The local Key Food on Montague Street here in Brooklyn Heights has earned some dastardly press, thanks to the allegedly abhorrent treatment of beloved manager Mamadou "Mohammed" Doucoure, who was demoted to an overnight-shift shelf stocker after he complained to management about a long-pending overtime disagreement. Mohammed turned to the United Food and Commercial Workers for help, which—surprise!—offered no meaningful assistance. The Key Food story was first covered with true journalism savvy by my buddies at the Brooklyn Heights Blog, and picked up today by the New York Times.
Here's a lesson for the nation at large: unions drain workers of wages, make millions for fat-cat honchos and debilitate American industries: hello automakers, hey airlines, hi New York Transit, howdy U.S. education, whassup Hollywood? Unionfacts.com: "Unions raise the cost of services and products that companies provide which, in turn, raises everyone's cost of living. Unions require businesses to pay employees based on seniority and not performance. The result is poorer quality and service." 
My view is atypically anti-liberal, but step foot onto one international flight operated by a non-union corporation, where staff care, work hard, offer service (and food), and where bankruptcies are the exception and not the rule, and my stance is iron-clad: unions need to be stripped of their unbalanced tower of power. With the current economic climate, never has there been a better time for companies to demand reasonable pushbacks and rewrite the game book. Stepping off the soapbox now.
(Top photo by Kelly Shimoda for The New York Times)
far too simplistic.
ReplyDeletethere are many reasons to get rid of unions, but their purpose has always been to be a backstop to manageement abuses.
cant wait to see the "better american worker" that is forthcoming after the auto debacle.