Quote Originally Posted by HNSB View Post
Far more jobs in this country have been lost to automation than to offshoring.
Where's all the union guys demanding that shops not use computers or robots, and stick to making widgets with manual labor?
You should know that you can demand anything you want but at the end of the day you do not own the plant. Far, far too many people still have the idea that unions are in actuality as strong as they think they are. I have watched automation slowly taking over and all the union I was a member of could do was to negotiate various ways of easing the inevitable job losses but automation kept going. The same holds true for contracting out work traditionally done by employees. It is an insidious and slow process that involves a number of different elements, off shoring, automation and contracting/jobbing out among them. It is a bite at a time thing and before you know you wind up holding the rotting core of a once fine apple. Believe me the unions were there and did soften the blows a bit.

While we are on the subject of unions, if you do a little research you can see that gradually over the years many unions have had to amalgamate with other unions and had to keep doing so just to maintain being a viable entity. As jobs disappear so does your membership. Not a healthy sign for unions at all.

Bob