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Unions can play a valuable role in large organisations where it is difficult to talk to a thousand people. They can negotiate annual pay awards with management, represent grievance cases, and explain and advise on complicated changes in employment or pension law.

That's what unions do. They can get money, they can get support, they can get manpower.

Unions, by and large, are democratic organizations with freely chosen leaders and policies determined by the membership. They concern themselves with individual dignity not only in their aims but in their method. We have no better example of what is worthy of emulation abroad than the workings of a good union.

Many people do not realize that where unions have bargaining rights employers cannot raise wages or improve benefit plans any more than they can reduce them without of the consent of the union.

The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

I sometimes think that unions don't understand that we live in a free society, and people have the right to not select union representation if they don't want it.

I believe if an individual wants to join organized labor and work under a union contract, they should have the legal right to do so. At the same token, a person who does not want to work under organized labor and wants to work should have the ability to do so without the threat of having to join and having to pay dues to organized labor.

Private unions, such as the UAW, is a choice between employees and employers. If that is what they want, then who am I to say you can't have it?

There is nothing that says unions have a God-given right to be there. We have to work at it and make ourselves relevant to every section of the workforce.