Originally Posted by hemaybedid

In a free market economy labor unions hinder the growth and strength of the economy. Basic economics models show this. I have had the same debate your wife and yourself are having with myself many times. In many of our large manufacturing industries labor unions have had an enormous detremental effect on our economy and have led to higher than necessary costs being passed on to the consumer. When a labor union negotiates 50 to 80 thousand dollar wages for unskilled and only basically educated workers it is bad for all of us, such as in the auto and steel industries just to name a few. However; when it comes to skilled, highly trained professional labor groups I have nearly convinced myself that labor unions are necessary. In the airline industry where safety and standardization are paramount it becomes nearly impossible for a pilot to compete for promotions and differentiate themselfs from other pilots. So we have to rely on our union to negotiate our labor to management. Without our unions we would be working to the maximums allowed in the regs and doing it for whatever the lowest bidder was willing to do it for. Those are the arguments I have come up with for union necessity for airline pilots.