Quote:I guess some companies NEEDS are not the same as others...I would make the claim that while one company feels no need for Unions, another company feels the need  for Unions...If there was no need , no one would use Unions, so I would say that would be a decision made by the CEO and Board Of Directors as to the "need" for a Union, not to mention the thousands of people who elect to work for a Unionized company over a non Union company

 

I think that you might misunderstand how the decision is made for a company to accept or bargain with a union.  No company "feels the need" for a union.  Basically, all a company "needs" is employees to do whatever task (work) that they need done.  The company owner/CEO/Board of Directors already have a certain budget in place for how much they are willing to pay for each employee.  Within that budget the cost of pay, overtime, health insurance and/or a retirement plan is considered.

 

So let's just create a company that is starting up and is going to make "widgets".  The founder/owner/CEO (whatever you want to call them) of the company has a budget of $100 an hour to pay a worker to make a widget.  So starting pay for someone to go work at this company will be $100 per hour period.  No health plan, no retirement plan, just straight pay.  It is determined that it takes one employee say 1  hour to make one widget, and the company can sell the widget for $150.  So the company is going to pay an individual $100 to make a widget in an hour, then they are going to sell the widget for $150 so they make a $50 profit.

 

So the company isn't attracting people because they don't offer any "benefits" such as a health plan.  The company finds a health plan that would end up costing $50 per hour that they are paying their employee.  Guess what?  In order to attract a worker the company offers a wage of $50 per hour plus a "free" medical plan.  The company is still within their budget of $100 per employee, but now rather than pay it in salary they pay it in salary + "free" health insurance.  It goes on and on.  The bottom line is, unions don't "get more benefits", they only get them rearranged to make it look like it's such a "good deal".

 

Every "benefit" or "extra" that you see on your paycheck is paid for out of the budget that the employer has for each employee.  When a union enters, all they do is siphon off of the budget one way or another, and it's usually through gaining funds from the employee's final salary.

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