Unions provide a trained workforce

The recent story about the construction industry’s difficulty in finding trained workers highlights the need for union participation in the workplace.

With all the demonization of unions, we forget an important part of labor history. Unions, for all their ills, provide decent pay and job training for the workers involved, while maintaining a level of competence that you often do not find in nonunion parts of industry.

Union workers work harder, smarter and more effectively than non-union workers. They are motivated to perform because they have real health care benefits, pensions maintained by the union, job-related training, including safety training, and the pride of doing good work for good treatment.

In a career of more than 45 years, with only 12 years in a unionized environment, I saw the difference unions make, both for the worker’s dignity and the value they give to the company.

Let us not forget that “right-towork” laws are really just the right to work for less money and no benefits.

Jim Koppelman, Delray Beach