ClosedCaption
Diamond Member
- Sep 15, 2010
- 53,233
- 6,719
- 1,830
Why We Need Unions
A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him.
Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after one, to pick up the bundle and break it.
They all tried, but in vain.
Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease.
Then said the father, "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone."
Take two posts and make one a bundle of sticks and the other one stick. Which do you think will be strongest?
If you've ever asked for a raise at work, you should understand the concept of leverage: to the extent that your employer needs you, you have it, and you're able to get something (increased wages) for it; to the extent that your employer considers you replaceable, you lack it, and therefore have no way to improve your own position. In the retail and service industries, employees lack leverage almost by definition. Anyone who makes trouble can simply be tossed out and replaced. Unions give those employees leverage. That leverage is a means to a fair wage. Not an outrageous, outsized wage; a fair wage. Any union that bankrupts the parent company is a failure, because all the union members end up unemployed. It is in the interest of unions to achieve the best possible conditions for workers that still allow the company to flourish. A union does not throw off the balance of power in the workplacelack of a union does.
Large corporations are machines designed to make money for shareholders. They do it well. To expect them to do anything but minimize wages and maximize profit is to misunderstand their nature. The most basic sense of decency and respect for human rights dictates that there must be some mechanism by which the workersthe humanscan assert their interests. Otherwise they will be crushed by the machine. It's all very plain to see.
A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him.
Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after one, to pick up the bundle and break it.
They all tried, but in vain.
Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease.
Then said the father, "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone."
Take two posts and make one a bundle of sticks and the other one stick. Which do you think will be strongest?