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What is the problem?
Why is it people dislike unions so much on this board? Looked at from 10,000 feet, unions only exist in places where a majority of the employees vote them in. The laws protecting unions are the result of decades of compromise, which settled on a majority rule system in the workplace. A majority can vote the union in, a majority can vote the union out.
I have been a member of a couple of unions, one of which was one of the apparently particularly hated unions of teachers (University faculty and staff in this case). Yes, the union provided protection to teachers, some of whom were capable and some of whom were not. But it was more the civil service laws, the seniority system, and the tenure system that raised the problems with protecting less qualified or capable teachers in that particular case than the union itself; indeed, since that was a relatively young union, it would have been happy to cut back on seniority since the younger members were more activist.
But the union also provided very significant protection, and helped significantly improve the system by increasing pay enough so we could attract some real stars. In the absence of the union, I think the legislature would have been content with a University filled with mediocre products of its own system being paid the least possible.
And, at the end of the day, democracy rules. Just as a majority can decide to fund or not fund schools in the broader political system, a majority can decide to form or to dissolve a union. Yes, there may be rules along the edges that favor the incumbents, but I would no more view that as a reason to get rid of the system for unions than I would for our broader political system.
So, there was good and bad, but most of the sins laid at the union's doorstep were much more products of civil service.
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