Norma Rae, why's it so hard?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/18/News/Norma_Rae__why_s_it_s.shtml

Norma Rae, why's it so hard?

By ROBYN BLUMNER
Published February 18, 2007

During the summer of my first year of law school, I was employed as a law clerk by District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Manhattan. It was a great job that allowed me to train under some generous and talented union lawyers. But, on one of my first days on the job, I was asked whether I would cross a picket line.

Because the union was so large, the secretarial staff had been organized by an outside union, and labor negotiations were on the cusp of breaking down. DC 37 was about to be struck and it wanted its employees to defy the pickets and continue working. (I said no way.)

Thankfully those events never came to pass. But I relay them to illustrate that I know from personal experience that unions are not perfect. I've seen rigid, counterproductive, self-preserving and even corrupt behavior by some of the more than a dozen unions I have dealt with in my professional life. Still, I know of no system better at getting workers a fair shake on the job.

Just compare the benefits accruing to union versus nonunion workers: Median weekly wages for union workers are 30 percent higher, and unionized workers can expect far more in terms of fringe benefits including health care, pensions, disability insurance and vacation time. But, perhaps most valuably, unions bring job security.

Unionized workers generally cannot be fired at the whim of management or because they are getting expensive due to their many years on the job. (The notoriously antiunion Wal-Mart suggested in an internal memo that workers who stay on the job year after year are unduly driving up labor costs. Jeesh.)

FULL story at link.