The Union thread

Correct me if I’m wrong here but aren’t there millions of illegal immigrants in the US doing low-paid work under pretty much the same abysmal working conditions that you had 80 years ago?

The working conditions aren’t abysmal. They are just paid unfairly and have no health benefits.

…and have no job security, no insurance in case of work place accidents, little/no adhernace to workplace safety regulations…

Job security doesn’t exist for those of us who are US citizens. I believe (at least in California), if you have a business, you have to have insurance for your employees in case of workplace accidents, legal or not. Same with safety regulations. California is pretty strict about those things.

Unions are a cure for American business in the 19th century, which was worse in practically any given year than all the excesses of unions throughout history.

If you were sexually harrased at work, or it turns out that your desk / pc setup gave you serious RSI, or there was some other workplace accident, you would be happy there was a union to stick up for you.
Not everyone is massively confident and assertive. if your boss told everyone tommorow that there would be random drugs tests at 10am, how many people would complain? Unions exist so that the weakest, shyest and least confrontational workers aren’t bullied by management.
Theres more to unions than salary negotiation.

I used to work as a chemist in a milk/ice cream plant, and all the floor workers were unionized. The corporate execs decided to relocate the ice cream half of the factory down to L.A., which would mean all the ice cream workers up here would be laid off.

Fortunately, the union put a stop to the move because the corporation couldn’t prove that the move was necessary for the health of the company. They were trying to maximize profit for the shareholders, but the arbiter ruled that the pain to the 30+ employees in the ice cream plant wasn’t worth the marginal increase in profits.

Cliffski is right… it’s not all about salary negotiation. It’s also about forcing the company to balance the needs of the workers vs. higher profits. (As well as other issues.) I wish my current industry was unionized.

:(

That’s very possible. It’s tough to measure; we have a record of all of 19th-century business’ ills (note the lack of the word “American” there, as the ills of industrialization were worldwide). We do not have, by design, any record of all of Unions’ ills. We don’t even have Jimmy Hoffa’s body yet, for cryin’ out loud.

What we do know is that 21st-century business, and 21st-century unions, are two very different things from what either were in the early 20th century. I’m not concerned about what Unions might have done for me during a time when neither I nor my grandparents were even alive. I’m a bit more concerned about how each behave today and the effects they’ll have on me and my children tomorrow. From that point of view, they are at best equally evil.

If you were sexually harrased at work

I could escalate the issue to my manager and/or HR, and if they fail to properly resolve the situation, I could sue the company.

or it turns out that your desk / pc setup gave you serious RSI

I highly doubt that would be an issue, but even in the event that it was, I could make arrangements to procure an ergonomic keyboard or whatever.

or there was some other workplace accident, you would be happy there was a union to stick up for you.

Every employee in my company, unionized or not, receives disability insurance as one of their benefits. The amount one can claim is increased dramatically if one is disabled while performing a job-related duty. As I alluded to earlier, though, just how dangerous is my white-collar desk job anyway? It’s not like I’m working in a factory or a mine.

In my experience working in IT, there’s never been a time when I’ve felt that I’ve been exploited by management and needed union protection. The one instance that was even close (when we discovered that our salaries were significantly lower than our competitors’), my response was to seek out a better employer that paid more competitive wages, not to picket until my demands were met.

Unions are like buildings insurance. you never need it, and resent paying for it, till the day your neighbour bursts a water main that goes UNDER your hosue (happened to me). My brother had RSI so bad he was sigend off work for a year and at one point doctors said he may never be able to use a computer in a job again. luckily, over time he recovered. Nobody thinks this stuff will happen to them.
I like the fact that you assume you can go to the head of HR (paid for by the company) to bring a complaint against potentially one of the company owners. You see the failing there? The whole point of the union rep is he doesn’t have to give a damn about the company, he is there to protect YOU.

It’s great that people have nice jobs where they don’t think they need a union. I’ve never been in a job with a union, although my family came from strong union backgrounds. The union are a big part of why women can even bring a claim of sexual harrasment or discrimination, and why companies have to give a damn about employees working conditions.
Like an earlier poster said, the management have a board of directors, can’t the workers be organized too? As a company owner my priority is my own profits, certainly not the employees welfare. unions are needed to prevent people like me ripping off employees. Not everyone has the financial freedom and luxury to walk out of a job on a whim if they don’t like it.

And by what right do “the needs of the workers” translate into taking property that is not theirs and giving it to them?

Who defines “the needs of the workers”?

Why is the company obligated in any way to meet the workers’ “needs” above and beyond the terms of the employment contract that was originally signed? If it isn’t a contract you like, don’t sign it. What’s that? Nobody else will give you a contract you like? TAKE THE HINT. What you think you are worth is not the same as what the rest of the world, as represented by the market, thinks you are worth.

This is the same damn question that is at the root of every single goddamn exercise in socialist stupidity. Anybody can always NEED more. Any individual will always have personal preferences that are different from what some outside high-and-mighty decrees they SHOULD have. The only dependable measurement regarding what a person should have is what they themselves are willing to pay for it and therefore how much they are willing to work for it. If you want a union to cover your “needs” rather than working for it and earning it on your own, you’re precisely the sort of person I would want to neither hire nor work with.

