The Beginning Or End Of Labor Unions

Nicole Spratley HR330-01

Week 5 Assignment Project Outline

The Beginning or End of Unions

DeVry University

A Union is formed by a group of workers who join together to form a strong alliance against the company they work for. These alliances are formed so that these groups of people will have the means to peacefully bargain with their employers for safer working conditions, equality in the workplace concerning wages and health benefits, and better rights concerning discrimination due to race, handicap, sexual orientation, etc. In the late 1800’s unions began to form, however Unions became all powerful in the early 19th century. Unions had a great impact on having laws passed for the protection of children who had to work. Laws
Since the auto industry crisis and bailout, which failed, a lot of Americans have viewed the unions as the cause of the bailout failure, and not the executives at the helm. A Gallup poll was taken and the majority of Americans feel that unions have harmed instead of helped the economy. Many Americans felt that the bailout was not due to the Republicans not giving in, as much as it was the unions who would not make more wage concessions, allowing the bailout to fall through. Politics have also helped influence the decline in Labor unions. For one in my opinion Republicans who ruled the government until fairly recently are for big corporations. Most republicans own companies themselves and having a union around would definitely interfere with operations of a company and take a lot of the monies that the employers pay the employees. The company would also not have the freedom to do business as usual without the union overseeing the process. So it would make sense that Republicans in government would do everything they could to give unions less and less power. Government began to recognize the unions back in the late 1800’s and in the early 1900’s government passed laws on behalf of the American worker due to the influence and lobbying of unions. Democrat’s which is comprised of working class Americans is very big on having unions front and
Manual labor jobs have mostly been maintained by unions. Once the jobs have gone overseas, there are no jobs for American workers and the unions at this point have no members. Another decline in membership would come from different generational aspects that have influenced labor unions. Baby boomers who are basically those who are retiring now, where very significant in the industrial manual labor work force. The unions helped these workers get the monies they needed as well as benefits. The baby boomers strongly supported the unions and felt they were their allies, however most of the baby boomers have either died or are retiring, leaving the union’s vast bulk of support bereft of replacement. The Generational X- children who are born in the 21st century are less manual labor and white collar jobs. They are not very fond of paying someone else to speak/bargain for them, the adults of today and twenty years ago want to speak for themselves and also be seen as an individual, not a group. This would also interfere with a union trying to infiltrate a company and form an alliance.

In my conclusion, Unions are being hit with jobs going overseas, a younger generation who does not see the value in using someone else to help you get your views across. The Unions are under attack from governmental parties who have their own agendas concerning why they want to get rid of them. However, Unions are the reason