[hijack] Why “closet”?[/hijack]
I have a mixed view on unions. My grandfather was an ATC until Reagan fired him, luckily by then he was 58 and he essentially went into early retirement with a few consulting jobs on the side. I’m all for collective bargaining in general, without it there’d be virtually no way for average working people to gain benefits.
However, unions today aren’t what they were in the 50s, or even the 70s. Most don’t look out for working people in general, just THEIR working people. Example: Free trade helps most people who have to live paycheck to paycheck because it lowers the costs of goods, while some factory jobs go abroad. Unions oppose it. Of course, when a UAW member makes 70,000 a year, it’s hard to blame GM for putting a plant in Mexico. If they stopped looking out for such parochial interests they’d be able to affect more real change. All these horror stories illustrate what’s wrong with unions today. Most of the people complaining [not meant derogatorily] here could be helped if unions started looking out for everyone.
I was actually an intern for the DLC, which is in a fight (sometimes pretty nasty) with unions inside the Democratic Party. The union leaders we came into contact with were quite uninterested with good public policy, and dealing with them can be frustrating. Still, they’re able to provide massive voter mobilization efforts (great during a midterm election, where turnout is key), can raise money from their myriad members, and, while IMHO are wrong on many topics, think they are doing what’s best for America, and 90% aren’t Jimmy Hoffa Jr.
Still, we have seen some progress with unions. A lot of the smaller ones are becoming proponents of free trade, and we’re hoping AFSCME and other service unions follow suit. It’s an uphill fight, but as they gradually lose membership they’re going to realize they have to change their collective m.o. Hopefully that’ll be sooner rather than later.
Still, I also like getting full service gas on the Jersey pike for self service prices because the attendants are union.
I really like the teachers’ union. All the members being teachers, the union is often an advocate, not just for teachers, but also for students. For example, it is the teachers’ unions that are currently actively working against the current trend toward high-stakes testing, something that hurts the students a lot more than the teachers.
My first job was at a non-union school, and the conditions were appalling. We were paid $13,000 a year (try living on that with student loans). Many teachers were required to do ‘extra’ tasks (like directing school plays or coaching sports) but paid no extra money for them. Board members demanded special privileges for their children, and my classroom had no heat. People got fired more or less at random.
For me, it was a good example of why a union is important.
For teachers, at least, we have the education and experience to know what is good and bad for our students, and the union gives us the power to speak out when politicians use the schools as little more than pawns to get votes.
I’m not arguing for the sake of arguing. I’m pro-union. When I said that I could just as easily argue the side of management, I said that because, as a former union rep and organizer, you have to understand where both sides of the table are coming from. You have to know both of the teams’ playbooks. Since a lot of compaines hire trained union busters, unions have to train their own and hire people to fight the union-busting tactics.
But again, I’m not arguing for the sake of arguement, and I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.
Regarding UAW Chrysler taking the paycuts: the employees voted to concede some pay and benefits because Chrysler was on the verge of folding. In order to help out their employer, they allowed those concessions, but it backfired. The UAW allowing such concessions lost the UAW as a whole a lot of leverage for themselves and other unions (steelworkers, rail workers, etc.), and it ended up really hurting the labor movement for many years.
Bottom line, any large organization will have its share of bad: government, corporations, and unions.
My humble opinion is that you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water, you should constantly work at improving the situation.
I’m done arguing my point here, this ain’t GD, and IMHO, unions are necessary.
Happy
My attitude has always been that small unions organized around a single company/trade area is a good thing, some guy in the company takes on a few extra duties and because he is one of the ‘guys’ (or ‘gals’) he generally looks out for everyone. But this only works with small organizations, once you get big, you start seeing things like the AFL/CIO, the UAW, Teamsters and similar. The people doing the work are just numbers to the guys near the top, and the union isn’t a union anymore, its at best a new service corporation, at worst, a protection racket.
I can’t say what the role of Unions is in The Big Picture, but my personal experience was not great.
Some graduate students decide to organize.
They tell me that they are organizing to ensure benefits that I already have.
I tell them I don’t want to pay dues to ensure benefits that I already have.
I tell them to go away.
They call several strikes mildly disrupting the university.
They call me to remind me not to go to work.
I tell them to go away.
They win the election and immediately start taking dues from everyone.
I never hear from them again.
It has been 3 years and I have no idea what it is I have been paying for. They are invisible.
My wife is a flight attendant for a feeder airline. When she started working 4 years ago, they were voting on their contract. The organizers said that they weren’t going for a lot because they wanted to get the first contract thru. It was for 7 years and amounted to 5% raise and no real benefits. My wife voted against it, but it won by a landslide. There is a high turnover, so hardly anyone that voted for it is still there. The union is the Paper Union, which has nothing to do with airlines and all they care about is receiving the dues. The local leaders are employees that want to make trouble and the few times my wife has gone to the meetings, she has come back saying she will never go again. They usually quit in about 6 months and another one takes over. The present president has gone to part-time status, which means she doesn’t care what problems the full-time employees have. One last piece of information: the day the contract won, management threw a party.
I’ve told my wife this, but the union tells the members they can’t be voted out. My wife is only going to work a couple more years and besides she is known as the lone enemy of the union.
Maybe they aren’t what they used to be because people like you are no longer running things.
*my emphasis
Hey thanks kniz, you just made my morning!
And sorry to here your wife’s in such a crappy union. I know how she feels. At my last union job, the average employee only stayed about 2 years or less. That kind of employee turnover rate can breed corrupt leadership, as most of the rank-and-file doesn’t even know what the hell is going on-- and as a result there’s no accountability.
Happy
That should be “right to work–for less!”
Corrupt officials/mafia influence: Union organizing is basically a left wing project. The idea is a rank and file controlled organization. Management preferrs corrupt leaders who will keep the membership under control and erode union attitude by paying off the corrupt leaders.
Unions protect slackers: Because the law says they have to. Before the anti-union Taft Hartley and Landrum Griffin laws were passed, workers had the power through their unions to kick people out of the union and off the job. After all, would you want some lazy bum hanging around and getting the same pay while you did his work? The government has removed that power from the unions. But of course, it is ok for the company to have that power.
I have to join the union! (Whine!): That’s right pal! That’s to keep the company from packing the workforce with people with a scab mentality and eventually weakening the organization. This is not a tea party. This is the class struggle here.
Unions Bite.
I applied to work at UPS here. Part time, 20 hours a week. Now, that would earn me a grand total of about $80 biweekly.
Except…
Union Dues: $20 a check
Joining Fee: $20 a check
Taxes : $15 a check
So, essentally I’d be working for peanuts for the first few months until I got that “Joining Fee” paid for. Bennies? Well, health & the like. But I needed cash. Health Insurance won’t buy bread.