American workers desperately need unions or something like them. Maybe a trade association like thing would be better and more modern.
That said, my impression of unions has always been that they are corrupt. With unions, Johnny Stompanati and Jimmy the Weasel are stealing your pension funds. Without them, the company you work for is stealing your pension funds. Shitty situation to be in.
I have seen anecdotes like this, usually in the context of “here’s something that happened to a friend of a friend of mine…”
Can someone offer independent, ideally somehow documented, confirmation that events of the nature described above actually do take place?
One story a friend of mine gave (about a friend of his) was that a worker and his manager were docked a day’s pay because the manager picked up a screw off the ground for the worker. There was some other guy that was supposed to do all the lifting that day or something. This never actually happened, right?
A Union doesn’t just say “you can’t do that” to employers. They enforce a contract that the employer signed. These contracts also spell out exactly how to get rid of a poor worker. It’s not a union’s fault that the management can’t follow the contract that the employer signed and document someone’s poor performance.
You need unions because without them the workers have to accept whatever management feels like giving them. I’d rather not have my children taught by minimum wage teachers, or have cut-rate firemen trying to save my home.
Think the union is the biggest threat to your pension fund? Ask the guys who Romney screwed over with Bain.
If you want an example of how management fucks its employees in the ass, look at those poor Ohio coal miners who were told to stand behind Romney and act as campaign props. And while they were at it, lose a day’s pay. All so the owner, who is a big Romney donor, can try to elect the guy who wants to kill Medicare.
Lo and behold, another beautiful example of liberals’ breath-taking arrogance.
Public-sector employees are paid by taxpayer money–which means that it is in fact the public’s business how much they are paid.
Lo and behold, another beautiful example of conservatives’ breathtaking inability to simply fucking read.
He didn’t say it’s none of your business how much they’re paid. He said it’s none of your business whether they form a union.
That’s more due to changes in trade policy than anything else.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps non-union members are underpaid?
They’re forming a cartel to monopolise the supply of a resource he is required to buy. That’s his business and, for any other resource but labour, a felony.
It’s quite possible that if you didn’t have a union, they would have proposed raising them ALOT more, simply because they could have. Knowing they couldn’t get away with it, they didn’t propose a very big increase.
Wow - a flat union dues rate makes then criminals?
This is where you lose credibility.
No. You’re not a multinational corporation.
You could get an appropriate-sized loan from the govt. though, such as a student loan.
Something I’ve never considered before…
It’s a protected right, rather than a felony, because the comparison between huge corporations amassing enormous power and nearly powerless individuals trying to make a decent living is absurd. Unions give employees a voice and some power to get a fair share of what they help to produce (and who turn around and use their wages to buy the stuff they make). Unions are the reason we have a middle class.
What’s the resource you have in mind?
What? How?
Or is it like vaccination, where the organized labor movement is so much a part of the background, its successes so integrated into the culture, that the benefits become invisible while the perceived costs are clear?
As for the question: I suspect part of it is that at one point – and probably still, to an extent – organized crime discovered that ostensibly unionizing workers was a good cover for extortion, which affected how a lot of people thought of unions.
And among union-eligible workers, at least here, organized labor doesn’t seem all that unpopular.
And you think Unions have caused this? California has been hurt by housing prices dropping, the drop in employment all around, mismanagement and outright corruption in City governments…and you think the cause is unions?
Because of the 13th amendment, with or without unions, employees are allowed to quit. So, it isn’t like employers can “get away with anything”. If you don’t like how you’re being treated, quit. If your skills are difficult to replace, that is a significant lever with which to limit employer abuses. This is essentially how it works today with engineers, programmers, lawyers, and professionals of all stripes. I fully think that teachers belong in this class of labor. They should be given the autonomy to do their jobs as they see fit, and promoted or let go based on merit.
As far as unions go, considering “the ability to quit” is the employee’s main weapon, I fully support the right to bargain collectively and to strike. Maybe employers aren’t worried about losing their best welder, but they should be worried about losing all their welders. However, I disagree with things like “closed shops”. It shouldn’t be illegal to hire non-union labor. If your union is so good and beneficial, you shouldn’t have to force people to join it.
I also disagree with the focus on seniority. Do unions try to give people the idea their laborers are interchangeable cogs? Because if Bob is the man for the job, it shouldn’t matter that Jim was hired six months earlier. It seems to me that focusing on seniority is like telling employers “Our top priority is NOT quality of work, but rather procedural bullshit”.
But then you get to the freeloader problem.
If a worker can get all the benefits of the union without joining, why join? The problem isn’t that the union isn’t “great” it’s that getting those great benefits can be had without joining.
If there were a way to exclude workers from the benefits, such as paying them at a lower rate if they aren’t a member, then your suggestion might make sense.
Sometimes they are interchangable cogs, and management knows it and the workers know it. Do you really want an elaborate performance evaluation system for garbage men? Do they get more credit for how jauntily they lift the can?
Yeah, I agree Unions have helped the little guy, I agree the power of the masses is less than the wealthy. But Unions still manipulate a market. That isn’t allowed for other things. Why for unions?
Why couldn’t they? I would think, if I were an employer, “I can’t underpay Bob Union because everyone will strike. But I can pay Joe Scab as little as possible and only have to worry about one guy quitting.”
I suppose Joe still reaps the benefit of all that on-the-job safety. How much of that is due to unions versus OSHA though?
Fair point. Maybe seniority makes sense in cases like this. I was mostly thinking about teachers, but then I think they should be professionals, not union laborers, as I said before.
I definitely think somebody has to look out for the old guys though. I’ve seen far too many people laid off at age 63 just so the company can avoid paying a pension. Of course that’s why I think pensions are a bad idea that should be eliminated.
On the other hand, if I’m a better pipe fitter than the guy who has been working twice as long as me, why should he get paid more? If people are worth the same, pay them the same, if not, don’t. Makes sense to me.