I assume he is talking about union leadership (I haven't worked somewhere were shop stewards make that much.)
Hoffa holds a degree in economics from Michigan State University (1963) and a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School (1966)
he makes 360,000. Not a bad living but the CEO of the largest company that employs teamsters made 10.3 million.
Management should make more for obvious reasons (pay to bullshit scale and all that. I should know, I'm now an engineering officer have to help manage people now. That shit is legitimately stressful.), just not anything super obscene. It's basically about making sure the top brass still feels a compelling reason not to just be complete cocks since they'll have to be properly invested in the goings on of the organization as a whole and not just burn it to the ground and laugh their way to the bank. Basically, the people in charge should be their because they care, not just to make a bunch of money and peace out. Keeping salaries and extra benefits reasonable is a good way to ensure that while also attracting good talent. Granted, at the moment that is 100% a pipe dream and for that to work it'd basically take a piece of legislation to force damn near everyone at the top of basically everything to take a pay cut and that will neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever happen.
Ya, I'm a mate and about once a day I think about giving back my extra pay and not bothering with people.
But the point is that 400,000 isn't a lot of money in a organization of 1.3 million people and it's silly to limit it further without something changing across the board.
400k really isn't much in the grand scheme of things, no. Especially when a Chief Engineer can easily pull 200k working only half the year and dealing with 90% less crap.
I find the best way to think of unions is simply as another supplier for the business / industry in question. Instead of supplying raw materials or widgets, the union supplies labor. It may seem disingenuous, when you consider the legal protections that unions have - especially as was noted unions may on their face appear to have a monopoly, but overall it's a good analog.
The first thing is that simply because one 'supplier' may be the primary (or only) supplier of the labor 'product' for an industry, but that doesn't mean they are comparable to a monopoly. You may have an industry that relies heavily on a single supplier, but that doesn't mean that supplier is a monopoly if there are other suppliers with the same product but that industry doesn't utilize them for whatever reason. Along the same lines, there are many, many suppliers of labor - essentially 300 million of them in the US, and many different unions. Just because the Teamsters, UAW, or Longshoreman national unions are the primary union representing their specific industries doesn't mean there aren't non-union suppliers / contractors that are available to provide the same 'product', be it in that industry or not. There are few, if any, professions that are entirely dominated by a single union and non-union or contract help simply isn't an option.
Companies also have options that don't involve working with the union. Lockouts and scabs are a thing, and a company can simply go with non-union personnel if they wish - contractors, salaried employees, offshoring, etc. This isn't especially different than any other 'product' - breaking a relationship or otherwise choosing not to renew a contract with ANY major supplier is going to be disruptive. If your IT department decided not to renew their contract with Oracle / Microsoft, or a manufacturer decided not to renew their contract with a key material / part supplier, that would be just as disruptive and expensive.
Contract negotiations? A contract is a contract. Any supplier is free to walk at the end of a contract, just like how a company is free to choose other options. It's not illegal for other suppliers (i.e. other unions in this case) to choose not to do business with that company - maybe it's just too difficult to work with them, or they aren't willing to pay the market price for that supply.
Not allowing large / national unions? Well, free association for one. Can't really get around that. We also don't limit corporations to a certain size, and if unions are forced to be independent and local / regional, well - they essentially have no power at all when dealing with a large or multi-national corporation. The amount of resources and political power a large corporation (to say nothing of the collusion you see in many industries against unions in general) would be insurmountable without unions also working together.
The libertarian 'free to do what I want' mentality is interesting how unevenly it's applied when you talk about corporations vs. unions. I can't see how the libertarian philosophy can argue for employer 'freedom' but argue against things like closed shops. Why shouldn't a union / business be able to establish a closed shop if the same industry is allowed to prohibit a union forming? Well, the answer is that when people WERE able to do that, it turns out those closed shops and union owned businesses annihilated other businesses. Believe it or not, well paid and loyal employees can make a business successful and beat out a business that exists to only line management / capital's pockets.
Most of those laws that people get worked up about are to protect businesses, and more often than not things people hate about unions (i.e. can't fire bad employees for one) are the result of poor management that doesn't want to do their job. You can easily fire people for misconduct - you just need to document and follow the process. It's no different than dumping an independent contractor - you need to follow the process laid out in the agreement you - as a company - made with them.
Add to that the fact that a union is obligated - just like a defense attorney - to represent their client, regardless of how shitty that client may or may not be.
Basically, all the union hate is propaganda from people who want to have their cake and eat it too. While there are situations where unions might not make sense, or places where workers are treated well without unions, more often than not it's because those companies or industries are scared shitless of union organization.
If I came across that way, then I apologize. Unions do many wonderful things, and are necessary.
