This is akin to teaching a fish linear algebra. Choose to believe whatever you'd like. It was believed by some the earth was flat at one point.
Unions take payments (dues) from their employees. It's up to management and their respective policies on how to spend that money. If you don't see the similarities between the ways unions operate and businesses - no point in breaking it down further.
Unions do have control over markets. The unions represent the workers. The workers produce goods for the company - many industries are almost entirely inhabited by unions. As you stated, they control the labor. Once you control the labor, you control the markets. Econ 101.
I never stated that the unions were worse than the companies that they work for - you assumed that I did. May want to go double check my original post. I encourage you to do a little research and you'll find numerous stories of unions screwing their employees out of pensions & benefits after decades of service, just as the big corps do. Who's the monster?
Taking advantage of the benefits that the union(s) provide, and enjoying your job, respecting your union leadership, and trusting them are all completely different things. As for your Verizon example, working for Verizon simply sucks to begin with, union or not. Frontier, Comcast, Cox, they're all the same - and that's personal experience talking.
I understand your predisposition towards unions, but for Christ's sake - it hasn't been a secret that they've been abusing their position for decades, a simple google search will more than suffice.
If you work for a company that you feel that you need to be unionized for job security, then maybe you should think twice about working there. Once again, it's not the 20's - there are other viable options.
"Unions take payments (dues) from their employees. It's up to management and their respective policies on how to spend that money. If you don't see the similarities between the ways unions operate and businesses - no point in breaking it down further."
Wrong, the management is allowed some discretion on how they spend that money but they usually sign a contract mandating that they must do certain things, like pay for everyone's pensions and healthcare. Also, where are the similarities? If anything you just said makes them the same or like companies then according to your logic just about every guild, association, or conglomeration of people is now a company. First, their source of money is different. Second, their intention is different. Third, their operation is different. I could go on.
"Unions do have control over markets. The unions represent the workers. The workers produce goods for the company - many industries are almost entirely inhabited by unions. As you stated, they control the labor. Once you control the labor, you control the markets. Econ 101."
The unions only have control as far as the workers, they do not control the goods or services being made. Last time I checked, the market is the goods / services being provided, not the labor.
"never stated that the unions were worse than the companies that they work for - you assumed that I did. May want to go double check my original post. I encourage you to do a little research and you'll find numerous stories of unions screwing their employees out of pensions & benefits after decades of service, just as the big corps do. Who's the monster?"
You stated this
"Unions however, are above and beyond (for the vast majority) the threshold of 'acceptable' variances for practices in ethics. "
Seeing as we were comparing companies to unions, unless you suddenly go back and change the subject of your comment, yes you were talking about companies in your comparison of companies to unions, thank you very much. What, are you now going to tell me you were comparing unions to the government?
Also really?
"I encourage you to do a little research and you'll find numerous stories of unions screwing their employees out of pensions & benefits after decades of service, just as the big corps do. Who's the monster?""
I'm well aware that these cases happen but can you really say that a few fringe cases can even come close to what big corps have done? Hundreds of THOUSANDs of vets lost their homes to bank of America. Do you also realize how many CEOs take a golden parachute and then leave the company bankrupt and how many employees lose their pension? Remember when the automakers were bailed out and it was a golden parachute parade? No, the example you provided is a small tiny example that you likely can't provide has any large statistical correlation to unions in general. FYI unions don't have employees, if they did they would have to pay an employee tax.
"I understand your predisposition towards unions, but for Christ's sake - it hasn't been a secret that they've been abusing their position for decades, a simple google search will more than suffice"
A simple google search will tell me what it always has, republican's complaining about unions because they get their pockets filled by big corps. It's one thing to say something is bad and it's another to propose a solution. You can sit there and call something bad but do you have something better to fix it? It's a fact that the average worker benefits from unions, whether they are apart of that union or not. Unions increase wages and benefits in general. Removing it is going to have the same effect removing the ACA would have, back to square one. Union's fixed a problem, removing them will only bring it back.
