They actually operate to safeguard against abuses from management, and also operate to ensure collective bargaining.
Or collective extortion as the case may be. I still recall how grocery-baggers at Ralphs were striking outside the stores and and harassing anyone who tried to go shopping because they weren't being given health insurance by the company they already agreed to work for.
Giving money to political parties is something unions do to further their cause; they don't operate "solely" to give money to the Dems...
Where did I mention the democrats? Or "political parties" for that matter?
All I spoke of was how unions seek to set the terms of how the laborers' employers would be allowed to spend their own money.
And all this other talk about unions not being needed now, since they served a purpose in the past..really? They're needed now just as they always have been...just take a look at the shitty economy and all the outsourcing of jobs that has taken place over just the last ten years. The rich continued to do very well during this recession, while the middle and poor classes did not. For all of their faults, unions do try protect the middle class and working poor. Unions are not obsolete, since corporate America is still corrupt and generally does all it can to increase the bottom line at the expense of its employees.
Ironically, I do disagree about Americans being worked too hard, since many American companies do not even want full-time employees anymore. It's just another way of fucking employees out of raises and benefits, which again, are areas that unions have always fought over.
Well that settles it. Corporations are all powerful and could never run out of money or be strained by an over-abundance of full-time personnel in the middle of a recession. Companies don't need to cut cost to survive nowadays because they're in no danger of shrinking and/or dying out. They could abide every single union demand without batting an eye because their resources are endless.
Thanks JLA! Now we know!
