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This question speaks for itself. In light of all the collective bargaining discussions in the news, what are your thoughts about unions. Discuss :) Meghan

I think that while they have place to protect workers from bad practices, they are also what keeps alot of employers from getting rid of employees who are non-productive and use the union as a shield to accountability for behaviour (as seem at an undisclosed state government office).

personally I would rather risk the chance of being fired at will or slower pay raises for the flexability that comes with *not* being forced to "pay dues" for an entity (union) that may not care about me until something bad happened.

I.A.T.S.E. Local 16, AFL/CIO - represent.

"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions.  One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts."   
               Molly Ivins

This opinion needs a country by country base. Unions in Australia have been essential for protecting workers rights against big business and conservative governments that have been owned by them. OK the Unions 'own' the labour government but to a lesser extent (JMO).
Some Unions here, are or have been totally corrupt. Although there are increasingly rules to try and prevent that including secret ballots etc. In the UK when I was there the Unions were incredibly strong and could and did close down the country to sway government policy. But I'll leave it to UK people to comment. 

I think we all need balances and checks and Unions supply that to workers against big business, who work purely for their stock holders (and their CEO massive salary  :laugh:).

I think if you are in a Union you have to participate, the same as when you are in a democratic country, you have to vote. If you do neither you deserve whatever falls on you, and have no right to complain.

Cindy

Unions are responsible for so many of the working conditions we take for granted these days. In Australia we get four weeks paid annual leave  each year. This wasn't always the case and certainly isn't the case in the United States. Without unions government would never have legislated for many of the rights we enjoy.

Sure sometimes union power goes too far, as do some governments and some businesses, that doesn't mean the notion of government of business is fundamentally flawed.

Unions exist not as an entity but as democratic (like governments) organizations that try and make the lives of working people with the least power in the workplace better. Unions are a force for good as long as they are well regulated, just like governments, just like business.

In a quick response to Cindy, the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party is far more independent of unions than most think. Their FairWork legislation is criticized more (albeit less vocally) by unions than business. Labor aren't delivering to unions on their issue d'être (Francophiles forgive me), whilst they share a common ideology they are by no means beholden to them despite what the media say (shadowy union bosses make for a great story)

 Hi Caitlin_ Adams,

I totally agree. The way Australia was 'settled' as largely a penal colony would have led to  no rights for anyone. Unions in many ways built the democracy that we have.
The control of unions over the the Labour party is no less insidious as the control of the Liberal party by big  money.

What I find a problem is 'lobbyists' do they bribe before our pay after a bill is voted upon?

Sorry getting off topic

Cindy

I'm definitely for unions.  I'm not in one currently, but my present employer treats its employees rather well, so there hasn't been a need to start one here.  In the past, I've been in the AFL/CIO, UAW, and the NEA (by way of WEAC). 
.
I definitely agree about unions being the reason we have the wages and working conditions we do now.  Most of the businesses I've worked for pay the bottom dollar wages they have to, and aren't really interested in the welfare of their employees or sharing the fruits of their employee's labors with them...it's just another disposeable resource to them...especially now with the economy the way it is.

With all the stuff going on in Madison right now, I've seen a lot of lies floating aroud recently regarding unions, and they really piss me off.  Usually the people that post/spread that manure aren't interested in facts and sources.  Grrrr....  Guess I better stop now before I get worked up about it again.  :/

United Brotherhood of Carpenters (I wish there was a sisterhood).

Unions were started in America to end legal slavery. In 1900, steelworkers in Pittsburgh worked 12 hours a day seven days a week and a double shift every two weeks for paltry wages in dangerous unhealthy conditions. Injury and death were common. Organizing put an end to this. Unions give workers the opportunity to interact with management. If I am unproductive at my job I will be replaced by another union worker. I can be fired just as easily as a non-union worker. Tekla is correct, union wages set the standard for non-union jobs in the area. Union carpenters are safer, better trained and more productive than their non-union counterparts.

I live in Wisconsin and Governor Scott Walker is tearing this state apart. Thank you to everyone around the country for uniting in the fight against this idiot. The state union workers have agreed to cuts but Walker wants to remove their right to negotiate. If this trend continues it will be back to slavery. This affects everyone. Thank you all for your support and peaceful protests. :)
Wow, did I just say all that?

