I’ve never been a union sympathizer. They hold no special place in my heart, it being my belief that most everything that they were formed to accomplish is now largely goverened by legislation. Further, I have found via my flitting observations of them from a distance that the unions exist predominantly for the sake of promoting the interests of the unions. For the most part, I expect them to behave in ways that seem illogical, unreasonable, self-destructive and unseemly.
But this little story bugs me. I don’t know much about the music or theatre industry, nor their respective unions. Perhaps I’m missing something that I should know in order to be able to comment appropriately. But, why the hell are members of several unions picketing the Blue Man Group? If I understand, they are doing it because the Blue Man Group has thus far refused to become a “union shop” (does it work the same way in music and theatre?) and hire only union workers. There’s no indication in the story that the people who work at Blue Man have tried to unionize and their efforts have been quashed (a la Wal-Mart). There’s nothing to suggest that they won’t hire union members; to the contrary, the story states that other shows are a mix of union and non-union people.
So what’s the fucking problem? They’ll hire you! If you want to work there, and you’re qualified, and you’re willing to work for a wage that other similarly-qualified but non-union people will work for, you just might get a job. Yes…some of your co-workers won’t be in your little collective-bargaining-cult. God forbid.
I understand that unions aren’t going away. I understand that it is a fundamental right of labour to organize in order to (blah blah blah blah). I understand that if a particular workplace has unionized, then the company is going to have to bargain with the union. What I don’t understand is why they expect the company to bargain with the union when it’s not unionized. It’s not unionized! Your collectively bargaining superpowers have no effect here! You are an outside and uninvolved party to this business; you have no investment and no vested interest in this organization!
You actors and actresses have no goddam right to be picketing a company with whom you have absolutely no ties. Now get back to your respective restaurants…someone probably wants a refill on their water or to look at a dessert menu.
SK:What I don’t understand is why they expect the company to bargain with the union when it’s not unionized.
Because they are trying to pressure it to make an agreement with the union, similar to the agreements that most other producers and performance venues in Toronto have, as your link states. If the Canadian unions can cut an exclusive deal with Blue Man for their Toronto run, then more Canadian theater people will get work, which is better for the Canadian unions. Duh, right?
It’s just like soft drink companies pressuring for exclusive deals for a location’s vending machines or soda fountains, so that a location that sells Coke can’t also sell Pepsi, or vice versa. I’ve never understood why this sort of monopolizing tactic is accepted as simply a smart strategy when businesses do it, but angrily criticized as some kind of outrage when unions do it.
SK:You actors and actresses have no goddam right to be picketing a company with whom you have absolutely no ties.
Says who? Where’d you get the idea that people are only allowed to demonstrate against companies they already work for? It makes perfect sense for the Canadian theater unions to picket Blue Man in order to encourage theater workers not to work for them unless they make a deal with the unions. If Blue Man knows that not signing with the unions will mean they can’t get enough people who are willing to work for them, they’ll be much more likely to sign. Once again, simply an obvious business strategy. And according to your link, it may work, since Blue Man is apparently considering making an agreement with the unions:
SK:Now get back to your respective restaurants…someone probably wants a refill on their water or to look at a dessert menu.
You know, if you stopped to think about it, you might spot a connection between the economic precariousness of theater peoples’ careers (which is one of the reasons they so often end up “resting” in restaurant jobs) and their interest in pressuring major producers who are putting on shows locally to strike a deal with theater unions requiring them to hire more local people.
Unions, like businesses, are trying to negotiate the best deal for their product that they can get. I do not understand why anybody considers this an outrage or somehow illegitimate.
I angrily criticize the unions for doing it because they’re trying to make themselves the only game in town, whereas using your soda machine analogy I could just stop at the local covenience store and get what I want. Imagine if the Blue Man Group did that, brought their own people and told the union to suck wind. The union would be outraged! Why, that would violate their right to extort everyone that comes down the road into using their people and only their people!
Unions were once useful. In some places, like Wal-Mart, they still could be. But the vast majority of them are total, unmitigated bullshit, just a group of professional extortionists.
