Collective bargaining is the only way to try to squeeze a living wage out of the ownership class. Your aunt is getting her talking points from repug 'christians', who get them from Ralph Reed and Rove, who get them from their rich masters.
The cost drivers for her industry are the for-profit hospital system, the parasitic insurance industry, and big Pharma. The costs for health care have gone up hundreds of percentage points, and most of the health care workers make beans. There's no profit sharing.
Even a 'non-profit' like U Pitt Med Center made $600 mil in profits in one year, while paying no taxes. They hid the profits in subsequent years by buying up local hospitals (the competition) and shutting them down; buying foreign hospitals; undertaking unnecessary building and renovation projects at their many hospitals; purchasing supplies and services from industry insiders via sweetheart contracts, with kickbacks to administrators. The unionized and non-union hospital workers still get none of the money generated by the UPMC system.
UPMC bought Children's Hospital, then built an (unnecessary) new Children's Hospital complex, causing the total amount of property in Pgh that is non-taxable because it's owned by 'non-profits' to top 40%. That means the tax-paying workers pay more taxes, and get less services to boot.
It's funny how the teabag repugs scream and cry about taxing the rich, saying 'you can't punish success, Americans want shared prosperity, not shared sacrifice.' Then the teabags scream and cry about a unionized worker making almost a living wage, saying 'how dare they make so much money, they're too prosperous, the economy is bad and we need shared sacrifice.' While Wall St and the rich are making more money than ever before. Heads-repugs win, tails-America loses.
I guess you love your aunt, and are trying to reach her with reason. Good luck, Erik.
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