At the dawn of the 20th century, heavy industry and big
business
were in their infancy and a great deal of human labor was needed in
order to facilitate the mushrooming Industrial Revolution. This quickly
led to widespread abuse of workers, including children, who were often
consigned to sweatshops where they were forced to toil for several hours
a day. However, workers eventually united to form labor unions that
stood up to the big corporations and negotiated better pay and working
conditions for millions of employees and also demanded the passing of
child labor laws.The
effectiveness of labor unions, however has always been a source of controversy.
Who Do Unions Benefit?Of
course, labor unions were created for the benefit of their members. The
union represents the workers to the employers and negotiates on their
behalf to secure better wages and working conditions. Unions also run
the largest non-military
job training
service in the country and often partner with organizations such as the
United Way to perform various community services. Research that tracks
the wages of unionized versus non-unionized employees indicates that the
wages of union workers exceed that of non-union employees by about 8 to
12%.
Economic studies have also suggested, however, that much of the
difference in pay and benefits that many union workers enjoy compared to
non-union employees can no longer be attributed to the unions
themselves. Modern union contracts make it more difficult for a company
to fire an unproductive employee, so employers now tend to be much more
selective in whom they hire, which has resulted in an increase in the
quality of the union workforce as a whole. Many unions form for
employers and industries that are larger and more stable financially
because this allows the union to demand better wages and benefits.
Economic ImpactUnions can convince workers to join them as a means of preserving the unions' clout in industries (such as the
U.S. auto industry).
But history shows that this can cripple an industry, especially over
time. Members of the UAW enjoy wages of about $70 an hour, a wage
greater than that of many Ph.D. scientists. They also enjoy a whopping
seven weeks of vacation per year for unskilled laborers. Foreign
automakers came to the U.S. auto market in the 1970s and used non-union
workers in the southern states to build vehicles. Due to the savings in
labor costs, these foreign automakers could afford to sell their
vehicles for less money. This made it much harder for the big three
automakers to produce competitive cars at affordable prices for the
public, and in 2008 Chrysler and GM were forced to declare bankruptcy.
CorruptionJimmy
Hoffa gave millions of dollars of union pension money to the Las Vegas
mob in the '60s and '70s, and elements of organized crime can muscle
into local labor unions and take jobs and other benefits from working
members. Some unions are not above using strongarm tactics to protect
their territories, as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
proved in September of 2010 when it attacked a railroad dock terminal,
overpowered
security guards and sabotaged trains carrying grain for a company that tried to use a different labor union.
The Bottom LineRegardless of their effectiveness, labor unions have played a major role in
workers' rights
and the economies of America and other capitalist countries. Although
some economists say that unions have outlived their usefulness, they
will likely continue to impact our industries and other sectors of the
economy one way or another for decades to come.
