Recently Michigan became the latest state to become a "right to work" state. This means that a worker doesn't have to belong to a union or pay union dues regardless of the job they are doing.
About six decades ago, the Republican platform backed unions because they represented the "Made in America" ideal. As of late Republican sentiment has shifted dramatically away from unions, who in turn have been major supporters of Democrats.
I have heard, from friends on both sides of the political aisle, the mantra "unions drive up the cost of doing business because union wages are so high". The next question has to be: how low should the wages be? Companies that do business in China or the Philippines or third world countries are getting labor at ridiculously low prices. Should they be able to pay Americans 10 cents/hour too?
Without unions, can we trust the corporations to look after their employees with competitive wages and benefits? Many people believe that "fair market trade" effectively works, believing a company has to offer good wages and provide benefits in order to entice workers to come work for them and this competition will drive the industry. Unfortunately we know this is untrue. Jobs are not so plentiful, nor have they ever been, that all Americans can choose to go to another company if theirs doesn't pay enough or provide the best benefits. In most areas the competition isn't much better, and if no company in an area provides anything better, then the status-quo rules out and no one gets any benefits.
I'm not going to tout the past accomplishments of unions such as the five day work-week or the abolition of child labor. Most of the unions of today rarely resemble these same organizations of yesteryear. We've all heard the jokes about union workers standing around while only one actually does any real work or how a union employee can practically commit murder and still not get fired. Certainly problems can occur when fairness and equity take a back seat to tenure and unreasonable contracts.
I liked the way Ohio phrased its "anti-union" bill a couple years ago. It used the term "merit based raises" to replace tenure when it came to teachers and civil employees. Of course all you have to do is watch an episode of Mad Men to see examples where a circumspect supervisor raises up his buddies while pushing down others, all in the auspices of "merit". Friends will merit promotions, men over women, whites over ethnicity. This is precisely what tenure was supposed to be a remedy for. Sure, there is a Federal law that prohibits some forms of discrimination, but the list is actually quite short and it's difficult to prove.
Some states have enacted merit-based wages on standardized testing. That's a completely different can of worms I don't even want to waste time going over.
Now in Michigan (once the law takes affect and clears its legal challenges), a police officer can join the police force without joining the union or paying union dues. Does that officer get paid the same union wages? Same pay for equal work? Even though it was the union that negotiated the contract which set the pay scale? Why should the officer get the same benefits if he or she isn't going to pay into the union?
Full disclosure: I have never belonged to a union. I worked for United Grocers that had a distribution center where union workers were employed, but I've always been a designer and we have never unionized. I've worked for companies that appreciated my talents and paid me competitively, but I've also worked for companies that mistreated me because they could. Luckily my skills have allowed me to seek employment elsewhere when a company has gotten all uppity, but then the recent recession hit and it all went to hell.
At one point I was paid $25.00 per logo I designed with endless unpaid revisions. This worked out to be about 60 cents/hour. It didn't matter how long I worked on the logo or how many changes the client made, I still just got the $25.00. Strike that, as a matter of fact I only got paid for three of the logos, the fourth is still owed.
