[A Quiet Boom]

My opinion is that today's unions only purpose is to keep a lazy man in a job. There is no incentive to work harder like there is in non union shops. My wife worked for a grocery chain for 9 years and when she lost her job due to medical reasons that FMLA should have covered her union did very little to help her. I found out later that her union is largely in the pocket of management. Neither I or her will ever work a union job again. I currently work for a small family owned business run by my brother in law, as part of my job I do a lot of traveling to our customers and technical liason and it's easy to tell a union shop because the pace is always slow. At our shop our workers are paid very well and given bonuses on their merits as well as how well the company performs as a result there is always a sense of urgency and the will to try harder from everyone that I work with.

There was a time for strong unions but in this day and age they just hamstring businesses too much and in the end hurt the employees when some of those businesses close because they can't compete. IMHO unions are socialism at it's worst.