Labor Unions

My first post to GD; I hope it’s worthy.

I have started a new job and will soon be approached by a union representative and pressured- er, given the opportunity to join the Data Communication Workers Local 322 or whatever it’s called. I have previously worked in a shop environment for a major company that had a strong opposition to labor unions and always discouraged employees from signing cards if approached by a union rep. The reasons they gave us seemed like very good ones and I wasn’t too thrilled about a big chunk of my already tiny paycheck going towards union dues. Over the past ten years at that shop I have had the opportunity to chat with a couple hundred other technicians/laborers who came from all over, and of the ones who had previously belonged to labor unions, I can only remember one who was even mildly in favor of union membership. The vast majority had been union members at some point or another and said that the union never did anything for them but take their money. I am of the general opinion that no boss fires a useful employee, and both my former and new employers have an open door policy that allows escalation all the way up to the president or CEO if you aren’t satisfied by lower management decisions. They even have associate hotlines to help resolve heavy-duty issues that may arise in the work place.

The only other reason I can think of for being a union member is bargaining for pay increases, benefits and similar issues. However, the company I am newly employed with promises reviews & pay increases every six months, and already has (in my opinion) excellent benefits. The work I do is in great demand and I could easily get employment elsewhere if the company decided to lay workers off. I doubt I need to worry about that because (at present, at least) business is booming and they can’t hire fast enough to satisfy internal clients.

I have already met the union steward who works there and think he’s a jerk because of the way he calls certain non-members “John Scabber” or something similar. I don’t know enough about unions to make an informed decision, but I already feel like I don’t want to be part of an organization that would have him as a member.

So, what do we all think about labor unions?

The need for a union varies inversely with the ethical conduct of the employing entity. Where employers view and treat employees as valued human beings, essential, and integral to the health of the company, a union is an unnecessary and often counterproductive addition to the matrix. Where the employer falls into the false belief that current profits are the only matter of importance, a union is an essential element for the protection of people, from the cold calculations of bottom lines. The unfortunate facts are that needing a union can occur a lot faster than creating one can be accomplished.

National unions are far more than local unions, in size, power, and general purpose. They are also widely infiltrated by people with no more concern for the rank and file member than the employers they are supposed to monitor. Politics, and crime are rampant in national unions, and the original advantages of cross industry support of small craft practitioners are now less often real than pretended. You can seldom join a local union without becoming a part of a national union with which you might hold no concurrent interests aside from your local craft’s interests. You support the entire agenda of the national, whether it is your wish to, or not. Changing that requires the same amount of political involvement in union politics as changing public policy would in government politics.

So, the answer is, … It depends.

<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>

When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
– **Joseph-Louis LaGrange **

I’m in management (glorified data entry, really) and I envy the union members at my plant.

Their elected leadership has varied over the years from rabble rousers who always feel the workers are getting screwed, no matter what – to thoughtful, socially conscious folks who can actually see both sides and bring reason into the hottest discussions.

We do a wage and benefit survey every year, and the companies with unions stack up better in every category than those with no union.

If you’re working for a good company who’s treating its employees fairly, lucky you, but maybe it’s because of the union. I say join. Participate. Run for office or serve on a committee.

Sounds like you’re being pressured (however slightly) NOT to join. I’d be worried about that.

I work for a company that has some unionized plants and some not…we aren’t and our pay is higher than most of the unionized plants.

What most people don’t realize is they don’t collect dues until the contract is approved.

So it is the best interest of the union to get a contract.

But not nessecarily in your best interest.


If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
Harry S. Truman

I’m on the management side at a small manufacturer (~450 employees). A local union has been trying very hard to get in; both times, they’ve failed to arouse enough interest in a vote, and cancelled it to avoid losing, which would prevent them from trying again for a much longer period than with a voluntary withdrawal.

The first time they ran a campaign, many of the planned benefits were implemented more quickly than was originally scheduled, if they were scheduled at all. We also fired an incompetent manager and put a much better one in his place. Smaller structural changes were also made in response to complaints by employees. The union withdrew for lack of interest in a vote.

I’m of a generally lefty bent, but I’m glad we didn’t get a union. We’re a young, growing company, and the extra layer of bureaucracy a union would bring would hurt a lot. As well, the union typically picks the dissatisfied in a factory, those with the most to gain by unionization; unfortunately, those people are often the worst employees, who feel unjustly ignored or disciplined. Thus, the shop stewards wouldn’t be the best floor employees, who understand the operations of the company best and the necessities of business. They would probably be those who are one step from being fired for incompetence or a general inability to work according to normal standards, and see a union as protecting / improving their self-inflicted poor lot.

