In article ,
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per Kurt Ullman:
Since unions topped out as %age of workers 60 years ago and has been
downhill ever since and since the best time for workers was arguably in
the 70s and 80s, it is really hard to suggest unions had all that much
to do with it.

I'm just looking at the contrast between people in my family doing the
same jobs in the USA and in Germany (where unions are pretty much
universal).

The difference in pay, working conditions, and benefits is just huge.

A lot of that is related to the fact that these aren't (American)
unions. They tend to be part of the board (that hasn't ended well in the
US see one of the many United Airlines), there is much less of an
adversarial stance on both sides, they work together instead of both
being out to get as much (or as little) as possible without any real
interest in the long term health of either.


There's plenty more in that vein, but the bottom line is that once they
knew there was no danger of a union coming in, they tightened the screws
without mercy - and kept tightening them.

Which is exactly when the union talk should have started back up.
This isn't a one and done type of thing.

But that was just one anecdote from one person. The USA-Germany thing
is what really formed my opinion.
--
"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive,
but what they conceal is vital."
-- Aaron Levenstein