Why have unions fallen in disfavor over the years?

[WI_DEM]

We owe a lot to unions. Heck there were times when workers slaved away 12-14 hours per day under awful conditions working 6 days per week for peanuts. Unions have done a lot for this country and for workers and now it seems over the last 20-30 years unions have fallen in disfavor with many people. People resent union workers and union membership is dwindling. What happened?

[Gman]

1. I didn't know they were "in disfavor"

The RW would like for unions to be in disfavor. They put out a lot of propaganda trashing unions. They would like us to think unions are in disfavor. But if you have a union the union is in pretty good favor. If you want or need a union, the union is in pretty good favor.

[av8rdave]

2. Legislatively, it hasn't been a friendly environment for a lot of years

Also, the right wing noise machine has done a very good job of painting all unions as corrupt and unreasonable, and all union members as lazy and greedy.

If you say something often enough...

[demokatgurrl]

21. I think it's the huge rightward trend in recent years

along with the drive for MORE STUFF NOW FASTER CHEAPER that drives our manufacturing out of this country and over to China. See the excellent post on here about the wooden tissue box. Not only do we make a lot less craft-based stuff like that, we hardly make anything. Fewer manufacturing jobs, therefore drop in union members. Foreign car companies lure workers who need jobs, don't have unions.
Even a store like Whole Foods, often on the "top 200" list of places to work, has fought hard to keep unions out.
I think part of it is the old misconception that taints unions with socialism/communism and the very effective right-wing media spin machine pushing that.

Oh, and the stupid sheep who listen to them.

[lligrd]

3. Part Of The Blame Belongs To Unions Themselves

as they became enterprises representing themselves more than their workers. But most of the blame goes to American workers for falling for the corporation bs and being ignorant of our own history.

[ItNerd4life]

29. Sad, but true.

Some unions were/are as corrupt as the businesses they are in.

The teacher's union my spouse is in is a great example. Can't get any 'reasonable' answers for why they must have a bi-lingual teacher's aid in the classroom.
The classroom is a severely mentally handicapped classroom and the kids aren't capable of talking!

So, they go without a teacher's aid which makes it that much harder on the kids hygiene needs.

[jwirr]

4. Since 1980 the GOP has been propagandizing about two groups:

unions and welfare mothers. When they finally got people convinced then they went in for the kill.

[pnorman]

19. It actually began right after WW2, and much $$$$$$ was expended in the effort.

Here's a good book om that topic: "Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-60": http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Free-Enterprise-Liberalism-Communication/dp/0252064399/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229106470&sr=1-1

pnorman

[Marrah_G]

5. Lots of Propaganda spread through the media.

You can change an entire Generation that way.

[Virginia Dare]

22. True, plus the propaganda that is taught in the school systems..

especially through the south. Children are taught that unions are radical left wing borderline communist organizations.

[Marrah_G]

33. ewww seriously?

[Virginia Dare]

34. Did you ever learn about Mother Jones in school?....n/t

[Marrah_G]

35. Yes I believe we did.

We learned about child labor and life before the unions, etc.

I went to school near Boston in the 70-80's

[Virginia Dare]

38. I never learned any of that..

I went to school in Maryland and Virginia in the 60's and 70's. I think the first time I ever learned anything about unions was in high school, we did one chapter in American History, and it was mostly about coal mines.

[Greyhound]

6. This.

[ipfilter]

10. Some of the anti-union sentiment I've read

today makes me think this is Reagan Underground.

[Deja Q]

14. Hasn't he been under ground for some time by now?

*rimshot*

:hide:

[ipfilter]

16. You got me there.

And he was good for a federal day off, so I guess he wasn't *all* bad.

[Virginia Dare]

24. He gave rise to a clueless generation of materialistic corporate whores..

who proceeded to allow our country to implode. I predict the younger generations of today will be radical activists as a result, so maybe in about 20 years we can thank him again.

[Virginia Dare]

23. Nah, the repubs are perpetually digging him up....n/t

[Greyhound]

28. The concerted campaign of mental conditioning for a quarter century has been very effective.

A third generation of Americans that have never seen pre-raygun America is now being born. All they've heard and learned is that money over people is the way it's always been and nothing else is possible.

You read this kind of crap here every day.

[liberal N proud]

7. Since the RAYGUN years

He started the union busting.

[Deja Q]

8. K&R

Why?

Damned if you do: Unions supporting employees who are 30+ minutes late each day and saying "We know he hasn't a shot but we must look good!"

