Unions are Destroying America!

No they aren't....

Despite the best antics on the conservative side of the aisle, unions are an essential part of the overwhelming majority of Americans. If you're working your 40 hour a week job, most of the labor protections came as a result of unions. You can try to deny it - but if you work 40 hours and get paid overtime for working over 40 hours ... you can thank unions for that. Grateful to have weekends off? Thank the unions. Benefits? Health care? Vacation time? Pensions? Unions paved the way for all of us.

"But do we still need them?"

Yes we do. Think about it for a moment. Do CEOs have a responsibility to shareholders or their employees? Let me rephrase the question better - what do CEOs have a higher level of responsibility to?

Ahhh yes - the power of the mighty shareholder.

It's the fall back answer for nearly 90 percent of conservatives who believe that unions are the bad guy ... while major corporations continue to reel off profits every quarter. The shareholder has a vested interest - but so does the American worker. The problem is - the shareholder has a vote - a say - in what happens with the company. The employee doesn't. If you don't like it - there's the door.

Unions level the playing field for the American worker.

Furthermore there's legislative action that want to roll back employment protections for workers. Make it easier to hire children because their labor is cheaper. Make it easier to force workers to work over 40 hours a week without compensation ... and even slashing benefits and vacation time because "the company needs this sacrifice."

"But unions milk money and cost companies a lot of money."

So do CEOs, CFOs, boards and other executives who continually line their golden parachutes ... for themselves ... rather than the much SMALLER piece of the pie that unions "milk" from their members or from companies. It's hard to call the kettle black when watching a $400 million payout with stock and other benefits being laid out for someone who drove a company into the ground.

Sorry - you're not going to get much sympathy from me.

"But it's socialism!"

The ever infamous last resort of conservatives who really don't understand exactly what socialism is. We are as close to socialism as I am from dancing as a ballerina in Swan Lake. "But it's the start of the slope!" .... no it's not. Everything in life can't be run on a purely capitalist, anti-union system.

But instead of being satisfied with something in the middle, unions are crumbling right and left. If you look at the amount of unions around today ... in comparison to the last 50-100 years ... you'd understand that it's a fallacy that "unions are destroying America!"

The greed-fest and Corporatocracy this nation has been enduring since the Reagan years is the lone culprit. Even as unions continue to represent less of the American work force, companies and corporations continue to exploit agreements that take jobs out of the country. That's why there are shoe plants in Taiwan that employ young kids in sweat shops. The Republican party has become whores for corporations and companies ... thoroughly unable or unwilling to do the right thing for their constituents because they believe their constituents are companies and corporations .... not American people.

"Obama is just as bad as Republicans when it comes to this."

Could actually be a fair point - but Obama knows that no matter how idealistic he was when he took office ... the Republicans were going to drag their heels on every single piece of legislation. So Obama knows he has imperfect legislation - but it's better than no legislation at all.

Look in the details. Look who benefits. Look who gains. Look who wins.

It's not the union you should worry about. It's that corporate fat cat dolling out hundred dollar bills to the whores he pays for. That's who's destroying America...