Abstract
Trade unionism is an old concept and unions exist for very good reasons. In work environments where the safety of workers is tenuous and the motivation for profit is high, coal mines or steel mills for example, unions create an essential set of checks and balances that mediate the sometimes competing forces of individual rights and protections of many, against the profit motive of a few. I am not sure these forces always compete detrimentally but, most assuredly, sometimes they do.
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