Apple

Why Apple Should Become a Union Shop

That would be a major coup for labor

Unions have lost power over the last 50 years. Court decisions have weakened them, and internal corruption certainly didn’t help create public love. Where more than a third of American workers once belonged to a union, today membership hovers around 10%.

I’ve never been a union member. For most of my life I have worked for myself and the few jobs I had were mostly at smaller companies where unions can never succeed. I have, however, always felt that workers should unionize because corporations have too much power and are often abusive.

I had one work experience where unions were attempted. I was a manager, so I was restricted from saying much, but in my heart, I was hoping the union vote would win out. It didn’t, perhaps because fear caused enough workers to vote against their own interests or because they felt the union was just another corrupt entity after their money.

That’s sad. Sad that people would be afraid of retribution and sad if they thought the union just wanted to milk them. But retribution is real: if a corporation wants you gone, it’s not hard to find an excuse or to make your work life so miserable that you will remove yourself. As to the morals of unions vs. the morals of corporate owners, well, it always comes down to individuals at the end and some individuals just plain suck.

The efforts companies make to keep unions…