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Feedback ForumHow vital are labor unions to the rights of employees?Submissions for this question are no longer being accepted. Previously submitted comments appear below. Comments may have been edited for content or space. Poster: Bob Marshall Comment: Union rights are a basic human right.They are a building block of any democracy. The right to collectively bargain a contract over your wages and working conditions should be in the constitution of any country that is struggling to build a free nation.Look at all the repressive dictatorships in history and you will find each one tried to destroy unions. Poster: Eva Comment: Labor unions are vital to those of us who feel that equal pay for equal work is a must. For those of us who feel that employees safety on the job is of vital importance to the employer; that health insurance, social security and retirement is important to the survival of working families. It's vital to those of us who know that we had some say in the number of hours we work weekly, whether we get to stay off with a sick child or spouse, whether we get paid for overtime or have the choice of taking comp time, knowing that our vote really does count. Labor unions are essential to the well being of working families. Poster: JB Comment: Unions are essential to every working man, woman and young adults. Unions are equalizing forces for workers right. They level the playing field in the workplace and political arena fighting for decent living wages, dignity, saftey justice and fairness for all workers and their families. Unions provide another voice in the workplace to truly create the balance labor between management which is greatly needed today. Poster: Mario Comment: Labor Unions are fundamental to the Working Class in its struggles against Capitalist greed and exploitation. What type of Labor Unions do we need? Democratic Labor Unions where the Workers are the active participants with a leadership of Workers that can be elected and revoked at any time. The leadership should be Workers who get paid no more than the highest paid Workers in the Local. So, we need Democratic Labor Unions free of abuse and corruption led by Workers, and not bureaucrats or labor lieutenants of the capitalist class. Only such Labor Unions can lead Workers in struggle for a better future in America and around the world. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!! Poster: Gerry Comment: As a Union President of a large Pulp and Paper mill I find myself trying to protect the rights that we have aquired through negotiations. The rights negotiated in good faith for retirees, the sick and injured are always being attacked. An attack on the most vulnerable is an attack on all of us. We must stand united. Poster: Phil Comment: Without Labor Unions employee's would have the same rights as those in third world countries where they aren't allowed to form a union. 25-50 cents a day for a 10 hour day and do as you are told or you are replaced. Poster: John Koning Comment: The Republicans have been fighting unions for years. They have succeeded in packing the NLRB so that enforcing labor laws has become a farce. The unions can't win in this venue. We need a democrat president to appoint a new NLRB to give unions the right to correct the abuses of employers which have been sanctioned by the NLRB. Poster: Laura in Portland Comment: Labor Unions are vitally important these days to the rights of employees. The bottom line for corporations are profits and quite often this is done through low wages and non-existent benefit packages. People are working longer hours and still not getting ahead. Unions should be there to protect workers. Don't forget, unions are the foks that brought you the weekend. Poster: Norman Bruner Comment: During the execution of the Marshall Plan for Japan, the U.S. strongly encouraged the creation of labor unions , because the policy makers knew that was this was a basic step in fostering democracy there. Once democracy gets a hold in the workplace it spreads into other areas. We wanted to see a democratic Japan and we got it. Many would like to see a more democratic USA. Poster: Shain Comment: Traditionally, it has only been through the unionization movement that workers have earned living wages and benefits. Those who deride unions should look at the problems young people will face years from now as they retire; no pensions and only their own saving accounts to help them in their retirement years. Poster: scott Comment: i believe unions are the institutions that made our standard of living dependent on having an educated and involved majority of middle class/working class citizenry. they were the watchdogs of social justice and fair trade in this country. they eliminated robber barons and monopolizers who would treat our work force as third world human chattel. the union movement has become marginalized through some of their own fault and through the insidious ways the busters plied their trade through the years. working class families throughout the country have been stressed, indebted and broken. jobs have been outsourced. and now foreign workers both within and outside the country try to exist off of the remaing scraps left after quarterly dividends have been paid to mega-opoly share holders. the unions' turn on top of the history cycle is coming again. Poster: Art Ashlin Comment: The unions started out as a good idea to protect workers, but as many things, the pendulum swings too far one direction, then too far the other direction. When the unions began to control