Daily Archives: July 13, 2015

Organized Labor

Who Needs Labor Unions?

Have you seen one of those SEIU graphics that read “If unions aren’t needed anymore, why are corporations spending billions to destroy them?”

unions not needed anymore

Shoe on the other foot. If a group of union thugs wanted to make your business (assuming you have one) less profitable, what would you do? Let them?

Here’s a thought. Why don’t unions just cut out the middleman and create their own product, instead of becoming parasites on business and industry? Like any good parasite, you don’t want to kill the host, just suck from it as much as you can. Truth is, businesses don’t need a labor union to exist. But labor unions need government and/or business to exist.

BIG LABOR advocates say “Without America’s labor unions, we wouldn’t have many of the protections and benefits that we have today.” That’s a true statement. It was true 30 years ago too! Thanks to the ‘wake-up call’ delivered to employers by organized labor decades ago, which was “treat your people right or lose,” the labor movement has successfully put itself out of business so to speak. Their usefulness has diminished due to their earlier success as shown by their decreasing member rolls.

  • Total percentage private sector and public sector labor union workers: 1983; 20.1%, 2014; 11.1%
  • Percent of private sector labor union workers: 2004 7.9%, 2014 6.6%
  • Percent of public sector, government, labor union workers: 2004 36.4%, 2014 35.7%
  • Total number of union workers, public and private sector: 1983 17.7 million,  2012 14.6 million.

Now the BIG LABOR advocates lament “Every American worker benefits from the hard-fought battles of our labor unions, but they are becoming extinct under our watch.” That’s also a true statement. Sucks to be them. Now they are the ones that need to learn a lesson. To get their own ‘wake-up call.’ Which is, be competitive in the marketplace, or lose. And union labor is far from competitive. And, they are losing. They are overpriced, and clinging to the last vestige of survival they have, the public sector. IE. government unions, where they are in bed with politicians who have no problems taking your tax dollars to pay for them and their unsustainable benefits and pension plans, so they (unions) can continue to give to their (Democrats) campaigns. In reality, it’s a huge money laundering scheme.