Maybe I’m reading your post wrong, but are you saying you can fire people because they want to join/form a union? Because you can’t in the US, at least in the majority of industries.
And morals don’t apply to bussiness? Interesting…
Anyway, it is about morals. ** Shagnasty ** states that it’s not moral for “semi-skilled” workers to bring down a family company. Hence that he’s justified in using any dirty tricks to fire people. Actually, he “doesn’t respect” people who would do otherwise.
How do you know if the union’s demands are unreasonnable in this case? We don’t know the situation, but we know at least that ** Shagnasty [/b) has no scruples. So, why would you assume that the unions are to blame? Maybe they’ve extremely legitimate grievances against a management who has obviously no qualms when it comes to srew up workers.
Depending on your state you can fire people for alot of things, even this, especially if laid out as a condition of employment.
Not really, businesses exist to make money, period. If businesses did not then one of the primary incentives to create businesses goes away and much of our economy with it.
Plenty of times, what is moral coincides with the interests of the business. When it does not, invariably business wins, because without the business, nobody wins.
Dirty tricks hell, plenty of employees in any given business could be gone in a week just by tightening the screws a bit, documenting the people that are a few minutes late to work, a little slow, a little less accurate, so on, so forth. In ways it makes sense under threat of unionization. If I am suddenly confronted with a significant increase in my labor costs, I want nothing but the all star team.
It’s interesting how morality doesn’t matter only for the boss in these arguements. It’s OK for the employer to be utterly selfish and ruthless, but horrible and evil for the employees - the people who do the actual work - to want a fair share.
So, those of you who think morality doesn’t apply to business matters; if that’s true, why shouldn’t the workers be monsters too ? If morality doesn’t matter, why not just kidnap the boss’s kid and send him severed body parts until he agrees to a raise ? Why not just assassinate bosses until one of them agrees to your demands ? Why go for a product liability lawsuit, instead of firebombing his car with him inside ?
Morality applies at all times; not just off the job. Otherwise, we’re just a bunch of savages, and might as well act like it.
Hey this train door button is not working, I better get out the manual to figure out what to do…After 5 minutes or so… Found the page… OK, lets see, step one make sure the train car has power… OK have to find that section… Another 3 minutes go by…
They can’t make management accept any set of terms. Neither can management make the union accept any set of terms. The MTA couldn’t just start firing people becasue the union didn’t agree to its demands. What both sides can do is agree to drop one demand in exchange for another being met. I’ll give up the demand that you jointly support a new pension tier, if you agree that all of your members will pay x% toward their health insurance. That sort of thing.With NY public employee unions, if the two sides can’t come to an agreement, eventually an impasse can be declared, which gets the mediators in. However, the two sides can continue negotiating for months or even years, during which time the provisions of the expired contract are still in effect. Some unions, like the TWU, have binding arbitration. Others may eventually go down the road of legislated conditions.
No. Not in the sense that Shagnasty is talking about. What is a morally acceptible wage? Business is a voluntary agreement between two or more parties. Both parties try to reach a common ground that maximizes both their benefit.
A businesses job is to make money…period. An employees goal is to make money…period. Whenever people start going on about “morality” or “loyalty” in business, it’s usually because they didn’t get their way.
There is a point at which you can push someone and then at some point they will push back, illegal or not. And don’t forget that the company still depends on the union to actually do the job. They don’t have to strike, but they can certainly do a half-assed job. “oh that broken switch should keep the N-R line down at least…a week…maybe two.” The union can make things just as difficult for the company.
In fact, it’s probably that very attitude that led to the strike in the first place. Usually, negotiations aren’t about “let’s see how much I can screw the other guy” because both sides know they need the other. That and the relationship, for better or worse, is going to continue for a long time and both sides know they will eventually need a favor from the other.
Well the obvious answer is that these activities are illegal and counterproductive. You could kidnap the boses kid, but then you would go to jail and your raise would be moot. Or maybe the boss hires protection and goes after you.
These kinds of activities are not unheard of in your more lawless business environments. Quite often it’s how organized crime gets started.
But what if I shake your hand…likewise?
Which is my point. People seem to forget that morality exists for a reason. The hidden assumptions of people like Shagnasty who promote the whole “ruthlessness is good” idea are that the other side won’t retalitate in kind, and the other side will lose.
Sorry, but in my opinion, morals don’t stop where making money begins. Morals are independant on whether or not someone wins (that must not be “everybody wins” but rather “everybody besides the person wronged”, since acting immorally implies that someone has been screwed).
I’m sorry to be so old fashioned, and to think, in our day and age, that one doesn’t check in one’s morals upon entering one’s office building.
I’m sure that knowing that, there won’t be much support for people posting about being screwed up by coworkers, bosses, managers or employees. You’re there to make money, right? So, why wouldn’t you screw up your coworkers? Your customers?
People generally complain when other people have acted immorally, not when they themselses did so. That’s nothing new.
Apart from that, same answer as above : In what way “I’m here to make money” absolves you from immoral behavior? There’s no need to be moral as soon as money is involved? That would make morally neutral a lot of crimes, that’s for sure.
In France, this is called “zeal strike”. Do what you’re supposed to do, nothing more, and more importantly exactly what you’re supposed to do, and absolutely nothing less. Make sure you take your time while following to the letter every step of every possible procedure. Do not take the slightest initiative. If you’re in charge of sorting out invoices, act in the same way you would if you were in charge of launching a spaceship.
Find me a business owner that wants to be a union shop if he/she does not have to.
Since that isn’t going to happen the inital effort has to come from the employee to unionize.
Since unionization often threatens the solvency of the business, the business defends itself by removing those in favor of the union.
