Why Care About Unions?

One thing that I think gets missed in discussions about unions is the role they play in an economy full of large corporations. In a small business the owner of the business usually has a strong day-to-day involvement in the running of it. He or she (usually a he, alas) interacts with employees every day. They're people, not dehumanized labor-producing objects. As a consequence I'm guessing that mistreatment of a certain sort is a lot less common than it is in big businesses, where the people who set policy never interact with their employees. It's much easier to dehumanize someone that is just another number on a spreadsheet. In a big business, labor costs are just that - costs to your bottom line that need to minimized in any way possible. In a small business it's more likely that you see those workers as actual human beings, with their own needs and value. None of this is to say that there isn't mistreatment in small business, and I think that sexism in particular could be even worse. But the sort of systemic treatment of one's workers as an extension one's will, as just things to be moved around, to treat people you know on a personal level like that takes a very special kind of sociopath.

And hence unions. Maybe they're not as necessary in small firms, but in large businesses, they're the only way that the management gets reminded that their employees are people too. Get rid of them and all those stories out of Dickens seems a lot more probable.