There was a time in the USA when working people were represented by unions. The reasons why unions are and are still needed are made obvious by this article. The idea is force the "market" to have a conscious and to treat its workers with some compassion and dignity.

However, college-educated and white collar American has always disparaged unions as something that decreased profits and efficiency. However, now that unions are almost a non-issue for most businesses, the market has turned its attention to the "productivity" of its salaried employees. So today, these white collar workers are now facing the same types of inhumane treatment as the blue collar workers they once mocked for their unions.

So, I say that white collar American deserves the vacation time, benefits, and retirement it gets. I have no sympathy for the middle-manager working 60+ hours a week who is paying $500 a month for benefits and whose only retirement plan is a 401 K with no employer contribution. You can stand by while the little guy gets screwed, but then don't complain when they start cutting your own vacation time and benefits.

I see your point, but I think if a corporation's treatment of workers is truly inhumane, then it's the government's job to fix it. Labor unions are a workaround resulting from our inability or unwillingness to legislate on behalf of decent social conditions in favor of a free market. "Free" being a relative term of course - the workers are paying the price.

Um....

In the grand statistical/stereotypical view of things, I can see why you want to stick it to The White Collar Worker. But begging your pardon, I'm 25, educated and with a desk job, and I've never been and will never be in the echelons your talking about, and I wasn't even an adult at the time your bitterness was probably cemented.

Please remember that individuals are individual, and as unfair as it is, people often need to be feel the crunch personally before they understand the need for change. If there was a minimum amount of paid sick and/or vacation time, I would hope it would be for everyone, so blue collar would benefit too.

I'm in this exact kind of job and I can't help but chuckle in agreement, even though I think you're painting with too broad a brush here.

I think you hit on something important. Again, we can't ignore that there is a range of opinions among corporate types about everything, including unions. But we also can't ignore that the overall thrust of opinion among those types is anti-union. So yeah, perhaps Joe White Collar Guy deserves what he gets.

But thinking that way doesn't help anything. What would help is for liberals to recognize that there is underlying disenchantment within corporate America and, perhaps, rather than framing reform as a pro-union, labor-rights kind of platform that won't appeal to people who are reflexively pro-market (even if it's against their own interests), they can package policies mandating vacation time or hour limits in a newer and more novel way that is less likely to run up against pre-formed opinions. I hope this is the sort of thing that Obama is about -- framing policies in terms of what works and what doesn't to achieve the outcomes we want, rather than what's left or what's right.

It would be nice if he (Obama) actually said it. Everyone is fed up, but all the politicians are acting like this is only a blue collar and lower white collar problem.

What would be great is if white collar America acknowledged that unions are force for good and that all of the those blue collar workers who demanded fair wages and benefits weren't just looking for an easy job with high pay.

Of course there is a range of opinions. Even a middle manager can have some sense. However, the majority opinion in corporate management is that unions are pure communist evil and that they deserved to be crushed.

Just to clarify, I am not a blue collar worker. I work in academia. But, my father and most of the men his age that I grew up around are/were blue collar and union men.

"people often need to be feel the crunch personally before they understand the need for change." Personally, I think this is bull&*^#. It is actually possible to have empathy and see someone else's point of view without actually living their experiences. The breaking of the unions in the 1980's and 1990's was class warfare pure and simple. White collar America screwed blue collar America because it meant more profits for the wealthy stockholders. They knew exactly what they were doing and what it meant to their workers. No one was naive. They knew they were destroying the lower middle class and they didn't care one little bit.

You may not have been a working adult when this happened, but its now come around to bite you on the butt. Don't count on mandatory paid vacation time to be enacted any time soon.

"the majority opinion in corporate management is that unions are pure communist evil and that they deserved to be crushed"

You have any support at all for that claim?

Rent "Roger and Me." That'll give you a good idea of how management felt about blue collar workers in the 1980s.