Unions produced the middle class

Unions produced the middle class

Kudos to Chuck Altiero for his response to Bill Johnson’s Sept. 4 column about how unions are costing us jobs.

Unions gave us better working conditions, better wages which made it possible for us to buy homes, buy cars, buy better clothing, vote for school levies, police and fire levies and pay higher tax increases. Unions are what made the middle class, which made us the great country that we are.

Now the answer is to lower our standards down to the standards of the slave labor countries. Why do we see unions as the problem but not the companies that are actually the ones who close and move to other countries for cheap labor? These are our neighbors and families that they are putting out of work that actually buy the products they are selling.

Yes, we do need the so called “job creators,” but they also need us, the buying public. When they take from us, we take from someone else. We all need each other to do well for all of us to do better, but it seems as though the CEOs feel they are they only ones that count.

Joseph Lenefonte, Youngstown