How about the perspective of a former business owner?

I owned a business and over the years probably had over one thousand employees come through the doors. At any one time, I had about 200 full time employees and another 200 part timers.

My employees were paid better than union workers, had a much better benefit package, and had scheduling flexibility. Scheduling flexibility was a management nightmare, but the employees saw the benefit of it. Oh yeah, I even provided transportation to those who didn't have cars if I had to shift them to another location due to scheduling problems and those who had transportation got paid for the commute.

The biggest difference between me and unionized businesses is I only gave merit pay raises. I didn't care how long you worked, you only got a raise if you deserved it. If you slacked, you stayed at the same pay and was encouraged to find employment elsewhere. This one policy did more to motivate employees than any other. Believe me, this is a very competitive place to do business and retain employees.

The only time longevity made a difference was in vacation time. After one year, they got one week and got another week for every year they worked through their 4th year. The irony is, the employees got paid first and got vacation time. Me? I worked 7 days a week without vacation and I was always the last to be paid.

In all the years, I think I fired fewer than a dozen employees and prosecuted just one for embezzlement.

When I retired and sold the business, I distributed half the profit to my most loyal employees.

 

Dennis:

I must say I am very impressed. What you say is so very true. It is the same way my father ran his business. His was much smaller then yours but his employees got paid very well.

It is amazing how the quality of work goes up when its non-union performing the work with the type of incentives you or my dad offered. If you do your job well, always try your best, help the company move forward you are rewarded be it pay, bonus, vacation time etc.

I seen it time and time again with business involved with my fathers how much better everyone including the company's themself did with out having a union to slow them down, to hold them back, to keep them in the dark ages.

At this time in history with all the laws on the books that I believe the unions from years ago help to get, safety etc. anyway today I see no need for unions. I see it where I work they slow the process, they hold the company back from improving themselfs to be more competivie in the market which in turn is "job secuirty" to the employees themselfs, yet the employees see it as possible job loss. They, the unions, also force the company to be less competive, to have to charge more money for a product then need be. If it takes 5 people to complete a product they don't understand that if you reduce it to 4 or 3 the company can charge less which in turn usally leads to a bigger part of the market. This in turn results not in the company getting rid of the 1 or 2 people it don't need for a process but rather using them in another area because product demand goes up.

Charge less = more sales
Good quality = more sales

I think once unions can understand the basics of business they will relize that it is them, not the company, causing the harm, causing the distrust between company and employees.

Will there be some bad business's? Yes, of course, but they don't usally last long. When you have high turn-over, underqualified people doing a job because qualified ones will not work for a bad business, they will in time go out of business.