That being said, I'm uncomfortable with the carte blanche power that Unions have as bargaining and political units. It is often times the equivalent of a single party system in my mind. I'd like there to be a little bit more choice regarding representation, so that Unions would collectively have to be a bit more reasonable (edit: reasonable both towards the corporation and their members).
Also, I've never really been fond of how Unions transitioned from being an agency of your coworkers to an agency of its own. I realize that large unions do take large amounts of manpower, but I struggle with how lawyer-eque these organizations have become, when they're so far removed from the profession they represent.
This very aptly describes Congress as well...
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I find the best way to think of unions is simply as another supplier for the business / industry in question. Instead of supplying raw materials or widgets, the union supplies labor. It may seem disingenuous, when you consider the legal protections that unions have - especially as was noted unions may on their face appear to have a monopoly, but overall it's a good analog.
The first thing is that simply because one 'supplier' may be the primary (or only) supplier of the labor 'product' for an industry, but that doesn't mean they are comparable to a monopoly. You may have an industry that relies heavily on a single supplier, but that doesn't mean that supplier is a monopoly if there are other suppliers with the same product but that industry doesn't utilize them for whatever reason. Along the same lines, there are many, many suppliers of labor - essentially 300 million of them in the US, and many different unions. Just because the Teamsters, UAW, or Longshoreman national unions are the primary union representing their specific industries doesn't mean there aren't non-union suppliers / contractors that are available to provide the same 'product', be it in that industry or not. There are few, if any, professions that are entirely dominated by a single union and non-union or contract help simply isn't an option.
Companies also have options that don't involve working with the union. Lockouts and scabs are a thing, and a company can simply go with non-union personnel if they wish - contractors, salaried employees, offshoring, etc. This isn't especially different than any other 'product' - breaking a relationship or otherwise choosing not to renew a contract with ANY major supplier is going to be disruptive. If your IT department decided not to renew their contract with Oracle / Microsoft, or a manufacturer decided not to renew their contract with a key material / part supplier, that would be just as disruptive and expensive.
Contract negotiations? A contract is a contract. Any supplier is free to walk at the end of a contract, just like how a company is free to choose other options. It's not illegal for other suppliers (i.e. other unions in this case) to choose not to do business with that company - maybe it's just too difficult to work with them, or they aren't willing to pay the market price for that supply.
Not allowing large / national unions? Well, free association for one. Can't really get around that. We also don't limit corporations to a certain size, and if unions are forced to be independent and local / regional, well - they essentially have no power at all when dealing with a large or multi-national corporation. The amount of resources and political power a large corporation (to say nothing of the collusion you see in many industries against unions in general) would be insurmountable without unions also working together.
The libertarian 'free to do what I want' mentality is interesting how unevenly it's applied when you talk about corporations vs. unions. I can't see how the libertarian philosophy can argue for employer 'freedom' but argue against things like closed shops. Why shouldn't a union / business be able to establish a closed shop if the same industry is allowed to prohibit a union forming? Well, the answer is that when people WERE able to do that, it turns out those closed shops and union owned businesses annihilated other businesses. Believe it or not, well paid and loyal employees can make a business successful and beat out a business that exists to only line management / capital's pockets.
Most of those laws that people get worked up about are to protect businesses, and more often than not things people hate about unions (i.e. can't fire bad employees for one) are the result of poor management that doesn't want to do their job. You can easily fire people for misconduct - you just need to document and follow the process. It's no different than dumping an independent contractor - you need to follow the process laid out in the agreement you - as a company - made with them.
Add to that the fact that a union is obligated - just like a defense attorney - to represent their client, regardless of how shitty that client may or may not be.
Basically, all the union hate is propaganda from people who want to have their cake and eat it too. While there are situations where unions might not make sense, or places where workers are treated well without unions, more often than not it's because those companies or industries are scared shitless of union organization.
Also German/Scandinavian unions are baller awesome and do great things for their workers. My union (IATSE) copies them where possible, and it leads to pretty sweet dealings for workers all around, in my local area.
If I came across that way, then I apologize. Unions do many wonderful things, and are necessary.
That being said, I'm uncomfortable with the carte blanche power that Unions have as bargaining and political units. It is often times the equivalent of a single party system in my mind. I'd like there to be a little bit more choice regarding representation, so that Unions would collectively have to be a bit more reasonable (edit: reasonable both towards the corporation and their members).
Also, I've never really been fond of how Unions transitioned from being an agency of your coworkers to an agency of its own. I realize that large unions do take large amounts of manpower, but I struggle with how lawyer-eque these organizations have become, when they're so far removed from the profession they represent.
This very aptly describes Congress as well...
Shit, that describes the leaders of any large organization, including Corporate CEO's.
That's because at a certain size it becomes more important to manage personnel rather then managing what they do.
