Regardless, the outcome turned out to be the same as we’re seeing today, NSR. In your example, mgmt plundered the organization and then ran off with the proceeds, leaving their longtime assembly lines grossly underfunded and their loyal workforce in a lurch. In recent years, mgmt decided to move their factories to a country where the customary wages are 1/10th or less than they are in the US, leaving their longtime workers jobless in a region with no other type of industry for many miles around.
In both cases, the longtime union-member employees paid the ultimate price.[/quote]
I remember guys in high school – I asked them where they were going to college. They laughed at me and said their (brother, uncle, cousin) was going to get them a job on the line that paid $30 an hour and that I was dumb for spending all the time and money on college. I thought a lot about those conversations when I was making $6.50 an hour doing leukemia research with a college degree. They were absolutely overpaid (even if they were inflating their income) for their abilities – and that was the union’s doing. The problem is that they really weren’t worth what the union got them in terms of pay – it was a bubble of a sort. And bubbles burst. I’m not saying management wasn’t partly to blame – but management is easy to move around if that would fix things. Unions and politicians – not so much.
