I should not take a genius to realize why Unions have been losing their grip over the last several decades, it just happens to line up nicely with the increase of foreign presence in our markets. This phenomenon has not been a friendly trend for Unions because it has brought inexpensive alternatives courtesy of lower-cost manufacturing. Prior to this happening, our mostly unionized manufacturing base with its embedded high-cost structure was able to pass along their inefficiencies to an unsuspecting market here in America. Now the choices have been greatly expanded thus providing options to consumers resulting in competition that has been exposing the cost structure and quality control issues of U.S. manufacturers. The world has definitely changed in this regard, the paradigm has been shifted and any manufacturer that will not compete with the smallest of competitors from anywhere globally will either perish or be a zombie subsidized by an inept Government with taxpayer money – talk about socializing loses. The later just happens to be the course chosen by our fine Government, but this practice will fail miserably in due time.

Unions in a nutshell are simply nothing more than labor socialism, and being such makes it very difficult for them to be competitive. In a Union, as in any large group, there are going to be highly productive individuals as well as the average and below average people with protected jobs and pay based on seniority. Not using performance based criteria results in the best performers having to cover for the performance of the laggards which results in the collective being average at best. The optimal method would be to reward the highly productive, purge the laggards, and motivate the average workers to become better, only this will ensure an improved workforce and higher productivity. Union members also must pay dues for the privilege of being a part of this created and protected “average” collective. It exists by building worker dependency that will ensure those dues will continue to roll in for management so they can keep cashing their nice paychecks. The strategy employed is to keep the workers subjugated so they can be used as pawns for the ultimate goal of securing money and power for the privileged few. This sounds precisely like another institution we are all familiar with as citizens known as our Government. Hmm!

It is easy to see why the Union model is failing in this country and it will continue to do so unless it can begin to seriously focus itself to compete with the intention of winning in the marketplace and not just surviving for maximum entitlement. In the absence of this kind of motivation, the more ambitious, focused, and disciplined competitors around the world will be happy to bury them. Competing in the marketplace is crucial because it determines success and failure, and it will be very hard for them to accomplish considering the entitled environment created by the Union mindset. This labor socialism is obviously going to be at a major disadvantage because it does not motivate its workers to excel and there is little individual responsibility expected. The marketplace will continue to require more efficiency from the producers that are willing and able to deliver it, and the rest will slowly erode away. Extorting a mediocre manufacturer for better pay and benefits while ignoring global competition is destined to fail, instead maybe they should focus on why they are “mediocre” to begin with and be more proactive with that issue than with demanding any more concessions.