@centurion -- I think you need to spend more time in class and less time in detention. Your post was indecipherable...
@Bob -- I hope you know I intend no personal insult to your parents. Good for them, really. I do not begrudge any individual making the best of their own circumstances, and if for THEM that means joining a union and taking full benefit of whatever they can get there - go for it. I also REALLY REALLY appreciate your honesty that it is about greed. Most people try to act like Unions serve some greater good -- for society -- which is just complete and absolute bullshit.
You talk about their combined 60+ years of work. Who cares. That's 30 a piece. Most people work at least 50% longer than they do...it's part of being a member of society, not a union. Imagine our society if everybody retired at 50....it would be damned near unsustainable. Hell, it's unsustainable with 70 year old working at Wall-Mart! So, while a union may be good for an individual, it certainly is neutral to extremely deleterious to society as a whole.
What "strengthened tools" of bargaining do you need? Isn't walking out -- blackmailing a company - a strong enough tool? The UAW has a literal labor monopoly over the Big 3. Each year they would select a strike target out of the Big 3...tell them give us what WE want -- not what is best for the company -- and then threaten to strike, knowing that if they shut down key operations, the company would lose production, and eventually lose market share (most likely to Toyota or other foreign manufacturers) that they would never regain. In any other setting what the unions did to the Big 3 would be criminal blackmail. So -- tell me -- what greater strength does the union need beyond the ability to literally destroy a company???
Bob - look up Ponzi scheme...that's what your parents are involved in. It's what Social Security...and when the Baby Boomers start collecting, the pyramid will fail miserably. YOU, my friend, will be one that bears the financial brunt of our parent's excesses.
Regarding Teachers -- I'm not sure what you don't get. TEACHERS do not equal UNIONS. You can be a good teacher, but that doesn't mean unions are good. Good teachers can stand on their own. BAD teachers need the union to protect them from getting fired...and that is just a fact. Lots of bad teachers out there - but that doesn't diminish from the good ones. as far as "It's all the bad parent's faults, blah blah blah" Give me a fucking break! I've been hearing that argument my entire life. If teachers are too stupid to understand what they are getting in to when they CHOOSE to become a teacher...then quit and get a new job! I get so freaking tired of hearing teachers whine about how hard it is being a teacher as they lay next to the pool all summer long....