Jennifer

Pretty much agree with the sentiments expressed by Cindy and Tekla above. 

I can't say I am impressed with the union that is supposed to look after people doing my job though.  I am in a position with zero industrial muscle, unlike other workers they cover, so we have never seen a union rep since I have been there.

These days it's all about membership numbers and  votes in internal political battles in  Trades Hall, as far as I can see.

It's a lot like old Winston's quip on democracy: it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.  So there is plenty about the system that I could change, but its' a hella lot better than working without one. 

At any rate, a downward race to the bottom is not going to leave a few very clever (lucky) people standing at the new top, it's going to create a vortex that's going to suck in everything.

IBEW Local 701

Right now unions are about the only decent representation workers have in this country.  But our numbers are falling fast.  That's not good for the future.  Think China.

During the post war boom, corporations approached the unions and offered them "whatever it takes" for their workers to agree to work as much as possible.  Quite simply as fast as the corporations could possibly build their products there was a market for them.  Now the corporations have turned on the unions and accused them of destroying the company when it was the corporation's own short sighted goals that caused the problem in the first place.

I have an IBEW beanie (it's pretty cool). I bet Tekla has some good union merch.

Justmeinoz, which union are you a member of?

Quote from: caitlin_adams on March 06, 2011, 05:41:57 AM
I have an IBEW beanie (it's pretty cool).

Well, what isn't cool is how they treat LGBT people.  For labor, unions are very good but once you step out of the labor arena, you could experience treatment typically found in ultra conservative circles. 

Unions are usually very pro-Democrat.  Mine was 100% Democrat prior to Reagan.  Now I'd say their voting recommendations are about 90-95% Democrat.  But when it comes to human rights the pendulum swings the other way.  Gays?  I know only one openly gay electrician and he is harassed on almost every job he goes on.  Trans?  Well, that would be me.  Good luck!  You're on your own. 

As far as the union is concerned, my union has gone from approving almost every medical claim no questions asked to denying almost every medical claim.  They have an exception called "sex transferral" and if they can link my medical expenses in any way at all to that exception, they deny it.  I am now fighting them to pay for a blood test they required.

In construction, unions are man country and men don't take lightly any affront to their masculinity and gays and especially MTFs are serious affronts.

I started my apprenticeship in 1974 and during my years in the union I saw conservative men voting Democrat for one reason only - to support labor and that meant their jobs.  They are pro-guns, pro-life, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, misogynistic, homophobic, very transphobic and in general intolerant of people who are different.  I've often hears union workers say Reagan was one of the best presidents we've ever had.  Today, a scary percentage like the Tea Party.

So labor, yes, they are great.  But for almost everything else, my personal experience has been they are typical conservatives.

Quote from: Julie Marie on March 06, 2011, 07:29:43 AM
Today, a scary percentage like the Tea Party.

The tea party is a different animal, a large percentage of them are retired government employees collecting taxpayer funded benefits.  They complain about paying taxes, but don't seem to mind benefiting from taxes being paid.

A unionized public employee, a Tea-partier, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea-partier and says, "Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie."

I voted against, because as they are, they are an anachronisms of the last century. They did serve an important function defending the rights of the dispossed, but they have evolved in corrupted political organization. More important, in this age of globalization, they are an impediment to more effective competition.

A new paradigm needs to emerge

Kate

Actually some unions go back further than the last century, the first true union in the United States was started in 1820s, and in most of the craft fields unions follow a pattern that dates back to the Middle Ages in a lot of ways, right down the the practice of the apprenticeship programs, abusing said apprentices and eventually making journeymen out of them.

I'm pretty libertarian. An employer has the right to set the conditions but the workers also have the right to organize and say no. I believe in "right to work" states. Most people don't know what that means and assign a different definition to it. A "right to work" state means that an employer cannot require an employee to join a union nor can a union require an employee to join. A union and non-union member can work side by side. Without a union, of course you are an "at will" employee which is what many people often think "right to work" means but it is not.

