The statement, released by the Economic Policy Institute today, states:

“Although its collapse has dominated recent media coverage, the financial sector is not the only segment of the U.S. economy running into serious trouble. The institutions that govern the labor market have also failed, producing the unusual and unhealthy situation in which hourly compensation for American workers has stagnated even as their productivity soared.

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Unions bring what the members want. Union leaders are elected, and unelected by democratic vote.
Good union leaders try to tell their members the truth about the company and the industry they work in.

Unions in the 1930s brought conflict. Not because they wanted it, all though I'm sure some workers were so angry they welcomed it, but because the employers used strong arm tactics backed up by the local police. Unions brought economic and political power to the lower economic classes.

Unions created the middle class. Without unions we would not have a super rich and a poor class.
Unions forced employers to grant better wages, less hours, pensions and vacations.

If there is a fault to unions its after they have gained all these things, and the membership has moved from the organizing generation into the second and third generation membership. Then the leaders to keep their jobs must please members that have become just like much of the labor force that says we want MORE without regard to the market and the employers honest plea for help. Where the leadership is smart they work with the employer at this stage of the labor management equation.

I have been a union man all my life. I have a pension, health program, a reasonable set of work rules. There is very little strife in the work place as the rules have been agreed upon at the bargaining table when the contract negotiations take place.

You sir, I'm sorry to say are parroting what your father said or you are an unreasonable employer, or live in an anti-union environment. Employers that want to treat their worker fairly do better with unions. NuCorp Steel was a good example. The unions could not organize that plant because the workers trusted management.

How do you sir, answer the problem where the company leaders are laying off workers in bad times and taking huge bonuses for being such “good” managers? How do you answer the disparity that has grown in the last 20 years between the CEO Wages and the worker's wages? If you tell me that its His company and he should be able to do what he wants then I would argue that He is the source of the conflict not the union.

Go the nonunion shop and you're on your own. Lick the manager's booty, or never get a promotion or a raise. Wear the wrong shirt on Tuesday, you're fired. Pension? Go live under a bridge, for all we care. Once you're too old to work here, you're put out with the trash. Medical? Miss a week of work and don't bother to return. We'll mail your check.

I've worked on both sides of that divider. Put me down for a union man. I hope card check makes it into law, and we can restore or introduce some plain decency into the way workers are treated on the job.

Thanks.

mp