The Great Good Done by Labor Unions

To understand the great amount of good that labor unions have accomplished in this country, one only need take a look at General Motors. Its stock price is now the lowest it has been in the past half century. The labor unions, with highly unreasonable salary demands, health care coverage demands, work without pay demands, insane work rule demands, and many other crazy demands too numerous to mention, have helped create this mess. GM management caved to the UAW far too often, so they are not blameless either.

A quick look at the facts might give pause to some who so blindly accept the belief that labor unions really help the workers and the country.

1. General Motors lost 39 billion dollars last year. To help put that in perspective, that loss is $4,452,054.00 PER HOUR every hour of every day of the year. Nice work UAW!

2. In 1979 General Motors had 468,000 hourly union workers. It now employs 76,000 hourly union workers. You go UAW!

3. General Motors once had a 60% market share of all the cars and trucks sold in the United States. It is now 22% and still sinking fast. Right on, right on UAW!

4. Sixty percent of GM’s sales are now from abroad. How do I sign up, UAW?!

5. GM’s small cars are designed in Korea, its family-sized cars are designed in Europe, and its rear-drive cars are designed in Australia. Hummer is trying to be sold and there are only three Buick models left standing. This is called globalization, but it really is simply GM shutting down US operations due to expense. Does anyone remember the Oldsmobile? Where do I go to sign up, UAW?!

6. Foreign automakers, on the other hand, are doing quite well in the US. Toyota, Honda, BMW and others all have plants here, but they are in the south and most are non-union, so these manufacturers are not hamstrung by huge pension plans, crazy benefits, work without pay, work “rules” that don’t work, and other union-bargained “benefits”. Man, what would I do without my buddies at the UAW?

In short, I believe the following is a pretty accurate picture of the “help” the unions have given to their legions of members. Picture a proud, card-carrying UAW man or woman, standing strong at the unemployment office, waiting in long lines for food stamps, and watching the house get foreclosed as the union continues to fight the good fight for them. Imagine them waking up some day and knowing they were had. This scene has been repeated hundreds of thousands of times in the US in the past couple decades. It will continue to be repeated until Detroit sits empty and everything below the Mason-Dixon Line explodes with new-found, non-union energy and efficiency.

I wonder, does the UAW give refunds on dues?