While I agree with DC on most of this, there are a couple things that have tweaked this supply and demand thing.
First of all, remember that over the last 50 years, rightly or wrongly the unions did make a larger middle class than had we not had unions at all. Prior to unionization, there was the haves and the have nots. If you were one of the haves, you did what you wanted with the worker, KNOWING that there were always other workers you could hire in a new york moment. (Hummm...sound familiar, eh?)
Our Supply and Demand was totally contained within the USA...we had no cheap labor to import or countries like China where employees work for $14 a week. We are now competing head on for that price. So okay we build robots that have no real cost to keep going like workers, and that isn't all bad, except each time you employ a robot, you displace a worker who must now find another job. So he retrains and heads for something else, but in my view results in a job that doesn't pay quite as well, or have the benefits that were once there.
This process results in a shrinking middle class.
Now enter the union issue. Unions while taking along lots of bad things like infiltration of thugsmanship, and harboring drug addicted workers, and a host of other issues that are slowly being corrected....also provides a valuable tool for employee in that employers are far less likely to take advantage of workers. Not all that much different from the turn of the 19th century processes.
Most employers have had to compete with union labor businesses and pay union scale wages without all the hassles of having a union. If you were going to do business and hope to retain good talented employees, you had to compete with union scale.
Then exit the union. Employers go back to those same old processes of "gee whiz....if you don't agree to price and wage reductions, and paying you own health, I will be forced to shut down and take my operation to India, or timbucktoo...." so the employee gives in, having no union to collectively bargain, and the competition in that industry looks over his should and says..."hey, if he can do it I should be doing it too...." and so he whacks away at his employees and gets 5% more than his competition got, and so it goes....
No unions means no way to stop this because hey....there are people standing in line who would work for half that wage. While I see some benefit for reigning in exorbitant and outlandish wages, often those examples being the automotive sector where workers with zero education were making 100k per year in income and benefits which was a lot, but too much to pay and reflected in the cost of the goods which we had little choice but to pay. we loose some good paying jobs that now will have to settle for working two jobs at McDonalds, and cleaning offices at night. This employee will now NOT be buying a shiny new dodge, or that nice 4 bedroom house, or that big screen tv, cause he can't afford that. Multiply this process by hundreds of workers a day, and you have present day processes.
Now we have importation of cheaper stuff. Still in this transitioning world, we have a middle class that can't afford to buy the things that only a decade ago, they could. Meanwhile those who are the haves will have NO trouble socking it to the remaining employees, and pushing profits to not just 1/3 or 1/2 but to new heights that include 1000% profit margins. We see this greed in action today...and it will escalate significantly.
So remember that even if you never belonged to a union, the wages you now enjoy are almost certainly the results of collective bargaining that the bulk of YOUR industry had to negotiate, and as more and more employers rationalize bigger profit margins WILL exploit your position and eventually you will find an escort waiting for you at your desk one day and then you will feel the bitter pill of unemployment and how this transitioning of the haves...and the have nots.
One more point....I do NOT agree with collective bargaining for PUBLIC employees. That is a wholly different area of employment, and if you work for the government, and I (the tax payer) am paying your wages, those wages better be in total sync with the private sector or you can grab your hat on the way out and join the ranks of the unemployed. YOU give up that right to organize when you take a STATE job. That job should not be exploited, but it should float with the rest of the private sector and that is that.
While there are lots of folks that have a bad taste in their mouths about actual head on confrontations with unions, anyone who thinks that unions have NO place in the work force either have zero historical education, or they are livng a charmed life. DC is right....everything equalizes, over time and we can look forward to our grandkids either being in the have it category, or the live paycheck to paycheck category....there will be no in between.
