Please please please use the NJEA as an example. They are likely the single most union ,in The Union, that drove up taxes so high they've actually made an entire state virtually unaffordable to live in and absolutely impossible to retire in.

There are some skills, particularly those of the military, that would translate to the private sector. The government is at least ten times too big. I would argue that it is 100 times too big.

Zen, we are on the same page (I think). I lost a supervisor, perhaps the safest guy I knew, in a Japanese company. He made one mistake. I have a cousin my own age who worked at a Ford Motor Company plant and lost a co-worker who walked into a press that was not locked out. Accidents happen.

I agree also with the broad claim that advances in technology and economy did much to make work safer for everyone. About 100 years ago, boiler explosions were all-too-common. Then the ASME launched a massive theoretical study of riveted plates.

And I agree that complacency causes accidents and takes lives.

I also agree that some work is inherently dangerous. More state police are killed by motorists than by criminals with guns.

All of that being as it may, I still assert that a general awareness and agitation to make workplaces safer led to workplaces being safer. Nothing changes unless someone wants it to.

Oh poop; there's my public education showing again.

Aren't the skills of postal workers, military, and the IRS workers in demand in the private sector?

I'll grant you that it is kind of hard to just up and leave the military.

I like that you pointed out the positive effects of unions competing with one another.

Robbie, I was not being disagreeable. I only took the meaning of your words in that you opened with the _past tense_: "Unions were beneficial at a time and with employers who were abusive of their workers."

Other than that, I agree with your broad assertion that re-certification should be required. That could be the case in almost any contract for almost any service. I have seen some in commerce that renew automatically, but usually they do not.

True enough, you paid up front, but you had a known cost. The problem that we have now is that companies like the automakers get stuck paying for 30 years of non-work after paying 30 years for work. Is it any wonder why the automakers went bankrupt?

Brenner, you paid up front. In other words, what is charged for labor here-and-now is not just what is needed for immediate consumption. You also pay for savings, for deferred consumption. Everything you buy from a can of beans to a cell phone call includes someone else's plans for the future. That is what profit is. It is a mistake to separate people in labor, capital, households, and government. It can be convenient for some analysis, but it is not a truth. Households are businesses. Laborers are capitalists.

Excellent points

Mike: I don't mean to seem argumentative on this issue, but there are a number of disaster type of industrial accidents that have happened on union controlled sites:
3 that first come to mind are; 1) Sunshine Mine Fire, Ketchum, ID 5/2/72 - 91 deaths 2) Texas City Ammonium Nitrate Explosion, Tx 4/16/47 - 581+deaths(arguably the worst industrial accident in the US history) 3) Three Mile Island 3/28/79
Several more; 4) Littlerock AFB, Searcy, Ark 8/9/65 - 53 dead, 5) Centralia, Pa Coal Mine Fire 5/62, 6) Romeoville, Ill Union Oil Refinery explosion 7/23/84 - 91 dead, and about a dozen more, all after 1947.

Accidents and disasters happen in the best of operations and continue to happen even after OSHA and MSHA and DoE and many other alphabet agencies. In fact some industries have experienced increases in accidents due to the employees attitudes that they're taken care of by their union or the alphabet - they decrease there own personal responsibilities for their safety. In my industrial career, I've been associated with 3 work deaths - 2 on union jobs and 1 on a merit shop job. None were a walk in the park and I will personally guarantee that the pain felt and the months of bad dreams had nothing to do with the regulatory investigations brought down by any of them, or the unions' screaming complaints.

The first death was an apprentice with three years experience that just made a momentary mistake, the second was a ten year experienced journeyman electrician again making just a momentary mistake, and the third was a part-time laborer that took a mis-step.

Yes, a bolt tightener deserves a safe work space, but I maintain that has nothing to do with unions. It can be career ending for managers and employers whether union or non-union, either from personal demons or costs. And if you have a poor safety record on a site, guess what happens to your Workman's Comp Insurance rates and guess what it does to the moral and productivity of other workers as well as the grapevine reputation amongst potential employees - the costs go up and the potential employees find other work.

See that 's the sticky part. Who decides when the union is needed and when it no liongrr has ause? If the government was not allowed to make protectionist laws it could work like any other business. If it 's needed members are happy to pay for its existence and receive the benefits. If it 's not needed they won 't. The bullying against members and employers is criminal. Most unions are highly corrupt because protects them and looks the other way.

Actually, Mike, it makes a huge difference. Contributing to pension plans is the biggest difference. The union pension plans are rarely found elsewhere anymore. I don't want to pay for someone who no longer works for me.

Fair enough, although I'm not a fan of state- or county-subsidized colleges on any level. State-subsidized competition is very frustrating. I have had students from other countries ask me to write recommendation letters because it is far cheaper for them to go to The University of Florida, a pretty solid university, than to my university.

I just read a great quote from Mark Twain: "If voting made a difference, they'd have a law against it"

And 10:00 break rolls and bathroom break rolls and 1 hr lunch break rolls and another bathroom break roll and 3:00 break rolls.

Yes, Fluke, you are right: the non-union worker in a mixed shop is a "free rider." However, that is a different discussion because I deny the validity of the concept. (I agree that it is a concept, but I think that it is flawed and falsely applied.) The fact is also that so-called "right to work" is actually a violation of the sanctity of contract as it prevents an employer from requiring union membership, even if the owner wants it.

(I agree with Zen that the Wikipedia article seems wrong i.e., non-factual, but I would have to read it myself.)

The diversification and division of labor is very much a part of urban industrial culture. Jane Jacobs pointed out that shops that once made brass fittings for horse harnesses turned to making brass fittings for machine assemblies. Firms today tend to contract out janitorial services. When I worked a contract at Nationwide Insurance, they did not run their own kitchen but let that to Sedexho Marriott -- and of course as I said, I was a contractor, hired to a thing and then leave. But it changes nothing essential in our discussion. If anything, it bolsters my point because to the hiring firm, the provider looks like an all-union shop for all the difference it makes: all the employees there follow the same (exogenous) work rules.