To create Jobs why not get rid of Unions?

Politicians are not interested in creating jobs. Politicians are interested in creating votes. Period.

To whatever extent their actions can be regarded as "Job Creation" and that translates into votes, they're for it.

For now, Unions have a lot of sway in donating lots of money to politicians - and for now, that translates into far more votes than getting rid of unions would. Unions have this unique ability to force people to join and pay dues - and then use those dues to support political candidates that the individuals might not agree with.

The same is true with corporate lobbies - overseas outsourcing can add to a corporation's bottom-line by reducing the cost of doing business. To tax that would be very unpopular - and to the extent that corporations make large political donations, this would hurt politicians.

Follow the money - and understand that Politicians only deal in one kind of capital.

We didn't lose jobs because of unions, that's ridiculous.

We had great jobs in the fifties and unions were a much larger part of our lives back then.

The peak unionization rate was 35 percent during the mid-1950s, after a surge in unionization during the Great Depression and after World War II. Now its down to a little over 11 percent.

We don't tax corporations for much of anything, the Republicans would hold their breath and turn blue if we 'interfered' with the free market.

For all the fuss about that 35 percent that corporations are supposed to pay, two thirds of them pay nothing at all, and we're talking about big successful ones too, like GE.

To create jobs you need to bring back manufacturing, encourage research and development and pay average people more so they can buy the things they manufacture.

In the meantime the top executives have gotten richer by fifteen percent, while the average worker has lost ground. So that makes fewer people able to buy products.

1. States can just pass Right To Work laws which negates most of the power of unions.

2. Raising tariffs on imports will just get other countries to follow suit

3. Same as number 2

For the most part, they legislate or decree the growth of government. Is this the way things should be? No. But it is what they do, and what many of them are proud of. To a lesser degree, they vote for infrastructure projects that lead to government contracts for people in the required fields. The businesses that land such contracts may need to hire additional workers to complete them, or may be able to expand their businesses with the income from such projects. I suppose one could make the argument that this could be categorized as the private sector creating jobs. The private sector does--and ought to--create far more jobs. However, the private sector is currently stifled in doing so by government regulation, taxation, and uncertainty about healthcare.

Private sector unions only make up 7% of the workforce.

Raising tariffs caused the Great Depression.

Union-busting is not a way to create jobs. It is in the interest of unions to promote job-market stability and growth.

Labor needed to organize in order to not be exploited by business owners.

Getting rid of unions doesn't create a single job, but it would ensure that laborers no longer had a voice in their own futures.

Those are all policies of the communist Chinese dictatorship. This is America, not a communist dictatorship. Americans are free to join unions if they wan to.