Are Union Members Paid too Well...
Or are we underpaid?
It is an interesting question, one that our corporate-media complex really, really doesn’t want us to think about. For the longest time much of the media has fed us the idea that “union = overpaid/lazy/bad”. Now we should all have the following ingrained in our skulls by now, “the media lies”.
Proceeding from that “law” (it really should be a scientific law at this point) we can deduce that the media is lying about unions. The real question to ask ourselves is, “why?”
Could it perhaps be that bankers, corporations, employers, and politicians hate unions with a seething passion? Could it be that the aforementioned groups despise anyone who advocates for their own lot in life? Could it be that they don’t want the population to achieve even a fraction of power that such groups as the American Longshoreman Association hold?
Do not believe the establishment lies, American men should have a chance to have good lives, even with just an average job. The good old days should not be a vanishing image in the mirror, we should be living them right now. It is the great evil of our banker-corporate overlords that has led to the decay consuming us.
We did not have to sell our industry off to foreigners. We did not have to reduce millions of our fellow Americans in the rustbelt to poverty and drug overdose. We did not have to abandon our complete manufacturing and resource independence from the rest of the world.
Indeed it is not we who flushed it down the toilet, it is not we who committed this treason. It is them, the bankerati and illuminati that pull the strings to which we dance that did this. Let these strings be cut, let the tariffs be reinstated, and let the factories and foundries reopen.
While we are at why don’t we exile the elites and their third world minions to the third world as well? They claim to appreciate the diversity and work ethic of the Haitians, so why don’t they go live with them in Haiti? I am sure that the Haitians will prove to be most civilized and kind to our para-…er, “elites”.
You really have to distinguish between private sector unions and public sector unions. The numbers today are on the side of the public sector unions and a case can be made that they are overpaid (or underworked). The addition of unions on top of traditional civil service or tenure systems has not been positive especially with the general incompetence of public sector management. Even FDR was opposed to public sector unions.
As for private sector unions, you have a point. Part of the problem was that they were too successful in advancing the interests of workers until they weren't. The balance of power flipped very suddenly and the wage deterioration for the last generation has been pretty obvious. Industry management was much more agile than government management. There is a good case that it is time to reflip the balance. Not sure how you do this without government putting its thumb on the scale but elements of MAGA seem to be going there. Union leadership in thrall to the Democrats is going to be a problem.
For every story reflecting poorly on unions there is one or two that claim they are the best thing ever. My experience shows that unions pretty much destroy major industries and lead to unemployment. Where they remain they are indeed warning signs that were it not they are government funded, they too would be long gone. There is a sort of PESI going on now thanks to the Teachers unions spending 3 lifetimes convincing students of the properness of Marxist/Leninsism.