How does a worker's union function?

Does a union typically wait until workers are griping, ask said workers to write a flood of letters to said union, and then said union just might take some action?

This sounds awefully whimpy to me. If this sounds typical, then I guess I thought unions were more proactive in the life and times of the worker bee. My question is specifically geared towards big issues which shouldn’t mandate such a flood of letters before the union “squeaks” up. Just wondering what other’s experiences have been.

In theory, the union is responsive to the workers, but they do their information gathering by a network of union reps who are workers themselves. The reps try to gauge feelings and listen to complaints directly, and report to the union officers.

However, in many cases the union officers are running things as they see fit, especially in a case where the workers have shown no consensus on an issue. In theory, the officers are elected to represent the workers, but it’s very easy for the status quo to become entrenched.


“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx

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It depends on the union, the industry, etc.

In a lot of cases, a few disgruntled workers start talking over lunch or something and decide that they’d have more leverage with their employer if they organized. They then go out and seek out a union representative to talk to (usually, they either contact the most logical fitting union, or else someone has a friend in a union shop elsewhere and contacts their union. That’s how you sometimes get wacky combos like the Communications Workers of America representing nurses or Teamsters representing teachers). A union representative will set up a series of meetings at a nearby restaurant or bar or at one of the disgruntled employees’ homes, and encourage the disgruntled employees to talk it up and get their fellow workers to come listen to the union’s sales pitch and ask questions. Depening on how flammable the situation is, the union might also start leafletting employees conspicuously or otherwise making its intentions known. The goal of the union is usually to get employees to sign authorization cards, indicating that the employees want the union to represent them. If the union can get a majority of these cards signed, it can either present them to the employer and demand that the employer voluntarily recognize the union, or else it can present the cards to the National Labor Relations Board and demand that a representation election be held.

That’s the tpyical model-- the kind of thing you see in movies like “Norma Rae.” Some unions will proactively focus on a particular employer, and seek out disgruntled employees there, rather than waiting to be contacted. (Often times, both methods are at work at once.) The construction industry, given the short tenure of most construction projects, operates a little differently. There, the construction unions typically train their members in particular trades like carpentry and plumbing. Since the union controls the supply of skilled tradesmen, construction contractors usually form standing affiliations with union locals. When the contractor is awarded a contract, it enters into an agreement with the union to use only that union’s members for the project, and the union send the contractor the requested number of tradesmen-- there’s never any union election.

Looking more closely at the question, though, it appears that you may be talking about a situation where the union is already in place. In that circumstance, the union collects gripes from its workers about unfair treatment on an individual or collective level, and takes action as it deems appropriate. If enough workers complain to their union steward (usually a fellow employee who assisted the union in its organizational effort) about a general policy, the union will negotiate with the employer about changing the policy, either during the next round of contract negotiations or immediately if the policy is amenable to being changed under the existing contract. The union will also take personal grievances to the employer for adjustment-- typically, almost every discharge of a union member will result in a grievance being filed by the union with the employer. It’s unusual that the union requires anyone to write a letter initially, since the union stewards usually work alongside the other members, and is usually aware of what is going on in the workplace anyway.

The unions also take it upon themselves to initiate proposals despite not receiving any requests from the employees about them, but these proposals are often ones to preserve the union’s own position, such as propsals requiring all employees to join the union within 30 days of hire or a provision allowing union dues to be deducted from an employee’s paycheck (instead of the union having to shake everyone down for their miserable $30 a month). And, of course, the union generally does its own research about wage rates in comparable industries to develop its wage proposals, without necessarily having to survey the employees to ask how much of a raise they think they should get.

Ummm… how’s that?

I just recently signed a union card and I’m told that it’ll take a month or two before I see dues being deducted. Yesterday I came in to find a four-page questionaire asking me to rate the following issues on a scale of 1-10 so the big boys would be able to fight for us when our contract comes up for renewal this fall:

Shorter wage progression schedules
Earlier retirement without penalty
shorter work week/shorter hours
Increased holidays
Increased overtime premium payments
New rules for due process
Ban on supervisors performing bargaining unit work
Improved ISP
Elimination of tests (or training to pass tests)
Co-determination of company policies that affect employee’s jobs
Paid clothing allowance
Job & employment security
Rights to privacy
Improvements in health plans
Improvements in sick leave starting 1st day of employment
Elimination of employee monitoring
Improved savings plan
Contractual rights to training
Elimination of all forced overtime
Upgrades
COLA
Pension improvements
Other benefits
Eliminate subcontracting
Improved working conditions
Base wage increase
Profit sharing
Child care
Employment guarantees
Make temps permanent
Less job pressure/stress
Better absence control

I am not sure what half of these things are, and how some could be successfully bargained for and enforced (who determines if your supervisor reduced your stress levels sufficiently?).

What I get from this is that at least they’re proactively fighting for us.

Many of the big unions have unofficial agreements that they will not try to recruit employees who are already represented by another big union. So generally your two main situations for union recruitment are unions trying to recruit a group of non-unionized workers and a small local union trying to recruit employees who belong to a big national union. In either event it’s generally the union not the employees who are taking the initiative (however usually it will be some individual employees who bring the matter to the union’s attention). The union will usually be passing around petitions and collecting signatures in accordance with whatever the local labor laws are. Eventually if there is enough interest there will be an election where the employees can either choose to be represented or not, or choose between different unions which want to represent them.

If a group of workers is already represented by a union, there will generally be a contract between the workers and the employer. The union will usually have negotiated this contract on behalf on the employees. The workers will have union representatives to whom they can go if they feel the employer is violating the contract. The union will then complain to the employer on the worker’s behalf. It doesn’t have to be a general issue, it can be a something that affects only a single worker.