Unions to me are the single largest reason budgets in canada and the us will never balance again. There's several reasons of course but this is the biggest one. They by their very definition pull you away from a market economy and make money flow inefficient.
They serve one useful purpose I can think of, around ensuring safe, equitable workplaces but in practice .. well im sure many people can post examples of unions going beyond what is efficient for all and spend more time grandstanding to work on their personal reputations than they do actually properly representing their stakeholders. Maybe there are other useful purposes, but its scope is much smaller than what their current mandates are.
Show me a union and I'll show you a workforce that is paid more than their peers (salary + benefits) work less than their peers and ironically are the most unhappy hard-done-by people in the history of their industry.
If people don't like the true value of their job they should retrain and find a new one. Simple as that. I'm glad that column was written and hope there's more of it.
Last edited by Flames in 07; 05-05-2013 at 11:54 AM.
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