I have never worked for a company that had a Union. Someone at work asked me about what they were about, if they would help us with some of our problems with management, etc. I have no idea and thought this would be the place to ask! Please let me know your opinion on the positive and negative aspects of workers forming a union.
Well, before this gets moved to GD or the Pit, I’ll throw in a start at an answer: It depends on the union and the employer.
(Disclaimer: I’m a long-term union member, but not deeply involved. It’s mostly because I’ve worked in publicly-funded places, which are almost all union shops in Canada.)
The general idea is that the employees negotiate a contract with the employer as a group, instead of each employee negotiating alone. This evens out the power in the employment relationship. Most union contracts explicitly cover pay, benefits, hiring and firing, and procedures for dealing with disputes.
Employees must join the union and have to pay dues. The union may take actions or support causes the employee doesn’t like, generally voted on at meetings. On the other hand, employees are likely to get better pay and benefits, and have some recourse if they feel they are being treated unfairly.
Employers pay more and are more or less restricted in how they can treat employees. On the other hand, morale may be better, and the dispute-settlement process may avoid employee bitterness and expensive court cases.
YMMV
Once again, without (hopefully) getting into GD territory:
Unions are more prevalant at larger companies. This prevents every employee having to negotiate his own work rules/payment for the job (if the company was inclined to do this, of course).If you hire on as a new mechanic/tire fitter/coal digger, you get the union negotiated minimum pay/work rules, which may be better or worse than you could do on your own.
Benefit to employee: I get a (hopefully decent) pay and benefit package by working at this company.
Benefit to the company: I only have to deal with the union reps rather than 10,000 individual contracts.
After these two aspects, it gets ugly.
Relations between management and labor vary wildly, and only you can determine how it is at your company.
It might help to know what type of work you are doing (because there are many job types that are unionized), or what company you work for.
Look into other people in your profession unionizing, or if anyone else at the company is unionized.
I’m a union organizer, so I may be a bit biased. 
That being said…
Basically, the idea behind a good union is workplace accountability. Management is held accountable to the employees, and the employees are held accountable to each other. Like bonezzz said, you vote on everything. You elect people from within your bargaining unit to negotiate the things that are important to you (pay, benefits, staffing levels, pension, children’s daycare or whatever). Once management and the neg. team agree on terms, the proposed contract goes before entire bargaining unit (the workers) to be voted on. A majority of ‘yes’ votes means it’s legal.
A bad union is usually led in the wrong direction by bad leadership. Sometimes leaders get power hungry, greedy or corrupt. They can make under-the-table deals with management. They can make stupid political deals. Etc. When this happens, it’s up to the membership to vote in new leadership. That’s the beauty of a union: you’ve always got a voice in how things are run. And as far as corruption goes: unions are much more regulated by the government than corporations, so it’s pretty hard nowadays to be corrupt in a union and stay around for too long.
But if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 1,000 times, a union is only as strong as it’s weakest member. One corrupt asshole or lazy jerk weakens the entire union.
My opinion is that without a union, if an employee has a problem, the manager can say “That’s nice, but I don’t really care.” With a union, management is forced to listen. At my last job (non-union), I recall a time when my co-workers and I had an issue that none of us were able to solve individually with our supervisor. So one day, 4 of us approached our director and let her know what the problem was. It was remedied almost immediately. This is an example of a collective action, which is basically the premise unions are based on-- numbers give you leverage.
I’m sure there will be some people along soon enough here to explain the downside of unions a bit better than I’m able to.
Happy
(disclaimer: I am a long-time management-type)
All of what rjk says is correct. I strongly dispute the point pilot141 makes that dealing with the union is easier for management than dealing directly with employees. I don’t think any management-type would agree with that assessment.
A few additional notes:
- In an industry which is union-free, workers make less than they would if they were unionized, but there are also more jobs than if they were unionized. Sadly, the $/worker * workers_employed is higher if the industry is union-free. So, if you unionize, you may be higher paid, or you may be unemployed. Sadly, it isn’t the bad workers that drop off the bottom, but rather those without tenure.
- If you’re a good, hard-working, ambitious worker, you’ll do better under a union-free system, as such people advance quicker. In a unionized system, such people are limited. On the other hand, if you’re not really ambitious, unions are the great equalizer.
- If management is something you’re interested in doing, your track to management will be severely limited in a unionized setting, because unions create (by design) a strong line between workers and management.
- If you are serious about all this, bear in mind that management types do not like unions at all, and if you try to start one and fail, you’ll find yourself jobless in a hurry. However, if you have the skills it takes to lead people and form a union, you could instead do the honorable thing and move directly into management instead.