My wife is a member of Actors Equity here in NYC, so I understand a number of the issues going on in this industry, and can sort of get were they’re coming from, even though I’m generally anti-union. One of the problems with going non-union on Broadway is that so many shows open and close, that you don’t have much job security. As such, actors are constantly looking for work, and historically (pre-union) have been treated like dirt by producers because there’s always another actor out there who will work for peanuts to be part of the chorus. To combat this, they unionized and require any producer who wishes to mount a Broadway show to use union actors and other union laborers. This way, at least they get controlled working conditions (which can get really bad if not watched) structured pay scales, and benefits.
There is a lot of pressure to ensure that all Broadway and off-Broadway shows are unionized. Once union actors start agreeing to sign on to non-union shows that’s a significant break to the union. Shows can go non-union, offer lower pay scales, no benefits, and get good union talent, why would a show go union after that is established?
Airman, you honestly think WalMart needs a union more than theatre? You’re definitely out of touch with the market dynamic here. My wife, who’s been a union member for over a decade, and has worked a ton off-Broadway and on the road, has her slow times too. During one, she took a Production Assistant job on a Broadway show for no pay just to have a credit on her resume, make a contact or two and get more Broadway experience. Know anybody who would work for no pay at WalMart just to get some experience so they might get a job out of it a year or two down the road? Actors will take shit like you wouldn’t believe just to get their foot in the door, they need a union as much as any group of workers I know of.
ADUSAF: *I angrily criticize the unions for doing it because they’re trying to make themselves the only game in town, whereas using your soda machine analogy I could just stop at the local covenience store and get what I want. *
Sure you can; just not at the location that happens to have made an exclusive deal with one soda company or the other (and there are a lot of vendors that have such exclusivity agreements). Similarly, if you want to see a show in Toronto with non-union theater workers, you can go see something that isn’t the Blue Man Group in one of the smaller venues that don’t have union agreements.
You’ve still got choice, just not the choice you happen to want most. Just like somebody who wants to buy a Pepsi in a Coke-exclusive movie theater is out of luck. I can see why people feel annoyed at the thought of business negotiations restricting their choices, but not why they get so violently torqued about it in the specific context of unions.
It’s as if people believe that the only legitimate function of unions is to protect workers from being actually abused or mistreated by employers. Apparently, as long as the employer isn’t actually screwing the workers sideways, the union has no business trying to squeeze a better deal out of them. And leaning on employers for a sweeter deal for workers who are actually happy and prosperous—gee, that’s just outrageous, huh? But you’d never see these outraged people getting worked up about the fact that Coke and Pepsi try to negotiate sweeter deals with vendors even if their profits are already doing fine.
If you seriously believe that unions have no right to lean on businesses for anything except the basic protection of the most fundamental workers’ rights, then you’d probably be better off advocating for stronger labor regulation across the board by government and the elimination of unions altogether. Because realistically, it doesn’t make sense to expect that any business entity will refrain from using its bargaining advantage to negotiate a better deal for itself, whether that entity be a company or a union.
And that’s fine. Whatever happened to “whatever the market will bear”? If I’m looking for a guy to do something for me and he’s in collusion with his fellow union members so I end up paying the same price, where’s the competition in that? I’d rather hire the guy who wants the job and won’t try to gouge me on the price.
In addition, I’ve been a non-union guy at a union shop. Perhaps it’s just me, but in every single case where I have been in that position I have worked harder, because I don’t have the union covering my butt for every little thing that comes own the road. The people that worked with me were gold-plated, and it showed.
Give me someone who wants the job rather than a protected ticket puncher anyday.
If that’s what she chooses to do, then that’s the price that has to be paid. I can’t get my foot into any door in the field I want to go into, so now I’m back at school and working my ass off to pay the bills. That’s the price I have to pay. But don’t expect me to sympathize with people who think that they are the be-all end-all of skilled workers. “You’ll use us or you’ll use nobody” is bullshit in my book, and unions exist solely to protect their ability to say that. In doing so they protect their ability to extort their employers. Hell, some unions, like the baggage handlers union, are too stupid to realize that if they let their companies go out of business they’re out of jobs. Instead they’d rather make a statement about how strong they are by having a massive “sick-out”. If I were US Airways I would have fired them on the spot.
Unions suck, unless you’re in one. Then you love them.
The Coke/Pepsi choice is not equivalent to the Union/non-Union choice. Coke people and their sympathizers don’t picket you for daring to choose to serve Pepsi. Unions are, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly within an industry.
