Unions: Needed or Outlived Their Purpose?

Often I have heard discussions regarding Unions and whether we still need them or whether they have outlived their usefulness. To me, the reality is that we need what Unions were supposed to be and that the current Unions really need to go.

It seems that Companies like to abuse employees and that the protections under the law are not always enough. In part this is because individual employees might not know what the law is. I have seen companies get rid of the more senior employees and keep the newer employees. This would not be a problem if the newer employees were harder workers or knew more, but in this case these employees tended to go to lunch with the supervisor, as well as going to "cigar night". It seemed that they did not get their work done and were often seen surfing the web (obviously non-work related web pages). A Union might have been able to protect the harder working people who had more seniority.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that Unions today don't care about what is in the best interest of everyone. If the company does not make it, all the employees will lose their jobs. Unions want salarys to keep going up and refuse to allow worthless employees from being terminated if they have made it past their probationary period. In one case that I am aware of, the Union seemed to be more interested in doing nothing than trying to correct a problem. This was at a state University and a supervisor could not do the job and was the cause of several people leaving due to his behavior. While the state is short of money, this person is a complete waste of money. Also, it was said that there was not enough money to give people raises, yet huge raises were given to the people at the top of the University and nothing was done about this.

I have also heard of cases in the past where the Union forced people to be employed when the need for that position has been removed. One prime example that I heard about was the position of fireman on a train. The job was to shovel coal into the engine, but when the trains switched to diesel, the position was no longer needed. The Union contract prevented from the position being removed, so the person did nothing but get paid.

The bottom line is that the Unions need to be reasonable and there has to be give and take.