To Unionize Or Not. That Is The Question.

       I don't know how you feel about unions or the rules that required even non-union members to pay into the unions that represented their fellow employees in the company they work for. But the Supreme Court has decided that neither you nor they any longer have to make those payments, or at least some of you don't, and it feels like the eventual intent is to free everyone up from making those payments.
       But let's look at how this thing works. Unions came about as a result of unfair treatment of employees by the companies they worked for. That's the history of unions. It's also true that unions, or many of them, got to be run by ruthless and corrupt leaders. Having said that, it's also true that when union officials negotiate with company officials, any resulting contracts are for and to the advantage of all the employees. So even non-members harvest the benefits of those negotiations of the unions, and union members must pay for those union services for which the non-union, non-paying employees benefit.
       Now the way it's long been handled is that non-union employees had to pay a service fee to help cover the costs of the negotiations. Of course non-union employees could have refused those new additional benefits, in which case they would have had every expectation of being relieved of the requirement to pay for the negotiating service. I don't believe there is any record of any employee of any company ever refusing any additional pay or benefit brought about by a union/corporate negotiation.
       Never the less, our Supreme Court seems bent on eliminating unions from the American landscape. The only reason I can think of is that there is a belief, on the part of the conservative wing of the court, that unions have outlived their usefulness because modern corporations no longer treat their employees unfairly, presumably because corporate leaders, today, are all good hearted caring employers. That and the fact that there are laws in place to protect employees, except that such laws seem to be disappearing with each session of Congress, right along with the good heartedness of CEOs. Perhaps in a perfect world, but in our world, without the threat of a union intervention, we could wind up in a Bangladeshi tomorrow.