This agreement could never be fair. Management has hordes of resources at its disposal that can be used to fight workers against improving their conditions. Workers cannot afford the type of representation a company has. Moreover, in an economy with a poor job market, you are bound to find someone to work a given job no matter how bad it is. This does not mean that the given wage is fair, you are simply taking advantage of a deficiency in the system.
You are also neglecting the fact that many of these manufacturing jobs pay a wage that is typically barely enough to support a family. What's to stop management from suddenly cutting workers' pay? Even in the presence of unions, many workers are forced to "grin and bear it" when certain changes are enacted, because they cannot afford to stop working there (their family would go without). In a market with no union protections, management would be free to jerk workers around at will... when the market goes a little sour, they could just lower pay, some workers would quit, others would stay and pick up the extra available hours so that they could still get by, and the company would do fine. When the market improves, management could advertise positions and temporarily raise pays in order to get more people working there. This may seem fair from a supply-demand economics perspective, but when you're talking about the lives of the workers who are not far from poverty, a slight change in pay leads to a dramatically different quality of life. Unions help to deaden this "yo-yo effect" and make the condition of the worker a little more livable and realistic.
You are also neglecting the fact that many of these manufacturing jobs pay a wage that is typically barely enough to support a family. What's to stop management from suddenly cutting workers' pay? Even in the presence of unions, many workers are forced to "grin and bear it" when certain changes are enacted, because they cannot afford to stop working there (their family would go without). In a market with no union protections, management would be free to jerk workers around at will... when the market goes a little sour, they could just lower pay, some workers would quit, others would stay and pick up the extra available hours so that they could still get by, and the company would do fine. When the market improves, management could advertise positions and temporarily raise pays in order to get more people working there. This may seem fair from a supply-demand economics perspective, but when you're talking about the lives of the workers who are not far from poverty, a slight change in pay leads to a dramatically different quality of life. Unions help to deaden this "yo-yo effect" and make the condition of the worker a little more livable and realistic.