Are unions inherently evil?

a reply to: Kali74I live in Alaska. I'm pretty confident saying stuff costs more here than it does wherever you live. Then again, I see a lot more people getting subsidies here, too.

Yall denounced socialist Europe with their vacation, universal healthcare (which isnt that universal at all) and their unions, bending over backwards for big money. And Merc, BMW and whathaveyou took you up on the offer, exporting "made in Germany" from America to Germany, until it turned out the Chinese etc. would do it for even less. How did that work out for America? Is the wealth trickling down already?

a reply to: greencmp

For the third time, I was not specifically asking about public sector unions but unions in general regardless of sector. Considering I've clarified this point to no avail a couple times already, I am going to take it that you are simply not going to answer any of my questions.

Unions at the local level can be good but at the top...ie headquarters it is just another big business out for themselves.

Considering I used to work for one of the larger Unions AND for one of the largest (and most hated) corporation in the world, I think I know a little about this subject.

Unions are no more evil than corporations. Airlines, oil companies, grocery stores ALL merge in order to make more money. If 10 steel suppliers decided to form a partnership, no one would call that evil.

As for the people who claim public employee unions are "evil" because there is no cost accountability - I would say large corporations have the same problem. Look at all the high paid executives who run the company into the ground but still get million dollar bonuses. There's no shortage of MBAs - the market is flooded with them. This happens because of collusion and kick backs (in the form of job referrals for friends and family) with the board members- except they don't call it collusion they call it networking and make it part of job descriptions. It's a huge problem and drain on the economy.

As for my personal experience with evil it's hands down non-Union government employees.

Evil? No.

Self-interested? Yes.

The stated goal of unions is to promote the welfare of its members and (when they're developed/powerful enough) to protect any privileges they've won since. This makes them instigators of positive change in the short-run, but hold outs against productive change in the long-run.

originally posted by: Haniel
The stated goal of unions is to promote the welfare of its members and (when they're developed/powerful enough) to protect any privileges they've won since. This makes them instigators of positive change in the short-run, but hold outs against productive change in the long-run.

If, as a Chief Steward, I was continuously called upon to police the collective agreement, then unions are still relevant.

a reply to: greencmp

The infamous Pinkertons.....

Its hard to say whether a union is evil or not. Take for example my line of work (Software QA Engineer in the gaming industry).

During crunch time i work anywhere from 60-120hrs a WEEK. MANY of the companies i have worked for have been on a "contract basis" which means i am able to work for the company for a full year (365 days) before i am REQUIRED(and forced) to take atleast 100 days off of work. Now there is no law saying this has to be the way it is, however many many big software companies follow this rule primarily due to the fact that they can instantly terminate you at will for any cause. That means after a game has shipped and work is ramping down, they can easily dispose of these people without much worry of a being sued. I have no problems with this however the model of contract work is BS IMO due to fact that i am requried to take more than 3 months off of work on top of working myself to death for about 4 months ou t of the year.

With a union system, this would not be a serious issue due to the fact that compensation would be far greater than what currently is the going rate. I would WELCOME a union into the IT industry, and yes they aren't perfect, but working my ass off just to get by for that unemployment break SUCKS primarily due to the fact that your savings has now been spent during your unemployment break(yes unemployment does not pay enough to cover your bills unfortunately).