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I think I'm starting to dislike unions...
Posts
Basically unions need to own and operate businesses themselves. Leadership from the bottom up, voted by workers. Yeah, sometimes you need a foreman. But he should be someone you and your coworkers decided to be there. My IT company, while not owned by the workers, operates something like this. If someone is trying to get promoted or change departments, it's their coworkers who decide if they should get the position.
Argentina got fucked when their government embraced free trade and their local manufacturing jobs dried up and suddenly you have (relatively) cheap goods but no jobs to buy the goods no matter how cheap. Since then, union groups have been forming to take ownership of the abandoned factories they once worked at and start them running with the governments blessing. So far, they are doing pretty well rebuilding their economy.
I work as a server for a restaurant thats owned by a parent company that controls several other restaurant chains as well. One of the other restaurants is being built in the same general area (around a mall) as mine. Apparently, the company is contracting some of the construction out to an out of state company. This has the local union rather pissed off.
So what do they do? The union has workers stand outside of *MY* restaurant, handing out fliers, puttign them under windshield wipers, and telling guest not to dine at MY restaurant. The fliers were ridiculous too. While they outlined the actual beef the union had, they decided to just toss a picture of rats on there... because why not make people nervous about rodent infestations where no such problem exists!
Because they are pissed at another restaurant chain owned by the same parent company as my restaurant, they seem to think its ok to attack my restaurant. What makes it worse is that the only people they are really hurting is us, the servers. The parent company isn't gonna be affected by the loss of a bunch of guests for a day or two. However, it DIRECTLY influences the amount of money *I* make. It affects MY ability to pay rent. I'm essentially the lowest level of peon at an only tenously related establishment. Why do *I* deserve to be screwed over?
I hope they all die in a fire.
Games Finished: 34 Games Added: 15 Total Progress: +19
I mean, it would be nice if Argentina's situation was replicable and infrastructure for co-ops to use just sprang from the ground, but it doesn't seem all that reasonable as a means of reform for countries t hat aren't looking at overthrowing their government in the near future.
@Dionysus: yeah, those union members certainly shouldn't be able to mobilize activsts against that corporation
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
You forgot robots.
Unions should offer their members plans in Old Glory Insurance.
Oh come on. I'm not saying they don't have a right to protest. Just do it outside the actual restaurant being built. Or corporate headquarters. This is like driving business away from an Outback Steakhouse because you're pissed at the Carrabba's down the street. They are only related at a point so ridiculously high up the chain of command, that the unions actions are practically a waste of time. The Corp isn't gonna feel it. *I* do, and I had nothing to do with any of it.
I ask again, why am I being denied the ability to pay my rent?
All I'm saying is that these freaking unions should be conscious of the consequences of their actions on innocent parties. I didn't deserve to lose my guests and my tips. I did nothing to them. They, however, decided to not think sensibly about the situation. So they can go to hell.
Games Finished: 34 Games Added: 15 Total Progress: +19
guess what? the only way corporate will give a fuck is if they start losing business. They don't care if ten people are flyering outside their HQ
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
So, how does it feel to be a human shield? Because that's exactly what you've become by trying to pin all your woes on the union members (who, by the way, are making a fucking good point about the fact that the money isn't being invested in local firms) instead of the corporate asshole who decided to bring in out of state workers.
I am an employee of a non-union corporate retail chain. I'm very happy with the way ownership/management treats us. Part-time employees get highly subsidized health-care, paid time off, retirement plan contributions, 2 merit based raises each year, and are hired above minimum wage. Obviously not every business runs things this way, but I'd loathe to be forced to join a union as a precondition for employment. Unions are fine as long as they are optional.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
Which is why the problem is with particular unions sucking rather than unions as a whole.
There are some right bastards out there who are far worse than management which don't do anything other than line their own pockets. There are also situations like Boeing where you have cascading renegotiation deals among numerous unions which can just cripple their ability to do anything if one of them has a hiccup because a new strike begins right after an old one ends.
