As someone who tries to be aware of history and use its lessons to improve the future, I can't say that unions have not had in many respects a positive impact on American industry. At the turn of the last century and for many years after, workers were often subjected to
inhumane, dangerous, and ridiculously low paying jobs and had no protection of any kind. The
AFL &
CIO were pioneers in the labor movement and started to bring these injustices to light. At the time, there were few if any laws giving workers any rights and those that did exist were weekly enforced. When the government
stepped up and started to create and adequately enforce labor laws, the unions did not slow down or reduce worker fees to the union. There is no example more fitting of this than the United Auto Workers union "UAW". When negotiations come up, the UAW puts out unreasonable requests for pay,
benefits, and other perks knowing that the Big 3 will
kowtow to their demands because of the economic disaster caused by strikes. The Big 3 have failed to address this cancer and now hundreds of thousands of people in or related to the auto industry will loose the only thing they know how to do unless the auto industry is allowed to feed at the
teet of the taxpayer, a trend that has gotten entirely too popular in American industry.
America it is time to ask yourself this question: When did we become a country where if you build a better mousetrap you and and so does the guy who didn't build a better mouse trap? That my friends is called "Socialism" and is far removed from capitalism and quickly
destabilizes healthy democracies.
Former President Bill Clinton saw fit to give a full unconditional pardon to Mark Rich who was a felon hiding in another county and avoiding capture / prosecution in America where he committed his crimes. One other interesting piece of information on this pardon was that Mrs. Rich donated large sums of money to the Clinton campaign. I'm asking that President Bush give the same consideration to these two Border Patrol Agents that "Slick Willy" gave to a slimy criminal with a rich wife.
