A letter to those who oppose unions/labor

Dear Union Busters,
I truly and sincerely do not understand your position. If you would take a moment to see where I am coming from, I would love to try and understand your point of view better. First off, let me say that I do not think Unions or the Labor movement are perfect or free of negatives. I understand power enough to know that some folks will misuse it, no matter what their professed values or position. That being said, I would like you to read on, and if you can still tell me why you oppose unions, that would be great. Thanks.

My thesis, is that our economy works best when all stakeholders have power and representation. A Corporations job is to make money, and their ethic is most often to the bottom line and the shareholder. To counter balance that, we have the union, whose job is to protect the laborer(who is also the consumer that drives our economy, by the way). A union unchallenged would be terrible, but a corporation unchecked would be worse.

The closest thing we have to union free areas are in the states that have "Rght to Work" laws. These laws make unions relatively impotent, and put all the power into the hands of the corporations. So, for those of you union hating folks, please look what happens when union power is effectively neutralized:

The following statistics apply to all workers, union or not. In states with anti-union laws, all workers suffer.

• Workers in "Right to Work" states earn over $7,000 less than workers in free-bargaining states like Minnesota. We may pay high taxes here, but we make $7,000 more per year on average because we support unions. Union members get over $9,000 more in free bargaining states than in Right to Work states. So, would you trade getting a paltry tax break from Republicans in exchange for much lower anti-labor wages, because that is the trade off?
  Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates,” November 2004.
• Free bargaining states, like Minnesota, have much higher quality of life statistics than anti-union "Right to Work" states. Would you give up your quality of life in order to get rid of unions? 22 states have, and the following are the results:
• Right-to-Work states have a poverty rate of 13.5 percent, compared with 12.2 percent in free bargaining states. Less unions is directly correlated to more poverty.
• The infant mortality rate is 7.94 percent higher and the uninsured population rate is 15 percent higher on average in Right-to-Work states. Less unions is directly correlated to less benefits for workers, and more babies dieing.
• composite ACT scores are 3.55 percent lower in Right-to-Work states. Even education is worse in anti-union states!
• More injuries and deaths occur on the job in "Right to Work" anti-union states. Safety gets in the way of profit you know!
• According to calculations from Bureau of Labor statistics, the rate of workplace deaths is 41 percent higher in states with Right-to-Work laws
• In 1996, workers compensation benefits were 50 percent lower in Right-to-Work states than in free bargaining states
  Source: Kathleen O’Leary Morgan and Scott Morgan, State Rankings 2000: A Statistical View of the 50 United States, April 2000

All workers suffer in non-union states. Do you want Minnesota to have the quality of life issues of states like Mississippi? To you want wages to be low? Anti union states have some of the worst economies in the country. Is that what you want?

Much of this post relied on information from the Center for Alternative Policy

Anti-Union folks, please click here