Here’s a question I think may be relevant: what’s the largest non-unionized company, in terms of profitability, scope, and employee count? It strikes me that the larger the company gets, the more likely corruption and shady practices happen, so it might be important to the “non-unionized companies do fine” point. After all, this thread WAS started about GE, one of the bigger companies out there…
Audits at the company expense traditionally return the findings the company wants to see. Enron and WorldCom are not exceptions to the practice of audits, they are simply examples of companies who went so far beyond the norm as to fail under their own weight of dishonesty. I have participated (from the corporate side) in enough outside audits to know that most audits are intended to protect the corporation from internal theft, but do little to nothing to protect the shareholders and employees from institutional theft or corruption. Periodically, they wll turn up bad practices, but if the corporate officers provide a plausible explanation, the outside auditors typically drop the subject.
Fortunately, the majority of companies actually do try to run in an ethical manner (or, at least, to only bend the rules a little bit on the edges), so the failure of these audits to find real problems is not that serious. (Just as people tend to pay their taxes and follow traffic laws, with a little bit of hedging to their advantage.) However, external audits paid for by corporations are not known for actually discovering problems that later audits reveal.
Having unions does not add a “layer of bureacracy.” Unions (when performing the role of watchdogs) are not part of the bureaucracy. They are simply advocates for people who will be screwed by unethical companies. Self interest? What do you think the corporate officers act out of? Why do only they get to act in that fashion?
Andros
I agree. My point is why limit that statement to unions? The implication was clearly that only unions engage in illegal behavior. Could you not agree that management also engages in illegal and/or unethical behavior toward its employees?
I think you’re right here, andros. As someone who has been supporting unions and criticizing corporations on this thread, i still agree that some unions and union members have been, and continue to be, guilty of using illegal tactics against their employers and of failing to take the interests of their members into account. When they do either of these things, they should be called to account.
But at the same time, it’s rather easy to understand the reason that Frankd6 and others (including me) have chosen to focus on the iniquities of management. Just look at the very first words uttered by the OP:
Not only does the very first line, which is also the title of the thread, imply that ALL unions carry out illegal or, at best, unethical behavior, but the following sentences make a direct reference to the relative positions of workers and management within a company. Surely it is reasonable, then, to draw the OP’s attention to the fact that, in the union/management sphere, it might not be only the former that is guilty of unethical practices?
Of course, when such things are pointed out, Macro Man sputters:
Well, it’s quite a leap from the unequivocal statement “Unions = Fucking Extortionists” to the rather more moderate assertion that, hey, some non-unionized workplaces function just fine.
The funny thing here is that, in discussing the fact that so many US companies are non-union, he actually helps his opponents. Some companies are non-union because company executives have carried out strong anti-union policies that, in many cases, violate the law by effectively denying workers the right to organize. Wal-Mart is a prime example, and is currently the subject of class-action lawsuits for this and other violations of workplace legislation, including sexual discrimination in its promotions policies and forcing workers to work ‘off the clock’ by threatening them with the sack.
Now, although i and others have given examples of companies that do the wrong thing, i am NOT saying that every company acts this way. Unlike the OP, i am not saying “Corporate executive = fucking extortionist.” I have also searched the OP’s posts in vain for even a single example of non-union companies that “turn a profit, treat their employees with respect, and be good corporate citizens.” I’m not saying such companies don’t exist - i’m sure they do - but the OP hasn’t helped anyone here to find one.
And the OP also has a really simple solution for those of you who work for the bad companies:
So, instead of blaming corporate execs when they are being assholes, let’s blame the worker for not tucking tail between legs and going elsewhere. And again, the unsupported promise of all those ethical, non-union workplaces for the worker to run to.
Frankd6:
No, that was your inference. But I certainly don’t see that it was “clearly” Rick’s implication.
I hear you, and you as well, mhendo, but I think that Bricker is not the droid you’re looking for.
The value of a union is directly related to the corporate conscience of the employer.
If the employer manages with honesty, integrity and skill, each employee will feel important, appreciated, and treated fairly.
Even in the event of a bad economy or a downturn in the company’s financial health, the employee may still be loyal if he feels as though he’s been treated fairly. If he knows that the company is doing it’s best for the workers across the board, he’ll stay loyal. If he can look around to other employees within the company and to other similar companies within the industry, and see that everyone is doing about the same, he’ll stay loyal. If managers have included employees in the decisions that affect income, benefits and working conditions, employees will be loyal.
It’s a matter of trust, and of fairness and of powerlessness. These are feelings, folks. We’re human. If managers would understand that their employees’ feelings matter, that trust and fairness matter, they would not face nearly as much unrest among employees.
