You don't believe unions are the answer because you're confused about the question. Unions are the answer to the question of protecting workers from management abuses. Unions are not the answer to the question of making life easier for the corporation. : Well, the United Auto Workers really showed a disastrous side in the 1970s'.
: A lot of our cars built during this period were shit!!! I remember my Dad's
: '74 Chevy Nova all too well! It was a lemon and 1/2.
Maybe so, but elsewhere in McSpotlight you've praised 60s musclecars (I like em too) and lamented their being destroyed in the California "crusher" program. I hate to state the obvious, but all those Camaros, Mustangs, Challengers and 4-4-2s were built by UAW labor.
: If McD's is forced into unionization, I can foresee similar consequences. Unions
: seem to be good on paper, but suck in actual application. Again, I'm a layman, and I don't even supervise any employees, and I'm not in the fast food industry.
None of us would work a forty hour week, get paid sick time or vactions, or have any benefits if it weren't for the labor movement. Those things were not the gifts of generous bosses--they had to be fought for, by union laborers who often paid with their lives. Today's workers take all those things for granted and assume it will always be that way. It won't. Union membership continues to decline (thanks to legislation making it easier to bust them) at the same time people are working longer hours for fewer real wages. It's not a coincidence.
You may not have supervised any employees, but I have. They were "temporary" employees with no security, no benefits, no respect from full-timers, and no future in the company. I can assure you they did not give a shit about their jobs. Not that I blamed them--if I were in their shoes I'd feel the same way. The fact is, when workers have no protection and no say, they cease to care.
: But again before I go, even a common person like me knows that the fast food
: industry ain't no place to pursue for a permanent career.
Why should it be that way, in an era of declining job opportunities? People on the right wing are always saying the poor should be working and not taking handouts. They can't do that if jobs are considered "entry level" and pay starvation wages. And the only way it's going to change is for McD's, Wal-Mart, and all the rest to become union companies. A union can only be good for McDonalds employees, and that means better quality and service for customers.
