Because the employer has signed a contract with the union which delineates the scope of work that he will utilize union personnel to perform.
If that scope of work happens to include putting out props and/or scenery for rehearsals, then a union worker needs to be called in to perform that job.
You aren’t suggesting that an employer or manager break the terms of the contract, are you?
Best answer so far?
In the big 3, unions act as part of management. They do not protect workers at all costs. They confer with management when discipline is needed. Often they can save a job, if a worker is willing to make changes. They have rehab for drugs and alcohol, if a worker has a problem.
If the company is acting in bad faith, in the unions view, they have lawyers who fight for the worker.
I would suggest that no employer sign such a ridiculous contract in the first place. I mean, nobody is holding a gun to his head and he can still go on and produce the show, right?
Well, in the scenario we had above, he’s already signed a union contract.
But sure, if he doesn’t mind unskilled, untrained, unreliable stagehands, he can produce the show without union stagehands and take his chances with whoever he can hire.
You’ll find, tho, that many people investing time and money in an enterprise of any kind want to hedge their bets on making their efforts successful, tho.
Patty, Broadway is Union. Practically everybody working inside the building is unionized, from the actors to the stagehands, dressers, musicians and ushers. Not to mention that the people who work for the venue itself, the “house” guys, are also unionized, and they’re not even on your show payroll.
If you want to mount a show without union influence, there’s off-off-broadway, I think my mom’s basement has some space you can use.
This is one of the reasons IATSE has such a strong bargaining position. If you want a Broadway show, you have to hire from the union. The union has the support of all the other unions that can shut down productions at a moment’s notice, so you can’t just tell IATSE to piss off. They’re well run, with skilled workers who are rather less desperate to be on Broadway than the actors. Anyone with an ounce of skill isn’t going to cross the union to work on your union busting show, because they want to get into the union themselves.
There’s also a lot of research which indicates that unionization in an industry leads to productivity gains - here’s one example. Now there’s obviously counter research, but the idea of unions being a drain on the productive capacity of industry is by no means a universally accepted one.
Missed the edit window to add:
Patty what is it about the terms you find ridiculous?
I think what we are highlighting here is the alleged “choice” that management has in signing the contract.
So either hire a union crew or throw your money away on a failed enterprise. That’s not much of a choice at all now, is it?
Several posts upthread are claiming that management doesn’t have to sign a contract, or if they did it was of their own free will. While technically true, the alternative is pretty ugly, wouldn’t you agree?
The term that prevents an idle bystander from performing some simple, mundane act such as setting up a few folding chairs. Perhaps if I have enough chairs to keep a worker busy for 4 hours, then that’s ok. But to pay somebody for four hours at union wages to set up a half dozen chairs? Yeah, that’s ridiculous.
It’s a fact of business life: unskilled workers = failed business; spoiled meat = failed restaurant, exploding automobile design = failed car company.
What exactly is your point? That it sucks that you have to actually make an effort to succeed?
People seem also to think it is OK for workers to have the choice of putting up with what management says, or finding another job. Somehow though it is different with management having the choice of accepting union terms (more accurately negotiating a compromise solution with a union) or finding other less skilled employees.
Really the choice for management should be going to some other country that isn’t unionized. The whole point of unions is that companies are dependent on labor and labor should be able to control it’s own supply for it’s benefit, just as the companies do for theirs. The way unions can actually assert that control is through the government, and the purpose of unions is to form a political bloc which government will cater to the way they do for businesses.
Well there is a difference there between craft and general unions.
Not really. The ability to perfom work is a craft in itself. Why is there a minimal standard for maintaining the supply of labor? I’m not suggesting that unions should be able to engage in monopolistic practices. Unions should be under the same restrictions as the employers as far as that goes.
The unskilled worker need protection the most. They are easily replaceable. So a company does not need them when there is unemployment. They can force them to work off the clock, do dangerous tasks and work all the OT they company wants.
A highly skilled worker can walk off and possibly get another job.
But craft unions and general unions have historically had very different tactical approaches. When you look at the development of British unions, the craft unions were very hesitant to request or support government involvement (hence the development of union voluntarism) in the UK. It was the industrial and later general unions which looked to government - their bargaining position was weaker because the employees could more easily be replaced, as there wasn’t the guild tradition at work restricting the inflow into the job.
What government involvement are people referring to? In America when unions were starting out ,the government was part of the suppression that was going on. Police and politicians were an arm of the corporations. Don’t be silly enough to think that has changed. The men who started unions were beaten and killed in public.
The Triangle Shirt factory fire gave an impetus to the obvious need to protect workers and provide a safe work place. It also spurred the newspapers to demand changes. We had a time when books and newspapers were concerned about the mistreatment of workers. That time has passed. All workers, union and otherwise are being creamed. Wages are dropping, benefits are being slashed, and any concept that the company will do their best to keep you working has evaporated. They will replace you in a heartbeat. They will export your jobs and enjoy doing it.
I’m not arguing in favor of any particular means of labor organization or government regulation. I’d favor competition in the labor markets. But labor should be able to organize freely, and have government provide the same type of protection for the labor market that they do for the employers. And we should require importers to prove that the crap they import is safe. They should be held to a higher standard because they don’t actually make the crap themselves.
If you want to talk about particular existing unions in the US, I could find plenty of problems with them. I could also point to some of them which are models of efficiency.
I was reading about the “transplant” auto mfgs. in the USA-firms like Hyundai, Toyota, Nissan, etc. These places are generally in southern states (“right to work”) and they seem to pay comparable wages as the unionized plants.
The big difference is the huge inefficiencies introduced by the UAW-you have to classsify everybody by what jobs they can do-plus you have the shop steawrds who get paid, but do no direct work. My question: given that the non-union plants seem to work well (and everybody gets cross-trained for different jobs), it seems that the non-union places are in fact better places to work. What is the attraction of a union then? I think it is crazy to shut a line down because a certain job guy isn’t available.
Tell us what happens when they stop paying comparable wages to the unionized plants. “Right to work” means take the benefits paid for by unions without contributing.
The attraction of the union is that only unions provide the political pressure to support organization of labor. Only a legal means of restricting the supply of labor will motivate companies pay decent wages and provide reasonable benefits for the labor market where supply has always exceeded demand.