Labor Unions should be abolished.

I appreciate Pro's acknowledgement of his error, though I remind him that just because "the sources are found at the bottom" does not excuse a complete lack of attribution for direct quotes, and inform him that the use of a superscript would nothave been sufficient to attribute words that were not his own--that is what quotation marks are for. A note on my sourcing: My R1 has a source I did not attribute (listed as source 9, when there is no source 8). This was an error; I had to cut material when I trimmed the argument to fit the character limit. At the bottom you'll find the source, which I have still labeled as source 9 despite a lack of source 8. It's a graph. The assertion was never addressed, but I felt I should at least list the source as I had originally intended. I do not expect this source 9 to affect anyone's consideration of the debate. (There are also a few typos that are glaring to me, but it's too late for those). To final-rebut and close: Pro has made 3 major assertions in this debate. He asserts that Unions lead to higher prices for consumers, that they prevent the firing of clearly incompetent workers, and that they lead to job losses. These are his reasons for wanting to abolish labor unions. 2 and 3 (firing and job losses) have been rebutted and were never supported by Pro. Making unsupported assertions is not a valid way to argue; if you think unions lead to job losses, find some research which supports that. If you think unions prevent the firing of clearly incompetent workers, find some data which supports that. Because these are, or should be, facts. Pro advocates for the abolishment of unions based on these things that Pro claims happens; either unions DO lead to job losses, or they do not. We have decades of data. If you haven't seen the data, then how do you know that these factual assertions are true? Number 1, that it leads to higher prices for consumers, was rebutted in R1 and R2. As I noted there, it's not necessarily the case that unions cause prices to rise. Fedex vs. UPS would be a good example of that, in that UPS is more heavily unionized, but is still competitively priced to Fedex. Pro seems almost to have been unaware of the actual facts about the example he was the one to originally give. More importantly, even if it was true, Pro hasn't given us a reason why that's necessarily bad; as I noted, slave labor would keep prices low, too, but Pro isn't advocating that. Sweatshop labor keeps prices low--but we don't, as a general rule, approve of sweatshops. Pro has given 3 points in support of his resolution, and has not supported them in terms of facts, or philosophy. As such, I believe the resolution stands negated. I will say, as I have from the beginning, that there are improvements to the system, or even alternative systems altogether, that could be presented. I'm certainly not looking through rose-colored glasses; there are facts not here in evidence that could be used to demonstrate problems with labor unions, and can be used to discuss policy positions such as this one. Unfortunately, I urge Pro to do some research on this topic, and not just to find sound-bytes which support his position, but to find data for claims made from both sides. Perhaps his mind will change, perhaps not, but either way he will be more able to make his case if he knows more about the subject. Thank you to Pro for the debate, and I turn it over now to the voters. 9 -- . http://thinkprogress.org...