It was late at night in Jamaica and I was ready to return home after a relaxing week of vacation, but to my dismay I discovered that my flight would be delayed. You might think it's due to bad weather or technical difficulties, but no, it's because the staff have gone on strike. This strike caused my flight to be delayed by 18 hours. Everyone was furious, not only could we not come home, but we also had to miss work, school, etc. Unions affect the lives of people in different demographic groups, from blue-collar workers to white workers to students. , stay-at-home moms, and even retirees. Do unions have a positive or negative effect on the economy and people's human rights? Even though my experience with unions hasn't been as pleasant, I still favor them because of all the positive effects they bring. Through my research and analysis on unions, I have examined one side that claims that unions have a positive effect and the other that, conversely, claims that they have a negative effect. From all my data collected, I have deduced that the positive aspects of unions far outweigh the negatives. In this article, I will firstly define unions and how they work. Second, I will explain what happens when unions are not in place. Next, I will describe how unions advance 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 must first understand how they work. Unions are organizations of employees in a specific field that lobby for their specific interests...... middle of paper ...... gathering millions of small donations from their members (Sachs 152). When money has such an impact on government, it is good that the middle and lower classes can be represented through unions. This gives them a voice in a government in which they would not otherwise be heard. Unions have had a huge impact on policymaking. Unions played a central role in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “As Representative Richard Bolling, one of the law's main supporters, said: 'We would never have passed the Civil Rights Act without unions. They had muscle; other civil rights groups did not” (Sachs 170). Furthermore, “workers were the most powerful source of pressure among supporters” (Sachs 170) for enactment of Medicare. It is clear that unions play a huge role in giving lower and middle class citizens a voice in government..