I’ve never been a union fan; I’ve never belonged to a union, didn’t come from a union family and I’ve never even worked in a union environment. As a manager, my impression of unions has always been that they stand in the way of firing bad employees, reward longevity rather than performance, and inflate the cost of salaries and benefits to the point of being unaffordable.
But then Wisconsin happened and I’ve been forced to take a closer look at what unions are about and what they have achieved for all of us that work for a living. It is because of unions that there are 8-hour workdays, 5-day workweeks, paid sick time, maternity leave and other benefits.
Unions do make things tougher for management. Management has to do a better job of documenting poor performance in order to fire someone, a better job of negotiating so the costs of salaries and benefits don’t drive a company out of business. But isn’t that what management gets paid the “big bucks” for? How did we allow the unions to become the bad guys in a world of huge corporate bonuses and profits (remember AIG)?
We may have forgotten the historical reasons why collective bargaining became law: companies made huge profits on the backs of the employees and did nothing to provide safe work conditions, reasonable hours or any benefits. When employees organized to protest, they were beaten and even killed, sometimes at the hand of government militia.
I may not always like what unions achieve, but I’ve realized that I’ll fight to keep collective bargaining rights on the table for all employees. I don’t want history repeating itself – not in Wisconsin and not in New Hampshire.