Back to the point, people should have the right to organize unions to encourage better working conditions but nobody should be required to join them. There is nothing stopping people at any company from getting together and negotiating terms with their employer and striking if they need to be. What I'm against are non-right-to-work states where getting a job requires you to join a union and then have part of your paycheck go to the union. Then you have a middle-man beauracracy telling you how to vote both with company politics and with the national politics, telling you how to do your job, when you must strike, when you have to agree with the boss, etc. and at the same time not necessarily representing your interests in the first place. People should have the freedom to enter a contract with an employer or leave that contract and enter it without requiring a third party's involvement. Enough said.

Quote from: Julie Marie on March 06, 2011, 07:29:43 AM

So labor, yes, they are great.  But for almost everything else, my personal experience has been they are typical conservatives.

Same here. :(

Jennifer

  My opion is that there is a place for unions in some of the industries and not in others.  It depends on the job description.  I worked in a repair facility for an electronics retailer.  A union would not fit in my shop due to the high demands put on us and the multi-tasking we commissioned workers had to do.  Not only we did the repairs, we also had to answer the phone or go up front and answer the questions the customer had.  We also had to clean the shop, including the lavatories, do inventory and other things needed to keep the shop operating.  A union in that place will place limits on the amount of work I can do and stifle customer relations plus the shop would lose money in the process and close.  A happy customer will buy more products from our retail end. 
  I did not complain about the extra stuff I did there due to my military training,  which was routine there.  I made commission every week I worked there.  The more units I repaired, the more I made that week.  I was laid off because we didn't have work to do due to the newer products being unrepairable, the older products with parts no longer available. 
  My brother was a union member and worked in a warehouse for a trucking firm.  This was rough work.  His company then promoted him to manager, his experience in the union helped him to be a good go-between with the union workers and upper management.  This worked for awhile, then the company started to lose money due to mismanagement of funds.  He was the first fired in a cutback scheme.  The workers complained to management about my brother's dismissal that they were thinking strike for this and other issues.  The strike didn't happen, that company went chapter 7 about a year later. 
  There is plenty of blame to go around with the problems we have these days.  Unions wanting more demands, management mishandling funds or out-sourcing of manufacturing and services that they did. 
  I don't know why the states are cutting teacher salaries and especially their pensions!  Who is going to teach our children to face the future?  Compulsory education is a must-have in this country.  It is what made it great in the first place. 
  Joelene

Quote from: Joelene9 on March 08, 2011, 04:14:34 PM
  My opion is that there is a place for unions in some of the industries and not in others.  It depends on the job description.  I worked in a repair facility for an electronics retailer.  A union would not fit in my shop due to the high demands put on us and the multi-tasking we commissioned workers had to do.  Not only we did the repairs, we also had to answer the phone or go up front and answer the questions the customer had.  We also had to clean the shop, including the lavatories, do inventory and other things needed to keep the shop operating.  A union in that place will place limits on the amount of work I can do and stifle customer relations plus the shop would lose money in the process and close.  A happy customer will buy more products from our retail end.

I can only speak from personal experience but with that I'd have to disagree with a lot of what you said above.

Besides all the things that fall within the IBEW working agreement, I have been a project manager, estimator, CAD designer and PR person.  I've created Power Point presentations that were sent out to other locals in both the Chicago area and other states.  I've managed jobs in excess of $100 million and designed complex electrical systems.  I've worked with other trades in coordinating manpower and I've steered the direction of the work for every trade on the job.  And I've swept the floors and dug ditches too.  None of THAT was within our working agreement.  Not once did my union or any other union object.

Unions that I've been involved with do not place limits on productivity.  Rather, they encourage productivity AND they insist on quality and professionalism.  Customers will come back when the product they buy is well built, has minimal failure and is backed by the company that puts the product out.  Too often non-union labor is pressured to put productivity and bottom line costs before quality.  The US auto manufacturers almost failed because they cut those corners back in the 70's.

I've been all about quality since I entered the trade in 1974 and never once did anyone in my union ever question that.  But I got a lot of compliments for my work, for my management and for my ideas.  And because of that I moved up the ladder quite well. 

All that under the union umbrella and with union blessings. 

Now if you want to talk about gays, lesbians and trans people, well that's another story.

Well said Julie Marie, I have all the same experiences and I couldn't agree more. All of those things apply to my trade as well. The only people I ever hear dissing unions are people who have never been in one and have no knowledge of what they are about. As for LGBT issues, yes, the macho men of the construction industry are cruel and unsympathetic for the same reasons. I often wonder what I could do to change that...

