The ‘Catch 22’ of unions and costs

I was kind of shocked by Frank Manzo's column on Illinois workers rights in the Daily Herald of Oct. 5.

Mr. Manzo seems to promote Illinois workers’ rights and unionization as a plus in his article, indicating that unionized workers make more than workers who are not unionized. Mr. Manzo presents several statistics to support his views.

The thing that he does not present is that any product that gets manufactured has costs associated to creating the product, which also include labor. The unionized shops, in order to pay the higher wages in their shops, need to charge a higher price for their products associated with the union costs. These are the costs that consumers must pay for.

These costs include the higher wages for the unionized workers, and the costs of the union overhead.

We all pay for these higher costs when we consume the product manufactured by unionized labor. The Catch 22 rationale that Mr. Manzo presents just does not make any common sense.

Dan Blum

Arlington Heights