Survey

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned, this is the sum of good government."
-Thomas Jefferson-

I was raised in a union family. My dad was a union worker all his life. He was even a business agent for the local union for almost 7 years. Because of his wages mom didn't work outside the home and we lived a nice life. Not a wealthy life, but comfortable. When I reached college, I worked as a union worker every summer where I made good money for a college student. Even my brother, upon graduating high school, has now been a union worker for 30 years. Yet being raised in a union family and working for union contractors, I'm not convinced union workers should be paid by public funds.

There's a difference with the union contractor my dad worked for.  The companies he worked for chose and voted to become a union shop. All the workers were given a choice and that's what they chose. The government never gave money to the company owner in order to pay his workers. It was a private company that had to survive by the business they worked hard to get from other competitors. In this way, the work provided by dad and his co-workers was very good.  For the worker that couldn't do the job required of them, they were sent back to the union hall. If they didn't become a better worker, no one would take them 'off the bench'.  That's why I was taught to work for what you recieve, and not to expect others to give me something for nothing.

As I think about what the unions are doing in the public sector, it seems to me that the work ethic I saw and experienced with unions growing up is mostly absent. When the government gives money to a particular group of people because they belong to a union, the money given pays the good workers as well as the bad workers. This is not a good situation for the taxpayer or even the good worker. The bad worker continues to work and get paid for doing a bad job. Not only does it hurt the group they work for, plus doing nothing for those they serve, it wastes the taxpayer's money.

Eighty-eight percent of the people in our nation do not work for a union. Every day these non-union workers are expected to do their job or lose their job. My experience has shown me that unless a company is not making profit, good workers will always be kept and taken care of. It's the same lesson I was taught growing up and the same advice I gave my son. Good workers can always negotiate with their boss for whatever they want to discuss, whether wages or benefits. No where in the private sector does the owner have to pay everyone the same amount of money, other than minimum wage. In a union situation, where wages are negotiated for everyone, the top workers have to settle for what everyone else gets. With this kind of atmosphere, complacency can become a devestating mindset.

My experience has shown me that the good workers can do just as well or better without union negotiations. If workers in a private company want to join the union, and they do so by voting, that's a great way to demonstrate the freedom we have in America. But I also believe that unions can actually hold the good workers back while paying bad workers to be bad workers. Isn't there something wrong with this picture?