Workers rights

Lately I've been wishing that I worked in a union environment. It seems that in recent years, more and more of the rights of workers are being taken away and that's not right. Where I work, we are "at-will" employees and from what I understand that to mean, my employer could terminate anyone for any reason or no reason at all, and that strikes me as wrong. I know that in these difficult economic times, it gives employers the benefit of being able to downsize their workforce by terminating people for no other reason than they want to, but didn't workers fight for certain rights back in the 1930s that gave them the eventual right to organize unions? It seems like just these kinds of things that are the reasons that unions started in the first place. Where I work, organizers tried to come in and unionize us several times but each and every single time, it was voted down resoundingly by the staff. I suspect that the reason is that our wages have never been very big in the first place and nobody wants to pay union dues. Add to that the fact that most of my co-workers are the sons and daughters of rubber shop workers and they remember all too well what happened to those people. The United Rubber Workers was one of the unions that got busted and ended up having to merge with the United Steel Workers, but in the end, all those union jobs got sold downriver to Mexico first, then to China, in search of cheaper labor for the corporations. People say the unions got too greedy and wanted too much and that's why the corporations shipped their operations to China, where they could exploit those folks for pennies on the dollar and not have to mind environmental regulations or pay any sort of benefits. As it stands now, there's hardly an American worker anywhere that hasn't been asked to make concessions of some sort and my fear is that this is a permanent driving down of wages and benefits. We Baby Boomers stand to have a far lower standard of living than that of the Greatest Generation. We already do, and as our generation enters its retirement years, well, fact is, we won't be able to retire. Our generation can probably expect to be working until we die, thereby depressing job opportunities for younger workers in search of jobs. So the effect is multigenerational. It doesn't just effect us, it effects younger generations who are searching for careers and jobs. I just think that unions make workers stronger, but in the era in which we are living, good wages and benefits are a thing of the past. American workers are now competing with cheap Chinese labor because Americans demand cheap goods, and if American workers are union and make good money, that drives up the cost of labor and therefore the products they make. But when all boats rise, everyone does well. Unfortunately, the era of strong unions, good jobs, decent pay and benefits is over. Now we have to live lifestyles on par with those of third world countries that make nearly everything we consume, because a labor force paid pennies on the dollar drives down wages for everyone. Even old standbys L.L. Bean and Lands' End have their clothing manufactured in third world countries in order to keep their prices competitive. That's where we are right now. Just try finding ANYTHING made in the US, and that includes an American car with an American nameplate. Most of what goes into that car was made overseas in some Asian country. Oh, it may have been assembled here in the US, but even Fords, Chryslers and GM cars are mostly Asian in origin. That's the New Normal. The US doesn't manufacture anything anymore. It imports everything it uses and most of the US workforce is in low paid service jobs like mine. It's a pity that we as a country have mostly lost our way, but that's how it is anymore. Barring being another Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or LeBron James, you're not going to make it in this country and you'd better be prepared to settle for a standard of living far lower than what you imagined, because that's the cold hard reality for all of us now and is going to be the way it is from now on. Once upon a time, we had unions, we had good jobs that paid a living wage and workers had rights in the workplace, but no more. Those days are gone forever. How unfortunate.