Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Unions have gone too far

In answer to a letter from Rick Wilkening, “Unions improve quality of life,” I would like to add: “for him, not everyone.”

Who pays for it? He contributed to his retirement package, but so does everyone else, including his employer. To meet the demands of a new contract, it usually means higher cost of doing business. So the employer has to increase the cost of his product to the public.

Take the United Auto Workers for example, which pushed up costs through strikes and negotiation. The companies usually gave in and cut back, folded or went overseas with their plants. When foreign companies came here, they opened plants, hired non-union labor and their cost per employee was less.

The original intent of the unions was good but it has gone way too far. They point to the slave shops and unsafe conditions that existed 100 years ago, but improvements would have happened slowly anyway, even without unions. Everything else in our lives has improved. So would working conditions.

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