# Unions for White Collar Professionals **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 27, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497 "2009-04-27T14:01:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/81 "2009-04-30T14:56:46Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > No, you can’t - but you _can_ train him, in-house, and in a few weeks (maybe months), you’ll have a competent welder. Not brilliant, perhaps, but good enough for most work. On the flip side - it takes seven years of post-secondary education (college and law school) to produce an attorney, plus the bar exam. This _isn’t_ something you can replicate in-house. And that’s just to get someone who is legally able to practice law - for most people, it’ll take a few more years on top of that to become really good at what they do. What about commercial pilots? > [@Ruminator](#): > > “pinning one’s hopes on unions” means structuring one’s lifestyle around the propped-up wages negotiated by the union vs the true world labor price. > > Here’s the pattern of trouble, you get a job that pays $40/hr. A union gets organized and negotiates $60/hr for you + pension + health benefits + free parking, etc. etc. What exactly is “world labor price” anyway? How do you calculate the going rate for a given job? Does it vary by region, by nation? If a company has been paying its employees 60 dollars an hour for twenty years, you might think it was par for the course. > [@Ruminator](#): > > Now, you “build” your life around that $60/hr income instead of the $40/hr you’re really worth. People have a tendency to spend virtually all of their income … therefore, the size of their home mortgage, the size of their car payments, and the balance on their credit-cards are all built on that $60/hr income. Thats because nobody who makes 100k a year for ten years thinks they’re worth any less. Why would they? If you make that much you don’t forego the nicer house, in the better school district, to live in some 600 square foot shack in a crime ridden neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/82 "2009-04-30T16:37:42Z")
I guess no one around here remembers what it was like before unions. When I got my first job I met a guy whose first job was at Ford as a shit checker. There were no doors on the johns but in order make sure they were really not just taking a break ,they had people stand up so they could be sure they were crapping. The treatment in the plants was abusive and they could fire a guy at whim. It was dangerous and dirty work. But the manufacturers were making tons of money. Strangely t5he workers actually thought they were adding to the company . They thought a living wage was a good idea. But any one employee is replaceable. The only way they could demand safer working conditions and better wages was by unionizing and striking. The companies reacted violently beating and sometimes killing union organizers. It was a bloody and horrible fight. It made it possible for the workers to actually afford the cars they built. It was a huge boon to the overall economy. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/83 "2009-04-30T16:40:37Z")
The super important valuable white collar workers get killed in car accidents. They are replaced. They are all replaceable. They have no bargaining power. They could if they formed a union. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/84 "2009-04-30T20:17:33Z")
Here is another thought. Union dues seem like a form of taxes to me. I pay union dues, money I have to pay to belong to the union. The union then spends that money - sometimes to influence actions that will be to my benefit - often in ways that I think are stupid. To add insult to injury, unions themselves have been plagued by corruption, adding to the perception that I neither need nor want a union. Generally speaking, we don’t like taxes. We don’t like handing our money over to people who claim to use it for our benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/85 "2009-04-30T21:25:17Z")
There can be corruption in unions, but I’d say that is an exception to the rule. I don’t think of union dues as paying taxes, more like paying on an insurance policy. Very recently an article in my unions last contract with the company literally saved my job. Imagine 5 people getting laid off right before 20 people retired. Most contracts insure that companies will try to lose their workforce through retirement, before they start laying younger workers off. For all the reasons **gonzomax** stated unions are important. For job security and most importantly safety. I’m not trying to speculate on all possible white collar jobs. Generally though, I would say their jobs may be safer than your some or most blue collar jobs, no?. Could you imagine an electrical linesman being told by his foreman to forego any possible, perhaps time consuming safety precautions in the interest of time? A sewer/telecom/water foreman telling his employees to work in an unbuffered manhole? What would an employee do? Defy his boss, get fired. These days the law would be on his side, but he’d be going to court with no job to pay lawyer fees, challenging a company with cash. He’d have to provide witnesses, his fellow peers who might be disinclined to testify on his behalf for fear of reprisals. Unions are safeguards against such things. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/86 "2009-04-30T23:07:18Z")
