How can unions be a negative for business owners?

Answer 1

Unions were quite important after the robber baron turn of the century when auto workers, miners and other large industries were taken advantage by big business denying them fair pay and safe working conditions. Unions today have less to worry about when it comes to workplace safety, unfair labor practices and when you add in the anti monopoly laws you can compete for jobs in other companies. It's the competition part that unions seem to have issue with. A worker, regardless of talent, commitment or work ethic makes the same as any other worker with the same amount of time in the union. Add in collective bargaining, slow downs, wildcat strikes and picket lines you can see why business owners would rather not deal with unions. Getting into public service worker unions like fire, police, state, county or city workers they have held these communities hostage in order to get an advantage in wage and benefit negotiations. The problem here is instead of a private business these large unions are asking for more tax payer money. And in turn unanimously support one political group over another in order to get public service favors. That makes them a political target. Union membership has steadily fallen for decades. One could categorize them as a dying institution but they aren't going without a fight. Another reason why a new company would not want to deal with union bosses.