What are the advantages and disadvantages of unions?
Unions have in most cases been formed as a way to protect the employee’s rights to fair pay, seniority, safe working conditions, hours of work, etc. Remember the early 1900s New York sweat shops when rag trade barons would cram as many as 150 overlock sewing machines in a tight space and remunerate the workers by piecework? Some women were so overworked that their hands would be bleeding because the needle would not work properly … the bosses did not want to spend money on maintenance….In those days, the worker just had no rights……This is how probably the ILGWU was born, after a fire took many lives because of a short circuit and also because there were no security precautions in existence. On the other hand, over the years, the unions have become extremely powerful to the point of abuse. In the newspaper industry, for e.g., as far as 25 years ago, every request had to go through the chapel chairman and a lot of momentum was lost because of red tape. Today’s unions have a good point, t