There is even a tv show called Undercover Boss where big shot CEO's take entry level jobs in their own Companies. Unsurprisingly they usually prove hilariously inept at it.
Unions are no different.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Gov. Scott Walker's administration has suspended merit raises and retention pay increases to help deal with a $283 million budget gap that must be plugged by the end of June.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported Friday that Walker sent a memo to state agency human resources directors on Feb. 5 announcing the freeze.
It's unclear how many employees will be affected. University of Wisconsin faculty, academic staff and appointees will not be affected, but UW System spokesman Alex Hummel says the freeze will apply to classified employees, including custodians, administrative assistants, information technology workers, accountants and food service workers.
The freeze affects merit pay raises and increases aimed at retaining workers. Other raises are not affected.
Who could have seen that coming?
Edit: About the bold, state employees have not seen a raise that didn't come with an increase in their contribution towards benefits that was higher than the raise amount. For the last 10 years. I'm fairly certain I make more as a 2.5 year old employee than my co-worker who has been here for 17 years doing the same job. To make it worse, it's also a male/female comparison. I just don't have the heart to confirm it incase it's true.
"Other raises are not affected" seems to be referencing the time-in-rank scale that most teaching jobs have? Those aren't merit or retention raises, are they?
"Other raises are not affected" seems to be referencing the time-in-rank scale that most teaching jobs have? Those aren't merit or retention raises, are they?
Teachers, while often part of the state retirement and benefit system, aren't state employees but are employees of their district. They'd be considered municipal or county employees, depending on the district, so this doesn't affect them.
Edit: 2010's Act 10 was law regarding all public sector unions in Wisconsin, which is why it did change what they can bargain for (basically nothing) and the rules to keep them active (purposefully hard and time consuming).
Edit2: And yeah, a raise simply because you're there for 5/10/15 years or whatever isn't merit and wouldn't be affected with this anyway, but as far as I'm aware there isn't any state jobs that are like that.
Veevee on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Didn't police and firefighter unions get an exemption from Walker's asshole law?
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
It's over! Mostly.
Fairpoint and the unions reached a tentative agreement!
Union members still need to ratify the agreement, and there are meetings scheduled for that to happen, or not. But, if the members all accept, then everybody is back to work next Wednesday. That will be 131 days after work stoppage.
What's interesting about this, when you think about it, is that Wal-Mart raising wages has the practical effect of raising minimum wage nationwide.
Wal-Mart being the largest employer in the USA (and the world) means that the Mcdonalds, Subways, Targets of the country have to raise their wages to compete. It won't happen immediately, but even as shitty as Wal-Mart is, you really don't want to be the company whose applicant pool is 'The People Wal-Mart wouldn't hire.'
Worst possible outcome! Strike deadline was extended indefinitely, so now I literally don't know if I have to go into work tomorrow. Wtf. :bigfrown:
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
oh gross.
Just pack your things at work and have them ready to go. Keep your phone charged, etc.
which union/local? best thing that I can see that my friends in New England did was have a facebook page and an amazingly well organized group of mobilizers.
I really hope that you don't have to go on strike, but you do have support out here.
It does seem like unions lack any particular incentive to do anything for their employees (other than those directly connected to the union management) once you legally mandate paying dues. Corruption isn't unique to corporations, and it can very easily become a situation where two apathetic institutions are screwing you over instead of one.
It is written into US labor law that unions are run by worker democracy. If your union leadership is corrupt, you can vote them out (a power you will typically lack with respect to your management).
I find the best way to think of unions is simply as another supplier for the business / industry in question. Instead of supplying raw materials or widgets, the union supplies labor. It may seem disingenuous, when you consider the legal protections that unions have - especially as was noted unions may on their face appear to have a monopoly, but overall it's a good analog.
Although I agree with the overall sentiment that Unions are nice, I don't think this analogy is that strong--unions are a legal object that involve a special set of rights and duties over and above a typical commercial relationship. These rights were arrived at as a sort of compromise: the corporations gave up certain rights, like the right to fire union members; in return, the union members gave up certain rights, like the right to hold sympathy strikes.
Whether the compromise is still being respected is, unfortunately, another matter.
TI — The union representing the University of Cincinnati police force filed a grievance on behalf of the officer indicted on a murder charge, demanding that he get his job back because the university fired him without due process, a union official said Friday.
Thomas Fehr, representative of the Fraternal Order of Police-Ohio Labor Council, said the union filed the grievance Thursday, the same day Ray Tensing was arraigned in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court after his arrest.
As DuBose turned his ignition key to start the car, Tensing pulled out his service weapon and fired. Tensing was wearing a body camera that captured the exchange.
Shortly after Tensing's indictment was announced Wednesday, the university fired him from his job. The Fraternal Order of Police represents the members of the force, and Fehr said the university did not abide by its three-year contract with the union in dismissing Tensing.
