Unions came about originally in the early 20th century to protect workers that were getting abused. The problem is unions went on to become the abusers. Heavily unionized industries have difficulty competing in a global marketplace. They get so bloated and inflexible companies can’t be nimble enough to compete.
I had an experience in college working part time in two hotels, one was unionized one was not. The unionized hotel was older and not updated, felt stodgy and stuck in the past, workers didn’t hustle, they did the minimum to get by. Poor & lazy workers could not be fired so they remained on the job, damaging the employee culture. It just had a very negative feel about it.
On the other hand, the NON union hotel was an awesome place to work. It was beautiful and newly updated. People had much more positive attitudes and hustled a lot more to create a better guest experience. Workers would go above & beyond what they had to do if asked because it felt like a team environment. Lazy workers could be fired if they didn’t perform, thus preserving the positive work culture. This company also had a philosophy of taking care of it’s employees. And it was the top hotel in the entire city.
There is definitely a balance, there needs to be protection for workers on they will be exploited. But the last 30 years unions have got out of control and greedy and have taken companies down, and taken entire U.S. industries down (automobile industry). They can be kind of like the mafia in non “right to work” states too forcing workers to pay union dues. And then using those dues to fund campaigns of union friendly politicians. Kind of like in Sicily where the mafia forces business to pay “protection money”.
Also many public sector unions are horrible and corrupt. Former CA Governor Gray Davis got elected by being in the pocket of the California prison unions and other public sector unions, and thus he rewarded them right after his election with ridiculous unsustainable pay and pension packages that have helped make California’s finances be on a crazy roller coaster. And also made CA public sector employees by far the highest paid in the U.S. Much of the CA legislature is under the thumbs of public sector unions. I really believe it should be illegal for public sector unions to contribute to political campaigns. That creates so much corruption and cronyism.
