Unions!

[Spiffy McMoron]

Pretty simple thread here:

Are unions good? Are they bad? Are they becoming a relic from a time past, like guilds are now? What are your experiences regarding a union?

[DarthRetard]

I've established a tasteful disdain for teachers unions, especially down here, and some instances all over the country. Teachers unions destroy the need for competition, and allow lesser quality teachers to be paid the same amount as teachers who are effective and productive.

[Greenday]

Well, my union that I was in at my old summer job did nothing but just take some money out of my paychecks. Didn't do crap for me on any ocassion.

[Spiffy McMoron]

Hmmm...interesting responses, guys. Thanks.

I'll state right off the bat that I've never worked at a job that had a union. However, I'm going to become a teacher, which means that I'll become a part of the teachers union.

I'll just state what I think, and let you guys mull over it:

-I'm pro-union, as long as they work. If I were in a situation like DR described, I might be pissed at the union. However, I'd probably be more pissed at that particular teacher, and I'd definately be pissed at the school principle for not doing anything about that teacher. Incidentally, the union I would be joining has pretty specific rules regarding complaints toward a colleague.
-Unions can help to protect you from a bad boss or a vindicitive co-worker.
-Unions can do more than help you out on the job. I know of some unions that will help you upgrade your skills, or help you out legally if you get in a bind (even if it's not work related.). For a prime example, check out how the union helped out Aaron in the Vinegar Boy situation. (An extreme example, but one that he all know and love.)
-Historically, unions have generally down more good than harm, I think. Minimum wage, health care, pension, regular working hours, and occupational health and safety codes were all implimented with the influence of unions.


I'll be the firt to admit that unions aren't all sunshine and roses. Lazy co-workers, as Darth mentioned, can often be saved by the system. High overhead costs associated with unionized labour have forced some manufacturers to look elsewere for labour, and "alleged" associations with mobsters have all tarnished the reputation of unions.

[Melxb]

I'm pro-union. I come from a union family. Both of my parents have worked in positions for years as part of different unions. When I graduated from college, my first job was a union job. Subsequently, every job I've had since then has been a union job.

My first job out of college was teaching, and I was represented by a very large and locally powerful teacher's union. In my opinion, working there for the two years I did, my union totally worked for me. I was a teacher in a dangerous, inner-city school (nothing like assigning a new teacher to a potential lethal school). My administration, from the principal to the counselors, were awful. If it wasn't for my union representative (hey Bill!) and my union in general I would've had had a nervous breakdown. My teacher's union was/is awesome.

All unions aren't the greatest though. There is a lot of corruption in union ranks, and the potential for kickbacks in historic and legendary. However, my personal experience with unions has always been positive in that both the workers and the company at large have benfitted.

[Seshat]

Many people are lazy and greedy. This combination is the cause of a lot of misery in the world.

Lazy and greedy bosses contributed greatly to most of the horrors of the Victorian age: phossy jaw, coal mining deaths, the company store abuse, the plight of children working in places like textile mills. (They had to clean the looms - while the looms were running.)

Lazy and greedy bosses are still with us. High profile cases include Bhopal and Exxon Valdez. Low profile cases are visible throughout the Morons in Management forum.

Management has a relatively easy way of protecting themselves from lazy or greedy staff: fire them. It's harder now than it used to be, because of regulations intended to protect good staff from bad management.

Humanity has only found three ways (that I can think of right now) to protect people from lazy or greedy management:
* boycott the company (but a truly effective boycott bankrupts the company, causing the staff to be fired);
* regulate the industry (but a whistleblower who brings a violation to the attention of the regulating body is almost always fired and usually can't work in the industry again);
* unionise, making an initial complainer relatively anonymous, and preventing the lazy/greedy manager from getting any work done until the problem is redressed (but a union can be corrupted by laziness and greed too).

I think it's wrong to say that we can discard one of those methods - not until we figure out a way to keep lazy and greedy people out of management. But we do need to figure out a way to keep those methods from being abused.