I am a professional and I work in a hospital. Some employees are unionized, others are not. The nurses are unionized. Not all of us approve of nurses being in a union, but it is a condition of employment. When the question of whether we need a union or not comes up (a continuing discussion among nurses), all we have to do is ask ourselves, how does this instituion treat those employees who are not unionized? How do the other hospitals in the area treat their employees? Does management have integrity, do they value their staff, can you trust them? Slam-dunk…the union stays.
Before anyone accuses my union of being the cause of increasing health costs, be aware that our wages are on a par with all the many other non-unionized nurses in the state.
Extorting: to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power;
My OP refers to the union practice of obtaining things through the use, in this case, of undue power, IMHO. I never said anything about illegal power. In fact, I’ve never brought it up in the entire thread, as a group of people should not be judged by the illegal actions certain individuals. It’s my contention that many unions, acting within the full limits of the law, are using undue influence to extort money/benefits/etc from the companies. The influence they legally have is often undue to them, and they use it to their own ends.
And I stand by my assertation: management should be under no obligation to provide you with certain levels of pay and benefits, just because of a union. This does nothing to undermine any stance on inhumane working condition, management abuses, or illegal activity from management.
After rereading my OP, I will concede that using the word extortionist does imply illegality. It’s a fitting word, IMHO, but is harsh.
How is union power “undue”? They are only in the company because management agreed to negotiate with them. There has been a steady string of legislation and court decisions over the past 30 years that have pretty well hamstrung the ability of unions to organize or to impose demands on a corporation.
If a company does not want to negotiate with a union, they need only stop–many are doing so.
BTW
This is one of the points that the union requested that GE simply help with, and GE claimed it would prefer to pass on the costs rather than assisting in containment.
GE gets no sympathy from me.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by msmith537 *
Good for you but you are just one person. As a union member (even as an involuntary one) would you be able to work extra hours if you wanted or would you have to follow union guidelines?
I can work extra hours (overtime), but due to union rules I cannot be paid for it. My supervisor and I have an arrangement where if I work any overtime I get comp time in return. The union would shit if they knew about this arrangement, but fuck 'em.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by light strand *
Lucent Technologies pink-slipped 56,000 workers and posted a $17 billion loss in 2001. The payoff for Chairman Henry Schacht: A $22 million package.
And don’t get me started on that!
Um, Andros and Bricker:
The last thing I intended to do was impugn my pal Bricker, whom I have great respect for. However, I will defend my initial interpretation of his first post in this thread.
He emphasized the illegal activities of unions during contract negotiations and asserted that this illegal behavior was why he couldn’t support said unions. I suggested that management was equally guilty of illegal behavior.
Since Bricker hasn’t responded in this thread, it appears that he’s no longer interested. That’s neither here nor there. Apparently my debate is with you Andros, so I shall attempt to support my position.
What relevance does anecdotal evidence of union misbehavior have to this argument? I can rebut your union misdeeds with tales of Mr. Burns’ headcrackers and strikebreakers crimes tit for tat. My point is that the assertion that “Unions do illegal things,” isn’t very persuasive.
I will grant you that, historically, unions have done things that are less than ethical. Can you tell me with a straight face that management has not? Can we not agree that both sides have had their lapses? Neither side is wholly innocent or guilty. Bricker dismisses one side of the equation based on their prior misdeeds. My point is that neither sides’ record is spotless (are they ever?) so each case should be evaluated on its own merits.
Are you suggesting that managment should be presumed to be correct? How do you support this? Also, much of the criticism against labor is based upon a perception of grasping, greed union members. How can you disparage organized labors’ attempts to obtain assets for itself and its members in the face of managments patent avarice?
Greetings from a two-campus adjunct lecturer and union agitator.
Campus 1: has a wall to wall unit, office hr. pay and medical benefit group insurance available to adjuncts, equity money, etc.
Campus 2: just got a separate p/t unit after 25 yrs. of nothing. One year of negotiations and still no closure on our first contract (I know, 'cause I was there for every meeting, and it’s all unpaid work, which makes me either a martyr or a fool, and I’m leaning towards the latter). Tomorrow I have to go to the mediation and see what happens.
Freeway flying adjuncts work extremely hard just to keep it together. I already have five classes. I could not possibly take on a third campus, or additional classes, the way some of my colleagues do, or travel in a huge Bermuda-triangle-like round trip of hundreds of miles a week. But that’s what some of them have to do to get by.
Oh, hell. I’m thinking of chucking it all to become a massage therapist.
We’ll see.
Addendum: I’ve been at this since 1990. Sure feels permanent to me!
