Union

Union workers exist because workers were abused at different points in our country’s history. Ever read The Grapes of Wrath? Joad family. Peach-picking for like 5 bucks a day. Well, you should if you haven't. And then there’s Norma Rae. Union in the cotton fabric mill.

So yes, unions exist in reaction to bad acting on the part of The Man, and they collectively bargain against The Man on behalf of the workers who belong. And they make the country a whole lot more fair and square.

Corporations frequently don't want to deal with unions. They dictated salaries and benefits as they saw fit. And then unions got uppity. Corporations got...downity. And the result was that a whole bunch of unionized shops were forced to hire a lot more workers than they really needed. And the work rules that originally were intended to protect...made it hard to train and fire. Really talented people did not want to be paid like the average Joe with the same career path. But really untalented, lazy people loved the fact that it was hard to get fired. Ever been to the DMV? Through the TSA? Yeah, that's what we're talkin' 'bout.

Talk to a now-bankrupt newspaper company who couldn’t downsize fast enough to accommodate the assault of the lower margin internet-delivered competitors. Union rules wouldn't let them fire workers fast enough. And the industry revenue model changed. NPs couldn’t absorb cost changes fast enough. So they all went bankrupt. And everyone ended up being out of work.

Then there's the largest union in the country: the U.S. Government. Yep, our own G-Men have the largest set of union workers in the country, and they cost taxpayers a fortune. They can almost never be fired, they have spectacularly expensive benefits, and the real salaries (if you do fair math) are very high. Taxpayers pay for government unions. Often the union worker has a better deal than the taxpayer who supports him/her. Yet taxpayers keep voting in raises and benefits and all kinds of rules that let the government hire 37 people for jobs that only need 14.

Example time:

A police officer works 30 years on the force, from age 22 to 52.

She can then retire and make 85% of what her average pay was for her last three years. And, of course, in those last three years, she does massive overtime and extra work to goose up her eventual $175k-a-year pay. She then is retired. But for the remaining 30 years she’ll live, she get 175 grand a year. So she might claim she "only" made $175k...but, in fact, for the 30 years she worked, she cost taxpayers something like double that amount. Plus benefits.

So it isn't that Joe Taxpayer doesnt believe the officer has worked really hard. The question remains: does that person deserve a much better retirement system than the taxpayers funding her? Hm...the jury’s still out.