General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do we even give a shit about unions any more? [View all]Spike89
(1,569 posts)We've let capitalists outmaneuver us. They couldn't destroy or even argue against the ideal of unions, but they could encourage us to fight among ourselves. It isn't consumers that unions should be blaming--it is and always has been management. Both management at union companies and management at non-union companies. Management with unions play the two-face game of blaming labor for everything while encouraging the unions to serve as defacto marketing arms. Unions don't primarily exist to make better products more efficiently for their corporate overlords.
Management at non-union shops are true enemies of labor unions than some poor slob who chooses the wrong car. Here's a little thought experiment for you--imagine if we could cast a spell that made everyone in the US like union-built cars 20% more than they do now. What happens? Well, there are only two real possibilities--the union factories will jack their prices/profit margins up until consumer demand equalizes or the non-union factories will drop prices (probably by squeezing their non-union labor even more) to the same effect. In neither of those scenarios do unions or labor in as a whole benefit. Management wins either way when it comes to consumers. The only way labor wins in this game is by recognizing that they are playing against management and that the consumers are management's concern.
Of course, in a pretend world a third option exists--the demand for union products helps push the non-union businesses to become unionized. That will never happen--management will never bring a real union in. Unions are for the benefit of the workers or they aren't worthy of the name.