I personally love the ultra conservative idea that unions are an evil that is breaking business. If that were the case then the large (some say too large) aerospace companies should have gone broke long ago as they are mostly unionized. This unionization has led to American aerospace having the best paid workers in the world, with the best benefits. However, due to this they are also the best such workers there are at the same time (and I was indeed one of them before retiring in the year 2000), and the aerospace corporations are well aware of this.
The results? American aerospace is the only industry left to the US that does not run in the red as far as foreign business goes. Take a look at Boeing for instance, its value to Wall Street has gone up by some 75% this year alone, and there is no other element in the DJIA even close to that increase! What the Unions do is to level the playing field so that not only do the investors in the US Aerospace do very well, but so do the middle class workers (over a million totally) that create that business investment also do well at the same time. They have done this with very few strikes in general, as the leadership of our excellent aerospace industries is intelligent enough (along with the leadership of the unions themselves) to realize that nobody benefits if either side gets too greedy (greed in itself IS an evil). So, they have learned to negotiate and compromise, something that our Congressional Leadership seems incapable of learning. And yes, that goes for both sides of the political spectrum, with the tea party types being the worst of an already bad bunch!
I personally love the ultra conservative idea that unions are an evil that is breaking business. If that were the case then the large (some say too large) aerospace companies should have gone broke long ago as they are mostly unionized. This unionization has led to American aerospace having the best paid workers in the world, with the best benefits. However, due to this they are also the best such workers there are at the same time (and I was indeed one of them before retiring in the year 2000), and the aerospace corporations are well aware of this.
The results? American aerospace is the only industry left to the US that does not run in the red as far as foreign business goes. Take a look at Boeing for instance, its value to Wall Street has gone up by some 75% this year alone, and there is no other element in the DJIA even close to that increase! What the Unions do is to level the playing field so that not only do the investors in the US Aerospace do very well, but so do the middle class workers (over a million totally) that create that business investment also do well at the same time. They have done this with very few strikes in general, as the leadership of our excellent aerospace industries is intelligent enough (along with the leadership of the unions themselves) to realize that nobody benefits if either side gets too greedy (greed in itself IS an evil). So, they have learned to negotiate and compromise, something that our Congressional Leadership seems incapable of learning. And yes, that goes for both sides of the political spectrum, with the tea party types being the worst of an already bad bunch!