Discussions

There was a thread started lately about someone's interest in having a union represent the industry they work in. Based on that discussion I thought a more general discussion on unions and what people think might be a good idea.  
 
I have had the opportunity in my life to live in a household where one of us worked a union job and the other a non union job.  
 
The experience in our household was that my wife felt she received very little from the union when she felt she needed their backing. As well, she also felt that the union made it nearly impossible to get rid of employees that had a negative impact on the workplace: in a non union setting, that same person's behavior would have most certainly resulted in termination. No doubt the union did bring some good to the workplace, but I have to wonder if the bad outweighed the good.  
 
My own employment situation was always such that I was happy doing my own wage and benefit negotiations. If I was unhappy in my job situation and it could not be resolved I was always able to move to a different job. I have never seen any need for a union to work on my behalf: I guess it not hard to tell I'm NOT pro union.  
 
Edited by fargobob, 2010-06-01 14:39:50