Jennifer

to the high demands put on us and the multi-tasking we commissioned workers had to do.  Not only we did the repairs, we also had to answer the phone or go up front and answer the questions the customer had.  We also had to clean the shop, including the lavatories, do inventory and other things needed to keep the shop operating.  A union in that place will place limits on the amount of work I can do and stifle customer relations plus the shop would lose money in the process and close.  A happy customer will buy more products from our retail end.

That's not true at all.  The stage crew where I work does a hella lot more than stage work.  If there is a john backing up during a show it's us going up there to fix it, not the security staff, ushers or the box office people.  Pretty much if it requires tools, or any basic skill, we're doing it.  That's because not only do we have the skill, we're required to have the tools on us too.  We pretty much have to, it's a commercial structure and all work has to be done to code, and that takes trained people.  So worry not, I've spend several totally glamorous nights tripping the light fantastic standing in crap and pee trying to fix a toilet.  Sometime let me tell you how much I hate Kotex pads.

Some times we do full union, by the book stuff, movies mostly.  Who does what is carefully outlined.  Some of that is not some sort of anti-multi tasking, it's experts doing expert work in a very expensive situation. 

All a union contract is is an agreement for us (the people we choose to admit and the people we personally train) to do things x,y & z for X amount.  That's all.  Rock shows run pretty small and very fast crews, so it's not all divided up like a huge convention or a movie is.  You are not going to walk into a rock concert and say "Hey, I don't do that, I'm an electrician, or I'm audio, or I'm a rigger" - round these parts we're all electricians, we all can rig, we all can do audio and we all ALL, unload the trucks at the beginning and load them up at the end.  And I'm not going to lie to you, there are people in our union who don't like doing the rock shows for just that reason - they figure they are electricians or carps and they ain't going to be loading/unloading no trucks.  Fine, I don't like working dentist conventions so that all balances out. 

And we have radically different contracts for running the conventions at Moscone and the Cow Palace then we do for the rock concerts, then we do for movies and TV stuff - it's all crafted to the situation, very flexible.  Union contracts are not monolithic with one pay rate for everyone always and one set of work rules for everybody, it's really done on a shop by shop basis.  What we do get though is that we're all paid the same rate for the same work.  Nothing done by favoritism, the people I like get a quarter more this year, the ones I don't get a nickel crap.  After doing shows for 40 years I work for exactly the same rate as the kid next to me who's doing this for the first time.  And that's cool, it creates a feeling of all being in it together.  And, it's my rate the kid's being paid - not me getting paid the kid rate, as the other people in the food chain would like.  Besides we abuse them.

And it has to be that way, just like there are different union rules for small town firefighters then there are for ones in Manhattan.  You don't have to know anything about making movies or running a Broadway play to understand that those are two different things entirely.  You obviously can't jump up from running a spotlight or sets in the middle of the show and say "Hey, it's break time".  Movies are endless set up for what amount frequently to about a half-hour to an hour of the most frenzied work ever for what amounts to less than 5 minutes on the screen.  That's a whole different set of work rules.

And our customer service, with the traveling crews, with the band itself, and with the fans who buy tickets and pay our bills, our customer service is second to none.  We're a big stop - a huge stop (sometimes even a legendary career defining stop^*)- in a major entertainment market and we're here to play the game on that level.  It's like playing baseball in Yankee Stadium.  That has nothing to do with unions so much as it has to do with all of us who work there and how we feel about doing it.

And, never forget - the best customer service is doing the job well and doing it right the first time.  No amount of being nice ever makes up for incompetence. 

But the real reason we're in the union is because pretty much from our first show on we've been the first people to get there, the last people to leave, the people who are the easiest to ignore (because we're busy doing stuff) and far too often the last to get paid - if we get paid.  The party is long gone by the time we're done, everyone's gone, the band got paid before they left, how 'bout us?

It's because if anyone had to do anything dangerous it was going to be one of us and we got tired of our friends getting hurt only to be told: "That's such a shame." 

It's because everybody else - who mostly for the life of me I can't figure out what they are doing there, but I'm sure they only got here 10 minutes ago - is standing around and eating, and we're starving because we're really physically working (in the warm California sun), and we've been there for 10 hours already and we're being told that there really is no time for us to take a dinner break and hey that food wasn't for you anyway.