On the other hand, it was the union campaign that got those benefits for the employees; it was the campaign that got the bad manager fired; it was the campaign that got the most attentive ear of management for those complaints that were justified. While our employees aren’t badly off, and the company is generally good about having reasonable employment policies and good workplace conditions, the employees are definitely better off for having the union attempt to unionize the workers.

It seems the company has the best of both worlds: management doesn’t have to deal with the union, and the employees have the benefits without paying union dues.

What does that say about the necessity of unions?


Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.

I have never been in a union (other than with my wife…)

But I have a strong dislike for them. If I was in a situation where I needed a union to defend me…I would find a different employer.
I still believe that there is a strong tie with organized crime as well. Personal belief there…no proof.


Heaven…One to beam up!

If you have a choice, feel lucky. I have mixed feelings about unions, but states that are not right-to-work (you can have union shops where you must, according to law, join the union)enrage me.

Since you do have a choice, I’d recommend you not join the union. You will get all the benefits (if any) without paying dues, since the company is not going to be so crazy as to give preferential treatment to union members (otherwise everyone would join). Remember, the union is really just another kind of business - they all exist as ends unto themselves. The service they sell is sometimes valuable, sometimes not.

Do you live in a Fair Share state? In other words, are you paying part of the union dues whether you join or not? I was in that situation, where I was paying like 86% of the dues anyway, and didn’t get a vote. So I figured I’d pay the extra few percent and at least get a say in things. But if they hadn’t been taking anything, I probably would not have joined. This is a white-collar union, incidentally, and I think they spend more time doing harm than good.

There is no reason that peaceful honest people should be forbidden to bargain collectively, so long as all are volunteers. But likewise, there is no reason the owners of a company has any obligation to them, so long as they, too, are peaceful and honest.


“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler

Having spent much of my recent life in the rural SE, I’ve known a lot of people who could have really used a union. There are lots of companies out there that, when they know they have the upper hand, don’t hesitate to use it for all it’s worth.

That said, I’m not crazy about the existing structure of unions. For the workers, there’s no choice - here’s a union, take it or leave it - and that’s certainly not the way it should be. Why should workers be forced to support a corrupt union, or one that supports positions on political or social issues that are antithetical to theirs?

I’ve got a somewhat sketchy alternative in the back of my mind: everybody should be a member of a union, but each worker should have a choice of unions to join, with an ‘open season’ once or twice a year, the way large employers have for health plans.

Each union would be free to collect dues or not, as it was capable of justifying those dues to the members. If your union wanted to collect just enough dues for a once-a-year beer bash, and spend the dues that way, then great; if they provided health and other benefits beyond what the employer provided, and kept a kitty for strike insurance, that’s fine too. If you don’t like what your union does, switch to another at the next open season.

In my hypothetical scheme, one union couldn’t institute a strike; you’d need unions representing a majority of the workers to do so. (Unlike with health plans, there would probably have to be some restriction on the total number of unions at a given workplace, in order to make coordination of wage negotiations, work stoppages, etc. possible.)

Besides giving the workers a choice, this does a couple of other things: it gets rid of the stigma, in management’s eyes, of a worker being a union member, since everyone would be. (The accounting department would have to keep it confidential which union they were sending the dues withheld from your check, if any, to.) And there would be a union structure in place for each worker (albeit just a shell structure, for many) in the event that circumstances changed, and workers went from feeling that an active union was unnecessary to feeling a dire need of representation.

Right now, the hoops that have to be gone through in order to get a union certified at a workplace, and the advanced techniques that corporations have to prevent that from happening, makes the possibility of unionization a distant one, even for workers who really would like a union to back them up.

That’s my pipe dream. Like I said, it’s rather sketchy, and I have no idea whether it would be practical in reality. But since the current system doesn’t serve many workers very well, I’m surprised that there’s essentially no visible discussion of alternatives.

Lib - since you’re in on this discussion, I’d be particularly interested in your thoughts on the idea I just put up, if you have the time and energy.

While I’m sure such a scheme would be more acceptable than the current one, from a libertarian point of view, I’d still be interested to know if you considered such a system a marginal improvement, a fairly significant improvement, or what - and what problems you might still have with such a structure.

RTF, I think I see two problems with your idea. The first is minor, I would also allow employees NOT to be in a union. The second is more of a potential problem. Those unions would only be able to exert any force if they organized themselves, maybe as a Union Parliament, or Congress. That body (or even if it was just Union heads behind closed doors) would be easily as susceptible to graft and corruption as unions now. Also, how would that body react when threatend (I’m thinking economic shut down if threatend, eh?). All in all, it looks like the unions would be weakend, but become more universally organized. That’s just what I think of that.
As for unions in general, I agree with Lib.

