ShmoopTube

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Finance allah shmoop who benefits from unions And while union

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workers duh Maybe a better question is who doesn't benefit

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from unions Well okay okay Union workers exist because workers

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were abused at different points in our country's history Ever

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read the grapes of wrath Yeah Joad family Peach picking

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for like five bucks a day or less And then

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there's norma rae great film should see it won the

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academy award and remember the speech You love me You

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love me That union in a cotton fabric mill lots

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of abuse there So yes unions exist in reaction to

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bad acting on the part of the man and they

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collectively bargain against the man on behalf of the workers

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who belong And they made the country a whole lot

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more fair and square So thankyou unions for that Historically

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well guess what time moved forward and corporations today frequently

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don't want to deal with unions They dictated salaries and

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benefits as they saw fit and well the workers pushed

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back Union's got uppity and then corporations got down ity

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all right And the result was that all whole bunch

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of unionized shops were forced to hire a lot more

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Workers than they really needed That is that the man

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was required to hire thirty seven people instead of the

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twenty three he actually needed And the work rules that

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originally were intended to protect made it hard to train

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and to fire like really talented people did not want

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to be paid like the average joe with the same

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career path But really untalented people loved the fact that

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it was hard to get fired inside of a union

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So you got all kinds conflict inside of the union

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as well Got it And you know the firing thing

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ever been to a d m v car place that

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we get your license Wake up They're still all right

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Well let's Talk to a now bankrupt newspaper company who

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couldn't downsized fast enough to accommodate the assault of the

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lower margin internet delivered competitors Local newspapers were highly unionized

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at the time in the nineties and union rules would

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not let them fire workers fast enough And then the

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industry revenue model changed really fast Newspapers could not absorb

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the cost changes fast enough They couldn't fire people So

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they all went bankrupt And then all the workers were

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out of jobs and everyone ended up being out of

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work Yeah well that was a fail on the unions

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part They didn't move quick enough So who doesn't benefit

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from unions Well the largest union in the country the

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u s government Our own g men have the largest

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set of union workers in the country and they cost

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taxpayers of fortune They can almost never be fired They

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have spectacularly expensive benefits and the real salaries If you

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do fair math are actually very high Taxpayers pay for

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government unions Often the union worker has a way better

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deal than the taxpayer him or herself who supports that

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union worker Yet taxpayers keep voting in raises and benefits

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and all kinds of rules that let the government higher

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Thirty seven people for jobs that really only need fourteen

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We can't figure out the rationale there either maybe the

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taxpayer someday you'll wise up Police officer works thirty years

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on the force from age twenty two Two fifty two

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not darth vader Kind different force She can then retire

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and make eighty five percent of what her average pay

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wass for her last three years And of course in

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those last three years she does massive overtime and extra

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work toe goose up her eventual hundred seventy five grand

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a year Pay Ask your folks how they feel about

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a cop making one hundred seventy five grand in a

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year All right well she then retires but for the

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remaining thirty years that she'll live she'll get one hundred

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seventy five grand a year That's her pension that's what

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cops get in california Welcome to the left state here

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So she might claim that she quote on ly unquote

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made one hundred seventy five grand We think that's a

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lot for cops getting cats out of trees But in

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fact for the thirty years she worked she actually cost

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the taxpayers something like double that amount plus benefits So

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it isn't that joe taxpayer doesn't believe the officer has

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worked really hard The question remains Does that person deserve

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so much better pay And retirement and benefits and all

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the other stuff then joe taxpayer who's funding her well

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Police have a great union and jury's still out on

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a lot of these questions But you know what they

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say It's the government office who writes all the checks

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Unions can't live with them Yeah that's it We're done 00:04:34.238 --> [endTime] that that's where they stopped the conversation

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