Actually I could further and argue it goes against free association on some level. Just like how freedom of religion includes the right to be atheist. If you’re forced to associate then that isn’t free.
GM is numero uno in world wide auto sales.
You don’t get to be in that position by being an idiot. People choose their cars.
Yes, because all three tradition US automakers are in trouble. What’s the common thread ? The UAW
Ask the workers in the non-union auto manufacturing industry.
But that isn’t the issue here is it.
Sorry, but I think it is very much the issue here. This is basically a struggle for money. The rich corporatists want to keep all they can. The workers want to get all they can.
Working people struggled to have any sort of life at all until unions helped move them to the middle class. Corporatists want to be upper class even if it means taking thousands of dollars for hundreds of thousands of individual workers.
Sad - but is just the way it is. examples have been cited in this thread.
I’m sorry you’ve had that experience. I wasn’t there and I had nothing to do with it. Please don’t blame all unions, or all union members, for the few bad people you’ve encountered. Generalizations like that do no one any good.
If I hire you to be a secretary, and then decide that you also need to clean the bathroom, will you do it? Most people would say no, because that is not the job they were hired to do. Well, without that job description in writing, your employer would be free to fire you for insubordination.
Part of a union contract involves defining the scope of work of members of the unit covered by the CBA. This is done so that jobs are clearly defined. No one wants to do work which isn’t part of their job. No auto assembly worker wants to be called in to work in accounting, and I daresay that no accountant wants to find himself on the assembly line at the whim of his employer. Why is bad to have jobs clearly defined, in writing, and agreed to by both parties?
In the trade show industry, all the terms of exhibiting are clearly defined in the show book. If you don’t like the terms and conditions, you are free to not exhibit. Once you agree to exhibit, you are bound by the contract you have with the show producer, which will include the terms they have agreed to with the union. Is that a difficult concept? Contracts are binding agreements made by 2 or more parties. They are voluntarily entered into. Any contract which results because of coercion would be declared invalid by any court in the US.
We (my own union brothers & sisters) stop people from doing “our” work all the time. We not only have a contract that says that it is our job, we want to do that work. We would be remiss in our legal obligation to uphold our end of the contract if we did not stop people from doing our work. We not only agreed to do it, we are now legally responsible to perform that work. We cannot go to the Home Depot and bring back a bunch of laborers and watch them do it, nor can we allow an exhibitor to violate the terms of the contract by doing the work themselves.
Our job descriptions do not include scheduling, hiring, or process. That is in management’s scope of work.
Again, that is not a union’s scope. A union is legally bound to advocate for the people it represents, regardless of whether or not they are a member. In cases where a union fails to advocate, they often find themselves in such legal trouble that the local ends up without funds and unable to function. It has happened, and it can result in the dissolution of a local.
I’m glad to see some reasonable sentiment in the closing of your post. But a lot of what you want does not jibe with current contract or labor law.
I said it before, I’ll say it again: Unions do not seek to control businesses. Unions seek to make the endeavour pleasurable & profitable for all involved.
Again, anecdotes != data. Neither Bo nor I are saying we don’t believe them; we’re saying that what they encountered is neither prevalent nor SOP in union organizing and is in fact counterproductive in the long run.
As opposed to employers delaying secret ballot elections for as long as they can after a card check petition is submitted so they can take advantage of unfettered access to employees and work to undermine that support? One source I just found (but can’t again because I’ve looked at too many sources for this and lost track - will try to find it again) cited an average delay of 50 days between the submission of a card check petition and an NLRB secret ballot election. This source, however, cites a study that says unionization rates decrease 0.29% per day of delay between card check and NLRB election, which means that unions’ rate of success drops 15% over the course of an average employer-enforced delay.
You’re right; I misspoke because I misread this source:
Emphasis mine. 30% of the total eligible workforce isn’t enough to allow for direct certification under the Employee Free Choice Act but it is enough to initiate the process for an NLRB election (same as it is under current law). It should be obvious that 30% of the total eligible workforce is going to be greater than 30% of those who vote in an NLRB election, unless voter turnout is 100%. Same as 50% +1 of the eligible workforce - the amount needed under the Act to move to direct certfication - is going to be greater than 50% +1 of those who turn out to vote in an NLRB election.
I don’t have any proposals. I stand behind the Employee Free Choice Act.
