Sorkin: It's Hard to Name a Successful Unionized Co.

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The Morning Joe crew was bashing on unions this morning, when the NYT's Andrew Ross Sorkin, a guest, declared:

"Name a successful unionized company. Think. You're going to go to [commercial] break before you come up with one. And that's the problem."

At that point, I expected the union workers in the studio to drop a rack of lights on the cast. Was the rest of the cast's acquiescence in Sorkin's broadside a concession that

NBC

is not a successful company? Poor Jeff Zucker.

..................

In response to Andrew Ross Sorkin's

declaration

that it's hard to name successful unionized companies, readers offer the following candidates (we'll be refining this list -- so send us your entries):

UPS

Kroger

Southwest Airlines

All

six major

Hollywood studios

AT&T and Verizon

(I think all the telecoms qualify as successful and unionized, but we're checking)

Costco

(not entirely unionized, but that gets at another issue, which is how many companies have important divisions or subsidiaries which may be heavily unionized, while other elements of their business are not)

CSX

, BNSF, Norfolk, (the nation's other major railroads also remain profitable and heavily unionized)

Caterpillar

(not exactly union friendly and many labor disputes over the years, but not union-free yet)

Anheuser Busch

(pre-merger they were profitable and had significant union presence)

Safeway

(.pdf)

Exxon (the profitability of the major oil companies is clear, and they are unionized at least within their

refinery operations

)

Alaska Air

US Steel

(yes, they did make a profit)

NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL

Boeing

Disney

(still profitable in 2008)

GE

Kraft Foods

General Mills

General Dynamics

Harley-Davidson

Dow Chemical

Lockheed Martin

Merck

News Corp.

Kimberly-Clark

Consol Energy

MeadWestvaco

Kellogg's

Hershey's

Pepsico

Peabody Energy

(

ed.note

: IBM was incorrectly listed here originally insofar as IBM itself does not appear to be unionized despite a long organizing effort from Communications Workers of America. We regret the error.)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009...ies.php?ref=fpa