We Salute you Mr. Union Labor guy

This paper will discuss the pros and cons and the necessity of the modern American Labor Union. Labor Unions have brought a great quality of life to many people in this nation including my mother, my grandfather was a Teamster for 42 years. We must take a look at the Unions place in modern society.
There is an epidemic that is happening on our retailers’ shelves that most Americans are not aware of; we are exporting our jobs one import at a time, and we are losing our status as being a “world super power” one freightliner at a time.
In America we have many things that have helped us rise to greatness; we have done things such as sacrificing our young soldiers in the name of world peace, and creating world class goods and services that the world can’t live without, such as something as simple as the light bulb. We have never asked for anything back except for the bodies of those soldiers who lost their lives. Now we are in another war that is putting our young citizens’ lives at stake again, it’s the war of imported goods. The obvious place to point the finger is the recent scare of lead based paint toys, but it’s much deeper than that, there is a huge trade deficit that we have buried ourselves into that is a very deep grave.
There are both positives and negatives to having cheaper produce goods brought into our country. Our standard of living can greatly improve when we have more purchasing power to acquire the goods we need. If we can walk into a major retailer and (thanks to the ability of that retailer) buy the widget we need for 20% less than a year ago because they could acquire it at a cheaper cost, is a good thing. We can do one of two things; either save the difference of the cost of goods and spend it, or save the difference in a bank account. The way the average American has dug themselves into debt and is easy to see what is more often chosen, and that is to spend our money. The average household has $18,654 of debt, a figure that doesn’t include mortgage debt. (moneycentral.msn.com, 2008)
A major reason for the need to find cheaper sources of labor is based on the theory of comparative advantage, “The principle of comparative advantage explains how trade can benefit all parties involved (countries, regions, individuals and so on), as long as they produce goods with different relative costs”. (wikipedia.org, 2008) We have been a leader in manufacturing since the Industrial Revolution in the 1920’s and now there is a transition to China.
One of the leading reasons our jobs have been outsourced to China, is because of our outdated labor unions. There was a time and place for labor unions, and that time was before the Government stepped in with organizations such as OSHA who help regulate worker safety in the workplace. OSHA’s mission is to prevent work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths by issuing and enforcing rules (called standards) for workplace safety and health. (wikipedia.org, 2008) Often times, without Government regulation large corporations will do things such as disregard things they can to produce higher profits, however, this risk is now at a minimum.
Labor unions have had their place in America for almost a century, bringing wealth and prosperity to many Americans who have had limited skills and education. They have brought a middle class lifestyle for those who would normally have a lower class income lifestyle. Many of these families have been fortunate they are able to send their children to Universities that they wouldn’t normally be able to afford, or even help their children financially through helping with the purchase of a home or a wedding.
There is a realization that needs to happen in the United States; “Dr. Charles Baird of California State University East Bay argues that as labor is a commodity, and unions essentially operate by centralizing labor, forming a monopoly on the commodity. This monopoly on labor has the same negative effects as any other monopoly, by reducing the amount sold, (in this case, this means increasing unemployment) raising the price in the short term, and decreasing efficiency”. (wikipedia.org, 2008) For this reason alone labor unions need to be taken a closer look and evaluating if they truly are necessary.
There is a very real truth staring us in the face that we are avoiding. In the United States, the outsourcing of labor to Asia, Latin America, and Africa has been partially driven by increasing costs of union partnership, which gives other countries a comparative advantage in labor, making it more efficient to perform labor-intensive work. Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist and advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, showed that unionization produces higher wages (for the union members) at the expense of fewer jobs, and that, if some industries are unionized while others are not, wages will decline in non-unionized industries. (wikipedia.org, 2008)
Comparative advantage is a good thing for the average American, we are able to afford a better lifestyle, yet at the same time we are digging ourselves deeper in debt, without the understanding of what this is doing to our economy long term. Our national security is at stake if we do not make changes to our lifestyles. We simply need to curb our hunger for debt, and we need to understand that as long as we owe others we will never really experience the true meaning of freedom. Our fastest growing export is our American jobs. This isn’t due to political forces in The White House or Congress, and it is for the well being of our country and driven by free market corporations in America. There are places where we can fight, however we must take a new approach to job conservation over job preservation and look at the elimination of unions.
For the ones who had it better than they should have, had it because of a bureaucratic union labor force. The realization is one that the lifestyles must change because their labor is now a global commodity.


Bibliography
(2008). Retrieved 07 27, 2008, from wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
(2008, 07 24). Retrieved from wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union#Criticism
moneycentral.msn.com. (2008, 07 26). Retrieved 07 26, 2008, from http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/savinganddebt/p70581.asp