Positive and Negative Points for Labor Unions

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It was a late night in Jamaica and I was ready to go home after a relaxing weeklong vacation, however to my dismay I would find out that my flight would be delayed. You may think this was due to inclement weather or perhaps technical difficulties but, no, it was because the staff went on strike. This strike resulted in my flight being delayed 18 hours. Everyone was furious, not only did we not get to go home but we would also have to miss work, school, etc. Labor unions affect the lives of people in different demographics, from blue-collar workers, to white color workers, to students, to stay at home moms, and even retirees. Do labor unions have a positive or negative effect on the economy and human rights of a person? Even though my experience with labor unions has not been so pleasant, I am still indeed in favor of them because of all the positive effects that they bring. Through my research and analysis of labor unions, I have examined one side that provides that unions have a positive effect and the other side conversely stating that it has a negative effect. From all of my collected data I have deduced that the positives of labor unions significantly outweigh the negatives. In this paper I will first and foremost define labor unions and how they operate. Second, I will explain what happens when labor unions are not in place. Then, I will describe how unions advance and protect workers rights. Next, I will explain why labor unions are necessary for a middle class. Finally, I will explain why labor unions are productive in a democratic government. Before you can form an opinion on unions, you must first understand how they operate. Labor unions are organizations of wageworkers in a specific field that lobby their specific inte... ... middle of paper ... ...gregating millions of small-dollar donations from members (Sachs 152). When money has such a big impact on the government it is good that the middle and lower class can be represented because of unions. This gives them a voice in a government that they otherwise would not be heard in. Labor unions have had a huge impact in policymaking. Labor unions played a central role in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “As Representative Richard Bolling, one of the Act’s leading supporters, put it, ‘We never would have passed the Civil Rights Act without labor. They had muscle; the other civil rights groups did not’”(Sachs 170). In addition “labor was the most powerful single source of pressure amongst supporters”(Sachs 170) for the enactment of Medicare. It is obvious that unions play a huge role in proving a voice in government for lower and middle class citizens.

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