Re: Unions... good or bad?
Jeez CM, when did you become such a socialist? :p
Well paid workers may be better consumers, but when a company shuts down a factory in a country because the union workers won't work as many hours as workers else where will work for less money - that just means bye-bye jobs.
Volkwagon's trouble in Germany comes to mind. Because German unions refuse to work as many hours for as little money as workers elsewhere (clearly protecting German workers' rights) , VW were considering shutting down those factories and moving production abroad.
Workers with no jobs because of labour market inflexibility are poor consumers.