The economics of today will change tomorrow, and the economics of tomorrow will not be those of yesterday. Economics is a fluid science, because our society and our technology are a constantly shifting backdrop.
Unions provide a stabilizing force in the constant ebb and flow of power and leverage between labor and management. The collective bargaining process is at the heart of the matter, by allowing labor to use the same tools as management to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.
No one claims that the entire process is perfect, and indeed, it has glaring loopholes in some respects. When the governmental bodies that oversee this process (i.e. the National Labor Relations Board, etc.) tilt too much in favor to one side of the other, it can throw the entire process off. Since these regulatory bodies are made up of presidential appointees at the top levels, the influences and predilections of these entities can shift from one election cycle to the next, depending on which party holds the the top office.
Union leaders understand as well as anybody, if not better, the risks inherent in a labor stoppage. But when all other avenues are exhausted, the withholding of labor by the union workers is the last and only real recourse a union has. Of course, there are huge risks in engaging in a strike, and it is often a double-edged sword. But compared to the tools and weapons a company can often muster in such a fight, the union's toolbox is fairly limited.
In the end, many union workers understand far better than their non-union counterparts about the fact that collective bargaining has risks and rewards. The success of any collective bargaining negotiation has as much to do with how resolute that workforce is going into the negotiations, and how far they are willing to back up the promise with the threat of a strike.
Union workers have kept the bar high for American workers as a whole, even while their membership levels have dropped over the years. Again, this is not due to worker disenfranchisement with the union process, but because of a wholesale effort by corporate business interests to remove what they view as a hindrance to bigger profits and increased shareholder value. The fact that those fat profits and enhanced share prices often come at the sacrifice of good benefits and stagnant wages is often overlooked and undervalued by many on Wall Street and in Washington DC.
And yet, without a strong middle class with stable jobs and stable incomes, we are merely setting the stage for what is coming to pass right before our eyes. There is little doubt that we are undermining our own economic security in this country by negotiating uneven trade deals, allowing unregulated or poorly regulated investments, and doing little to stop good jobs from leaving this country while low-income service-sector jobs become the predominant option for displaced workers.
Unions have no interest in seeing corporate America go out of business, Unions are in the business of people, simply put. If there are no jobs and no business... there are no unions. But what unions have done and will do well into the foreseeable future is to level out the playing field and to create a counterbalance to the corporate interests that have reigned for too long.
Greed... is not good.
Not for America, and certainly not for the American middle class. Unions have a role to play here in struggling to maintain a strong and vibrant middle class, but it is a battle they have been slowly losing for decades. Anybody who cheer leads for the end of unions is simply playing blindly into the hands of those forces who want to see a return to the culture of a minority rich aristocracy which holds ultimate power and sway over a population of serfs and indentured servants.
That is where we are heading if we allow one side of the power balance between labor and corporate interests to simply fade into nothingness...