The employers don’t see the cards. Only the NLRB does, and reports the results to the employers. But under current law, even if 100% of eligible employees sign cards, the employer can reject the results and demand an election. How is that even remotely democratic?
…and the worker is free to quit because he doesn’t want to do what’s asked of him. Freedom of choices in employment are not one-way. Employees have powers too (although they often downplay them.)
It’s not necessary because the worker is free to quit. I’ve quit for reasons of pay or undesirable work assignments.
It will all be anecdotes. There’s no way to objectively measure “Jimmy’s ignoring me for voting against the union” or “Suzie is delaying what I need from her for not voting for the union”. Walking around a union plant, it’s obvious what the message is. You see “United we bargain, divided we beg” and other slogans exhorting the need for cooperation among workers. Everyone knows the negative opinion of scabs. In short, if you are an anti-union worker, it’s not difficult to imagine a possibility of retaliation. Even if that retaliation is only imaginary, it still can exert a powerful influence. I see no reason why anyone should be subjected to that.
I’m incredibly dubious of that source. That number appears to come from a single paper written in 1983 for Harvard Law Review. Now, I have nothing against the Harvard Law Review, but their strength isn’t exactly gathering union statistics. Often times, when you see one cite cited over and over again, especially one from a irrelevant journal, it is done so not for exemplary methodology, but because it yielded the result people wanted. Besides, that page you linked to does not do a good job of accurately depicting facts. For example, it says:
The reasonable read of that is that there are 42 million employees that want union representation. However, when you look at the cite, it is a different story:
Neither of those is what traditionally is though of as a union. By traditionally, I mean an organization that will negotiate for wages and other employment related issues on behalf of the workers. Simply put, they grossly misrepresented what the cite said to the point of dishonesty. I have no confidence that they did any better in proving the number that you cited. Since my access to 1983 volumes of the Harvard Law Review is rather limited, I can’t check for sure.
As for 50 days for an election. That isn’t a long time, and seems entirely reasonable to me.
Ok, that makes sense. So how are employers supposed to retaliate against union supporters if they have no real way of knowing who they are?
Because the card check lacks a fundamental aspect of modern democracy, and that is the secret ballot. There is always some doubt in an open ballot why people are voting yes. They could be fearful of retaliation, they could be fearful of what their coworkers would think, they could have been visited by an organizer at 8 am on a Sunday and signed because they wanted to go back to bed. With a secret ballot, there is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that the way a person voted is 100% because that’s what they believe is best.
That’s not even what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about whether or not the Employee Free Choice Act will result in greater intimidation of workers by union organizers in order to get cards signed. That is objectively measurable and in fact forms the basis for any company’s complaint to the NLRB in their efforts to nullify a card check.
Regarding your criticism of the Harvard Law Review’s accuracy - please explain the difference between their description of a union:
and yours:
because it certainly seems to me you’re both saying the same thing.
If there were equality of access for both the company and the union then you might have a point. But that equality of access simply doesn’t exist.
They’re not.
Card check systems were used in union recognition long before the secret ballot elections were. Of course, back then (1930s and 1940s) the unionization rate was over 35%, obviously not a pleasant prospect for the employers. With the secret ballot process at their disposal, the unionization rate is now around 12%. So yes, the secret ballot process works - just not for unions.
I have a problem with this. Union advocates will tell you that it is wrong to fire someone for attempting to start a union. The company is saying, in effect, “stay out of the union or lose your job.”
However, (if I understand it right) if 55% of workers want a union it is (by law) put into effect. You are forcing the other 45% to join the union or leave. You are saying, in effect, “join the union or lose your job.”
If there are laws keeping someone from being fired for attempting to join (or start) a union then there should be laws that protect non-union members.
22 states in the US are RTW (right to work) states, and a worker cannot be forced to join a union. This means that even if a union wins an election and is certified as the CBA (collective bargaining agent), a worker will still enjoy all the benefits of union representation including pay rate, benefits, dispute arbitration, etc. should they choose not to become a union member. They will not be able to vote on contracts or vote on union officers, but the union will still be legally obligated to advocate for them.
RTW laws are state laws, not federal. RTW laws vary from state to state, so its best to look them up to see what the law is wherever you happen to reside and/or work.
