Experienced listener says Pratt 1000% correct on unions

Pratt,

Having worked with unions – both government and in the private sector – you are 1000% correct as usual.  But I thought I’d add this:

The downfall of all unions.  And it’s this: they take the labor pool they “represent”, and price them out of the labor market.  Their employers then start going elsewhere for production of their goods/services or they go out of business.

I remember when, in my beloved hometown of San Antonio, we used to have Kroger stores.  I liked them, but they were a union operation.  As such, they were beholden to union demands.  In the spring of 1993, the management was feeling the heat from local competition, so they asked the unions to take a pay cut in order to stay competitive, and to keep people employed.  All the unions, seeing the writing on the wall, signed on, all except for the butchers, who insisted that their evil employers were just greedy and made of money.  (What they thought of their own greed of course they did not say.)  Kroger threatened to pull out of San Antonio and Austin entirely if the butchers did not get aboard.  They refused.

So the meat cutter’s union, in a bid to maintain the status quo and stand up to corporate greed, got an award: permanent vacation.  So did everyone else.  By the time the fall arrived there was not one Kroger store left in the San Antonio or Austin area.

I remember this well.  It was a searing lesson for a young adult such as myself.

– Steven, from Swisher County (I can swear I saw a few cows blow by my window)

P.S.  NO person in a government position, NONE, be it a teacher, a cop, a firefighter, whatever, should be in a union.  I can see things like professional associations where professionals share notes on their trades.  That I get.  A union?  No way.