Do they not see working there as just a stopgap to something better? Is this their chosen career path? We need to start telling kids its ok to be a plumber again.
When I was 14, I wanted to work at the local grocery store as a summer job. Grocery workers are unionized here. Minimum wage (which is what I would have gotten) was $6.45/hr (in 2004) and the union would have taken almost 1/3 of that...and the best part is that because you're part time, you don't get any of the benefits of the job security, or higher wages, or extra time off; the union just takes your money and gives you nothing in return. Eventually, I worked for the local movie theatre, also for $6.45/hr, but at least I got to keep it all. I loved that job.
Turns out this is a pretty common racket in unskilled labor unions. You get some loser lifers that basically suck the transient workers dry like vampire bats going from cow to cow.
Even in skilled trades, I have little patience for unions. Skilled tradesmen are now sufficiently rare that they definitely don't need a union; the only thing you need to be a successful electrician or plumber is to show up on time and not be a shithead.
I think I'd be more understanding if they were at least on equal footing with everyone else, but unless you live in a right-to-work state, unions get legislative protections that far exceed what individual workers do. If you want to bargain collectively, that's fine, but the business owner should have the right to refuse to come to the table; in the state I live in, it is
illegal to hire willing replacement workers unless you're "negotiating in good faith with the union", and guess whose side the local labor board tends to be on? If you want to negotiate a mandatory union joining clause with your collective employer, that's fine, but here once a union is certified, it doesn't give the employer any choice about whether he maintains non-union employees doing the same kinds of work, nor does it give people the option to not join the union. You also can't stop outside union organizers from just waltzing into your business, and you have to "provide a space" for union organizers to discuss how best to fuck you over.
For whatever reason, it can't just be a normal contract; it's gotta be this special arrangement overly protected by government... not to mention all the grift, especially with public sector unions.
I'd be more supportive of this if I didn't know that labor laws don't apply to retarded people. Including minimum wage.
If they had to pay them minimum wage, they'd hire a normal person. There are plenty of people looking to work minimum wage jobs; why would you hire a retarded person? Nevermind the fact that these people are almost never working to support themselves; they just have jobs to make some pocket money.
That's the trouble with price floors; they create massive deadweight loss. If $6.45 was good enough for me, it should be good enough for a retarded person.
I do think unions are *mostly* good - they did give us the "weekend" after all.
Modern unions are not unions from 1925, and even then half of them were controlled by communist agitators and the other half were controlled by the mob.