>I think the unions are what made the employers >give vacations, raises, health benefits and >pensions to their workers.
That's an over simplification.
Doesn't mean it's entirely untrue, but it does mean those gains aren't necessarily soley the factor of unionized labor.
Henry Ford introduced high wages (1914), 48 hour work week (1922) and the 40 work week (1926) in response to high employee turnover that was impacting the efficiency of his assembly lines.
UAW didn't have a Ford charter until 1937.
That improvements in areas of child welfare, working conditions, and pay coincided with unions is not evidence of causality. The efforts of the unions were only one factor.
For example, society had already started elevating the children during the Victorian period (as infant and childhood mortality started to fall). As we valued life more, as everyday and common deaths decreased, I believe we would have seen child labor reforms irregardless of unionism.
While Unions did bargain for insurance, another at least as strong if not stronger driver of employer sponsored health care was the wage freezes imposed by Roosevelt -- unable to compete on pay, employers started to use benefits health insurance to attract and retain workers.
Unions can play a beneficial role. However, too often they do exactly what too many corporations do today -- focus on short term gains at the expense of long term prosperity.
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Today's Featured Article - Grain Threshing in the Early 40's - by Jerry D. Coleman. How many of you can sit there and say that you have plowed with a mule? Well I would say not many, but maybe a few. This story is about the day my Grandfather Brown (true name) decided along with my parents to purchase a new Ford tractor. It wasn't really new except to us. The year was about 1967 and my father found a good used Ford 601 tractor to use on the farm instead of "Bob", our old mule. Now my grandfather had had this mule since the mid 40's and he was getting some age on him. S
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