opinion of mandatory union dues......

[Gabu]

The problem is that anything a union does for the employees makes the lives of all employees better.  If you make payments to the union optional, you'll get the usual free-rider problem, in that people will eventually figure out that if they stop paying money to the union, they'll still reap the benefits anyway, and the union will likely be woefully underfunded.

Of course, for those who oppose even the existence of unions themselves, this is not a problem, but creating a union and then making the payments to it by the employees entirely optional is just bad planning.

[Gabu]

gabu, put the kool-aid down, i believe youve had too much.

I'm not arguing in favor or against unions; I'm only saying why it is that if you're going to have a union (which presumably would mean that you believe the union will help the employees), then there is no rational reason to make it optional.