Our pension/welfare trustees have equal # of members from the union side and company side. It works out very nice for all concerned. The slackers, lazy bums, good for nothing type of workers did not last long, as word of mouth between companies and fellow members (you were judged on your work)starved them out.

It wasn’t 100% great, but better than most unions. We got paid a very liveable wage, and decent benefits, job safety, etc. What more could a working man ask for?

In theory, I support this notion, but I’m not clear how, then these programs would be administered. The idea of portable insurance, not tied to a particular employer has also been bandied about and sounds pormissing.

Probably, there needs to be a mandatory element; otherwise we would end up with a goodly number of uninsured and pensionless people, just like now. If not the employers, then who would administer these programs?

Pensions, it seems to me, are a bigger worry than insurance. Left to their own devices, the unsavvy could end up with zero in their pension accounts. So, who would be the nanny?

A lot of details need to be worked out.

I’ve met the managers who break their word to employees, try to go back on agreements and let their own egos get in the way of good management. Once I was fired because of a manager’s ego when he couldn’t take the fact that even though he was the owner’s son he wasn’t my manager and I wouldn’t do something that was just utterly insane without checking it with my manager. Can you imagine being asked to clean out the walk-in refrigerator at a busy restaurant (I was the purchasing manager’s assistant.) at 11:00 AM? When that cleaning involved emptying the fridge so that the prep chefs couldn’t find their ingredients? He never forgave me for that and when his dad was in a bad mood one day succeeded in getting me fired. Never cite the unerring rationality of business owners to me. Ever.

But does Peter ever talk to Paul? The worker is at a clear disadbantage, because he knows that he is at the mercy of the boss, even should any talking take place. That’s one advantage of unions; someone can talk on the worker’s behalf without putting him personally at risk.

Your problems with employees who don’t pull their weight are really a function of the terms of your employment contracts and the quality of the available work force, not unions in the generic sense.

Unions arose in the first place because of abuses by business. Unless the nature of man has changed while my back was turned, each group will do whatever it can to get the most and give the least possible. There has to be a MUTUALLY acceptable agreement.

On card checks, there was a study done recently on intimidation. It looked at management intimidation in secret ballot elections and labor intimidation in card check elections. The result?

46% of workers in secret ballot elections claimed that management intimidated them. Only 14% of workers in card check elections claimed that labor intimidated them.

Unions aren’t perfect, but they are desperately needed in the service sector in order to give workers a chance at better pay and benefits. It’s great to make employees happy without the need for a union. But most employers only care about employee happiness to a point, and beyond that they play hardball. When they do, workers need somebody in their corner to give them leverage.

Your post completely ignores the realities of many workplaces where people are fired because they are “too old” or for a plethora of personal reasons or serve as scapegoats for incompetent management. Unions as a special interest in today’s America are nothing compared to businesses.

When unions were at the height of their power, they definitely overreached and caused a negative impact on business and stifled innovation and meritocracy.

Now that business interests have the upper hand, they’re doing their best to ignore the concerns of the labor force.

It’s been a mistake for governement and business to ignore question of income disparity, low wage earner problems et al, even if their stated reasons for doing so are valid. Pressure creates counter pressure. In exactly the same way as in foreign policy, if you don’t acknowledge the legitimacy of the oppostion’s concerns, you create an atmosphere of confrontation rather than cooperation.

I call for mediation, maybe an umpire.