Talk:Trade union

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With the rise of the "me me me" and "I'm alright Jack" cultures as a result of Thatcherism in the UK, union membership and power has greatly diminished to the point where most young workers (in whatever profession) are happy not to belong to a union and prefer to bend over to the powers that be and then beg them, teary eyed, to at least spit on it first before sticking it in. Despite the good work that unions have done for the workforce in the past, many of the iPod generation see them as an anachronism and worse yet, as a hinderance to THEIR CAREER. This plays right into the hands of employers who are happy to mete out useless titles and irrelevant wage increases to these people ( a technique known as stroking).

It's almost as bad in the United States, where widespread corruption (including but not limited to massive organized crime infiltration) in the largest unions such as the Teamsters has reduced unions to something of a necessary evil, making it very easy for anti-labor propagandists to convince workers that they don't need a union; in fact, in some industries such as the recording industry, the very organization set up to protect the financial interests of their talent (SoundExchange) is controlled by the industry itself rather than the musicians.

But let's face it, we live in an age of globalism, iBooks, blogs and cool. Who would need a union now we're all masters of our own destiny?'

Shouldn't this be an essay?--Bob_M (talk) 04:01, 31 July 2007 (CDT)

• I don't know. It's analysis, anyway, and the issue of organized crime involvement in the US labor is well-documented -- you can't talk at length about the Mafia without the Teamsters coming up a couple of hundred times. The fact is that unions do have a somewhat negative image in 21st century America, and it's a real problem as corporate interests continue to squeeze costs and roll back labor relations to the 1880s. Don't forget, in a lot of white collar jobs, salaried workers don't get paid overtime, and yet are expected to work it anyway. Unions were created to eliminate exactly that sort of exploitation. EVDebs 11:50, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

The original text of the article/screed that I threw up probably requires a lot of improvement as it was pretty much me venting whilst drinking after a typical workday! I work in an industry with a reasonable trade union but deal on a daily basis with people who would have benefited from actually joining but for a range of reasons, chose not to. I tend to deal with them when they are informed that they are "surplus to requirement", not an enviable position. _Hexspecimen^{It's an X} 13:00, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Objectives

Of the four objectives given three are actually means to an objective. I'll sort this out after a vote among the members. and some tea. Totnesmartin 11:27, 3 August 2007 (CDT)