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Rick Rolls [Labor]
enc0re
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Let's discuss the exciting world of labor unions. I will start by quoting from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory.
This is how we're doing. Viewer discretion is advised.
A labor union is a democratic organization of workers. They collectively bargain for a contract. If the contract is breached, they can file a grievance. Unions operate under the Taft-Hartley Act (THA 1947), which gave States the ability to pass right-to-work (RTW) laws. RTW laws are frequently misrepresented to give workers the ability to not have to join a union. This is deliberate deception. So let's talk about shops.
Closed shop: Everyone is forced to join the union. Illegal in the U.S. nationwide under the THA.
Union shop: Everyone must join the union after a while. Illegal in the U.S. nationwide under the THA.
What the THA left unions with is the agency shop. The agency shop means that no one has to join the union or pay dues. But if you don't you must pay the equivalent of dues to a charitable organization. This prevents free riders.
RTW laws' essential feature is that they take away that last shop type. 22 states had passed RTW laws by 2011.
The resultant free rider effect has had a predictable outcome.
Since then the battle has come to the Great Lakes. Labor is losing. Indiana became the Union's 23rd right-to-work State in February. Wisconsin saw the abolition of most public workers' collective bargaining rights; firefighters and police excluded. Ohio Senate Bill 5 would have affected all public workers, but was overturned at the ballot by We Are Ohio. This November Michigan will try to recognize union rights in its constitution through the Protect our Jobs ballot initiative. Polls are favorable but the opposition has deep pockets.
United Nations wrote:Article 23
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
This is how we're doing. Viewer discretion is advised.
A labor union is a democratic organization of workers. They collectively bargain for a contract. If the contract is breached, they can file a grievance. Unions operate under the Taft-Hartley Act (THA 1947), which gave States the ability to pass right-to-work (RTW) laws. RTW laws are frequently misrepresented to give workers the ability to not have to join a union. This is deliberate deception. So let's talk about shops.
Closed shop: Everyone is forced to join the union. Illegal in the U.S. nationwide under the THA.
Union shop: Everyone must join the union after a while. Illegal in the U.S. nationwide under the THA.
What the THA left unions with is the agency shop. The agency shop means that no one has to join the union or pay dues. But if you don't you must pay the equivalent of dues to a charitable organization. This prevents free riders.
RTW laws' essential feature is that they take away that last shop type. 22 states had passed RTW laws by 2011.
The resultant free rider effect has had a predictable outcome.
Since then the battle has come to the Great Lakes. Labor is losing. Indiana became the Union's 23rd right-to-work State in February. Wisconsin saw the abolition of most public workers' collective bargaining rights; firefighters and police excluded. Ohio Senate Bill 5 would have affected all public workers, but was overturned at the ballot by We Are Ohio. This November Michigan will try to recognize union rights in its constitution through the Protect our Jobs ballot initiative. Polls are favorable but the opposition has deep pockets.
Harry Truman, 1947 wrote:You will find some people saying they are for so-called ‘Right-to-Work’ law, but they also believe in unions. This is absurd – it’s like saying you are for motherhood but against children.
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So you keep more money, because you need it, but it takes away the power of the union which means companies are freer to dick around with you?
man, that's depressing. You can just see where it will lead (or has led) and then realize how hard it is to stop.
It's worse than that as it actually effectively bans the union by creating the prisoners dilemma. You want the union to exist, since it negotiates for you and gets you benefits but you don't want to pay. So you want to NOT join the union while everyone else does, however if you don't join the union still must represent you which increases marginal costs and raises rates creating incentive for more people to leave. The domino effect destroys the union other than in places where the employer actively incentivizes people to join the union (either due to personal beliefs or a desire to negotiate with one party rather than many)
AFAIK you don't actually make more money either.
Then we have the public sector unions where 37% is represented by a Union. See those are the guys who are supposed to negotiate with the government in order to protect workers. Except in the process they end up funneling a fuckton of money to the Democrats, and working to ensure the person they face across the negotiating table owes them favors. Being completely parasitical in nature a private sector Union does not get to choose who they negotiate against, and can kill the host. A public sector union on the other hand can work to influence elections, and by and large cannot kill the host.
