Have unions killed every industry they entered?

Question

Examples:
Steel industry
Auto Industry
Public Education
Government Employees
Dock Workers
etc..

Answer 1

Obviously the people who run them do not want them to go away, but they serve no other useful purpose. There was a time in this country when they were actually useful, when companies were owned by the robber barons and workers had no rights. Now, however (or at least until the repubs legislate them away) sorkers are covered by state and federal laws that protect them as the unions used to. So the unions are now just a parasite that no one has the guts to kill off. The unions are part of the reason incompetence runs amuck in companies, because it’s so difficult to get rid of people who should be fired immediately.



Getting rid of unions would help people thrive and strive to excel, rather than being protected for doing the absolute minimum.

Answer 2

The Union is currently trying to unionize our company and their tactics are disgusting, underhanded, dispicable and dishonest. Those are the only words that I can print without getting this answer removed. We are now in court proceedings because they failed to keep their end of a neutrality agreement. (which was signed to avoid another lawsuit, which we no doubt would have won but which would have been devastating to us financially) So even though, through deceit and lies, they got enough votes, it is being hammered out in court. But to retaliate, they made a threat that they would ’leak’ out that the company commited fraud in another office. (different state) Of course, the allegations are totally untrue, but recently, the police walked into that office and demanded a copy of all our documents because they had gotten an "anonymous" report of fraud. It will take a semi truck to haul away this many documents. The cost of copying them and the labor involved to do so is going to be astronomical and they know it. They are doing this to force us to drop the court case. They know if they win our office, they will be able to unionize the same industry in the entire state, so they are being ruthless.



The Union may be helpful to some industries but after what I’ve seen and experienced this past year with their efforts to unionize us, I have nothing but contempt for them.

Answer 3

Management is based on reducing costs to the absolute minimum and then charging as much as possible for the goods. The margin is the profit. Workers don't run the company. Workers don;'t make stupid decision on what products and services to create. Workers don't take out bad loans that they cannot repay. Managers and top management does that. THe union worker is only a small cog in the great big wheel.



So rather than blame unions, I think you need to look to the lousy and unsuccessful management if you want to blame anyone at all.

Answer 4

The problem is human selfishness. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" means that people will be running things, not robots, not God. But humans are selfish, pesky, spiteful, and mean. Back in the early 20th century, the meanness and selfishness rested with the business owners, who fired whom they wanted (with or without cause) and hired whom they wanted (with or without skill) and generally ran the company as they wanted, often into the ground. The union was invented as the alternative to communism, so we dodged that bullet, at least. But the union is also run by humans, so we see the union also acting out of selfishness, without regard for the business surviving (the unions should have offered pay cuts before bankruptcy canceled their "contracts" altogether.) So, in one way, yes, unions get some of the blame for these industries being ruined. In another way, it was going to happen whatever we did.

Answer 5

Pretty much yea. Most notably the auto industry in Detroit. The companies moved all their factories to Indiana and Ohio, and invested in electronic technologies to avoid the outrageous union demands.

Answer 6

Please ponder the following and consider how 12% of workers could make that large an impact:

Union Rates Increase in 2007 January 25, 2008

By Ben Zipperer and John Schmitt

For the first time in the past quarter of a century, in 2007 U.S. unions increased their share of membership among workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) annual union membership report released today. Unions added about 310,000 members last year, raising the unionized share of the workforce to 12.1 percent from 12.0 percent in 2006.



The increase is small, and may well reflect statistical variation rather than an actual increase in the union membership share, but the uptick is striking because it is the first time since the BLS began collecting annual union membership rates in 1983 that the union share has increased.



The small national rise in union membership rates reflected a large increase in union membership in California, partially offset by substantial declines in the Midwest.



Among women, union membership rose from 10.9 percent of women workers in 2006 to 11.1 percent last year. Rates for men remained unchanged at 13.0 percent. This modest narrowing of the gender gap in union membership was primarily driven by gains among white women, whose unionization rate increased from 10.5 percent to 10.8 percent in 2007. African-American men saw their membership rate grow from 15.6 percent to 15.8 percent, but rates for black women fell to 13.0 percent in 2007 from 13.7 percent in 2006.



In the private sector, which accounts for the bulk of employment in the economy, union membership gains varied by industry. Construction unions increased their membership faster than the rate of job growth in that industry, with membership jumping from 13.0 percent in 2006 to 13.9 percent in 2007. Membership in the private health and education sectors grew from 8.3 percent to 8.8 percent. Unions also made headway in the low-paying retail industry, increasing membership rates from 5.0 percent to 5.2 percent.



Manufacturing, however, continued to lose unionized jobs in 2007 faster than the sector’s overall decline in employment. Union membership in manufacturing fell to 11.3 percent in 2007 from 11.7 percent in 2006. Although manufacturing jobs were once accurately identified with unionized employment, manufacturing workers are now less likely to be in a union than is the average U.S. worker.



While the US experienced an overall gain in union membership, trends differed by region. Unionization in northeastern states, such as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, grew modestly from 18.4 percent in 2006 to 18.7 percent last year. Southern union membership remained unchanged at 5.9 percent, less than half of the national average.



Midwestern states, which include Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, historically have had a higher unionization rate than states in the West. But, for the first time since 1983 when comparable annual data became available, the unionization rate in the West (14.7 percent) exceeded the unionization rate in the Midwest (13.8 percent).



In the West, California added over 200,000 union members in 2007, helping to expand unionization in western states states from 13.9 percent in 2006 to 14.7 percent last year. Meanwhile, Illinois weathered the largest loss of union membership of any state in 2007, as its share of unionized workers fell from 16.4 percent to 14.5 percent. Midwestern union membership in total dropped from 14.4 percent to 13.8 percent.

Although U.S. unions overall saw only a small increase in membership in 2007, this is the only year that unionization has risen in the past quarter of a century. Union membership has declined almost continuously, with occasional pauses, from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 12.1 percent this year. (For complete data from 1983 through 2006, see http://www.unionstats.com/.)



This long-term decline stands in remarkable contrast to worker desire for unionization. According to polls of non-managerial workers, about one-half want to be but are not union members.*



*See Richard B. Freeman, 2007, "Do Workers Still Want Unions? More Than Ever" (http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp182/bp182.pdf), Economic Policy Institute. Ben Zipperer is a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. John Schmitt is a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

CEPR’s Union Membership Byte is published annually upon release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Union Membership report. Data for years before 2006 and regional calculations are from the authors’ analysis of Current Population Survey data. For more information or to subscribe by fax or email contact CEPR at 202-293-5380 ext. 102, or morgavan [at] cepr [dot] net.