I can’t believe that nobody has posted this link yet:
(sorry…I don’t know how to do that fancy)
I have a couple of experiences with unions. (And please note, f’gawds sake…yes, I know that there are lots of companies out there that are total assholes. But giving the argument that one cannot complain about unions because there are bad companies is ludicrous. If a company is bad, it’s bad…complain about it. If a union is bad, it’s bad…complain about it. Don’t fucking link the two).
First: way back when I was in college, I worked at a plant that built manufactured housing (read: upscale mobile homes). Because of the laws of the state of South Dakota, due to the type of business it was, you could not be forced to join a union. (more on that later). It was a strange situation…about half the work force was union and half was not. You could always tell who was a union member…they were the ones who would stand at the time clock and not punch in because it was 10 seconds before the whistle blew. I watched one guy who was nailing some 2x4’s together when the lunch whistle blew. He didn’t even finish driving in the nail, but just dropped his hammer.
Second…years later now and I’m working at Mileage Plus, the frequent flier program for United. Same town. Here, because of the kind of industry it was (airline), if the workers unionized I would have had no choice but to join or be fired. (That alone warrents a big “'scuse me???” from me. To me, that amounts to legal extortion…but I digress). So off I go to the “educational meetings”, which turned out to be nothing more than an extensive tirade about how United Airlines is lying to it’s employees about everything under the sun. OK, fine…standard tactic, I suppose…demonize your enemy. One thing that really concerned me was the use of what would be my dues to finance union political lobbying for candidates that I oppose. So I asked the coordinators about that issue. Their response was unequivocal: that the union was prohibited from doing so unless I agreed to it in writing first.
Really, says I. Then how about all those cases around the country where their union was being sued or had been sued for doing exactly that? I was shouted down, literally, by the union representatives and supporters to the point where I started to fear for my safety. (And don’t even try to charge me with over-reacting or being melodramatic to prove a point. You weren’t there…I started to fear for my physical safety) And the next communique from the union told everybody not to listen to United Airlines and it’s “mis-guided followers”.
What the fuck???
Hey, I’ll be among the first to admit that there are companies out there who will cook the books, pollute the environment, treat their workers shabbily, etc etc etc etc etc…
But the unions aren’t all lily-white, either. Which was the point of this OP, as you may recall Or in other words, slam the companies all you want, but be ready to admit that unions deserve some face-slapping as well.
And btw…I no longer work at Mileage Plus, due to no reasons related to their unionization. I met my Sweetie and moved to New Jersey, where I work at a terrific company making lots of money with excellent bennies (and just was presented with a $3000 cash bonus).
It’s non-union.
shit…I really gotta work on either coding right, or previewing…
I think you’re making way too much out of this, Frank. Upon re-reading page one, it looks like many of the initial replies were complaints about unions, in various temperatures of shrill. Rick pointed out that he disliked unions, and why. Then he moved on to another point.
Near as I can figure, that’s all that happened.
Now, I can’t argue his point, nor would I. But seriously, there are people being wayyy extreme in this thread, and I don’t see that Rick’s one of them.
Oh, and Toaster? That unions “aren’t all lily-white” was very much not the point of the OP. At least, I certainly see a big difference between “some unions need a damn good smacking” and “unions=fucking extortionists.” Don’t you?
Andros
“…I certainly see a big difference between “some unions need a damn good smacking” and “unions=fucking extortionists.” Don’t you?”
Oh, I agree with that entirely; especially now that I’ve gone back and re-read the OP. But I guess that’s part of the fun of the Pit…one gets to take a logical position and bend it all out of shape just to demonstrate one’s anger/frustration/whatever about a particular topic.
If we couldn’t that, this wouldn’t be the Pit. It would be GD. Think of all the Republican vs Democrat bruhahas in here.
As a union member, you get tickled in a lot of ways and you get fucked in a lot of ways.
The tickling: benefits, pay scales, strict hiring/firing procedures, pensions.
The fucking: stupid senority rules, outdated promotion regulations, lack of incentive to advance.
Overall, I prefer being in a union. But not by much. If I worked at a non-union business, I probably could have advanced twice as quickly as I have. Instead, they just bump up the next guy on the list, no matter how unworthy or incompetent he may be for the advancement.
It’s mainly the payscales that keep me there.
That’d be nice, but the working agreement negotiated between the company and the union determines how and when someone can be fired, and it’s usually pretty difficult for anything other than something really outrageous or illegal. (If it’s easy, you need a new bargaining team.)
And that’s fine, people need protection from arbitrary and capricious management, especially with something as precious as your job.
My main problem with the union concept is that everyone has to be treated the same – assholes get the same benefits and perks as quality employees. And if they’re assholes with seniority, they get more.