Built like a Mercedes 3659

budd, that is a terribly ignorant thing to say. period. even stupid. unions have a ying and yang to them, like all things. for example, like management. there is no silver bullet, no universal answer. however, unions hae a very definate place in this country. all workers deserve to have input into their salary and benefits. all workers deserve to be guarenteed a fair discipline system that follows the doctrine of due cause and due process. the laws of this country however, do not always support those gaurentees, especially since big business has had the influence with the law makers that they have over the past 20 years. fair employement laws have been rewritten to very intolerent levels. unless you are in a protected clbutt (female, black, loveual preference etc.), your ability to require your employer to follow due process and due cause are very likely non existant. what those changes have done is create an even larger opening for unions, who step in and through a negotiated contract force a fair system of discipline on the employer. but of course the unions don't stop there. they try to get more and what you see sensationalized in the media is the cases where the unions have too much discipline impact and the hands of the employer become tied. who is to blame for this? unions or the employer? i think the employer. and as far as wages, unions represent the employees. rare employers will give up more than what they have to. unions try to get as much as they can. most of the time they reach a fair settlement. what has gathered the attention here is if employees (and thus the unions that represent them) should give back gains as the company loses revenue. good question but much more complex than a single answer like yours can give. employees probably didn't run the company into the ground. employees see their managers continue to get ridiculous sums of money and benefits, even when they are asked to give back. employees signed a contract and then made life decisions on that contact. decisions like planning and setting aside money for their kids education, for their own retirement. pretty hard to give that up if you didn't muck up the company and your boss, who did, is still getting his same salary.

anyway budd, unions are not dinosaurs. they fill a need. they have to or they would not exist. they also create problems and have unintended outcomes. that is life. from my experience, after 34 years in government, a lot of it in management, all of it dealing through or with unions, unions have a real place in protecting the rights of the workers. i am not a union employee by the way. but the abuse that i see on the part of governments around here is incredible and frankly, as much as unions are a pain in my butt, i fully understand why they exist.