I beleive that unions are still needed, despite the Pollyanna view some take
of all those laws and regulations, most of which are largely ignored by
employers unless complaints are filed, which are ususally done by unions.
The National Right to Work Committee, for example, rarely files a "friend of
the court" brief in support of workers who have been cheated by their
employers.

That being said, do I think the day of the union as a political and economic
force in this nation  has passed? Unfortunately, yes. As the economic base
of this nation disintegrates (thank you NAFTA and GATT, etc., etc.) and
large scale manufacturing jobs disappear overseas the only section of the
economy unions can look to for members is the public sector. Under Bush,
hundreds of thousands of federal workers have had their right to organise
stripped from them, and I think that trend will continue.

In the private sector, there are few, if any, "mom and pop" operations to
organize, and with increased structural unemployment (as opposed to
"cycles") fear of losing ones job makes it much more difficult to step up to
the plate and take a shot in your own defense. Additionally, popular
attitudes towards the labor movement have shifted (and things like the park
worker union that asks to get paid for work done by volunteer high school
kids don't help the cause) and many of the people who have benefitted most
from the existence of unions now endorse a "what have you done for me
lately" point of view.

It doesn't take a weatherman to see the way the wind is blowing.

I have been a union member all of my working life, and think it is a shame
what is happening. However, things are as they are, and I don't see how a
labor movement can exist when the economy is rapidly deteriorating. You
can't organise day traders.

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"Omphalos" <omphalos@wp.pl> wrote in message
news:0c6a0ee688384c616a9f9b557e9ae531@free.teranews.com...
> Does anyone besides me think that labor unions have run their course and
> are no longer needed? With child labor laws, OSHA, minimum wage, workman's
> comp, etc., labor unions are largely obsolete.
>