Are Labor Unions Good or Bad

Unions The author of this brief report has been asked to answer to the question of what is thought about of unions. Unions certainly have their time and place and they should go the way of the dinosaur. At the same time, people should not be coerced or intimidated to join unions as they are not for everyone. Beyond that, there are some kinds of workers that need to realize who they work for and who ultimately funds their check as they seem to forget that.

Lastly, some people like to be judged based on merit rather than just time served and there is absolutely some credence to that idea. While unions allow for employees to be on the same level of power as employers in many ways, proving one's own worth and mettle can get people far as well and unions have accumulated too much power in today's America.

Analysis As noted in the introduction, unionization is a very valid concept and tool and can be used to combat an employer that is being overly stingy when it comes to benefit or wages. At the same time, unions have taken full advantage of the empowerment that the law has allowed them and it has gone to excessive lengths. Just as one example, many people decry the fact that there is too much money in politics and the common targets of that argument are the rich and corporations.

However, the fact that unions can and do the same thing combined with the fact that they give the political action part of the union dues they collect almost entirely (north of 90%) to one party is unseemly even if the perception exists that the party in question is more loyal to workers. Indeed, if it should be about individuals and not groups, that should be true across the board (Levy, 2015).

Beyond that, corporations can take political or other directions that that may run afoul of what executives or employees of that firm desire or prefer. Those people can leave the company and work for someone else and the same thing should be an open and apparent option for union members, both before and after they join a union (Sherk, 2013). Further, there are some groups that, union or not, should remember what they do for a living and who provides their paychecks.

This would include fire fighters, the police and public schools. When entire schools have to be shut down because most of the staff is "sick" (quotes intended), that is disgusting behavior and that should not be happening (Fantz, 2016). Beyond that, the fact that public unions are bargaining against the taxpayer and not the funds of a private corporation that is funded by willing investors should matter. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt felt that way and he was about as pro-worker and pro-citizen as they come (Sherk, 2016).

Further, people should have a choice as to whether they join a union or not. There should be no compelled enrollment or "union shops." It is true that unions say that such workers sometimes benefit from the negotiations of the group, those non-union workers could just turn around and negotiate with their employers directly. After all, just because two people have the same tenure does not mean that one of the two is not clearly superior to the other in terms of education, performance and raw talent.

Those things matter a great deal in general but not so much in unions (Caplan, 2016). Conclusion Unions should not go away but there has been a huge shift that has gone entirely too far. Unions and the people therein need to get out of politics and partner with the employers they work for rather than being adversaries.

The author of this report, for that reason and many others, would never be part of a union simply because the efforts of a typical union would not match with the ideals and priorities of the author. The author.