Are Unions losing all of their power?  

Personally, I feel the unions are the biggest waste of time. They only cause business to jack up prices so the outrageous wages they demand for their union members can be paid. Multiply that by however union members you have working for any given car company and that jacks up the price of a car to an amount no normal middle class person can afford. Yeah the unions are a big waste of time and money. Your person was paying union dues the whole while he was a member and what did the union do for him in a crunch. Nothing! The unions are in it for the money. I bet the people that run the unions are getting paid more than your guy.

Originally unions were a good thing in organizing the workers and pushing through better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Unfortunately they went way beyond that and yes, they are now losing power. Look what happened to the big 3 auto makers. The UAW could organize a strike that was able to completely stop productions and cause losses to the company in the millions. This way they pushed through some really unreasonable demands such as job banks. Whoever heard of getting paid for years for doing nothing? The employees had high wages and benefits even in times where the car makers were already suffering. It was cheaper to give in to the union rather than taking the losses of non-production.

What happened to your son is bad but his retirement pay shouldn't have been bound to working in a union shop. Look at it this way, the guy could have simply shut down the place. But your son still has a job. If he couldn't have switched to a union body shop at the time his work place lost the union status, he probably also couldn't have switched to one, when the place would have been closed down. Then he would have been unemployed... What would have happened to his retirement pay then?

Point is, the union went overboard and is a burden not only on employers but also on its own members. Fees, strike obligations, retirement benefits tied to working in a union shop... how fair is all of this to the union members? How well do the union bosses make out? People just start to have no understanding for union demands anymore, not even their own members. That is behind them losing their powers.

You make some excellent points however when the three auto makers go by by and are in chapter 11 the unions will bye bye and the wages will go down dramatically and pensions will go bye bye Basically we headed for a depression that will be 20x worse than the great depression You w ill be lucky your son has a place to work and the lawyer may be deliver newspapers

The unions should take the current economic conditions as an opportunity to purchase the companies that are failing and run them as an employee owned entity. The unions have billions of dollars in pension funds to work with. If a company is worth saving then the unions should put their money where their mouth is.

I don't know much about unions. But I think they can only do but so much for the employees. When the company makes a decision, all the union does in my opinion is file grievances if they din't agree. I work for the post office. I have been ther for 10yrs. There are 3 shifts in my building. The morning afternoon and the nightshift. The mail volume has decreased ever since I started back in '98. And Just like every other company, the postal service has lost money every year. we currently have a no lay off clause in our contract. It protects the people like myself who have 10yrs in. They are currently in the process of getting rid of the morning shift. The people will be moved to the afternoon and nightshift. As a result, the junior clerks on these 2 shifts will be maoved to other facilities to make room for the senior clerks coming from the morning. I'm in ny, and they can send you as far as New Jersey. It has happened a few yrs ago allready. They excessed some 60 people and they got shipped off to new jersey because the volume of mail was low at my job. But now with the talks of not only getting rid of the morning shift, they are saying that the people who have 6yrs or less in the postal service are going to be let go. I don't know if that's the same for all the states. But my point is that the union can only do but so much.

A few yrs ago I was placed on the list of junior clerks to be transferred to another facility out in new jersey. This was due to a drop in mail volume. And also, there were other facilities in the ny ares that close. Those employee's were sent to my building. On top of that you had people who's jobs were elimainated in certain parts of my building. You have people at my job who sort mail manualy, who are called manual clerks. And you have people like me who sort mail on the machines, which are automation clerks. They are slowly doing away with the manual section. So those people are being moved over to automation. All of the manual clerks are seniors, so as they get rid of those manual jobs, they have to keep excessing the junior clerks to make room for them. When the excess list came out a few yrs back, there were about 100 names on that list to be sent to new jersey. A few people like myself got lucky since most of the senior clerks opted to go to new jersey. Everyone at the time was saying "they can't get rid of all those people". And I say why not. When the numbers are down companies can do whatever they want. Now my so called union supposedly fought to keep those people from getting sent to new jersey, but it didn't work. So in my experience the union can only do so much.
It sounds to me like in your discussion that they got rid of the body shop just so they could make even more money perhaps. Even though they made a profit, they wanted to pay as less people that they could. That's what I'm guessing. I think in these hard economic times, many companies will just be trying to eliminate as many employee salaries as they can just to save money. Even if it is a profit. Maybe these guys thought that the profit really wasn't worth it to keep all those employee's on the payroll.

When I hear about unions giving back benefits, I get a little nervous. It's one thing to agree not to take any new benefits or forgoe a salary increase but give backs are the kiss of death for a union. When I was a caseworker, our union (PSSU - Pennsylvania Social Services Union) always held the line on give backs. Once a benefit goes back, it doesn't seem to ever come round again no matter what management promises. Sorry to hear about your son but that seems to be the way things are going.

In My Town Unions has lost their Flair. All they do is picket places the already have people working their 1st.

While listening to the local radio (Princeton) station ( The Local Marsails union)was saying the local Buiness was not local.

The people from that union put up a big rat, and complaining they wanted that job, while the local business(es) were working. The Pizza shop did not get as many customers while the picketing was going on, the compamy kept up their job, and it looked like a big disgrace.

The Unoin picketing looked like more they were crying for a job, they will never get, nor will the buisness will stop and hand over the contract. Thank goodness i never joined a Union, I will never want to cry over a contract i was never offered
and picket a business that already had the work before me at all.

their no good for small towns,and No Place for them even when they "Picket Cry" on the jobs they never had in the 1st place. They Lost my intrest when they keep picking on working people when thay can sign up for work, some place els the will Hire anyone on the spot.