On the other hand you have things like a lot of the Trades where the unions not only teach the craft as a means of entrance but provide and encourage lifelong learning in order to improve their member's skills. If you want to see what the difference is take a look at the size of construction documents for union states and non-union states, you have to add an inch of details to cover your ass and constantly go on site when the unskilled dumbasses fuck things up whereas you can generally trust a union carpenter to actually build a wall the way you're supposed to.
So it runs the gamut. Much like anything else with a broad label applied to it. You might as well say that you are starting to hate management because of jackasses spending millions to redecorate their office while the company's pension fund burns while completely overlooking businesses where sanity reigns.
Yes, but the amount of business these people can logically influence is so small as to be nonexistant. On top of that, I'm still getting screwed for something I wasn't involved in.
Let me be clear. The people MOST affected by this little 'demonstration' wasn't the specific restaurants bottom line, nor its managers, nor was it the chain's bottom line, much less the parent company. They were all either barely affected or not at ALL affected.
The servers, on the other hand, are significantly affected. That doesn't seem logical.
I'm hardly blaming all my woes on them. It happened, it pissed me off a ton at the time, but its been over for a while. However, there was this thread about unions here, and I thought I'd show of an example of how some unions have no problem storming over other lowrung peons for their own agendas. Just like corporations.
Games Finished: 34 Games Added: 15 Total Progress: +19
so how precisely can a union protest against the actions of a company without it affecting the workers at that company?
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
Really? That's a good point about out-of-state workers? My outrageometer must be busted, because I'm not even getting a blip from that. There's an inherent cost to bringing workers from out of state, in transportation or housing or both, and if the company is willing to take on that cost it implies that there's a pretty significant difference between these out-of-state folks and the local crew. Either they're setting their prices too high or the quality of their work is less reliable. In both of these cases the locals have brought this on themselves. I know I'm appealing to market dynamics here, so I'm making the assumption that there isn't some kind of shady collusion between the corp and the contractor or other heinous fuckery. But in that case, I'm annoyed at the heinous fuckery, not the use of an out-of-state contractor.
EDIT: and pictures of rats on flyers, presuming the absence of rats in the restaurant, is fucking libel (and I hate libel laws, but this is why they exist). I wouldn't defend a company doing this to their competitors; I'm not sure why you're defending a union doing this to a company who didn't hire them.
Exactly. Odds are the Parent Company did nothing untoward and the rats thing was just bullcrap. I can personally attest that there are no rats in my restaurant. Its a pretty recognizable chain (as are the other restaurants under the PC) and that kind of stuff doesn't fly. The union knew exactly what it was doing putting those images on there. They were trying to influence the guests above and beyond the actual situation they were protesting - which tells me that even THEY didn't think their case was very strong.
Games Finished: 34 Games Added: 15 Total Progress: +19
Also confusing the situation somewhat is the fact that I work in a small corporation that started as a local grange that grew into a retail business. Now there's 7 stores in the state, and all but one are Unionized. If we really really wanted to, and could become united, we could de-unionize. It's allowed. But at the same time we'd lose our pension fund ... it's complicated but in the end would suck one way or another.
That's one thing I don't quite get now. The major, industry spanning union. It made sense back in the day, but anymore it seems like union shops should basically be their own organization rather than a small part of the AFL-CIO or whomever.
well, to some extent it's a matter of sharing resources (like legal services), but mostly it's a about political leverage
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
Obviously our healthcare system is fucked, and that can't be placed on their shoulders, but the problem of ponzi-fied unions seems like a union problem to me.
I suppose, but it's not as though anyone else has figured out how to solve a ponzi-fied society when there's a temporary majority at the top
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION! For the glory of the proletariat!
Similar treatment when I was 15 and forced to join a union for my summer job has always made me feel uneasy about unions as well.
