[Toy Soldier]

Unions only have valued in skilled labour markets where the cost of recruiting and training a new employee and the lost productivity in the meantime is high. Unfortunately, most retail employees - if they chose to strike - can simply be replaced with young, unskilled staff with little loss of productivity. Compare that to something like docks workers or skilled labourers and its obviously very different... If they strike, it takes months or longer to train a replacement to an effective standard, and who would be training them? Also why flight attendants can be effective in strikes; if a plane isn't adequately staffed, it simply is not allowed to take off, and airlines can lose a lot of money very quickly. ASDA could replace 90% of their workforce over night and have them trained in a week. Basically, unionising in retail is worthless.