[mreid]

So, black73, you are saying that the bigotry is against union members? The key word here is "person's". Several times in this thread you have tried to say that the union and the union worker are the same. This shows a basic lack of knowledge about how unions have evolved and how they operate today. I've negotiated/managed with six different national/international unions. I'd say this experience qualifies me to speak some what knowledgeably about the subject. Do you know what boilerplate language is? When you say that all unions are different, I respectfully disagree. Everyone I have worked with and the premier labor educational institutions (like Cornell's ILR School) will disagree with you. Unions operate on a premise that is outdated. McGregor's concept of Theory X drove the formation and continuation of unions. Today, any business still operating this way is doomed to failure or decline. Often, with a union's help.

Today, unions are the biggest obstacle to company progress and the ability to compete globally. Like it or not, it's a global market and you have to remain competitive. The USW, UAW, Teamsters, and others have all seen their membership drop, pensions dry up, and work decline due to their inability to adapt and short-term thinking. All of this has then had a negative impact on the individual union worker that you keep trying to bring into this conversation. When I worked in the steel industry, I saw more companies go bankrupt, not due to poor management but due to union ignorance. Bethlehem Steel had 16,000 active employees supporting 134,000 pensioners due to the union forcing boilerplate language (12 Points of Light) on all U.S. steel companies and requiring accelerated vesting of pensions when people were displaced by technology. They declared bankruptcy for the final time about 10 years ago and their former assets are now owned by a foreign company. This scenario has been played out over and over, industry after industry. It is the union, not the hard working union employee