I would never presume to say person X is a insert party here voter but Bruce your views on most subjects do come across as very right wing,as i'm sure mine come across as left wing.
That's fair enough. Probably just the kind of topics we often discuss in the ale house (ie mostly economics). Put it another way though. A tube driver (for instance) may carry many thousands of passengers during their shift. In that relationship the customer is in the clear majority, yet because of union power the minority are given undue power and influence.
Let me use another example. If for instance the trade unions wish to increase pay by £1,000 a year (just an example to make a point, I accept that may/may not be at all accurate). To each employee £1,000 a year is a whole lot so they will fight and fight to get it. To get that kind of raise each customer may see the price of their train ticket (or whatever) go up by £2. £2 for each individual is a nuisance for sure but probably not worth kicking up a stink over, and of course customers have no collective bargaining group anyway.
So the minority often get their way over the majority, even (often?) in a way that makes no rational sense.
Let me use another example to emphasise this. As we're talking America (in the OP) I'll use an American one. The teaching unions there have long opposed any attempts to introduce performance related pay, ie to pay the best teachers more than currently and the worst teachers less. I dare say most parents would be very happy to see the best teachers rewarded more, and indeed for the less able teachers to be encouraged to buck their ideas up. The teachers union there has lobbied incredibly hard to stop any such activity. And you have to understand that this is perfectly rational for them. In a collective bargaining environment you will inevitably try to get the best deal for the average employee (coz it's collective y'see?), so it inevitably harms the best employees who deserve more, and unduly benefits the worst who deserve less.
This is basic trade union self interest, and that is exactly my point. The unions exist to get the best deal for their members. They don't care about customers and they don't care about tax payers. Now of course you could argue that if they support bum employees eventually the company will go bust and everyone will lose. After all you can only squeeze the pip so long before it bursts. Here is the thing though. As mentioned earlier, private sector union membership is incredibly low (arguably for that very reason). In the public sector though the situation is different. It's unlikely for the government to go bust so the one thing that keeps a union even relatively fair and honest does not exist.
And that's why I don't support them in any way, shape or form.
