Unions workers over the last 20 years really aren’t paid any more than non union workers. The benefits aren’t any better either, especially after ACA made high cost insurance plans taxable income. If your management culture is bad, and your union is isn’t excellent bad things happen. Bergara was/is making better 700s than Remington for a decade. Not to mention the custom action makers. 700s became a commodity item. Remingtons answer was more/better marketing. This doesn’t even bring up their disastrous last 15 years in handguns. If you look at the last 40 years of Colt and think the union is the problem…they’ve had so many great products they’ve r&d’d that they’ve never released to the civilian market….
The Turkish shotguns undercut the low end 870 and various semi autos. Also the Italians came to dominate the high end of the market (duck and shooting sports.) The ammo business was probably by far the most profitable part of the company. Unless Erdogan does something outlandish, and Biden bans Turkish firearms, I don’t see a real path forward for Remington. The Chinese and Russian bans have been a godsend to the US firearms industry.
Union pay scale may not be the issue. Having five people to do the job of three, as an example may be the issue. Gotta keep the dues coming in. It is about money, it always has been and will be, directly or indirectly.
