This is a terrible naive view of what unions do. Union membership, and leaders, do vote to cut pay and benefits. Take for example "Members of the Los Angeles teachers union voted overwhelmingly to approve a temporary salary reduction in exchange for sparing thousands of jobs, the union announced Saturday." and "Nine years of living with wage and benefit cuts of 25 percent and the prospect of six more years of substandard industry compensation doomed a "final best" contract offer by American Airlines to its Transport Workers Union mechanics, union officials said Tuesday." Those were not hard to find. Do you seriously think that the goal of a union airplane mechanic is to get enough money from the airline so as to put the airline out of business, leaving the mechanic jobless?
We've overwhelmingly fallen into the view that union members are greedy bastards out to soak the companies for all its worth. This is not what unions do, at least, not the definition of what unions do. As others pointed out, there are countries with high union membership. For example, "Finland has one of the highest rates of union membership in the industrialized world, with 80 per cent of employees organized in trade unions." Yet they don't seem to have the same management/union conflicts as here. And especially not the view that union's are basically a drag on the system.
Why don't we also have the view that company owners are greedy bastards out to soak the employees for all they're worth - and out to cheat the customers as much as they can get away with? (cough locksmith scammers cough). Why is it that Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" is admired for Wall Street but not for employees? I read that "Brokerage executives at one Wall Street firm, Jefferies Group, have threatened to leave the company if their bonuses aren't up to par with other firms" - why shouldn't teachers be able to make the same threat if their salaries don't at least keep up with inflation?
We've overwhelmingly fallen into the view that union members are greedy bastards out to soak the companies for all its worth. This is not what unions do, at least, not the definition of what unions do. As others pointed out, there are countries with high union membership. For example, "Finland has one of the highest rates of union membership in the industrialized world, with 80 per cent of employees organized in trade unions." Yet they don't seem to have the same management/union conflicts as here. And especially not the view that union's are basically a drag on the system.
Why don't we also have the view that company owners are greedy bastards out to soak the employees for all they're worth - and out to cheat the customers as much as they can get away with? (cough locksmith scammers cough). Why is it that Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" is admired for Wall Street but not for employees? I read that "Brokerage executives at one Wall Street firm, Jefferies Group, have threatened to leave the company if their bonuses aren't up to par with other firms" - why shouldn't teachers be able to make the same threat if their salaries don't at least keep up with inflation?