Lets take a look at the top all time donators to political campaigns, and see who they favor.
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
Public Sector Unions do not exist to fight corporations, or as a fundraising arm of the Democrats. So lets be real clear here, are we talking about public sector or private sector unions. Last time this topic came up people could not seem to grasp the difference and thought the Police and firefighters unions should be fighting Wal-Mart.
I'm genuinely curious if that kind of thing happens at union jobs. I feel like I damage my prospects for continued employment every time I point out something like that
Because the government can't be bad to its workers?
Because government employees aren't the first on the choping block when budgets come up short?
Unions give money to the democrats because republicans fight them. If republicans want union money they should be pro union. That simple.
Of course Unions donate to Democrats. The GOP has made it a party-plank for the last like 3+ decades to crush unions.
Like minorities, unions aren't stupid. They know who the enemy is.
And of course the Unions would prefer to have someone who's at least receptive to their bargaining offers. It would help them get better results in their contract talks to improve the workers pay/benefits/workplace atmosphere that the union represents, and that's the entire point of the union. The fact they happen to donate democrat is also a direct result of the Right's anti-union's policies. And even then the democrats aren't very union friendly anyway,
- Public v. private
- opportunity costs
- employment availability
- entry barriers to labor market
- labor monopolies
- precedent of abuses of leverage by either party
It can. It's just in a union shop what happens next is you file a complaint or some such and suddenly you've got a ton of people backing you up. So in general it happens less.
The situation you describe is pretty much exactly why unions exist.
If the government is mistreating the workers that is absolutely what the Union is for. Do you feel public sector workers are being mistreated? Often the first employees on the chopping block is the ones that hurt the tax payers the most, that way they have a better chance of convincing them to pay higher taxes. Quite often in the public sector you have deals that kick the financial can down the road so that future politicians have to bear the political costs.
Public sector Unions should not be fundraising arms of political parties. It is a massive conflict of interest. When 12 of the top 20 political donators since 1989 are unions that is a problem. Money in politics is a problem. Public sector unions should not be able to exert the pressure they do on our electoral system in determining who they have to negotiate against at the bargaining table. You would have to be either blind, or willfully ignorant not to see the problems with having the public represented at the bargaining table by someone who both owes favors to, and needs the support of the person across that table to get reelected.
No, but that's because they have a union to protect them.
1) No, there is no connection between which employees the government goes after and which employees "hurt the tax payer the most" (whatever that means)
2) kicking the financial can down the road is a time-honoured tradition of all government. Has no connection to unions at all.
How is a public sector union any more of a conflict of interest then any other group that donates to politicians? What, you think oil companies and wall street donate to politicians out of the goodness of their heart?
Public sector unions are just like any campaign contributor. There is absolutely nothing special about them. The only blind one here is you. You have blinders on in that you can't see every single one of your arguments about money in politics applies to every single organizations that donates money. Your statement about " the problems with having the public represented at the bargaining table by someone who both owes favors to, and needs the support of the person across that table to get reelected" applies to EVERY SINGLE ENTITY THAT DONATES TO CAMPAIGNS EVER.
Public sector unions are nothing special.
That is why they are number 77 on the list. When that money actually materializes we shall see if they go up.
The problem you continually ignore is that every added benefit/pay/workplace atmosphere costs money. Money the tax payers have to come up with. The problem is no one at that table is representing the tax payers. We have the Union reps, and the politicians who owe the Union reps favors and need their support. You can see why that is obviously bad for the tax payers yes?
Or are the only ones that represent the tax payers the representatives that outright strip the unions of their rights?
Show me the outside spending in the 2010 elections.
The politicians are supposed to represent the tax payer. That's their job. They do often forget this, but this was a goosey statement.
I don't like the idea of compelling people to join anything, but I don't like the idea of workers being exploited even more.
Oh they are something special alright. Can you think of any other purely tax payer funded organizations that massively donate to one political party?
But let us say I accept your argument that they are only just as corrupt as every other corrupt organization that tries to buy and sell political influence for its own gain. Well then on that basis alone, good riddance to them.
Why should they donate to the party that wants to destroy them and everything they represent?
