Labor Unions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Labor Unions - Essay Example Moreover there was a special department in the US Department of Labor, which took stock of strikes. Now labor unions comprise only 12 % of Americans, and only 8 % of those 12 % are the employees occupied in private sector. The main reason is a shift, which took place in the relationship between employers and workers. For centuries labor unions struggled for good conditions for employees. In contemporary world employees are in competition with each other in order to get a better job. American corporations long ago realized that it is more efficient to hire purposeful, responsible, and interested in their job people. Accordingly people, who get a job today, automatically receive all those privileges labor unions for had struggled for. Moreover, many corporations give their workers a possibility to become co-owners, offering them an opportunity to get low price stocks of the own enterprises. Thereby membership in labor unions for many Americans became senseless. As a matter of fact labor unions cannot find their place in the new system of labor relationship. In the course of time fundamental economic changes had happened in the country. The traditional heavy industry, a stronghold of labor unions, gradually becomes the thing of the past. According to Turner, 'if unions can not hold their own and adapt to changing circumstances in the core industrial work force, the traditional bastion of labor strength, it is difficult to imagine that national prospects for unions elsewhere can be promising1'. Labor unions also have not been taken in the extremely developing industry of high technologies, and have not been widely accepted in the services sphere. So we can agree with the statement of Robert Baldwin, who claims that one of the factors that contributes to weakling of labor unions is 'unskilled labor-displacing nature of new technology, including outsourcing2'.Notwithstanding it is wrong to say, that labor unions are doomed. One can hardly find an example of a democratic society, which does not have labor unions in its structure. American labor unions now are trying to take their own place in the new national economy. John Sweeney, the President of American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations, claimed that Georges Bush's administration carries out the worst labor unions policy in modern history. He stated that 'in the face of the most anti-worker Administration in decades, America's workers are struggling to get a leg up in this economy - - and many are trying to form unions3' Let us consider the example of Northwest Airlines. In 2005 for the first time almost for a quarter of a century in the main headings in the American press there was a word "strike". The company urged on by the competition with inexpensive young airline companies, wishing to save 176 million dollars, wanted to dismiss a part of the personnel. There have been almost 4,5 thousand workers of Northwest Airlines striking. By the threat of flights cancellation employees have been trying to achieve the fulfillment of the term of the contract by the leadership of the company the work in. However management has fought labor union back. It had prepared the replacement of striking employees in advance and has declared that the company would continue to carry out all the planned flights. The labor union of aircraft mechanics has not made concessions to the company. Negotiations have been