Michigan is now (thankfully) a right to work state. This means that people can be hired without worrying about it being a union shop. The union used to have e

Michigan is now (thankfully) a right to work state. This means that people can be hired without worrying about it being a union shop. The union used to have effectively a monopoly on labor at many sites here. This is no longer the case. It is not propaganda to state very basic economics here. You budget X for a years wages for your team of N people, on average paying them Y = (X/N)/12 per month. They form a union, and demand a wage increase of delta per person. So, now, you are paying Y*(1 + delta). X hasn't changed. Number of months in a year hasn't changed. What can possibly change to allow the company to do this? N. The number of people employed. So yeah, you can get fewer workers more money. What are you going to tell the folks who were let go, in order to make room in the budget to pay this? This is where politics starts rearing its ugly head, and you see people referred to as "evil capitalists". You know, the ones who know they can't really raise X, without directly materially impacting the companies bottom line. Their choices are hard. 1) let people go. 2) raise prices. 3) report lower profits (assuming profits), or increase debt to cover. Which of these 3 options would you pick? In recent years, thanks to globalization, a 4th option has opened. 4) move work to a lower cost locale. It is not rocket science to understand that this has been what has been happening since the early 90s. Now with the push to 15, as it is sometimes called ... the $15/hour minimum wage, a new option, thanks to tech, is opening up. 5) automate as much as possible, and reduce the workforce to keep costs low. So, in all those nice locales where the wage is being pushed to 15$/hour, companies are exploring how quickly they can automate those jobs out of existence. None of this is propaganda, all of it is reality.