Volkswagen workers in Tennessee vote to join UAW

[Fuzzy Bear]

I served as a Teamster Shop Steward during the 2010s.

Labor Unions have always been a check on the unlimited greed of employers.  They are needed to provide a measure of fairness for workers in the workplace.  That's because employment should be something more than modern-day serfdom.  And we've had that in America, and the widening income gap is an indication that we are traveling down that road to serfdom.

What's more, Labor Unions are now, for many workers, the only check against Runaway HR Departments.  A Labor Union may be the only way through which an individual worker can assert their rights in the workplace when they have been violated.  Union contracts provide vehicles for arbitration, and legal representation for affected workers.  Yes, there are goldbricks and chronic complainers who take advantage of this.  I'm more concerned about the worker with a legitimate grievance who is being hosed.  The Union puts him on equal footing with his boss in a dispute, and the dispute is more likely to settle the dispute on the merits.

While I agree with my friend on the right Haley/Ryan on many issues, I don't on this one.  I would suggest that Republicans embracing right-to-work laws was a disaster for them in the 1950s.  Then-VP Richard Nixon noted that in the 1958 wipeout, the Right-to-Work Republicans lost, while the Republicans who were silent on the issue survived.  If these workers want to organize, that's their right, and it should remain so.