The only thing that measures is intimidation reported to the NLRB. Obviously a worker can’t go to the NLRB and say “Suzie is ignoring me” or “Johnny is stonewalling my work”.
I don’t really see how you don’t see this, but here it goes. A union collectively bargains on behalf of their workers. It seeks to negotiate pay, job descriptions, hiring/firing, and other aspects of the employee/employer relationship. That is completely different from an arbitration system or an employee representative to management. In this case, no collective bargaining is implied or necessary. There is no reason to think that these people want, for example, their pay to be negotiated collectively on their behalf by the union.
That’s correct simply because the employers are paying the employees for their time. If the union wants to plunk down 20 bucks an hour, I’m sure they could get just as much time as the employer.
Ok, so the whole point of this isn’t avoiding employer retaliation?
Ah, I see. You don’t care about the fairness of a system, you simply want a system that benefits unions as much as possible. That explains a lot.
Ok, but that means in 28 states Deeg’s objection still applies.
They also did things like hire thugs to ‘discipline’ those that wanted out or otherwise disagreed with the unions. That discipline included murder on occassion. For an example, Ben Sakovitz and George Wallace, who were in the employ of a Marine,Fireman,oiler,watertender and wipers union murdered George Alberts in 1936 at the direction of the union VP.
We may want to keep those decades out of the discussion. 
Over all I’m happy with the RTW as stated above except the part where unions are legally obligate to represent non-members. If that is true then I would want that part removed in my state.
Sakovitz and Wallace were not told to kill Alberts, only to beat him up. Murder was not directed by a union official. Still reprehensible, but I prefer facts. cite
Bringing up an incident and then saying you want to keep those decades out of the discussion… well, that’s not exactly a forthright debate tactic, and the point you may have been trying to make isn’t exactly coming across when you infer that the purpose was murder when that isn’t the case.
Oppression & murder under the color of law is, IMO, much worse than vigilante actions, and history has recorded far more, and far worse acts committed by employers against workers and/or unions than vice-versa, to wit:
[ul]In 1927 striking coal miners in Colorado were attacked with machine guns. 6 miners were killed. cite[/ul]
[ul]On March 7, 1932 police shot and killed four Ford workers who protested in a march calling for better pay and working conditions.[/ul]
[ul]In 1934 2 striking longshoremen were killed by San Francisco Police. cite[/ul]
[ul]In 1934, 1300 Ohio National Guardsmen were called in to disperse strikers. 2 people were killed and over 200 wounded. cite[/ul]
[ul]On May 26, 1937 workers rallied against Ford in “The Battle of the Overpass”. Walter Reuther and three other labor organizers of the UAW were severely beaten by Ford Service Department guards near the Rouge Plant for distributing union pamphlets. cite
[/ul]
[ul]On May 30, 1937 during the “Little Steel Strike”, police shot and killed ten demonstrators in Chicago. cite
[/ul]
I can bring more massacres, violence, threats, murders, and assaults commited by businesses, often with the aid of government forces, to your attention if you’d like to continue trying to play a game of one-upmanship on this point.
You’re last statement is probably accurate: you may want to keep those decades out of the discussion.
I know that my union has no problem with the concept. Any time we can help a worker settle a dispute, better their working conditions or just generally make their lives better, we are happy to help out. It helps them, it shines a better light on us and our efforts, and it shows that we live up to our ideals: Live better; work union.
Sorry I forgot to link to this eyewitness account of the March 7, 1932 Ford Hunger Strike Massacre.
Also, 5 people died, not 4.
My apologies; that post took a lot of coding.
I was in a hurry (on my way to school) and mixed up a few facts in my mind. I was actually thinking of the MFOW treasurer who assisted one of the killers in his attempt to flee the country. The original directive was to beat him up. Sorry about the mixup. (This is what I get for trying to recall 70 year old cases in a hurry! I should have waited until I had references handy)
Both sides did reprehensible things in that era, there is no denying it. My main point was that things were done rather differently in that period and comparisons of union member rates then and now don’t really mean much.
I don’t see the point; after all, anecdotes != data.
“The other side does it too” isn’t a very compelling justification for intimidation. Nor is “they weren’t trying to kill him, only seriously injure him.”
Truly, you do not see the point.
Nowhere in any of my posts will you find any attempt to justify violence or intimidation.