There is definitely a net benefit to their existence, but at times it really appears like their utility is NOT properly distributed amongst their members.
I told them to fuck off.
They send me a bill once in a while that keeps going up, and they have some really aggressive assholes who bother me once in a while and try to act intimidating. I tell them if they want their money, they can get me full time hours.
I once had someone in my own union give me shit because I went to work when they were on strike and try and fight with me. I was hung over and pretty enraged at the fact a lazy housekeeper was making 30$/hour with awesome benefits and still spewing filth at me. Enough so that I spent the day fantasizing about throwing him off the roof.
If I didn't despise SEIU Local 250 before that day, I certainly did after.
this actually seems like the place where there is most room to regulate unions or otherwise change how they operate, but it's not entirely clear to me how you'd do it. If you just exempt younger people or part time workers from membership you just incentivize more hiring of those populations (see: wal-mart), but it also doesn't seem to work to include them completely in health/pension plans, because they're transient or don't contribute as much to those systems.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
So... unions?
well, you'd need to have a union response to the regulations for things to stay in balance.
so exempt people under a certain wage rate, but also have the union insist that if more than a certain percentage of workers are under that wage rate, then they're striking.
Nothing involving unions is going to be handled completely with regulations, because that is the whole reason why unions exist.
Uh, how about dues as a percentage of total pay earned rather than the current system of using per-hour or just ignoring pay entirely and asking a flat rate?
Its a similar problem to the idea of having workers accrue stock ownership in a company so as to be more invested and influential over the decisions being made by management. That would work perfectly...assuming nobody ever quits or gets fired.
even a percentage can be an undue burden at lower wage rates.
because a percentage of pay earned for a 15/hr/wk worker is still less than a full time worker's contribution, and the money that pays for benefits has to come from somewhere.
The "X# of exempted part time workers" thing seems like it would make sense though. Is there any industry where unions do that?
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
No, that's exactly what Right to Work laws prevent. Membership of a union or payment of their dues can't be a condition of employment in a right to work state.
no, the idea was that the union would mandate union membership generally, just not in a particular union.
That still doesn't really change anything though, if hypothetical new workers could just join the Do Nothings Local 245
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
Okay, take the total pay earned by your entire union, that's A.
Take the total dues collected by your entire union, that's B.
Now divide B by A.
If you're still with me here, you have a decimal value. Now multiply that decimal value by one hundred.
With the magic of mathematics, you have just generated a percentage of pay which will support the union just as effectively as whatever the old system was!
Now, if you have a substantive complaint about the utility of this system, voice it, but "the money that pays for benefits has to come from somewhere" just doesn't pass.
I don't see how that leaves a loophole that would allow an employer to fire non union employees.
well, I was assuming that equality of dues for benefits among all members was the goal, because the original objection was to part time and short term members getting no benefits but having the pay dues anyway.
I mean frankly, if I could get decent (or honestly, even minimal) benefits by picking up a 10 hour a week job at freddy's or something, I would be all over it. That probably isn't a sustainable model for the union though, unless the full time or higher pay workers are subsidizing me.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
One assumes that we're talking about amending taft-hartley to make these changes.
Under this hypothetical framework workers could be compelled to join a union of their choice, just not obligated to join one union exclusively. This would encourage competition among unions to do a good job representing workers, I guess?
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
I find it much less objectionable for high-pay workers to subsidize low-pay workers than the other way around, but neither is optimal so you're right to bring up the problem. Perhaps an exception for part-time workers who don't receive benefits is a more sensible solution after all.
The basic purpose of a union is to represent the workers collectively to management so as to embolden their bargaining power for better ___ in comparison to each member negotiating as an individual. For that to be the case how would having 8 different unions representing the same segment of workers be a good idea? If anything its worse than the conglomerated unions who don't really give a shit about the little shops because now you have a bunch of different unions vying to get a better deal out of management and getting played against each other.