I didn’t see anything in the article about the theater having an agreement to only stage unionised shows. This is therefore not analogous to soda exclusivity agreements, since there is no agreement in the first place - the specific theater is irrelevant. The unions in this case are trying to enforce exclusivity in the whole of Toronto by using strong-arm tactics, not honest negotiation. In your example, it would be more like a soda company trying to insist on exclusivity at a venue, threatening to refuse to sell to the venue if its wishes were not granted. I would regard this as an abuse of market position in exactly the same vein as the unions’ actions.
In short, exclusivity agreements if voluntarily entered into between specific vendors are fine; exercising monopoly control over entire markets is not. This goes for corporations and unions alike.
I don’t think they can picket someone for that. If they just set up an ordinary picket line, with no better justification than ‘Coke is better, don’t drink Pepsi’ - most people would think they’d lost their marbles. If they tried to trump up some allegations (as unions have been known to do) then I’m fairly certain they’d run afoul of fraud or anticompetitive behavior laws.
Trust me here, these actors are not “protected”. The vast majority have something like a 6mo contract which are often not renewed at the end, and everybody loses their job when the show closes. Basically what you get from this union is a structured pay scale, work conditions, and health benefits (if you work enough during the year). Yes, there are crappy workers, but pretty much nobody gets to sit on their ass and punch a clock for their pay.
I knew someone was going to try to make that comparison. There isn’t one. If you can get a group of men to do a better job, go ahead. Ross Perot did it in Iran in 1979 to get his people out.
Furthermore, if I go on strike because I’m “underpaid” I’ll be severely underpaid for the next 10 years in Leavenworth. If my boss says to charge up the hill I don’t tell him to wait until I’m done with my coffee.
Not only that, but Coke and Pepsi make payments or price reductions to venues as the incentive to sign an exclusivity agreement. Unions typically have the opposite, a higher cost disincentive.
DB: * I didn’t see anything in the article about the theater having an agreement to only stage unionised shows. *
No, but the unions have such agreements with a lot of theaters and producers in Toronto, and that’s the type of agreement they’re also pushing for with Blue Man. I should have said “If Blue Man ends up signing with the unions, and you want to see a show in Toronto with non-union theater workers, you can go see something that isn’t the Blue Man Group at a non-union venue.”
I have no strong opinion on this union debate, but I eat in restaurants an average of ten times a week. The last time I ate in a Pepsi only restaurant was about five years ago, and that’s because I didn’t have a choice in where the business lunch was held. I also only stay on hotels that have Coke vending machines. QuikTrip gets all of my convenience store business, including all gasoline purchases, because they have bucked the system and sell both Coke and Pepsi products.
I don’t actively picket the people who want to force Pepsi on me, but they certainly get hit in the pocketbook. As small as the savings are for agreeing to serve only a single product, I’m not sure that they come out ahead by losing my business at a given establishment, and I’m probably not alone.
DB:In short, exclusivity agreements if voluntarily entered into between specific vendors are fine; exercising monopoly control over entire markets is not.
Well, how is a union in, say, an abusive sweatshop supposed to negotiate a better deal for workers, except by exercising monopoly control over the sweatshop’s entire labor market? The only time an employer needs to listen to a union is when the union can say “You can’t keep your doors open without my members, so you have to agree to my terms.” If there’s enough non-union labor available to fill the jobs, the union’s demands just get ignored.
Why do people consider this type of union tactic okay when workers are being seriously abused in sweatshops, but not when a union’s just trying to expand its power? Even if you do see a significant moral distinction between the two situations, how are you suggesting such union tactics could be regulated in practical terms, so that they would be allowed in the first case but not in the second?
My point Airman is that unions fight for worker’s right (ostensibly), it’s a big “no shit” some people don’t like it. You might not like it but they are necessary part of the social order, like the military.
(I wasn’t talking about a “violence monopoly” if that’s what you thought I was saying)
I feel the same about establishments that want to force Coke on me, and as you say there are more Coke-only places than Pepsi-only. The businesses are sure it’s worth it or they wouldn’t be doing it. My university, until now Coke-only, just signed an agreement with Pepsi, and I heard that Pepsi is giving the university $10 million over 5 years for the privilege.