I work for a large world wide company. Some of the sites are unionized and some are not. I think this greatly goes with the area of the US it is located in. Generally when management starts with threats of not paying for holidays if we don’t do something, etc people start heading to human resources. Most of the time this solves the problem. Recently though the manager in my area started going to human resources and trying to find ways around the system to make us work more hours (we already pull overtime), changing the way our raises are distributed, etc. Hopefully it won’t get out of control and we can continue to talk to human resources about what our concerns are, so that problems can get resolved peacefully. Do states vary differently on their union laws? If so, could someone provide a website or another resource where I could find this information? Thanks for your input so far.
I have always done blue collar type work and have been worked at union and non-union shops. Personally I prefer non-union based on my experience. Of course all companies and industries are different and in some cases a union may be better for employees.
I didn’t really like the ‘everyone is equal’ aspect, I work pretty hard and do a good job but I am equal to the guy who spends most of the shift goofing off and trying to dodge doing any work.
The protection from being fired unjustly is nice but any company that fires good employees will be at a severe competitive disadvantage. In my experience the union just makes it difficult for the company to fire bad employees.
Another disadvantage is some union employees insist on following rules to the letter even when it is completely ridiculous. At a warehouse I worked at the only ones allowed to do any physical labor where union employees, the only ones allowed to ask a union employee to do any work where the supervisors. The (non-union) security guards where responsible for keeping fire doors and walk aisles clear. If a security guard noticed a pallet blocking a fire door he would call the security office. The security office would page a supervisor. The supervisor would page me and then ask me to move the pallet. This would be procedure would be followed even if I was standing right next to the security guard to begin with. If this procedure was not followed there where several union employees that would complain. This is not some hypothetical example, I have watched this happen.
I am working at the National Labor Relations Board. Let me tell you Bill H is wrong in his last statement.
- If you are serious about all this, bear in mind that management types do not like unions at all, and if you try to start one and fail, you’ll find yourself jobless in a hurry. However, if you have the skills it takes to lead people and form a union, you could instead do the honorable thing and move directly into management instead.
If you fire a worker for attempting to organize, you will probably terminate your own career as management. You better be able to document that the worker was fired for reasons other than attempting to organize. (Violating written policy, incompetence, theft, etc.)
www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/home/default.asp
The NLRB website contains more information than you will ever need about worker’s rights under the NLRB act. www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/home/default.asp
Under Workplace Rights\Publications the document NLRB What it is, What it does it does is pretty good.
On the other hand, if you are a worker trying to claim you were fired **because ** you were attempting to organize, you better make darn sure you haven’t given management any other reason to fire you.
And as an organizer, we usually tell people the more vocal and public you are in the campaign, the less chance management will hassle you. This means appearing in campaign newsletters, wear buttons, etc. If you’re a good worker, and you’re public, and management fires you, you can file an unfair labor practice. It’ll be taken before the NLRB, and the first thing the NLRB will do is ask the person (or union’s attorney) how management knew you were for the union. If you can point to public statements of support, the employer will most likely lose the case.
Some additional negatives to working in a union environment:
Just like businesses, the union works primarily for benefit of itself. As such, union workers at one shop can become pawns in a union’s larger strategy. A strike at one plant may be planned to send a signal to other companies in the industry. A year-long strike is not in the best economic interests of those on strike, regardless of the concessions that come out of it.
A unionized business is less likely to survive over the long haul. In manufacturing, the forced categorization of jobs and tasks makes updating a plant expensive, difficult, and troublesome (compared to non-union plants). In the industry I used to work in, my company had seven plants: 5 unionized, 2 non-union. Almost all expansions and upgrades happened at the non-union plants. The unionized ones lumbered along with old, inefficient equipment. When the market for our products dropped, the unionized plants were the ones that were losing money, and one of them was closed. It turned out that in that business, the people at the non-union plants had better job security.
In the service industry, a non-union company will be able to supply more flexible (and therefore better) service than a unionized, and the non-union will be more likely to survive.
These last two points may be one of the main points that union labor has dropped from somewhere around half the working population to somewhere around 16%.
Old Goat wrote
Actually, I think we’re in agreement.
My point was that if you try to start a union, you’re painting a big red target on yourself, so you better be careful because somebody somewhere will be looking to get rid of you. Doesn’t matter what excuse they use, they’ll be watching and looking for an excuse.
Now for an additional bit that I’m sure you will disagree with… As I and others have pointed out, the big advantage to joining a union is if you are a sub-standard employee. If you’re below average, you can join a union and be treated as average, which is a step up. If you’re an exceptional employee, you would never want to join a union, as you’ll be limited in how quickly you can advance, and therefore will make less money than you deserve, have less opportunity than you deserve and receive less respect than you deserve.