Damned if you don't" "Our union didn't defend us during an e-mail scandal despite mounds of hard copies of e-mails and related evidence."

Union dues keep going up as well and more people get the impression many union leaders are in bed with the same politicians "paid for" by lobbyists.

Universal apathy based on a lot of perception.

If people remembered the fundamentals of an economy, unions wouldn't be needed at all:

* Good workers get good pay
* Good workers save and spend their income on products
* The money the products cost gets invested back into the company for further research and development

Of course, I learned all that in a early 1950s^ cartoon, told by Porky Pig to Sylvester the cat and in times when there was a more solid economic middle class...





^ yes, yes, the 1950s had segregation and sexism and every other ___ism and ____tion as well. We all know that. Right now we're talking about the economics of the period, and most people -- including many charts union folks had shown me -- agree that the 1950s-73 was the best time for the middle class. Economically speaking. Even compared to right now, 1983 seems rather better in ways. But, again, perception vs concrete fact. I won't try to connect dots that may or may not exist.

[Romulox]

9. It's because the Democratic Party has become gentrified and lost interest. nt

[Greyhound]

18. That too. The unions also began to create "executive class" leaders.

These are the guys that talked their membership into taking the endless concessions, and prevented supporting other unions in their struggled.

They successfully fragmented labor so they would not support each other and the rest is history.

[Virginia Dare]

26. They brought in too many egghead thinkers into the movement...

political strategists and economic "geniuses" as well, and lost touch with the rank and filers.

[Greyhound]

30. Exactly. Most of them have never even done the jobs of the members they are supposed to represent,

and just like Congress, have no idea what they are dealing with. Every time I think of the steel workers or PATCO or the small farmers my blood boils.
:grr:

[Virginia Dare]

32. The big unions are paralyzed by their own legal departments..

there is absolutely no radical thinking that goes on in the upper echelons anymore. With the possible exception of Andy Stern, but he's got an ego the size of a black hole, so I think that clouds his thinking at times.

[Virginia Dare]

25. They never lost interest in taking union money though..

it's been a disfunctional relationship for about a decade or better.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Three words: *Right*Wing*Radio*

[1gobluedem]

15. Ding ding ding!

We have a winner!

[napi21]

12. Some of it was their own doing. My husband was a member of a union in Pgh. Pa.

when the leader of the union was caught and convicted of stealing all the union's money. Some of them got too powerful and were making demands that were just foolish. But the Pubs & business have always been against unions, and when so many businesses closed their operations in the north and moved to the "right to work South", unions lost much of their membership and with fewer members, they lost a lot of power.

[Virginia Dare]

27. Union leaders are mostly politicians...

and as Obama said yesterday, some of them are in it to do good, and some of them are in it to game the system. It's the same with any organization, large and small.

[napi21]

13. Some of it was their own doing. My husband was a member of a union in Pgh. Pa.

when the leader of the union was caught and convicted of stealing all the union's money. Some of them got too powerful and were making demands that were just foolish. But the Pubs & business have always been against unions, and when so many businesses closed their operations in the north and moved to the "right to work South", unions lost much of their membership and with fewer members, they lost a lot of power.

[Bigmack]

17. They've fallen into disfavor...

in some circles for constantly bitching about "living wage" and "health care" and "retirement" and "job protection" instead of just saying "Yassuh, boss, I thanks ya kinely fo the scraps fum yo table."

[MaryEllen9399]

20. and the rw'ers believe too

that if you can't make it on 8.00 an hour then you need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and work 2-3 jobs because that's the American way:sarcasm:

[western mass]

31. Right-wing media, plus...

a Democratic Party during and after the Clinton years controlled by corporatists.

[malaise]

Unions support the Democratic party

That's the reason. Additionally Rethugs support management and corporations and believe only they and their friends are entitled to big salaries and perks.

[PVnRT]

36. A steady PR assault by those opposed to them

Mafia connections didn't help, but those were much smaller than people make them out to be.

[DainBramaged]

37. White collar against blue collar, and a lot of the blue collar are 'lowly' service workers

It's pretty simple. And the Rethugs have milked this and minimized the efforts and influence of Unions through threats intimidation, firings, illegal tactics, rumor and just plain lies to keep profit at it's highest for themselves.

[karynnj]

39. The industries they were concentrated in have shrunk

as the economy moved from most manufactoring to mostly service.