In the case of the major unions in the U.S., raises, promotions, etc. are based purely on seniority and not on merit, accomplishments, etc. I had my very first union grievance filed on me many years ago when a plant operator, who busted his butt to make sure a long production run went well, went out of his way to go the extra step to make things come out correct, etc. This guy really, really went the extra mile. He was a big Houston Rockets fan and Rockets tickets were pretty hard to get and expensive, so a week later I went down to the plant and the control room and gave him a couple of tickets so he and his wife could go to a game, really good tickets, and he and his wife had never seen them live. Senior union guy saw me give him the tickets and tell him “thanks for busting your butt to make the run a success” - filed a formal grievance against me, AND told the operator he had to give me the tickets back. (Yeah, I found a way to get him the tickets anyway.)
That part really bugs me about the big unions - prohibiting recognition and reward based on performance.
And by what right do the needs of the shareholders translate into taking a good (labor) that isn’t theirs and giving it to them?
Hmm… that doesn’t actually make much sense… but now that I look at it, it’s because your initial quote doesn’t make any sense. The hell are you talking about?
Who defines “the needs of the workers”?
Who defines the needs of the shareholder?
What is this? Junior High Debate Club? Have you ever looked at your hand man? I mean really looked at it?
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?
Because if they don’t justify a hardship that they’re planning on unfairly inflicting on their workers, then the union will club them over the head.
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… that business owners hold most of the cards, so workers need to organize & bargain collectively in order to level the playing field? Why, I think the unions have taken that hint. You don’t need to tell them twice.
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.
I fully agree with you. Those CEOs and shareholders are always NEEDING more & more. Fortunately, unions exist so that shareholders’ greed is kept in check & the pie is shared somewhat evenly.
Anyways, I agree with Jeff Lackey that actual implementation of unions sometimes leaves something to be desired. But in principle… go unions!
And by what right do the needs of the shareholders translate into taking a good (labor) that isn’t theirs and giving it to them?
Hmm… that doesn’t actually make much sense… but now that I look at it, it’s because your initial quote doesn’t make any sense. The hell are you talking about?
Who defines “the needs of the workers”?
Who defines the needs of the shareholder?
What is this? Junior High Debate Club? “Have you ever looked at your hand man? I mean really looked at it?”
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?
Because if they don’t justify a hardship that they’re planning on unfairly inflicting on their workers, then the union will club them over the head.
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… that business owners hold most of the cards, so workers need to organize & bargain collectively in order to level the playing field? As a matter of fact, I think the unions have taken that hint. You don’t need to tell them twice.
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.
I fully agree with you. Those CEOs and shareholders are always NEEDING more & more. Fortunately, unions exist so that shareholders’ greed is kept in check & the pie is shared somewhat evenly.
Anyways, I agree with Jeff Lackey that actual implementation of unions sometimes leaves something to be desired. But in principle… go unions!
The original phrasing for the example that Rollory was taking exception to was bad.
That said, jeff lackey makes a compelling point with seniority versus merit promotions. I certainly wish good teachers would make lots more money, and bad teachers far less.
I don’t mean to sound glib, but a union is like any other organized interest group. Good ones are good and bad ones are bad. Either way, you’re nuts if you don’t think they’re necessary. Or you slept through history class. Without them, we’d all be working 60 hours a week on a pittance and sleeping in flophouses. And that’s if we had a job.
Either way, you’re nuts if you don’t think they’re necessary. Or you slept through history class. Without them, we’d all be working 60 hours a week on a pittance and sleeping in flophouses. And that’s if we had a job.
I don’t think anyone in this thread is arguing that unions weren’t needed historically. What is up for debate is whether unions are still needed in most developed economies today.
Given the trend towards corporations thinking about shareholders over employees and customers, the demand for short term profits over long term sustainability, and the skyrocketing wages of incompetent CEOs, I’d say that unions are pretty good things.
Given the trend towards corporations thinking about shareholders over employees and customers, the demand for short term profits over long term sustainability,
That’s a recent trend? I’d have to say things are certainly better now than they were 100 years ago (and credit where it’s due, unions played a role there).
Because they’re doing such a good job of holding all those complaints that you just mentioned in check, right?
Really, I don’t follow the logic at all. I’d be a lot happier with unions if, whenever they mandated something for the folks at the bottom, it did hit the folks at the top. Instead, it tends to squeeze the folks in the middle even harder. That sucks.
(You never see news stories about an increase in UAW wages forcing Ford to rethink it’s CEO’s salary. Instead, middle management gets new shiny pink slips to pay for the wage increases as profits remain stagnant. Way to go protecting the workers, UAW!)
Oh, I didn’t say unions were necessarily good at fixing these problems in their current forms. But they’re better than no representation. And MarchHare, things are better than 100 years ago, but as of the last few decades, things seem to have begun sliding back down again.
For full disclosure, I am not part of a union, and don’t like any of the thuggery that has built up in them over the years. Nor do I think it should be legal to force compulsory union membership (and it isn’t in Australia). But you have to have some sort of counterbalance to the corporate body, and that’s about the best we have right now.
As much as ever, unless you find the concept of being laid off before you can acquire any meaningful amount of seniority/pension/benefits in order for companies to save money on those employee-specific perks a stellar life plan.
Also, unions for physical-labor-intensive, potentially dangerous jobs are still quite necessary. They always will be for those types of jobs.
Unions can be quite thuggish.
Seniority frequently frustrates merit based promotions and raises.
Union contracts can hamstring a company’s market mobility.
Unions fixed some terrible abuses of human beings.
Arbitrary reward structures can equate to constructive firings.
If a corporation can try to maximize profits, employees can try to maximize compensation.
That being said, the WGA represents the people who bring you the stories that you love, week after week, the jokes that make you laugh daily, and the films that thrill you, day in and day out. These are not greedy chicken-gutters or lazy machinists. These are creative individuals who have banded together so that the least among them do not get steamrolled by people threatening to take their dreams away if they don’t sign off on a stack of rights in perpetuity.
The United States Constitution seeks to secure intellectual property rights for innovators. The WGA is simply an organization that seeks to protect a certain class of innovators from particularly rapacious purchasers of intellectual property rights. All they are saying is that, unless they all get a fair deal, none of them are selling. They are betting that there aren’t enough good writers on the outside of their little fence to replace them all, and I would venture a guess that they are right.
After all, what is Hollywood, if it isn’t full of pretty faces, fat wallets, and shitty screenplays?
Which jobs does this refer to? Off the top of my head, I have a hell of a time picturing that in fast food, construction, retail, Wal-Mart, meatpacking, lawncare, …
While I can understand that the example you gave upset you, I can also fully understand the union position on it, since anything that’s not part of an official reward program as mandated by the contract, is open for abuse by favouritism and so on.
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?
Possibly they aren’t, but what happens if they decide to tear up the original terms of your contract, freeze your pay for 10 years and introduce compulsory night shifts? What if they just decide to lay you all off tomorrow morning?
As I mentioned in the other thread I work for a company with no union representation. I’ve just watched the department I used to work for get outsourced and all the people who thought they worked for one company being told, by HR, that they can either move to the other company or leave, literally that bluntly. Oh there are company appointed “employee representatives” but the company is under no obligation to act on anything they say and if they rock the boat too much they tend to get replaced by someone who’ll tell the company what they want to hear.
