Well said. There’s nothing inherent to unions which requires retention or advancement of unqualified or unmotivated workers, and there’s nothing about union representation that forces unreasonable concessions from management.
What many people don’t remember -or just fail to consider- about onerous union rules and organizational oddities is that the strange ways unions operate now developed over long years of dealings with equally forceful company representation. Every union position meant to advance the interests of workers has been answered, over time, by innovations meant to protect the shareholder interests of the negotiating companies. This tends to produce tactics and traditions on both sides which would not be reasonable or appropriate in isolation from the negotiating environment, but which have good reasons for existing – or had at the time they were installed.
It’s easy to point the finger at union bosses looking to protect their corrupt fiefdoms and at self interested workers angling for high compensation & benefits in jobs that don’t require skills improvement or competition. But I say that where those stereotypes even exist (and they don’t, actually, in any significant quantity), it just shows that at some point unions reached some rough parity with corporate boards of directors (also vulnerable to parasitic behaviors among their members).
(My remarks are based on real life experiences circa 1986-1993)
I was amazed at how readily union negotiators were willing to trade head count for bigger raises. I think, in hindsight, those approved contracts would have furthered the long term best enlightened pro-union interests had they went the other way.
So if we are going to decry ‘union busting’, I think we need to at least briefly address the ‘anti-union’ conduct of some of the union hierarchy.
It’s not so much that they provide things that Federal and state law and regulations don’t. It’s that Federal and state law and regulations can be changed.
But does this apply to government employees? Not so much.
I’ve never been a big fan of unions, although like everyone else I acknowledge the role they played in securing various employee rights. However, once upon a time, my department wanted to give me a significant raise (they were having issues with employee retention). The union fought it tooth and nail, and won. I never got the raise, and eventually left for greener pa$ture$.
My grandfather was a railroad conductor in the early part of the last century, during the transition from steam to diesel. He often railed about how the union insisted upon having a fireman included in the crew for a diesel engine. The fireman’s duty was to tend the coal fire in the boiler. Diesel engines not having either a fire or a boiler, the fireman had nothing to do. He was paid a full salary literally to do nothing. This is the kind of crap that turns people off of unions.
Liberals only care about sustainability when it comes to certain issues (energy usage, crop growing) and not others (public union benefits, social welfare programs).
Until I show up at a convention center with union labor. Then I’m told I’m not allowed to move any of my own product. The only way to get it from my vehicle to my booth is to pay the union rate for the service. After being forced to pay 400 dollars to move a box 50 yards I hate the unions with the fire of a thousand suns.
There is plenty of room in between. Anyone that calls for unions being completely destroyed is an ass. At the same time any union that thinks it can demand anything it wants without repercussions deserves to be destroyed.
I’m president of my union local. Some of the stuff I read in threads like this one just makes me laugh. In January, I signed a contract that it took us two years to negotiate. There is not one single thing in that contract that management did not agree to. Not one. Any onerous contracts, unreasonable demands, etc. were signed off on by management in any union contract. Instead of blaming unions for being greedy, why are you not instead blaming management for being clueless and stupid? They agreed to those terms, you know.
That is one way of looking at it. Union workers may have pushed compensation too high, or that the private sector may have pushed non-union workers’ compensation too low.
It is surprising that all these collective bargaining opponents have no issue with the other side engaging in such.
Of course, union workers will generally have higher compensation than non-union workers. The same as corporations generally have higher profits than non-corporate enterprises.
I agree with this - the unions and labor in general made a horrible strategic mistake in agreeing to partial layoffs instead of across the board cuts. In general, a 4% cut in wages or hours, for example, causes less damage than a 4% layoff. In reverse, it is also better to remove hiring freezes before removing wage freezes.
That attitude is slowly starting to change. Germany’s method of using unemployment assistance to compensate all employees for a reduction in hours, as opposed to assisting those laid off, is showing to be very effective. Missouri has introduced a pilot program along the same lines.
Unions have the same mix of good, average and horrible policies and procedures that corporations and other businesses have. Both groups need tremendous structural reforms, but neither should be discarded.
Unions can be reasonable or unreasonable. Management can be reasonable or unreasonable. When both are reasonable, there is mutual benefit. When one or both are unreasonable, [del]penis[/del] trouble ensues.
(On a related note, one of these days I want to lead a consumer picket outside the RMT HQ and Bob Crow’s house, possibly carrying signs reading “Get back to work, you fat greedy bastards”.)
There are always exceptions. Unions also help counter compensation erosion in non-union industries.
Absent a counter-pressure, companies will attack labor costs. In the vast majority of cases, they have the bargaining advantage.
Yes, it’s quite possible for unions to grow very powerful. ANY organization has the potential to do so. Most especially for fast-growing organizations in the context of a political environment.
That’s why you make sure that the government is transparent and responsive and that the citizens pay attention. So that the intersection of these forces is monitored and balanced.
My 57 year old brother who holds tickets for machinist, millwright and welder was let go last year because the local paper mill ceased operations as a result of an unyielding union. The union was concerned that wage concessions would spread to other operations on Vancouver Island.
He was making $40 per hour plus benefits.
Sure, he got a nice severence. Sure, things were pretty peachy when he was employed.
But now he’s flying out to various mines and mills throughout Canada making $600 a day during their shutdowns. All this is non-union.
This could never have happened for him in the days 30 years ago when these jobs were controlled by trade unions and their hiring hall practices.
This is the kind of crap that turns anyone off. Same with $20,000 toilet seats. And examples like these get bandied about far more than the problems they represent occur.
Government workers make less than private sector when you hold education and experience constant. They do have somewhat greater job security and better benefits.
The real reason their compensation is a problem is twofold. First, government is rarely allowed to save for a rainy day. When that day comes and you have a shortfall, the search is on for scapegoats, when we should be demanding government that adequately budgets for short years.
The other problem is that government, just like the private sector, underfunds benefits. A corollary problem is that medical costs are increasing at double digit rates that cannot be sustained in the long run. Ultimately, unless those rates are brought under control, they will gut the entire economy. Benefits are a problem now because they can be made so politically and because poor management practices became common in both the public and private sectors.
Just out of curiosity, with all the labor laws we have in place, why shouldn’t a person be expected to advance on his own merit? Seriously. I’ve not been in a union, but when younger I cleaned bathrooms and managed to be singled out for a raise. I worked construction for a small outfit—with about zero skills to speak of—yet again received spot raises due to me trying to do my job really, really well. In the white collar world I’ve done the same thing. I don’t get wanting to join a union, as less you want to just skate by. I’ve managed without one. As have all my friends. so, it’s clear there far from necessary.
He’s a tosser, but from the point-of-view of his members he’s got them £40k+ for driving a train, plus decent benefits. That’s not a bad return for his salary.
Certainly it is a lot more effort for me, as an IT guy, to negotiate a 40-hour workweek and overtime (rather than “however long we need you, on salary”) than it would be a plumber or electrician. IT is one of the remaining areas where there probably SHOULD be unions to prevent that kind of behavior on the part of employers.