It amazes me that anyone could be so naive to think unions are responsible for our country's current economic condition. This has nothing to do with union wages but has everything to do with corporate greed.
Paul Patton's recent letter mentions his working for GE which was a union shop. I would like to know if you were part of the problem? Or were you a member of management that is currently sending our jobs out of this country? If you want to find out more on where our decline as a manufacturing-based country started, read the book "The Global Class War." It was written by Jeff Faux and published in 2006 by John Wiley and Sons Inc.
For your information, an average CEO last year made $10.4 million in total compensation. This is more than 86 times the pay of the auto workers that you used for an example in your article. You failed to mention that this is their total compensation, which equates to an average wage of $28 per hour. CEOs' average wage increase last year alone grew nine times the median salary of a full-time worker or $336,000.
Unions were organized to provide working people a safe place to work, job security, fair pay and benefits. They have also been instrumental in things that benefit all workers. To name a few, how about Social Security, OSHA, 40-hour work week, overtime, health care and retirement programs. None of these were just given to the working-class people. Workers protested and died trying to get the above benefits you enjoy today. Unions are not just there to protect their members, but all workers see the benefits. If workers don't have some of benefits above, then they should be thinking about organizing a union.
I would like to applaud the lady Paul mentions in his opening paragraph. We should all try and buy American-made products whenever possible. Of course, there are ways for companies to mislead consumers into believing they have bought American-made products, such as the origin of the casting can be made in the USA and machined in China.
And by the way, grab your road atlas, Paul. I believe you'll find Utah and Texas are still part of the USA.