As a side note: AFAIK, union pay scale equality is an attempt to keep good staff with poor bargaining skills from being paid less than bad staff with excellent bargaining skills. It sucks because good staff get the same pay as bad staff, but at least it prevents good staff from getting worse pay than bad staff who meet the same pay level requirements.

[Boozy]

As a side note: AFAIK, union pay scale equality is an attempt to keep good staff with poor bargaining skills from being paid less than bad staff with excellent bargaining skills. It sucks because good staff get the same pay as bad staff, but at least it prevents good staff from getting worse pay than bad staff who meet the same pay level requirements.

It also prevents sexism. Women in unions are more likely to have "equal work/equal pay" than their non-unionized counterparts.

[Seshat]

Good point, Boozy. It also prevents other -ism created pay disparity.

As for sexist pay, check out Women Don't Ask. It's a popular-sociology book about the results of some study the authors did, triggered by a professor giving the title as the reason why male students got a particular advantage and female students didn't. The women just didn't ask.

Discussion of it would be a thread derail, so if anyone wants to discuss it, open a new thread please.

[AFPheonix]

The author was on Fresh Air or some other program on NPR quite awhile back. It was pretty interesting.

As for unions, overall they do some good work, but there are definitely bad apples out there. The union for Kroger workers is a perfect example. They're pretty much in bed with the company to the detriment of the very workers they're supposed to help.

[CancelMyService]

On the flip side, there are no more Kroger's stores in Western PA anymore because there was a strike back in 1983-84. Instead of trying to deal with the unions, they simply closed the stores. That's probably why the union's in bed with the company now, they know if they get out of line the company will just close the store down.

While there are certainly bad apples, unions in general are an essential thing in the US. Without them, there wouldn't be such things as 40 hour work weeks, paid vacations, labor laws, etc. It's really sad to see so many people with a negative opinion of them that is largely based on the FUD spread by big chain stores (hello Wal-Mart) that beat it into the heads of their largely young impressionable staff that unions are only out to steal your money.

Hell, unions are like car insurance. You should hope you never need them but if shit happens you'll usually end up glad you have one.

[DexX]

If you think unions are bad, then feel free to work sixty hour weeks on third-world level pay, with no paid holidays and no employee benefits, and no protection from unscrupulous employers.

Unions got us fairer wages, forty hour weeks, equal rights for female workers, paid holidays, unfair dismissal laws, anti-discrimination laws, etc etc etc.

Are unions populated 100% by angelic altruists? Of course not - there are scumbags in every group of people you might care to sample. That said, the unions do far more good than harm, and bagging them out while enjoying the benefits they fought hard to get for us is hypocrisy of the highest order.

[Greenday]

I think the main issue these days isn't whether unions are good or bad, but whether they are really needed as much these days as in the past.

[CancelMyService]

The question I always ask the anti-union people is if unions were to go away tomorrow, do you really think most corporations would do right by their employees when it goes against their basic economic interests to do so? The bottom line is that employee costs (pay, benefits, training) is usually the largest chunk of a company's budget. For all that fuzzy talk of how We're All A Happy Family At *Companyname*, the truth is they would fire you in a second to save money if push came to shove.

[AFPheonix]

Ditching unions wouldn't be a smart idea, we'd probably go back to where we started in the first place.

We as workers do have to try and keep our unions honest if we want them to work in our best interests.

[claidhmore]

All I know about unions I learned about from either textbooks (about how they helped set standards for labor and such) and from people in Flint, Michigan. The latter is important because I got to hear about how the guys at the auto plants would take their sweet time during 'calibration' where they'd find out how much work you could do in a day, then when the management left they'd plow through the work assigned and hit the bar. They'd leave a person at the plant to watch for the boss, and should management show up unannounced it was their job to call all the local bars to get people rushing back in to work.

I don't know if that's a true story, but my friend wouldn't lie about that I don't think and it would explain why Flint's a near ghost town today.