In many respects if we want to play morality games, you need more information. My onsite techs already are paid 5-10% above average for companies in the field and my employees decide to try and unionize for higher pay, who holds the moral high ground. Unions do not have some magical morality bonus just because they epresent the workers. It just taps into that robin hood mentality that many find so appealing.
I have already gone out of my way to provide better than average compensation to my staff because I want to attract better employees and I want them to value their employment. If they have a problem with my better than average compensation they can offically kiss my ass and they better run fast or the door will hit them in the ass on the way out. I already know they are not going to find any better in town. I didn’t decide on this pay package because it was the moral thing to do, I did it because its what I feel will create the best return on investment in my business.
It’s the classic Prisoners Dilema problem. If there is the expectation that one side will act ruthlessly, it’s not in anyone’s interest to act coorperativly.
I am not talking about crimes. I am talking about instances where companies undercut each other or pay employees less than they think they are worth. I do not consider that immoral. Hardball negotiations are not immoral. I do think what the MTA is immoral however because they are dragging an entire city into their labor dispute. Employees of Ford or General Electric have the luxury of striking. essential Government workers do not. You don’t like your job, quit.
I agree with drachillix. The unions and workers do not represent a higher morality any more than small companies are more moral than large ones. It’s like some crappy movie where the small resort/record store/ski lodge/golf course/whatever run by the funny, good hearted stoner slackers are the good guys and those mean old no-nonsense corporate guys who do it better and more efficiently are the evil bad guys.
Around these parts, it’s know as “work-to-rule.”
In English, we call it work-to-rule and it can be quite devastating. Enforce every rule to the hilt, drag your feet, never run a yellow.
Here in Quebec they have found a middle ground between no-stirke laws and allowing strikes willy-nilly. There is something called an essential services board. They decide, in the case of a strike of something called an essential service, what services the union cannot withdraw. Public transit strikes are not outlawed, but they are subject to rules that basically say they must provide rush-hour service. Say from 6-9 AM and 4-7 PM (I have forgotten the exact rules). This works well. The workers certainly have enough power to force a settlement, the public is inconvenienced, the workers are not completely deprived of their livelihoods and it seems like a reasonable compromise. There are some professions (e.g. nursing) where all services are essential. Governments are learning that nurses have another pressure tactic. Their feet. They are slowly but surely protesting their treatment by leaving the province. As someone else commented, you want good people, you pay them well.
However, as Asylum pointed out, “removing” (i.e., firing or penalizing) workers for favoring a union is generally illegal in the US.
If workers shouldn’t resort to illegal measures like kidnapping the boss’s kids to promote their bargaining goals, then employers shouldn’t resort to illegal measures like illegally firing union supporters in order to promote theirs. Sauce for the goose, and all that.
I have no objection to employers not wanting a union in their workplace, but they should confine themselves to taking legal measures against it—as you apparently do by offering your workers above-average compensation to make your non-unionized workplace more attractive.
Indeed it is legally mandated in New York State that essential public service workers cannot strike. A perusal of The Taylor Law will fill in the details easily enough.
It is beyond the so-called nuclear option, for civil employees. They are docked two days pay for every day struck. They are fined at the discretion of a Judge’s orders, and the Union itself may be fined at the discretion of a Judge’s orders. In the case of this recent MTA/TWU situation, the Union itself was fined 1 million a day for having allowed the members to strike. Since it was made common knowledge in the media that the TWU coffers had about 3.5 Million in them, the strike would likely last 3-4 days, because no matter how passionately an attorney may act, if the cupboard is bare, they pack up and move on to the next client who has not just gone bankrupt by dint of Judicial order.
The strike ran 3 days. The Union is not fiscally wrecked, but is darned close to it. The workers are back at it, and negotiations will move forward. The workers could strike again of course, but they would be lacking the funds to legally promote their cause. It is interesting to note that the International Board of the TWU ( the so-called “parent union” of the NY Local of the TWU) declared this strike to be illegal, proclaimed no responsibility for the strike and insisted that the workers return to work, since this strike was illegal. Doesn’t say much for the local Executive Board, that they threw a strike without the backing of their own International. This CNN article outlines the details. Scroll down to the graph entitled, " Union’s international arm doesn’t approve". My WAG is that they will not walk out again.
That’s when employers bring “work to rule” into play on their side. Puctuality, productivity goals and company rules become very important. Someone can be fired for union organizing, but on the paper work it can be “puctuality issues despite repeated counseling”.
We have an interesting situation in the town where I live. We have a paper processing plant that has been operating for over one hundred years. The workers are unionized and make between 20 and 30 dollars an hour. But the gravy train is grinding to a halt. The original owner sold the plant about a yeat ago to a “group of investors”. At the time of the sale, they spoke of not changing anything. That lasted about six months. Now, the group is exploring three options:
- Selling the plant to someone else
- Selling the plant to the employees
- Cutting expenses (i.e. payroll)
The town is holding its collective breath. If option one is exercised, the new owners could do anything…but the first thing they will do is cut labor costs if they expect the plant to make any money for them.
If option two comes to pass, the unionized employees will get a quick lesson in the effect of labor costs on profitability. We’ll see how long they’ll continue to bleed the cash cow in the name of solidarity. The way it has worked for other facilities, the employees give up five to seven dollars an hour to pay off the debt of “buying” the plant.
Option three is self-explanitory.
In all three options, cutting labor costs is the solution. In todays economy, workers cannot expect to make 30 dollars an hour to make paper when someone in Mexico will do it for five.
Ford, General Motors and the airlines are hemorraging jobs to pay for health care and pension deals that are the envy of many others. The evil Sheriff of Nottingham is beginning to run out of gold.
One final thought. The days of being able to make middle class wages with no skills are gone, unless you have a union to artificially inflate the wages.