Reminds me of the last illustration in the copy of Animal Farm I read when I was about 9.

"Unions benefit the pigs...and the pigs?"

Heh... the various pics remind me of my stance on unions.

I can see unions being beneficial in most cases.

Most cases.

There's several situations where unions aren't helping out and are leading towards killing the jobs they're "trying" to protect. One of those situations is transit, and I worked there for 8 years, in a rather unique position. If Karno were to draw it out as a short funny, it would be the unions squeezing from the left... and politicians, who don't want to pay for even repairing roads, squeezing on the right. Eventually the entire system goes pop.

Unions are a good and bad thing really. I think it really depends on the idealism of the people running that union.

I personally am fond of unions.
I grew up in northern Wisconsin, if not for unions mill workers, teachers, or state employees (all part of my family) wouldnt have been paid fairly or have any benefits.

Look for the union label. Union jobs have put food on my family's table and roofs over our heads for generations.

In the first place, one has to assume a union that isn't under mobster or other kind of corrupt influence. The history of the Teamsters, the Longshoremen, certain garment unions, and so forth show that those unions, under baleful influence, are run for the benefit of the criminals, and neither the employees nor the employers. Mercifully, this is not nearly as common as it was in the 1950s, thanks to certain disclosure laws, and repeated cleanup efforts.

In some cases, it is deeply questionable whether or not the entrenched management of certain unions truly represents the folks they purport to represent. It's quite noticeable that when certain Wisconsin state entities went from "closed shop" (where union membership is required) to "open shop" (where it is not), union membership declined dramatically. Were there a "value proposition" on the part of the union, you wouldn't have seen such dramatic drops. This tends to be more prevalent in unions that are vigorously engaged in activities that go somewhat beyond wages and workplace condition representation.

(There is, of course, the kind of militant unionism parodied in "I'm All Right, Jack," that was self-defeating in the long term, in terms of general support. Arthur Scargill may have been a union man to his core, but he had a tin ear for public relations, and ended up destroying his union -- though the green movement likely would have destroyed it, anyway.)

In some cases, and this happened in a lot of the heavy industry in not only the U.S., but in many European countries, the high-cost structure and sluggish ability to move imperiled many firms; combined with very onerous defined-benefit (as opposed to defined contribution) plans, some firms totally collapsed (e.g. Bethlehem Steel) or went through long waves of painful cuts (e.g. Ford, GM). Management misjudgements played a definite role (especially at GM), but the role of unions was a factor.

One of the ironies is that a central prop and purpose of unionism -- workplace conditions -- was largely taken over by government regulation, e.g. OSHA. The kinds of conditions where brakemen lost legs, or miners risked cave-ins, drove unionism for many years, but with those roles now done by government, as I say, some of the purpose behind unions is gone.

The other thing, of course, that affects unionism is the globalization of products. in 1920, it wasn't as easy to get products or resources from half-way around the world, like it is today. Consumers might "Buy American" and then again, they might not.

Something that always puzzles me: How come it's OK for union leaders to bemoan 'freeloaders', but it's not OK for business leaders to bemoan 'freeloaders'? You'd almost think there was a double standard in place or something...

Unions for protecting jobs and keeping them local, fine. Unions that become private clubs that you have to buy into or else risk blackballing, not so much.

Agreed. I'm all for protecting the rights of the workers, but there's times where I think the unions are more interested in helping the unions rather than the workers.

The female looks like a true believer. Karno what is your opinion on the union stuff in your drawing

Hum, that is just a representation of an ideal, unfortunately, the reality is not as black and white, it usually comes in shade of gray. I'm not saying that the unions are the worst thing on earth but I'm also not saying that they are the best thing either.

Big Government, Big Business, Big Union--the word to watch here is "Big" The rest is just varieties.

Off the Pigs!
What? Nobody else was saying it.

I was a Union Steward for about two years. Sort of a necessary evil. I left long ago (1987) and the place has degraded badly, since.

I fully support the return of the phrase "greedheads" to the political lexicon. Gary Treadeu made good use of it back in the 80's, but it's more relevant now than ever.

You can never keep something balanced if someone has a vested interest in a particular outcome. Unions were something that came about before labor laws to protect workers. Now they are monopolies on labor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AoQ3cUaY8