> [@Bruce\_Wayne](#): > > There can be corruption in unions, but I’d say that is an exception to the rule. I don’t think of union dues as paying taxes, more like paying on an insurance policy. Very recently an article in my unions last contract with the company literally saved my job. Imagine 5 people getting laid off right before 20 people retired. Most contracts insure that companies will try to lose their workforce through retirement, before they start laying younger workers off. For all the reasons **gonzomax** stated unions are important. For job security and most importantly safety. I’m not trying to speculate on all possible white collar jobs. Generally though, I would say their jobs may be safer than your some or most blue collar jobs, no?. Could you imagine an electrical linesman being told by his foreman to forego any possible, perhaps time consuming safety precautions in the interest of time? A sewer/telecom/water foreman telling his employees to work in an unbuffered manhole? What would an employee do? Defy his boss, get fired. These days the law would be on his side, but he’d be going to court with no job to pay lawyer fees, challenging a company with cash. He’d have to provide witnesses, his fellow peers who might be disinclined to testify on his behalf for fear of reprisals. Unions are safeguards against such things. But on the last round of layoffs, a lack of union saved MY job. I was kept on despite lower seniority. I have no reason to want collective bargaining. I get paid competitively and well for what I do. My benefits package is good. And my job security is as good as anyones. Moreover, when I’ve found unsafe or unethical situations at work, there are people like the EEOC and OSHA there - and I’ve made use of the EEOC. Moreover, I didn’t have to pay lawyers fees or go to court - I just had to file with the EEOC and they made my problem disappear. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/87 "2009-05-02T21:25:23Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If some law/accounting/consulting firm announces that there are no pay raises this year and/or the pension or health plan is being gutted, and/or the workweek is being increased etc., what recourse does any individual have? Very little, which is why these things are happening all over the place as I write this. There is a reason that turnover in banking, accounting and consulting firms can be as high as 20%. Baring some overall market downturn, it’s not uncommon for people to jump ship as soon as bonuses and raises are announced. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > As above, I’m thinking of your regular worker in a white collar firm, lawyer/accoutant/programmer/management consultant/insurance underwriter etc. This guy is not any more likely to be management than a guy in a blue collar profession. Not true. In blue collar jobs, the machinists, line workers and other blue collar workers are treated as a separate employee class than management with little room to advance to those levels. In professional services firms like Deloitte or Accenture, everyone who is hired into the same track that starts them out as a low-level analyst and ends as a partner or managing director. It’s not guaranteed obviously, but that’s the major difference. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > People are not commodities. It’s not always easy to find a new position, especially without some serious discombobulation, e.g. relocation. Some people are and unions are more effective for those types of jobs. I can get any monkey to operate an injection molding machine or sit in a call center answering phones. Any individual employee can more or less be replaced on a whim. OTOH. Even low level analysts and associates at a consulting firm have different skills and experiences. This guy has an MBA, that guy is an expert in SAP, she has 5 year supply chain experience. And so on. I don’t want to be part of a union. Am I going to get a better deal being dragged along with 100 other middle-management mooks? ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497/88 "2009-05-05T16:32:50Z")
I also think there is more of an accountability at the white collar level. As a person who most recently worked at that level, I could see where a union would’ve helped me a lot, but a union must be effective. Often the payment of dues doesn’t get you any real benefit. If you are one of the masses this lack of benefit is sort of buried, but when you’re a white collar worker you can see the deduction and weigh it more clearly against it’s worth. It doesn’t even matter, it would be like them taking $5/month for a vision plan then saying the vision plan doesn’t cover glasses, contacts or eye exams. One would think “It’s only $5 but what is it getting me?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unions-for-white-collar-professionals/494497.md?page=4)