Factory Jobs Disappear; Workers Lack Options [NYTimes]

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:

> Unions, like insurance, are a necessary evil. Industries where
the
> bosses haven't rapaciously exploited the workers are, generally,
not
> unionized. However, when management literally kills workers for
> profit, works must (and have) organized to protect themselves. I
once
> saw a bumper sticker: "Do you like weekends -- thank the unions".
12
> hour days, 6 days a week were once standard -- even for 10 yr old
> children. These conditions -- and worse -- are still common in
some
> parts of the world, but in Europe and the US unions changed that.

I argue only with your tense.

Unions did indeed once serve a legitimate purpose, but that time has
long passed...at least here in the First World. Today, they do
nothing but arbitrarily confiscate money from folks who receive NO
useful benefit therefrom (starting to sound like our old friend, the
State, neh?). And, not at all incidentally, eviscerate American
manufacturing's ability to compete in a larger world far less
complacent than America's has been -- everso shortsightedly! -- for
the last 40 years or so.

spike