The Higher The Unemployment Rate The Less Relevancy Unions Are

The Higher The Unemployment!

   

It looks as if our economic recovery in 2012, if you can call it that, may not be sustainable. Even with this little uptick we are watching the unions grow in power and try to take advantage of the incremental increases in corporate profits. The corporations are building up their war chest so they can have the cash they need for expansion as the economy gets good and as the fog of uncertainty subsides. However, apparently it appears that the unions want that money for themselves. That shortsighted thinking could cost many of them their jobs.

Further, the unions must realize that if the unemployment rates get back up to 10% their relevancy will also dissipate. If unions make demands, corporations can merely close down, re-group, and hired cheaper labor elsewhere. Not to mention the fact that many corporations which have been in the manufacturing sector have purposely kept some factories open in the United States even though they are not as profitable due to union demands, lawsuits, rules and regulations, and US taxes. Do you doubt what I'm saying? You shouldn't, and it's not just China either.

Did you know Mexico is now the fourth largest automobile manufacturer? It's true. Six or seven years ago Mexico was only in sixth place for car exports. Today, they're right behind Japan, Germany, and South Korea. When unemployment is high, unions are less relevant because the workers under their ranks should be happy to have a job, and when they go on strike, they end up doing more damage for their members than if they didn't do anything.

Recently, US Airways had their flight attendants vote to go on strike during the Christmas holiday. Talk about socking it to a company when they really could use some quarterly profits to appease their shareholders after some rather dismal economic years in the airline industry. All those flight attendants are going to end up doing is sending more business to the competitors, and weakening the company. A weakened company cannot pay higher salaries, better benefits, or pay the cost to satisfy all the grievances of whining unions.

It is interesting that the unions are causing unemployment rates to go up, and yet at the same time as they do they are losing more power to serve their political will. Maybe in the end that is a good thing because it prevents them from getting out of control as the public and private unions have in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Italy, and other nations. It's not that the unions haven't overstepped their bounds here the United States, they certainly have.

The future problems we will have with underfunded pensions, increased healthcare costs, and lack of government services not to mention the high prices we pay for all the goods and services we buy, well, much of that we can blame on the unions. It seems to me that the unions are their own worst enemy, but it is amazing when you state that fact and look at the evidence, that they certainly don't want to hear it. It's as if they have their own little religion all to themselves. That's pretty amazing, we live in interesting times. Please consider all this and think on it.
 

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Business Topics. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net

www.thinkdoctor.co.uk