everything, the pendulum had swung too far. They are now falling out of favor and the pendulum has swung back to the center. Eventually, it will probably see a swing back to the over-powerful. Poster: Shirley Comment: Yes, they are representing the majority of the workers and should be helpful to both employees and employers Poster: Alan Kardoff Comment: Unions, even though greatly diminished in importance and power are the only intermediary standing between slave labor and corporate monsters. Poster: Helen Klueber Comment: Unions have and continue to play an important part in our history and have done much good to further the middle class, but sometimes they go too far and make themselves obsolete. Poster: Clare Comment: The labor unions offer a collected voice about employee issues and THAT is what makes it vital. How else can an issue get any clout? Organize or die! Poster: mlw Comment: With out labor unions we would all be working in a lower wage and even more unsafe, more polluted feudal slave system. The problem is the large already established unions are corrupt and now exist only to enrich the people who run them. However we need them to counter the greed and slave master like behavior of corporations There seems to be no Fair balance between the companies and the unions, one is allways taking unfair advantage and its the workers and consumers who eventually suffer because of greed and or lazyness Poster: bob t Comment: Labor unions are absolutely essential to protects of employees because business has totally abdicated all responsibility to it's workers. Business, especially big business is now largely derelict in any responsibility to workers or our beloved America. Business is now the enemy within who serve only themselves. Corporate respinsibility is long gone and given way to corporate greed, no matter the cost to America in lives, treasue or our ever polarized society. Corporations are like sharks, they attack, kill and feed. Left on their own, as they have been since Reagan and especially in the last six years of the Bush/repub dynasty would despoil our planet because they are driven by nothing but greed. What more needs to be said, thanks to the repubs and the two religions that endlessly support them, the Catholics(my religion) and the White southern Baptists the repubs can get away with anything they so choose. bob t, Cleve, Oh. Poster: Darrell Comment: As long as employers do not foster a partnership with their employees, unions will be needed to balance the interests of management and stockholders with the interests of the employees. Poster: Andy Galligan Comment: Good unions are necessary, unless workers wish to rely mainly on the benevolence of employers. I would also submit that freedom of association is a good measure of the wholesomeness of any democracy. Dictaorships and oligarchies fear unions. Poster: BC Hall Comment: Labor Unions are historically responsible for fighting for the rights for employees. If not for Unions, workers in all sectors would work longer hours for less pay with virtually no rights. There would be no child labor laws, no weekends, no paid health care, no paid holidays or sick time, no FMLA or maternity leave, and no pensions and no equal employment without Labor's hard-fought intervention. Corporations have steadily chipped away at collective bargaining, but the basic human rights of workers are the legacy of the strength of organized labor. Poster: Kate Baum Comment: Labor unions are absolutely vital to the rights of employees. I am a retired teacher from Portland, OR. Before I retired, I was an active union member. I would not have walked into my building without knowing my Union behind me. I served as building rep and was a member of the executive board of two different locals, one affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the other with the National Education Association. As a building rep, I was able to offer support to the teachers in my building. I was aided by the Union Contract. Every teacher had a copy of the Contract The Union Contract is a document agreed upon by the School Board and the Bargaining Committee of the Union. The teaching staff learned that if the Principal violated the contract, the Union could file a grievaancel. No Principal in the district wanted to face a grievance. Our job as teachers was to teach. Having a Union and a Union Contract made this possible. Poster: michael heit Comment: Simple; Do you like your weekends Do you like a 40 hour week want to retire with more then an under funded 401K Thank a union Sure there have been abuses (organized crime) but nothing campared to corporate scandals Poster: Anne Lundberg Comment: There are at least three reasons labor unions are important to employees. (1)A lone wage earner has little bargaining power against business, which increasingly is concerned about the bottom line, stock values, its stockholders, and highly paid CEO's and other executives, who sit on the board of directors and vote themselves large salaries and bonuses; (2)Labor unions typically if not exclusively donate money to democratic candidates, who are the most likely party to support the rights of the average worker; and (3)In Right-to- Work states, wages are typically lower than in non Right-to-Work states. (Right-to-work is a euphemism for right to work without representation. Right to work states prohibit labor unions from requiring workers to belong to a union as a condidition of employment. Where union membership is voluntary, the power of labor unions is diluted.) |
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