Unions, bane or boon?

Years ago, I developed a very deep dislike and distrust of labor unions when my late husband, George, was hunting for work. He worked for many non-union jobs because unions turned him down over and over. He worked wherever he could — logging, lumber, roadwork, Caterpiller maintenance and mechanic work, mining, dredge, development — whatever he could find where he could use his many skills.

The union’s rules were neither fair nor just, so I responded positively to a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College last January by Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and of the National Right to Work Committee.

Hillsdale College puts out a bi-monthly brochure with speeches and lectures given by experts in their fields of endeavor. These discuss many of the problems facing America today, covering in a quite thoughtful way our many problems, not in the highly partisan way so much of the media gives it to the public, but in a balanced form so we can work on the problems.

Mr. Mix talks briefly about formation of the NLRB in the Wagner Act of 1935 that adopted policies requiring men to join a union as a condition of employment, a violation of the workers’ freedom to decide for or against union membership.

There is much more in these Imprimis publications that are available to Americans, either free or at little cost. Go to hillsdale.edu/support/giving.asp

I once had an argument with a union member when I said that unions were a large factor causing inflation.

He denied it heatedly, saying that if it wasn’t for the unions, people would be stuck without much pay.

I argued that the argument wasn’t really valid because when one worker gets a pay raise, the next person fights for a raise, too, ad infinitum.

With higher labor costs, goods cost more to produce so the producer must raise prices.

It’s an unending cycle.