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According to a recent nationwide survey conducted by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the glory days of America's labor unions are fading. At least they're fading in the eyes of the general populace.
Speculation varies widely about the reasons for the tarnishing of organized labor's luster. However, the decline of union favor is quite real. The approval of labor unions has decreased across a very wide demographic cross section of America, including in union-oriented households.
According to the Pew survey, 42% of respondents currently have an unfavorable opinion of labor unions. In January of 2007, that number was just 31%. Conversely, 41% of respondents currently have a favorable view of organized labor, when in 2007, 58% favored unions. This amounts to a significant downward swing of opinion in just three years.
In households being declared as union oriented, the decline in union favor was not quite so drastic, yet the ratings have been in decline. In 2007, 77% of those union oriented households had favorable opinions of organized labor. By 2010 that percentage has crept downward to 74%.
Across political lines the picture is a bit more vivid. In 2007, 47% of Republicans spoke favorably of labor unions. By 2010 that number has declined to a paltry 29%. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats who favored labor unions numbered 70% in 2007. Today that number has declined to only 56%. Among Independents, the decline fell from 54% favoring labor unions in 2007 to 38% today.
The reasons for this decline in union favor are highly debatable. Job losses, weak contracts, and political pandering utilizing union dues might rank at the top of the list. When given these research figures, it comes as no surprise that organized labor is pushing hard to gain easier access to America's workplaces. We simply need to help organized labor understand that their presence might no longer be what we want.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-02-2010 @ 1:44PM
C Caton said...
Never have we needed them more. Unless people want to be working 80 hour weeks for minimum wage, they probably ought to wake up.
3-02-2010 @ 2:30PM
BHarrison said...
The basic problems with unions is that once they have gained a foothold in an industry and resolved the basic objectives, then they become rather bureaucratic organizations that justify their existence and the high salaries of the union management/BAs by continuously trying to maximize wages until they break the financial back of their employeers or the tax revenues that support them. This is almost a predestined scenarios for the union's self destruction. The union managment pushes for excessive salaries and benefits to cury the favor and vote of the union members; and then they price themselves out of the labor market or finacially run their emplyers . . . hwo does that benefit anyone in the long run?
Well, now it it time to pay the piper for the excessive union pay rates and benefits and retirement . . . the unions have killed themselves by not being reasonable about it all. Personally, Ihave absolutely no sympathy or empathy for them. The policemen and the firemen unions are probably the most aggregious violators and exploiters of the tax payers; something will have to be done to reduce their salaries and benefits, esp. in these unprecedented economic times. The unions always wind up killing the goose that lays the golden eggs . . . just look at the UAW and the detrimental impact that they have had on the automotive industry. Sure managment is responsible for a lot of the problems and excesses; but the unions are just as guilty of destroying their own employment.
3-02-2010 @ 8:32PM
pbihomes said...
In my working history I advanced rapidly within all of the jobs I held and the business I owned because of my skills and hard work, except for the two times I worked in jobs where there was a union. In those jobs the promotions went to the lazy loosers just because they were there longer. They were the poeple dragging down the company so that it could not give us better benefits and pay.
I left both companies and went on and was free to make myself successful on my own. I know have probably many times the wealth than the union mentality people.