Here is an interesting fact: If you retired from Delphi, the bankrupt GM parts supplier, and you are a member of the UAW, your pension is safe, because the Union fought for contractual assurances that it would be safe, but for non-union middle management? Not so much:
But four months later, Mr. Gump finds himself in a far more perilous condition than his neighbors.
On his street, he is the only Delphi worker whose pension benefits may be cut. His neighbors all belong to unions and have received a lifeline in an unprecedented deal related to the government-supervised bankruptcy of General Motors, the onetime parent of Delphi. (G.M. spun off the parts division as a separate company 10 years ago.)
Mr. Gump and some 21,000 other salaried workers and retirees are furious that their roughly 46,000 union co-workers at Delphi have had their benefits restored, apparently with government largesse, and they have not.
This is not “government largesse”, of course, it’s because the Union used its clout to protect its people, and got agreements and guarantees from GM as a result.
Mr. Gump, like myself, is an engineer, who as a group are tremendously resistant to the idea of unionizing, and this cost him, and thousands like him at Delphi.
Note the usage of the term "government largesse". Such a term would be employed by the NYT (in a news item – not an opinion column – thus indicating a supposedly objective fact) when discussing benefits for the rank and file. When discussing executive benefits, the terms used would be "incentive", "compensation", "bonus", etc., which imply reward for performance rather than a gift.
I was a Union member in the 60's in factories. A Union Steward during my tenure with the Federal Government and a Union Member as a Teacher. I've also been a non-union worker.
As a Union worker, I was treated better, had better pay and fraud secure benefits and was protected from all the many forms of discrimination non-union corporations routinely, massively engage in.
Those who work and oppose union membership shoot themselves and everybody else in the head every time.
"Union Yes!"
Old Pinko