It is time for America to get rid of Unions! They hurt our country and kill businesses! IMO ~~~TRagic Hostess situation!

[Mr Khan]

HappySqurriel said:

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Now you can say what you like about unions but you also have to admit that corporations can and will do much worse.

For the most part, I'm not convinced unions led to improvements in safety that wouldn't have happened on their own ...

England was (one of) the earliest countries to pass child labour laws and they did so in 1833, which was before Unions (really) started to be formed, and it was primarily a result of people's attitudes changing due to the industrial revolution.

The changes would have happened under similar circumstances to how sexual harassment in the workplace has been (pretty much) eliminated. Likely the victims of dangerous workplaces (or their families) would sue the corporation for accidents/injuries, many of these corporations would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal settlements, and companies would increase safety standards to reduce financial risk and keep costs down.

 

 

With that said, I think the primary problem with unions is that they have become far too big (not that they exist) ... If there were no unions that spanned multiple companies it is likely that most companies could find a middle ground with their union so everyone can be successful. With gigantic unions they don't really care if any one company is successful because if a company (like Hostess) goes bankrupt due to a strike it just makes it easier for them to extort other companies.

@ Bolded: Wrong. The forerunners of modern trade unionism emerged in England in the 1820s, largely led by a guy named Robert Owen, who developed a model community for both workers and factory owners, attempted an unsuccessful colony in Indiana, and then came back and helped institute a few of England's first labor reforms, along with the first major expansion of the franchise in the United Kingdom.