Unions, No!

This is an important public service announcement.  If you are a member of a labor union and have felt for years that your talent, dedication, discipline, and hard work have gone unnoticed emotionally and especially financially, you are not alone.  More importantly, I bring good news that a better life is within your grasp.  You just simply need to be shown the way.

Like many a parasite or cancer that slowly drains the host of its vital nutrients to stay alive, labor unions, from their inception in the early to mid 1900s have systematically drained ingenuity, productivity, drive, and desire to be better from the American workforce.  In short, unions made standard what was once considered rare in America, "mediocrity", a word so insidious and destructive to the American spirit, because it keeps you buried in low expectations like a drone, but not so far as to push you to make a decisive change in your life.

You see, before labor unions, most employees received pay based on a percentage of their company's revenues in a given pay period. This pay structure gave incentives to the worker to earn more company business and be an advocate to the products or services of the company on and off work hours. Also, the work week was never defined by an arbitrary set of hours, but by an individual company's needs pertaining to their industry. If a valued employee was ever dissatisfied with terms of pay, hours worked, or workplace conditions, and company management refused to consider the employee's needs, the valued employee would either move on to another company more in-line with the employee's needs, or would simply start his own business based on desired principles. Standard free market forces, the constant struggle to hire and retain valued employees, and the continuous process of creating and marketing valuable goods and services for a profit, provided the pressure needed for companies to determine appropriate pay and workplace conditions.

As a side note, labor unions pride themselves for establishing the 40 hour work week. They should take no honor in this setback. A company should be free to determine what their hours of operation are as demanded by competition within their industry. But ever since the 40 hour work week, employers had to increase the amount of workers required to do a job efficiently. This increase in cost is due to 2 conditions: overlap in employee shifts when employer has fixed hours of operation, and extended company hours of operation beyond the scope of their business to cover multiple 8 hour shifts. These replaced what would have been an employee working a 10-12 hour day to support the full operational hours of the company. This increase in cost did not get absorbed by the employer and the company, but by the consumer of the product or service in the form of drastic price increases since the early 1950s through to today. Also, the system of apprenticeship, where knowledge transfer of a trade and craft were disrupted by these artificial work time rules set by unions, causing a reduction in quality and an increase in time taken to master a craft.

Companies used to be a family, where managers and workers knew each others' children and supported each other in hard times. The advent of the labor union caused a rift to develop between labor and management, no longer operating as a family but as a dysfunctional team, mediocre and somewhat tense relationships on good days, utter war on bad days. The seeds of mistrust have spread like weeds since the labor unions grabbed power. Just look at the automotive industry. In "right to work" states, where workers could choose whether or not to join a union, production is expanding (such as the Nissan plant in Tennessee). Contrast that with the automotive ghost towns of Detroit, Michigan, where labor unions put a stranglehold on productivity, not allowing management to make the necessary changes for company survival and profitability. Ever really wonder why automobiles produced in "right to work" states cost thousands of dollars less than union states?

So what happened?  The root of the labor union is more philosophical by nature and started when 80% of the workforce doing only 20% of the work got organized.  These are the people you know well.  They are the ones who start complaining as soon as they clock in.  They are the ones walking from station to station, cubicle to cubicle, interrupting the productive with endless conversations of how busy and overworked they are, speaking loudly of course, because it makes them feel more important.  These whiners believe that their very presence deserves higher pay at least equal to that of the 20% of the people doing 80% of the work.  They believe they are entitled to high pay and life-sucking and profit-killing retirement benefits just due to their years at the company.

And because they are mediocre in productivity and possess a pea-sized amount of initiative and determination, they are terrified at the thought of finding another job they would like better, so they demand yet another completely stupid concept ... job security ... a term, like mediocrity, that has robbed the American workforce of ingenuity and risk taking vitally important to advancements in technology, manufactured products, and services.  Think of it this way:  Who works harder to bring research money into a university, a tenured professor or one fighting to earn tenure?  And do I really have to ask who is the better teacher in the classroom?

When unions do not get what they want, and without regard for the profitability and basic viability of the company they work for, they perform a ritual that is the largest combined organization of petty whiners and bullies known to man ... the labor strike.  Whiners spew complaints and demands at company executives while bullies prevent the productive from performing their agreed upon duties to keep their company alive.

Is that what this country, founded on the principles of rugged individualism, has been reduced to ... complaining for a pay raise instead of earning it through increased profits to the company?  Labor unions have completely and grossly altered the manner in which pay is determined, from merit based to seniority based.  Unfortunately, you know this all too well.  If you are still reading this, and have not thrown objects at your computer screen or at least some profanity at me, you are most likely employed at a company for about 2 - 5 years, are 10 times more productive than your co-workers that have 15 more years experience, but you receive less than half of what they make.  They are the tenured professors of the labor union; refusing to be productive by choice, demanding productivity standards be decreased, while demanding compensation be increased, just for the honor to be able to bask in their glow.  Now since your union has demanded pay be based on seniority, you will soon decide that it isn't worth it to work hard and be productive.  You will fall into mediocrity so slowly and painlessly that you will be to numb to recognize it.

Don't let your union suck the dream from your soul. You know what you desire for your family and well being. Take action to control your life instead of having it dictated to you from a labor contract created without your consent or input. You can improve your situation without risking your current job, by moving away from the wage based system into the profit based system, which is the only way to gain wealth and financial freedom, and will open your eyes to possibilities your labor union has shielded from you all these years. In six months to a year, you could be saying "goodbye" to your union and "hello" to your individualism, unlocking the entrepreneur within you that is literally begging to be released.

The easiest means to get started on your path to financial freedom is with an internet marketing based home business. Its benefits include small startup costs, least amount of effort (5 hours per week average), no employees, no insurance, no rent, low advertising costs, and high profit margins. Now before you commit resources to any specific business, be sure the following questions are answered:

• Do they provide a turnkey marketing system, especially for those with little marketing capital?
• Do they have full training with both text and video?
• Do they have their own call center for closing sales so you do not have to be on the phone selling prospects?
• Does their training include detailed social marketing guidelines so you are not purchasing garbage lead lists?
• Do they have a high commission percentage? (Anything over 30% is good).
• Are their mentors and coaches available to you?
• Do they provide affiliate link branding? Google AdWords will not accept campaigns pointing to affiliate domains which are simply subfolders. They require an actual domain with nameservers set to the affiliates host. Complicated? Not if your business sets it up for you. Put it this way: You want to start with social marketing because it's free and you can build your brand through articles and blogs, but you want to work towards Google Adwords because it is most effective, tapping into the largest market on the planet: 1.5 billion people in over 150 countries. So if your business opportunity cannot even support Google AdWords by allowing you to brand their site, then be prepared to forever spend time on your business every day to keep it growing.

Don't worry, there are many internet based businesses that offer everything above. Remember, if you want to be successful, you need to treat your success like a business and not like a hobby. You are not escaping the heavy hand of your union to become a slave to your high cost and time consuming home business. Make the effort to investigate then take action. You will soon be limited only by what you believe you are worth and not by what someone else thinks you are worth.