One of my favorite quotes, by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris

Monday, October 3, 2011

Should labor unions join the "Occupy Wall Street" protest?

There's a lot of talk in the media now about the unions supporting the protestors on Wall Street, and I'm wondering if that is really a good thing. Unions have done a lot of good for workers in the past, but many of them have gotten very powerful and power hungry. In my opinion they began to add to the problems of our economy long ago. Because of unions a lot of jobs have gone over seas, and America can not compete economic with many other countries. Instead of continually wanting more raises and benefits from employers, that just cut into profits, why don't they try getting the guys at the top to stop taking such big bonuses and share the wealth with the workers?

Look at the example of the US Postal Service. That union is so strong, that they will be lucky to not be closed down by the end of this year. Eighty percent of the operational cost is salary! And they have a "no layoff" clause, so they can't legally cut back on their work force to help save jobs.

Anyway, rather than state too many of my ideas and opinions about unions on here, I want to make the point that there almost seems to be a conflict of interest between what the current protestors  are about, and what unions are about. The protestors seem to be more about changing things for the better, and lot letting corporate America continue to get away with horrible business practices the are hurting our economy. Things like taking bailouts for a problem they caused, and then paying their top screw ups bonuses for it. The unions are more about getting more for the laborers, regardless of whether is causes us the not be competitive with other countries and shoots us in both feet, legs, arms, and in the long run head, economically.

Does anybody else see this, and is this important?
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