This was my immediate reaction. If the existence of firefighters leads to less bad fires then it means you got enough firemen, not that you can get rid of them.
It's utterly bizarre reasoning. The union is there to prevent mistreatment, taking it away means they can't prevent it. Simple.
The problem lies in that politicians are supposed to represent tax payers. That is how it is supposed to work. Whichever party wins the guy at the negotiating table is supposed to drive as hard a bargain as he can so the tax payers are on the hook for as few costs as possible. It does not work that way when the guy at the table got elected due to contributions from the public sector union, and with the help of their donated manpower. He owes them, and if he does not make good their support in the next election will go somewhere else. Should I really need to spell this out? He has to keep them happy, and taxpayers suffer.
Now we have the flip side with the Republicans. They want to give the Unions as absolutely little as possible if not outright destroy them because any increase in wages means an increase in Union Dues. Any increase in dues is an increase in funds to the guy they are going to run against in the next election. So they have a vested interest in fucking them as much as possible.
When Public Sector Unions became a fundraising arm of the Democrats they fucked themselves. This isnt about work conditions, or benefits. It is about money and political power brokering. Anyway you slice it, it is a problem. Some just choose to ignore it because it benefits their political ideology, but that does not make it right or something that needs to be protected.
The first reaction of the Tea Party to the recession was to eviscerate public spending. All those "government jobs" the GOP bitches about? Those are teachers and firemen and cops.
Yeah, I can't imagine why unions--representing the interests of a bunch of people who work for governments and corporations--would give a bunch of money to the party that supports laws which protect and enrich those employees. That just doesn't make any sense.
And can I also point out that the public union listed there represents every unionized public employee in the country (1.4 million fucking people), as opposed to, say, AT&T, which represents one fucking company.
And I am just fine with unions being forbidden from using their money for lobbying, as long as publicly-held companies are also forbidden from using their money for lobbying.
This is a false. Public sector unions are not tax payer funded, they are funded from dues received from public employees. The fact that public employees are paid with money collected from taxes is completely irrelevant
I assure you, for labor this is about work conditions and benefits. For Democrats and Republicans this may be about money and political power brokering.
There's a value to paying public employees more than the bare, absolute minimum. Fuck, I think the SEC guys should get a commission based on the fines they help collect; let's have some fucking bounties out there. People should be clamoring to work at the SEC, because it should pay millions.
I personally think we should just vote to make public sector employees slaves.
We just can't afford freemen.
Adding to what everyone else has said it should be obvious why Union members tend to support democrats
Also some things to note:
Unions are not parasitic. They are the other half of the free market, where on one side, capital owners can get together and form a firm, laborers can get together and form a Union. Its not like this is new, Adam Smith said as much in a book, you might have heard of
RTW laws essentially are banning companies from making agreements of certain types with labor companies. Which is pretty anti-captalist when you get right down to it.
So let me get this straight. The Public Sector Unions have power over the democrats because they have money. And if the Democrats don't give them what they want, the Public Sector Unions will stop giving them money so that Republicans win so that Republicans can fuck the Unions.
Yea, it seems the Unions in the primary might have a shot at replacing the democrat from the left, but they don't really have any power in the general election because what are they going to support the GoP? And we know how good Dems are at replacing people from the left [which is to say they are terrible].
Both of these things indicate that your thesis is false. Theoretically the Public Sector Unions should not have power over the democrats because there is no feasible alternative to them. Without power over the people negotiating the unions have to rely on the actual facts of the situation in order to negotiate.
Add that to the fact that public sector unions don't tend to screw the taxpayer over and well..
This is an incredibly stupid statement. Government employees are not a "tax-payer funded organisation". They are PEOPLE. People with JOBS, just like you. It doesn't fucking matter who writes their paycheques, it is THEIR money. Public unions are paid for with their employees money, which is PRIVATE money, not government money. Tax payers are not funding public unions, private citizens (who happen to incidentally work for the government instead of wal-mart) are.
I disagree, it is completely relevant and largely why you are seeing a 37% public sector vs 7% private sector unionization rates.
Better benefits is more money. However you slice it any additional benefit or change in working conditions costs money. It all comes back to money, and in the case of public sector unions its taxpayer money.