So, the person who’s most interested in seeing a union formed is the low-performers, and because they are low-performers, they typically have other reasons they can be gotten rid of.
And if you’re a high-performer, why would you want to do something that would eliminate jobs in your industry, reduce the quality of the product you build and create a divided, non-inclusive work environment? If you have the skills to lead people, do something meaningful with them; don’t do something destructive like form a union.
Disclaimer: by being a non-union employee at my large multinational corporation, the union guys think of me as managment, so take what I say as you will.
Most of what everyone says above is dependant on perspective, and not even wrong given a perspective. Even being non-union myself, I do believe in the fundamental rights of unions to exist. But gosh darn it, my experience with among the biggest unions really, really makes me abhor the abuses. So I’m decidedly anti-certain-unions.
Unions are definitely mostly state-regulated as far as limiting unions. For example, some states are “right to work” states, meaning you have the right to work without being forced to join a union. Of course “right to work” is a euphamism for “non union.” In some states you have to join the union and pay the dues; these are union states. Some states, like Michigan, don’t require you to actually join the union, but you’re still obligated to pay union dues and fall under the terms of the union negotiated contract. There’s no practical difference in not being in the union. I guess it’s just to say, “hey, I’m not in the union.”
In my industry the domestic corporations are 100% unionized. The “foreign”-based-on-US-soil competition generally is not. What’s really, really cool is the employees and the company get the best out the unions without the hassels of a union. For fear of the union, the employees get treated fairly, make decent money, and have great benefits. Management has the flexibility to run their corporation according to their business needs. Everyone wins. I work for a domestic manufacturer, with an AFL-CIO affiliated union. Everyone wonders why we’re losing money in our US plants, but the most basic root concern is the absolute inability to be flexible to any degree whatsoever. Our Canadian plants, though, have a different union (they broke apart in the '70s), and they remain more flexible. Our Mexican plants are unionized too, but it’s a government union, so they remain the most flexible, and consequentially among the most profitable. And these are guys earning well above a poverty wage.
I’ve had the opportunity to visit some of the competition’s hybrid union/non-union plants – one in Ontario has represented skilled-trades, while assembly workers are non-represented. This seems to work super-great for them.
Unions first developed because of a fact of life: humans with power often become corrupt humans with power.
This truism came to a head with the rise of the industrialized Western nations in which a relatively few people owned the capital and means to create large corporations. With large numbers migrating to the cities, there was fierce competition for jobs. The corporate bosses could then say, “I’m going to pay you just one penny a day for a twelve hour back braking shift in unsafe conditions, and if you don’t like it, there’s a poor slob next to you who’s starving to death who’ll be happy to take it.”
At the time, goverments were disinclined to protect the worker. And so, the workers had to protect themselves by unionizing. Then, with the threat of strikes, the workers could then say to the bosses, “How about a fair salary with decent hours in a safe work place or else no one’s going to work here and you’ll loose everything.”
Once you get to the mid 20th century, you now had unions protected by government. The unions themselves became as large as the corporations, some of them were international conglomerations of local unions with huge bankrolls from all those dues-payers. Having a lock on the work force, union leaders could now take their turn being corrupt (remember the truism). And so, some unions and union leaders became involved in racketeering and other forms of organized crime. And they were able to negotiate terms which straitjacketed the company’s ability to be competitive.
By biting the hand that fed them, many unions put themselves out of work and tarnished their image as the salvation of the worker.
Ideally, corporations should treat workers well enough that their is no need for unionization. And if there is need for unionization, the unions should only look for reasonable pays scales and sufficient job security without forcing the employer to become a welfare provider. Mutual accountability with flexibility.
Vote for me to be king of the universe, and I’ll make it so.
Peace.
That’s a great wrapup of the history, moriah.
As I said above, the benefits and problems of unionization depend on the attitudes of both parties.
The inflexibility of job roles that several posters have mentioned is a good example. Strict differentiation of jobs and rules against crossing the lines commonly arose from management hiring people into low-paid jobs and then expecting them to perform the duties of higher-paid employees, without offering the higher pay. Some unions reacted by refusing to let workers do anything but the specific duties thay were hired for. Stubbornness on both sides just hardened both positions, and we see situations like the pallet story.
On the other hand, if both workers and management agree that the organization is there to meet a common goal, and that the best way to do it is to cooperate, then we can see an environment where workers have the benefits of a union, and management have the flexibility they need.