Unions are like defense attorneys. In an ideal world everybody would just get along and work out their differences without lawyers. But in the real world once the other side gets a lawyer you’d better get one yourself. It’s the basis of the adversarial system. Workers need a union to put them on the same footing as management. That doesn’t mean lawyering up won’t make things worse, but the underlying idea is that it makes it less worse for your side.

The workers. That can be collectively or not.

Why is the company obligated in any way to meet the workers’ “needs” above and beyond the terms of the employment contract that was originally signed? If it isn’t a contract you like, don’t sign it. What’s that? Nobody else will give you a contract you like? TAKE THE HINT. What you think you are worth is not the same as what the rest of the world, as represented by the market, thinks you are worth.

Why are the workers obligated in any way to work for the company? Why are the workers obligated not to bargain collectively even if they wish to?

This is the same damn question that is at the root of every single goddamn exercise in socialist stupidity. Anybody can always NEED more. Any individual will always have personal preferences that are different from what some outside high-and-mighty decrees they SHOULD have. The only dependable measurement regarding what a person should have is what they themselves are willing to pay for it and therefore how much they are willing to work for it. If you want a union to cover your “needs” rather than working for it and earning it on your own, you’re precisely the sort of person I would want to neither hire nor work with.

Hard work is the sole determinant of income. Other forms of leverage never come in to play. Gotcha. Thanks for letting us know that.

MarchHare brought up some great points about how unions can be ineffective, unnecessary, or down right hostile for some workers. Some of that is political backfire from your fellow employees, which I think is just part of any job. There’s no guarantees you’ll all agree on things and grudges will result no matter what.

If there was a way to have competing unions serving the same fields, that’d be interesting. Give the worker the choice to sign up with whichever union serves their needs or none at all.

Got something to hide, druggie?

Taking property that’s not theirs? Why, that would be stealing. Someone call the cops already.

Why is the company obligated in any way to meet the workers’ “needs” above and beyond the terms of the employment contract that was originally signed? If it isn’t a contract you like, don’t sign it. What’s that? Nobody else will give you a contract you like? TAKE THE HINT. What you think you are worth is not the same as what the rest of the world, as represented by the market, thinks you are worth.

Are you saying that an employee should never be able to bargain with their employer for a raise in wages or extra benefits? Ever? Seems to me that you’re effectively arguing that if anyone wants more than his or her starting salary after four years at a job he should just quit and look for new work because he’s never going to get a better offer from his current employer.

But that would be ridiculous, an employer usually has reasons to want to keep an experienced worker and would be willing to renegotiate the employment contract enough to keep the worker satisfied. But you weren’t arguing against individuals renegotiating their contracts, were you?

You were against groups of workers renegotiating their contracts collectively. Because that is what unions do. Faced with the threat of losing much or all of their workforce employers can be pushed into granting raises or benefits beyond what they would have been willing to grant to single workers acting alone. It’s called negotiating from a position of strength (relative though it might be) and is quite legal. If the employer can’t afford to meet the unions demands he can either fire them all and hire new workers, or if that is unfeasible, close up shop. No one is obligated to work for him.

And if he does meet the unions demands? Guess what, the market has just decided that’s precisely what his employees are worth.

Since you’re a lawyer I really shouldn’t have to explain this to you.

I’m not sure anyone is saying unions shouldn’t have the right to exist, are they? Just that the way that many of them have evolved has actually been, at times, to the detriment of the workers. For example, forcing people to be in the union whether they want to be or not, in those states in which there are no right to work laws that forbid that. Removing merit as a legitimate source for reward and promotion, substituting seniority. Strong-arming union members to go on strike and stay on strike for extended periods of time, for questionable returns, often creating enormous hardship for the union members while the strike leaders get full pay (this happened twice to my wife’s father, a UAW machinist, and her family pretty much went broke the second time, as they insisted the members stay on strike for almost a year, with practically no wages - they never really recovered from that.)

There are a lot of federal laws in place today that serve the role the unions once played - equal opportunity laws, medical laws, OSHA, etc. Are things perfect? Of course not. But I will say that a company owner in today’s environment who doesn’t give a damn about employee’s welfare and benefits is going to fail at his/her business, due to the best employee’s leaving, employees being unmotivated, being sued by the plethora of lawyers who circle the skies seeking some type of employment suit, etc.

Thanks, market!

It doesn’t look like they are, no.

Damn - no its not freudian, that should have been no one is arguing unions should NOT have the right to exist, are they?

I’m sure you meant ‘shouldn’t’, right?
And I’m also sure that’s exactly what Rollory is saying.

I agree somewhat with a lot of posters. A lot of people can do without unions and laws are taking the place of some of the stuff unions used to gurantee - mostly because of unions.
There’s also plenty of examples of bad things about unions but even today I think the alternative is worse.

And I live in a heavily unionized society in a profession where everybody is in the union (everybody gets to call themselves writer or journalist here, but if you want the official Press Card to get you behind police lines and whatnot, you have to be part of the union) still I’ve never experinced being held back by the union.
Raises in my profession is based on skill and whatever else you have to bargain with. The union is just making sure that everybody gets some basis pay and some basis part of every raise - I still managed to go from being the new kid with the lowest pay to the guy with the highest in three years time at my last place of employment.


Edit: Damn, slow and meandering…

That’s a pretty interesting aside in my opinion. Why should the union be the one with the power to issue accreditation that’s recognized by the government?