If public sector Unions are costing the taxpayer more than the same service would cost without them, yeah consider them screwing them over.
Unions have backed themselves into a corner with the Dems, if the Dem they bribe wont play ball they need another Dem or state depending a friendly GoP. However that is not to say all political climates are necessarily as hostile and they can at times afford to cut their losses. It is a political power game, and they need a friendly candidate secured during the primary. They do have quite a bit of power to wield, they just have to start early, and yes they can decide to not donate or donate less than they would to a friendlier candidate. You can't win every election, and yes occasionally Unions do donate to GoP candidates. Although right now with them being on the warpath to crush them probably not as likely.
At the end of the day 93% of the private sector and 63% of the public sector is getting along without Unions. They are a shrinking dying minority and have been for some time. The majority of the workforce does not work in union shops.
The thing I don't get, if a pile of equipment falls over and injures someone, it will set the project back and going an extra day costs tens of thousands of dollars, in addition to paying workman's comp
I can't even comprehend the mindset of a manager who thinks "gee it's irritating that someone is making others take an extra four to five seconds to do the job safely". It's not good for anyone if there's an injury on the job. Spending .1% of your day extra (in not pushing loads too quickly, running while carrying something heavy, etc, etc) reduces the chances of a workplace injury by so much as to make the risk/reward equation totally lopsided here.
Non-union venues in this state most often have their labor contracts with a non-union corporation called Rhino Staging. Their compensation rates are terrible; they pay you a dollar above minimum wage (Washington state's minimum is $9/hour), and have no provisions for overtime outside of those instances where you work 40+ hours for them in one week. And even then they've been known to fudge the numbers or the dates so they don't have to pay you 1.5x your regular going rate (I know people who have been on the receiving end of this).
On the flipped side, union contracts start at a rate of pay of $16/hour. That's the minimum. In many cases it's actually higher. The Key Arena, for example, pays its union laborers somewhere on the order of $24/hour. It's pretty swell.
The second big difference is benefits. Rhino has none. The union has a limited amount, but it's heavily contingent on how many hours you have under your belt. So if you're just starting out, you're not likely to get on their health insurance and retirement plans for a few years. But if you do your time and put in the effort, you'll have something to show for your troubles. No matter how much time and effort you invest under Rhino (unless you work for their corporate office in Arizona), you will never, ever get the level of benefits the union will afford you. It just won't happen.
The third is peace of mind. Unions are, in my opinion, an integral part of becoming or staying in the American middle class. Social and economic mobility doesn't really happen unless you can take costs that would normally cripple even the most financially responsible of individuals (healthcare, retirement, injury on the job which prevents you from working) and alleviate them either through government programs or employment benefit programs. My union does a lot of good for me and all its members; it exists to help us move up in the world with greater ease than we would have on their own, or while working under an unfeeling corporation that concerns itself with its bottom line and shareholder profit first and its employees second (if ever). I can rest easy at night knowing the union works on my behalf to make my life a better one to live. It doesn't exist to generate profit at the exclusion of everything else, and for that I am thankful.
Unions are good things, people. Unions mean jobs. They mean prosperity. That people would think union members are somehow more entitled or less hardworking is beyond me. Those traits are not something you attach to an organization; they're something you attach to an individual. And if you're a lazy, entitled stagehand, let me be the first to tell you you're not going to go far in this line of work. Maybe look into becoming a toll booth worker. I hear you don't have to move around much in that job.
It's good for the short term and accidents never happen, am I right?
Our soldiers signed the contract and took the oath! If they really loved America they'd work for free! Lets reinstate the draft while they're at it!
Are public employees somehow subhuman to you? They deserve decent working conditions, pay, and benefits the same as anybody else.
[Citation Needed]. Is there actual evidence of public sector unions bribing Democrat contract negotiators? Because you throw that scenario around like it's a widely known fact. How about a few examples or a comprehensive study from this century?
No they are not. Income inequality is through the roof. Benefits have gotten slashed. The notion of a secure retirement is unavailable to most workers. There are tens of millions of working adults who don't have health insurance. All the while the top 0.1% of the income distributions have been walking away with gangbusters increases in their standards of living. Labor has been getting the hose.