Oh, and I hate closed shops.

Anyone know which states are Free to Work States and which are not?
I am in NM and I am pretty certian that it is a Free to Work state…

( I still say that Jimmy Hoffa is running the whole sha-bang)


Heaven…One to beam up!

Surgo - the unions would have to organize together to take any collective action, but my thought is that, with some of the unions being essentially shells, it would be hard to get them to be part of any serious collective organization or action in the absence of a compelling need.

And since a union that was particularly corrupt could lose all its members at a workplace (and go defunct) if the workers didn’t like what it was doing, I don’t see such unions, or combinations of unions, becoming powers unto themselves. It would certainly be more difficult than now for that to happen.

BTW, I’m not after weakening unions so much as (a) moderating them, and (b) ensuring that they’re at the disposal of their members, rather than the other way around. But I want them to be available when they’re needed.

With respect to moderating: if employees have a choice of unions, then if one or two unions are getting so greedy as to threaten the existence of the company, the workers have the opportunity to switch to other unions to keep this from happening.

On the more minor point of allowing workers the right not to be part of any union: by allowing ‘shell’ unions that might do nothing more than finance an annual keg party, I think I’ve gotten almost all the way there. But I would want an actual organization, with officers, in place for each worker, no matter how little it did. Why? So that if push does come to shove, workers know they has someone in particular to represent them. And again, to get rid of the stigma of being a union member.

BTW, I’d love to see some organizations that haven’t traditionally been involved in the labor movement to form affiliated unions.

For instance, if conservative Christians are irked that unions always support liberal social causes, why doesn’t the Christian Coalition or the Southern Baptist Convention start a union? (Either under my hypothetical scheme, or in the world as it is?)

I’d have no problem with a pro-life, anti-gun-control, pro-school-prayer union, if they provided even the most minimal organization of workers. It would certainly change the political terrain a bit, and change the rules of who’s supposed to be on whose side. And anytime you can do that, it’s for the best, in our calcified political system.

Surgoshan writes:

A wee bit of a misnomer here, which nonetheless gets under my skin (I went around on this point for years with my wife, a former shop steward).
A closed shop is one in which one must already be a union member in order to get a job. They were outlawed in the U.S. by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, and in the U.K., I believe, by some amended legislation during Thatcher’s administration.
A union shop is one in which one must join the union in order to remain employed (I believe that a grace period of ninety days is mandated by law). This is often (but incorrectly) referred to as a “closed” shop. Individual states are permitted to outlaw them (“right-to-work” legislation).
An agency shop is one in which a worker is not required to join the union, but must nonetheless pay union dues (legally, she must pay only that proportion of the dues that represent the direct costs of collective bargaining; practically, unions tend to say, “All the dues go to collective bargaining, and you can prove otherwise, if you think you can”").
An open shop is one in which a union is legally recognized, but membership or dues payment is not required of the workers.


“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”

UPDATE:

Today was the day. He gave me a cute little ID holder with the union logo on it and a packet full of discount coupons for rental cars. I was also informed that all associates here pay 100% union dues whether they are members or not. Supposedly, if I don’t join & refuse to pay, I can be terminated by the employer.

The monthly dues come to about 2 hours pay, which is not as much as I thought it would be. I’m leaning in the direction of joining…

Many of the folks who oppose unions wrongly think that a collection of laws protect employees from random firings and on-the-job injustice. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a contract and a union to back it up, you are “employed at will.” The law protects you from being fired for your sex, color, and in some states, your sexual preference, but your boss can legally fire you for being a Dodgers fan, having green eyes, refusing to work 16 hours in a row, laughing at the boss, or simply being there when your boss is in a snit. In my state, if you are unfairly fired, you may sue for unemployment compensation, but get your job back? Forget it. You say you were fired to open up a spot for a gal from the boss’s circle of friends? It’s legal.
Do you work for a perfectly reasonable boss? Fine; maybe you don’t need a union. There are a whole lot of psycho bosses out there, though, and a union contract comes in handy when you have to deal with them.


AskNott

All too true.

AskNott - I notice from your profile that you’re a factory worker, which is one of the more unionized sorts of labor. If you don’t mind my asking, what has your experience been with unions? Do you feel they’ve served you well? What sorts of problems, if any, do you have with the current system of worker representation by unions?