Quote:
Originally Posted by MacCool
Indeed it can be. Greed by corporations, greed by unions. Plenty of greed to go around. It's an occasional-but unfortunate byproduct of capitalism, the foundation of the US economy. Fortunately, there are laws about that now. Yes....thanks in large part to unions, from back in the days when they were more useful than harmful to the US economy.
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From my POV it's not really a Union or Company problem but a people problem. If you have "good" people on both sides of the table some pretty wonderful things can be accomplished - the company and investors make money, the workers get a higher standard of living and better working conditions, and the local economy benefits. But it only takes one bad apple.
Much like buying a car, it's very easy to slip into adversarial positions.
While there are some unions that do more harm than good (UAW and Teamsters come to mind), from what I have seen, unions, in general, are still very valuable. There are still too many companies (the people that run them, actually) that would abuse employees if given half a chance. Certainly not all, but enough.
If nothing else is good about unions, they have been able to dramatically better safety in the workplace. Companies end up spending a little more for hazard/injury prevention but reap the benefits of fewer injuries (much lower expenditures, less lost time, better morale, &c). Win/win.