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Brian Duffy Dr. Guenzel ENC 1102 March 14, 2014 Rhetorical Analysis of Issues with Labor Unions Labor unions are legally recognized as organizations of workers who fight for improvements in industries today. They help negotiate wages, benefits and employee safety. When unions first emerged during the industrial revolution many workers needed something or someone to stand up for them and help improve their conditions. Workers worked in factories with no breaks, dangerous equipment and surroundings, all for small wages that barely supported one person. This is where unions came into play, they provided a voice for the workers who were oppressed in a time where new jobs emerged and people where trying to make a living. Over the years, several issues have risen that have had negative impacts on Union membership levels and their favorability in the eyes of workers. Some believe that the unions have served their purposes but now the abuses outweigh the benefits in todays society. There are endless articles outlining and arguing the issues with labor unions today, however there are also just as many articles stating the benefits. One article that I selected and found to be informative and seemingly straight forward appeared in Chron.com, Issues with Labor Unions. Chron.com is the online version of the Houston chronicle, one of Texas largest news companies, which provides information both printed and digitally. Thousands of stories are reported daily, just like

Duffy 2 any other newspaper the information may include some author bias but all information is deemed accurate when presented to the public. The selected article appears in the small business insider section and is written by Chris MacKechnie. According to MacKechnies Biography on About.com, he received a dual bachelors degree from the University of Michigan in Biology and English and a law degree from the University of Toronto. He also received a Masters degree in Urban planning from the University of Michigan. He currently works for several large transit systems and keeps them organized in the Los Angeles area. He often times has to deal with unions when choosing routes because workers need to have some say in the process. He also has written professionally for over a decade now. Having this background and all of the degrees, I believe MacKechnie to be a very credible author. MacKechnies article is short but delevers a direct point, with an introduction and then several sub topics following. His main point of this article is to provide the reader with what the public believes to be the issues with labor unions today. He begins by describing where unions have come from and how they rose to prominence when industrial companies were rapidly expanding. These companies were in need of some stability, everything was run by the rich and powerful and the employees had no say. Many of those issues have been corrected, in large part by the work of unions (MacKechnie), and now it seems the benefits are outweighed by all of the issues. The first issue is job stability, unions fight so hard for long term job stability but really all its doing is hurting the company. It interferes with the organization and the attempt to keep up with the rapid changing technology. Fighting for job stability also keeps lazy or poor performers in a job. If a union protects certain employees who perform poorly and dont

Duffy 3 belong, then the company will suffer in the long run. Though this issue seems objective, MacKechnie does a good job of staying neutral by providing both opinions, this strategy proves extremely effective. The next issue is pension protection, which is at the forefront of the unions discussions. Owners believe that since they are the ones with the money to hand out for pensions then they should be the ones who can modify them so that they receive tax and credit benefits. The last issues are collective bargaining, which is what unions perform very well. If there is an issue and disagreement, unions have the greatest weapon, the right to stop working, which is called a strike. Strikes can be very disruptive to all involved but mostly impacting the companys bottom line. The issue that companies have with bargaining is that if an agreement is reached than it places all employees in the same bracket, with poor performers receiving the same benefits as someone who excels. Unions rarely bargain for individual employees or groups of employees. They negotiate on behalf of their entire membership. This concludes the short article that gives a solid beginning to the never-ending discussion of whether or not labor unions are still effective today. The audience of this report can be a vast majority of people. It can either be for the blue-collar workers that are looking for the positive and negatives of labor unions or it can be for someone like me looking to learn and conduct research on unions. what the issues may be with the unions that they belong too. But mainly I believe that this is for the businessperson who is looking for a basic list and description of issues with labor unions today. The very short and sweet title causes this article to appear to be simple. When reading this article there isnt much thinking to be done, all you need to know is contained in the text. Also with a title so simple, the chances of appearing on Google,

Duffy 4 when researched, is very high. This is the first article that I found when searching because the title was literally the first thing I typed. With an audience such as an intrigued businessperson who may not know much about labor unions, this article is perfect, short and direct to the point. The author uses a few non-rational appeals in his article such as a cause and effect strategy that leaves the reader feeling for the companies. For example, in many cases, unions argue for job stability in a community, fighting against company plans to reduce the number of employees, even through attrition. Company management often argues that this prevents the organization from keeping pace with technology, thus reducing their ability to remain competitive in a global environment while Unions argue that it is not about competitiveness but about Managements greed. They believe that technology reduces employees which reduces the income they receive from employee dues and making them less competitive (MacKechnie). This effective strategy plays with our emotions and highlights the issue with the labor unions and management. The author does something similar to this when discussing each of the issues. The overall tone of this article is moderate even though the author takes a stance that there are issues with labor unions. He doesnt lean to far towards bashing either side of the story. However he presents the issue of the labor union and how it affects the company as a whole, which can be viewed as a bias. The author just wants to share some information and let the common reader know what is currently going on and how unions work and how companies are being affected. Although MacKechnie does a good job introducing three key issues with labor unions in his article, I think that in order to really be of more assistance he should include

Duffy 5 more issues. Also providing a little more detail into each of his issues would be helpful. Overall this entire article was helpful but much more could be included. I would have appreciated more examples of the positives and negatives of labor unions as well as more length and detail would do wonders for this article because the author does a nice job of putting everything into perspective and simple, easy to read terms. Overall the author, MacKechnie satisfies most elements to be a credible and useful source. He has the education and experience to both talk and write about this topic. He provides the reader with a main idea of what hes going to discuss then provides support to this idea and lastly he analyses what is said. This strategy is very effective and the reader can easily pick out each part. Aside from needing to include a bit more information, I am pleased with this article and all parts of a rhetorical analysis are included and are easily visible. Works Cited MacKechnie, Chris. "Issues With Labor Unions." Small Business. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. MacKechnie, Christopher. "Christopher MacKechnie." About.com Public Transport. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.