If you read much about the history of the industrial revolution you see why unions came into existence. If there was a time and a place and that was it, big business run a muck destroying people and families for the good of the company. Watch John Sayles Matewan to get a good view of the circumstances the gave birth to unions. An excellent film.
Unions lost popularity with the common people, in my opinion, in the 60?s and 70?s when you had people sweeping the floor at Ford making six figures and complaining about the benefits, i.e. big unions were then running a muck. There were still reasons that people needed unions, primarily the promotion of safety and a safe work environment. Two things in which business had relatively little interest. (I have seen great strides in a safe work place in the past 30 years that I have been around construction and heavy industry.)
Now is an interesting time for unions I think mainly because big business has again run a muck. The worker chained to the coal mines of the 1920?s by the company housing, pay and store, has given rise to the office worker chained to the cubical by corporate and individual greed, as well as health benefits (a.k.a insurance, which can be otherwise unattainable). There are other forces working on the equation too. Company loyalty to the worker has gone, as has the worker?s loyalty to the company. Both severed sometime ago in the era of the corporate raiders. When pension funds were the prize and workers were robbed of their savings as the companies were bought, torn apart and sold. At the same time, unions were essentially doing the same to their members.
You also have to look at the individual and corporate greed factor. American?s enjoy more disposable income than anytime in the history of the nation, however, they feel less incline to pay the fee of being an American, i.e. taxes, preferring instead to pass those cost onto their children, or to buy extra houses, cars, toys etc. I guess in a way people have lost their true loyalty to their country, much like they have to their companies. And, Politian?s have lost their loyalty to the people. Raiding the coffers to support special interest of all kinds. Our grandparents would have never done that. Harry S. Truman, famous for saying ?the buck stops here?, did what he thought was the best for the country, not what he thought was best for his political career, or, god forbid, what was the best sound bite at the moment.
Off my soapbox and back to unions. I will say that in my experience that if I want an industrial facility constructed properly, I would take a union tradesman over a non-union just about any day. Whether, the guy sweeping the floor at the Ford plant should be making more than my doctor, is another story.
How is that, Smiling Joe?
Or did I ramble too much?
