Today’s society needs to better understand and become more realistic when it comes towards the facts of wanting more and more as they pay less and less for two items. Those items are wages and benefits.
Let’s look at wages. I believe that unions are important in our work force. They have created great working conditions and have ensured employers are kept in check in regards toward abuse. This scenario follows the statement of give a man (organization, employer) unchecked power and see what he does with it. As history has shown, a majority of the time those with power will abuse it.
However with that said there has comes a point in the development of our society that unions must become realistic in their ask. Which brings me to the first item, wages. Unions usually seek across the board similar pay for a position versus pay for output in that position. In my career I have seen a gross abuse of this. I have seen employees with NO incentive to work harder, faster, or become more innovative in their positions simply because they would not get any more money for doing so. The creation of a strong pay and incentive system would resolve this situation, but in most instances unions prevent this.
The other item I see getting out of hand is the benefit situation. Cost are becoming extremely out of hand for employers. This of course causes a loaded salary for employers, which eventually becomes a burden for most employers. In this scenario, I believe that government needs to become more involved in sharing those cost. In fact the cost needs to be split by three, employer – 1st, employee – 2nd, and government – 3rd.
The employer is first in bearing this cost since the more creative compensation is the better the ability to attract top talent. To the employee 2nd, if employers offered more cafeteria type of offerings when it comes to benefits then employees could better customize plans more to their needs. Lastly government’s involvement in this arena would position our nation as one creates situation for win-win scenarios for all of us.
Ismael,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your assessment of Labor Unions being important 100%. Labor Unions, although having lost steam in the past few decades, are still a very influential force and agent of equality for the working class. They make sure they little guy gets his fair share and keep employers honest! At the same time, with these uncertain economic times, Labor Unions as well as employees must work together to find common ground and a "wage and benefits" system that is fair not only to the employees but management as well.