Ten years ago, I worked at a print shop south of Seattle. The management cut its own deal with a local union: All the employees were represented by CWA, dues paid by management. Upside, the shop got to put a little “union bullet” on thingsit printed, to the delight of local democrat politicians who had their stuff printed there. Downside, the union was toothless and did none of the things a union is supposed to do in a labor/management dispute. I got fired about two months into working there (My training is in one type of printing, they did a totally different type, bad mix). When I asked the union rep to mediate, I was told that my membershp had been terminated retroactively.
A bad union is worse than no union.
There was an editorial in the LA Times (may require registration, link will probably expire) yesterday about the grocery store strike that has now been going on for four months. The writers think that the strike is mutually harmful and even propose the repealing of the National Labor Relations Act.
rjk wrote
Sorry to disagree, but I don’t believe that unions ever exist to serve a goal advantageous to management. Further, they never exist to serve a goal advantageous to the shareholders. Or the customers. Most importantly, unions never exist to serve the best 10% of a work-force. All of those parties are held down, hindered and financially lessened by the existance of unions.
Unions exist to serve the poorest quality workers in a work force. That’s their purpose. They were setup years ago to serve those trampled by the man, and that was a good thing; those people and those unions deserve thanks. But today is very different. Nobody’s in a slave-shop in America or the rest of the developed world today. Strong laws exist to protect the little guy. (as well they should). Today is different, and unions are not and have not been relevant for a long time.
The power of the union is the strike. The concept of a strike is illegal for any other monopoly or large power. When a company or a country or any large power does the equivalent of a strike, it’s called anti-competitive behaviour. It’s called colluding and embargoing and racketeering. It’s well recognized that for a large force to withold something vital to others so that they starve until they give in to the demands of the large force is morally wrong. And without the power of a strike, there is no union.
And with the power of the strike, unions deliver for their members values that are by definition above market-value. Unions give their members things that by dictionary definition are undeserved and unfair.
Unions are morally wrong in today’s world.
[QUOTE=Bill H
Unions are morally wrong in today’s world.[/QUOTE]
I hadn’t realized this was moved to IMHO.
But I suppose it’s okay for a hospital CEO to receive a 108% pay increase in two years while many of the hospital workers (including nurses) receive 0-4 percent raises.
I suppose it’s okay for a hospital to tell an 18-year accountant who makes less than $30,000 a year that her insurance is cut when she gets cancer because she goes on short-term disability, and that her pay has been cut in half, and that she has exactly one year to get better or she’ll lose her job.
I suppose it’s okay to keep raising the cost of insurance for employees, without giving COLA increases, even though the “non-profit” organization makes over a billion dollars in profits every year.
I’m not saying unions are perfect, but a good one holds management accountable for its actions. That’s the bottom line.
“Slave-shop?” Alright. Do you know for a fact that there are no places still operating under sweat-shop conditions, though?
Happy Lendervedder, for what it’s worth, I’m not a monster, and in fact I have a lot of compassion for people who’ve been beaten down by the system. I respect my own employees immensely and think all people deserve a fair shake.
It could be; it could be not.
a) the two are completely unrelated.
b) there’s plenty of information missing here, like the performance of the CEO and each of the other workers for example.
c) this has nothing to do with unions.
Sounds like a rotten deal, and truly a sad situation for anyone. But there’s really not enough information here for me to comment.
a) What were the terms of her compensation from the offset?
b) Did her hours or her job function change during the period she was paid less? i.e. is it possible that she could no longer do the job she was hired to do, and rather than kicking her out, did the hospital give her a different job that she could do, but at a reduced (and fair) pay rate?
c) Why is the $30k/year part relevant? Is it any less sad or any more fair to see someone who makes $200k/year get severely sick?
As a side note, if the employer didn’t offer any benefits at all, that’s hardly abuse. The market determines the value via supply and demand. If many had her skills, and few needed them, that’ll make her market value low. That’s not wrong; that’s fair.
Also, again, this has nothing to do with unions.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
a) These are unrelated. An employee’s cash and benefits compensation should be at the fair market value. If the employer is pushing this value down by virtue of being a monopoly, that is wrong. (and if a union is pushing this value up by virtue of being a monopoly, that’s wrong too.) If the market value is simply low, that’s unfortunate for the employee, but that’s what it is. What the organization makes in profits is irrelevant.
b) This has nothing to do with unions.
That’s the job of employees as individuals, and our legal system.
Well, technically, no I don’t know for a fact that of the tens of millions of businesses in America, there isn’t one hidden in the Ozarks that’s a slave-shop. In fact, it’s likely you can find some horrific stories. (Stories which we’ll both agree require fixing). But in general, I think you’ll also agree that the conditions that existed that caused unions to come to be are very very different from the conditions today.
Err, I meant “sweat-shop” in both of the above posts, not “slave-shop”