The poverty in the early Industrial Revolution was not caused by a lack of regulation. It was left over from feudalism. A worker's best protection from "exploitation of evil robber barons" is his common sense in signing contracts. The company towns were an exception, not the rule back then. The FDR labor laws only shut down businesses that could not compete with artificially high marginal costs. The companies who could afford to have good working conditions already had them before FDR.

Today, people in America are wealthy enough to expect good working conditions. The labor laws are the equivalent of a law saying everyone has to eat three meals per day. Everyone would be eating three meals per day without the law, but it would sound bad if anyone was against the law. For a company to compete in the labor market, it has to offer 40 hour weeks with time and a half overtime. And if a company doesn't provide this in the contract, they can expect to not have many people wanting to work for them.

Probably the only people labor laws actually effect today are the Mexican aliens. They have their competitive advantage of being willing to work for longer hours than most Americans for lower wages taken away by labor laws. Their productivity is less than minimum wage usually, so the labor laws mostly prevent them from getting jobs.

OK, i'm a member of an AFL/CIO affiliated union Local. In fact, I'm a shop steward. I may be biased. However, my background and education are fairly anti-union. Y'know the duality of man, the Jungian thing.

Practically, my local has fought for better working conditions, and won. My local has fought for better wages, and won.

We (members of my local) work for a municipal government. Idiots run municipal government, because idiots elect them. We serve as a valuable check against the incompetency of our bosses.

In an ideal world, there'd be no need for a union. Unfortunately, the world is far from ideal.

It has been my experience that members of my profession enjoy pretty much the same standard of living regardless of their unionized status. I have faith in the market. Ironically, having a union is very convenient for individual rights and such.

I don't believe unions are an anomaly or are a contradiction of "the market" in any way. I see it more as an example of economic democracy. If we were to add amendments to the constitution, I would like to see the right to organize as being one of them. Yes, not all unions are perfect, but I think most everyone who has posted here has had one or two bosses who had it out for them in some way and tried to cheat them. If we don't have democracy in the workplace, how are we to have in society?

We did add an amendment that secures that right. In fact, it was the first amendment they added.

- Rick

First, let me say I am not against unions. I just think they need to be focused on helping the company succeed (just as corporations, in turn, need to focus on treating employees well).

However, there seems to be a big misperception of their 'need'.



Completely not true. A worker can easily protect himself--he can walk out of the door and never come back. The marketplace provides a complete remedy to this situation--just get another job.

As a firm believer in my ability to succeed at what I attempt in life and my belief that I should be compensated to the best of my ability I am not a big believer in Unions.
However if Corporate America does not stop trying to gouge it employees to the bone. Offering Horribly substandard benefits and insults for pay they are going to reinvigorate the union movement in this country and get what they deserve.
Run into the ground.

Seems simple enough to me, pay your people well give them good benefits and good vacation time then you will get a dedicated employee. One who wants to work there. They'll get more done. Offer training for advancement and you will get an employee who will build his career goals around your company and making it better (ie more profitable).

I would disagree with this one Hobbes. Go to the mat with the boss one too many times and you might end up with a job that has less pay or lacks health insurance. Those of us with families know all too well how that routine works. Whether it is the public or private sector-you base what you complain about upon what you can afford to lose. Not everyone can afford to pick up and move to another town for another job. In the 18& 1900s, a sharecropper technically had the right to go and farm for someone else, but their lives never really changed that much in terms of pay and status. The same holds true today. If you leave K-Mart to go to Wal-Mart, you're not going to experience a radical difference in pay or benefits. The point? You are basically a slave who has the "right" to trade in one plantation for another so to speak.

I think one of the problem with Unions (as well as corporate america, government america, etc.) is a failure to think with a long term strategy.

An overly aggressive union, if successful, can practically force an employer to relocate it's operations or fold. Sort of like the difference between a symbiotic relationship and a parasitic one.

As an aside, I know of many locals in right-to-work states that have quite a bit of clout, mostly through their lobbying efforts.

Answering to the point made about a worker voting with his feet: In some cases yes, in many others no. Not everyone has a job or set of job skills that are portable. Not everyone has the means to spend months looking for a new job, and then to relocate to that job.

Ideally a worker's individual utility to his employer would be accurately measurable readily apparent. Often though an employer's decision affecting an employee are based on personal bias, Unions help with this.

In my particular situation, my Local has sole bargaining rights for work conditions and compensation with the city. I do not have to join my local. I can join only my local and not the international union. If I do not join my local, I still must pay a service fee to the local to cover the costs of collective bargaining. It is a little less than half of the full dues. Non members receive the same compensation, medical insurance, and retirement benefits. Being a full dues member gives me a few extra benefits of the local, dental, optical, and legal. It also gives me Union representation in case in disciplinary matters. Of course my local is legally precluded from striking.

Having one bargaining unit allows management to NOT negotiate salaries individually. My gut feeling is that having a local bargaining unit does not particularly add to or subtract from the amount of time an employee must spend on human resources issues, it just gives it better structure.

I think this particular incarnation of Union structure is effective, and balances the needs and rights of management, the labor organization, and the individual.

A number of the democratic candidates are in favor of a "card-check" program in which if the majority of workers in a given workplace have signed cards, the union is duly recognized. This keeps employer malfeance from interfering with the right to organize and would simply a process that many employers use to just drag things out so that they are not held accountable.