member of the union does something that should get them fired the union can usually do nothing about it. Its all about a CBA and the stewardfs that are in the union to act as an advocate for their union members. Trust me the unions do not want people that are going to cause problems for other union members. Proud to be UNION.

That's fine if that's all the unions did. But there's more.

When unions go on strike, there's ALWAYS people willing to take those jobs for less money (in the bad type of unions I am referring to anyway). Therefore, the union people in those jobs must clearly be overpaid for the market (in many cases with unions, not all).

Here's how the free market system is supposed to function. There's a supply and a demand, and the price of the product (or labor) balances on the supply and demand of it. This is how America is supposed to work, using the free market system. Unions defeat this free market system by strongarming employers into paying more for a position than the free market system would demand otherwise. It's unfair, and should be illegal.

It's no different than a group of gas stations banding together to keep the price of gas artificially high and strongarming people to pay more. Gas station owners do that and they GO TO JAIL.

With all due respect, unions have a lot of great benefits, many of which are legitimate. But when a totally unskilled person can walk in off the street and mop floors for $60k per year, THERE'S A PROBLEM. And yes, I can cite a specific example of that exact thing happening.


Nothing personal, but I've never heard someone in one of these unions bash their union. Why would they? They'd be derailing their own gravy train.

Don't get me wrong, not ALL unions are like this, but I hate to say it, most of them seem to be. Sure, the guys show up on time, they stay all day, technically they don't break the rules to get fired. But they are usually doing a job half as well as a hungry eager person, at double the market wage, and I feel this is unfair to both the employer and the hungry person who is willing to do a better job.

This is not meant to be personal, this is just how I feel. If you can convince me otherwise, feel free. Competition for a job is what makes a worker do his best. The unions totally eliminate competition for a job. If you're in a union, you're "set". Sounds like the mob.

Again, not all unions are like this. But it seems like most of them are. Coal Miners, Auto Workers, Steel Workers, most of the big private non-state groups.

By reading your statements I would guess that you are not in a union?

I WISH!

Heh heh, all kidding aside, it's just a pet peave of mine. I guess I am just venting.

Sometimes I get carried away.

It's ok to vent if you need to. A union is only as strong as its members and it has the entire group in mind not just a single individual. With that being said some unions are better than others. I do not wish to bash any unions so that is why I stated that in that manner.