BTW, the way you characterise unions are interesting. Very different from how they work here in Northern Europe. I wonder if American unions really are as corrupt and screwed up as the Internet makes them sound.
I didn't elect a union. If I want to work for a company and they want to hire me, how does a union have the power to tell me I can't work for them and the company can't hire me?
I understand unions have caused problems in the past. They've caused huge problems, and have had to be scaled back. But that's exactly the balance I'm talking about. We're just swinging on the pendulum towards workers rights at this time. I'm 100% sure if more unions spring up, we'll be hearing horror stories about work stoppages and companies shutting down product lines. But we hear plenty of horror stories about companies mistreating employees right now. We're just riding the free market pendulum.
It doesn't exactly get me out of my seat to think that Amazon might have to make a little less profit, or pay their executives $50 million less next year, or hell, even that prices might rise a little, if it means the free market is actually at work. In an ideal world the pendulum would stop swinging, and we would be in the middle forever. That should theoretically be the job of our government. But I don't see that happening any time soon.
But that's not what we're talking about here. If I am making $8 an hour at my current job and Amazon is willing to pay me $15 an hour but the union says no, first of all we insist on $20 an hour and second of all we decide who gets those jobs and your name isn't on the list, that isn't worker rights, is it?
It's not worker rights or employer rights, it's union rights. Wise up. There's a long history here - certainly on Staten Island - about how this all plays out and where the money goes.