温斯顿丘吉尔曾经有名，“民主是政府最糟糕的形式，除了所有被审判的人。”

它开始看起来像同样的事情，可以说工会劳动力

几年来，“联盟”一词一直是一个肮脏的词。它已成为贪污，腐败和懒惰的代名词。为了整个原因，工会和联盟工人被品牌被称为不切实际的自私 - 而不是没有原因。就像任何经济实体一样，他们试图为他们所拥有的东西充分利用。买（或制造）低，卖得高。工作少，赚更多。

然而，最近的事件表明，联盟和联盟工人并不是愚蠢的，或者至少没有比他们的管理层和职业的对应物不那么聪明。例如，联合汽车工会和通用汽车公司之间的最近批准的合同表明，UAW对汽车行业不是当天回归的事实没有忘记。联盟的“神圣奶牛”是什么左右的。

Same goes for UAW workers over at Chrysler: At one point it looked like the union membership was going to reject the deal, due to what it saw as a lack of job security. But ultimately, workers took a look around and realized this is no time to dig their heals in.

As Harley Shaiken, a labor expert with the University of California, Berkeley, told the Detroit Free Press: “The early plants had the opportunity to express anger…. The later plants were looking over the edge and realized that there were few alternatives and that, in fact, this was a good agreement in very dismal circumstances.”

In short, every voting member of the UAW analyzed the prospective contract with regard to current market conditions and his or her own bargaining position, and then decided whether or not it made sense economically. The same thing is going on among rank and file workers at Ford Motor Co. at this very moment. Sound familiar?

I’m not saying unions are perfect. I’m not even saying ya gotta like them. But to dismiss unions as entities offering no value makes no sense either. It’s a simple fact that they have played a central role in making the shop floor a much safer place than it was in years past. If you don’t believe me, there’s a book written by a guy named Upton Sinclair you should take a look at. Then again, take a look at what’s going on right now in places like China, Bangladesh and parts of Central America. Unions also have a legitimate role to play in keeping companies honest with their workers.

If unions have a down side, it’s that, like many large organizations, they can be both highly political and slow to change. But with regard to the UAW, at least, it appears those slow-to-change days are over. As is the case with any business relationship, there will always be a certain amount of friction. But the UAW seems to have figured out that if workers and managers don’t work together then they will have no choice but to work separately-flipping burgers for a heck of lot less money than when they worked for the auto industry. (Hopefully, some of the other more intransigent unions out there will also get the message!)

另一个政治家由约翰亚当斯的名义曾经，不那么着名，说：“民主永远不会持久。很快浪费，排气和谋杀本身。从来没有一个没有自杀的民主。“

Fortunately, for all of us, it appears that will not be the case with unions.