The Polis: The Need for Unions Explained

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Samurai Sam said...: I just had a conversation about unions with a conservative co-worker of mine (heck, they're all conservative. It's rural Wisconsin, after all) and she nicely presented why conservatives have won the union debate. She's convinced that the pay union folk get is unfair, that they get pampered by their union contracts and are paid more than their work is worth. This obviously stems from the core conservative believe in what people "deserve"; as in, no one on Earth deserves anything that a given conservative isn't getting.

Problem is, that's presenting the problem backwards. The problem isn't that unionized workers are over-compensated, it's that non-union workers are under-compensated. We've been hearing for so long about the evils of unions, that many Americans have lowered their expections about how employers should treat them. The key to revitalizing the labor movement is to shatter this misconception.; 4:40 PM