We got tired of working to 2:20 every night and only getting paid till 2:00.  If the check cleared.  When at long last we actually got it.

We got tired of getting put off the job by some prick with a splinter rammed up his ass by someone else who decided to take it out on one of us because we happened to be standing there totally disinterested in absorbing any of his crap because it has nothing to do with what we have to get done.

But mostly we were tired of standing around being poor while everyone around us was awash - and in show biz, swimming - in money while we were doing this for ten bucks and a t-shirt.


yes, the macho men of the construction industry are cruel and unsympathetic for the same reasons.
Interestingly enough, as the trades have expanded to include more and more women the level of cruel and unsympathetic behavior has remained unchanged.  It's more the nature of the work, the internal dialog of the crew doing it's job, that leads to that, it's not a male deal as much as its turning out to be a human quality.


* - We don't care about the Filmore more or less because of the union, only the stage crew there is union in the first place, we care about it because we've poured a lot of our lives out in there and it's returned the favor to us over and over. We care about it because it's the Filmore in San Francisco, and it's one of the places that rock (at least the kind most of us like, a lot) was invented, and we are the people who were able to get to work to keep all of that going.  It's not like we used to have a lot of famous shows here, we have famous shows still, night after night.  And we're always mindful of what the place is to us, and what the place is to other people too.  I can go to any rock club/nightclub in any city in the world and tell them where I work, and they not only know exactly where I work(they've been there, they have DVDs shot there, live performances recorded there), they let me in for free because I work there.  And then they all want to talk to me about nightclubs and shows.  That's pretty cool.

Quote from: tekla on March 11, 2011, 09:22:35 AM
yes, the macho men of the construction industry are cruel and unsympathetic for the same reasons.
Interestingly enough, as the trades have expanded to include more and more women the level of cruel and unsympathetic behavior has remained unchanged.  It's more the nature of the work, the internal dialog of the crew doing it's job, that leads to that, it's not a male deal as much as its turning out to be a human quality.

Before the first woman came on site and sat with us during breaks and lunch, the talk at those times would burn the ears of even the most tolerant woman.  Guys would bitch about their wives, their ex-wives and their girlfriends.  Women were seen as inferior and good only when you needed a piece.

That was the general tone, not an all encompassing attitude.  I often cringed, often asked "why are you still married?" and sometimes just walked away.  As I was often the lead foreman, I rarely was challenged for my actions but some of the other guys were chided if they didn't participate in the rant.  Misogyny ruled.

When the women started appearing on the jobsites, that kind of talk pretty much vanished when they were present.  In a very strange way, I sensed it was out of respect or maybe fear.  But after a while, when it wasn't so uncommon to see a woman on the job, the guys loosened up and there was even times when it returned to its old form.  The toughest women would counter it but I think they all knew filing a harassment complaint would get them blackballed.

My ex was a UFCW member for over 30 years, until she joined management, and that's a whole different story.

unions are only as strong as its members, if the members won't support any activity then they have no right to complain about a weak union, because they are as much the union as their elected reps.

Tekla, when you say, "it's a human quality", I think, as usual, you hit the nail on the head (carpenter speak).

Julie Marie, everything you said here has been my experience exactly in my 34 years of being in the carpenters union.

Princess Rachel, very idealistic. But who is complaining about a weak union?

Jennifer

 I am not big on Unions at all and here is why. When settlements are not reached and Unions strike it often takes time to come to an agreement. I have seen it where some Unions have been out for months. But Union strikes don't just affect the Union worker but it reaches out to all the little companies the Unionized company outsources to. And in turn that affects economies. I have seen this firsthand living in Caterpillar country and back when I was able to work was laid off from my job on more than one occasion because of strikes. I even lost everything once because in an already bad economy the Union striked and the company I worked for closed it's doors.

I feel it is because of Unions that many US companies are moving to non union states or out of the country. In my opinion Unions have grown to big for their britches and need to lower their expectations a tad.  The demands of Unions have drove wages so high that in turn it has also drove inflation up. Because everybody wants a piece of the money they bargained for. Look where we are at now as a nation. Broke and in debt, even the government is struggling to stay running.

Maybe non union workers don't make as much as union workers. And maybe the non union worker doesn't have all the nice luxuries of life...but sometimes less is more in my opinion.