It was late at night in Jamaica and I was ready to return home after a relaxing week vacation, however to my dismay I would find that my flight would be delayed. You might think this was due to inclement weather or perhaps technical difficulties, but no, it was because the staff went on strike. This strike resulted in my flight being delayed by 18 hours. Everyone was furious, not only would we not be able to go home, but we would also have to miss work, school, etc. Unions impact the lives of people across diverse demographics, from blue-collar workers, to white workers, to students, to stay-at-home moms, and even retirees. Do unions have a positive or negative effect on the economy and a person's human rights? Even though my experience with unions was not so pleasant, I still support them for all the positive effects they bring. Through my research and analysis on unions, I have examined one side that says unions have a positive effect and the other side that conversely says they have a negative effect. From all the data collected I deduced that the positive aspects of unions significantly outweigh the negative ones. In this article I will first define unions and how they operate. Secondly, I will explain what happens when unions are not present. Then I will describe how unions promote and protect workers' rights. Next, I will explain why unions are necessary for a middle class. Finally, I will explain why unions are productive in a democratic government. Before you can form an opinion about unions, you need to understand how they work. Unions are organizations of wage workers in a specific field who lobby their specific interests…middle of paper…by collecting millions in small dollar donations from members (Sachs 152). When money has such a large impact on government, it is good that the middle and lower class can be represented through unions. This gives them a voice in a government where they would otherwise not be heard. Unions have had a huge impact on decision-making. Unions played a central role in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “As Representative Richard Bolling, one of the bill's primary supporters, said, 'We would never have passed the Civil Rights Act without workers. They had muscles; the other civil rights groups did not'” (Sachs 170). Furthermore, “labor was the most powerful source of pressure among supporters” (Sachs 170) to implement Medicare. It is obvious that unions play a huge role in giving voice to government for lower-middle class citizens.