“We filed the grievance, No. 1 because there was no just cause, and No. 2 because he was not afforded his due-process rights under the contract,” Fehr said.
As we've said in the thread, unions are pretty much legally required to act as defense attorneys, but for firings. It just so happens that duty sometimes involves defending people who are terrible.
the union is making sure the employer abides by the contract it negotiated and agreed upon. no doubt it has clauses for termination. even though he commited a heinous crime; that doesnt give the employer the right to do whatever they want. they must abide by the contract. the contract THEY agreed to.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
edited August 2015
All true.
However, tinwhiskers was highlighting point 1 of the union's statement. And point 2 is about due process. Point 1 is clearly madness.
Unions are required to play defense attorney even for horrible employees, as they should. They don't have to go all reality-denial and scorched-earth like police unions do.
Don't they, though? I mean, you would expect your defense attorney to not only make sure that your rights were respected, but also to try to get you off the hook for that bad thing you did, much as that officer's defense attorney will say the killing was totally justified, beyond insuring that the officer's rights as an accused defendant are preserved, they're also obligated to try and make what their client did, look good.
In an imperfect, adversarial system, somebody has to play devil's advocate.
However, tinwhiskers was highlighting point 1 of the union's statement. And point 2 is about due process. Point 1 is clearly madness.
Unions are required to play defense attorney even for horrible employees, as they should. They don't have to go all reality-denial and scorched-earth like police unions do.
What are they supposed to say? "We filed the grievance, even though there is totally probably cause for firing him,"
To use the defense attorney analogy, that would be sort of like saying, "We plead innocent, although we totally agree that my client is guilty as charged,"
What are they supposed to say? "We filed the grievance, even though there is totally probably cause for firing him,"
To use the defense attorney analogy, that would be sort of like saying, "We plead innocent, although we totally agree that my client is guilty as charged,"
It's like being the public defender for someone who kills and eats kids- your client might be the worst person in the world, but you still have to do your best to defend them. Plus I think that if you don't give your all you can be sued and the case re-tried.
If a member is in good standing with the Union they basically have to give a full throated defense of their member or he can very well win his day in court against them whether he's convicted of eating a bus full of orphans or not.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
If a member is in good standing with the Union they basically have to give a full throated defense of their member or he can very well win his day in court against them whether he's convicted of eating a bus full of orphans or not.
A full-throated defense is not "pathological lying".
If you think the UAW would defend a factory worker who was, let's say, summarily fired rather than being put through the proper channels after they were caught on camera beating someone to death with a wrench for not having a security lanyard by saying there was no actual cause for them to lose their job, I really don't know what to tell you. They don't have to say "Oh, yes, there was cause, but we're disputing it anyway!" They can avoid that topic and just contend that they weren't fired through the contractually obligated procedure, because the University legally can't do that.
What are they supposed to say? "We filed the grievance, even though there is totally probably cause for firing him,"
To use the defense attorney analogy, that would be sort of like saying, "We plead innocent, although we totally agree that my client is guilty as charged,"
It's like being the public defender for someone who kills and eats kids- your client might be the worst person in the world, but you still have to do your best to defend them. Plus I think that if you don't give your all you can be sued and the case re-tried.
So I looked Thomas Fehr up, and he's a Senior Staff Representative of the union, likely the one handling the grievance itself.
When you look at that quote... it's not clear to me that he's saying that HE believes there's no just cause. I'm also unsure that he's speaking for the union, not being an elected official. It could be, literally, that there are two claims in the grievance, #1 and #2.
As much as, perhaps, Tensing should be fired, realistically, I don't doubt that it's PR-driven on the university's part. He was the same officer last month that he was this month.
I dunno. There's a delicate tightrope walk with how to handle these sorts of situations with police officers, and we've mostly seen employers falling on both sides of the line over the past few months.
The Police Union is not necessarily arguing that Tensing did or didn't commit the crime in question when they make a statement about 'just cause'.
'Just Cause' is a specific legal term where - in a collective bargaining agreement, a company (or police department, in this case) must follow a process that demonstrates the individual was fired 'for just cause'. Usually this 'just cause' is determined after an investigation and documentation process, as well as (usually) some sort of hearing.
In the case of a criminal act, the employer may be permitted to place the employee on indefinite administrative leave or have guidelines on when the employment hearing will take place - for example, after the conclusion of a criminal case to permit the employee to mount a vigorous defense without fear of self-incrimination in the criminal case. This is pretty typical stuff, even in the most obvious situations.
This is similar to "totally guilty" and "proven guilty" in a court of law. Just because someone appears "totally guilty" doesn't mean the courts aren't required to follow a conviction and sentencing process before they put someone in prison.
Since the union is required to take any necessary measures (and - in the example @Shadowen gave of the UAW employee beating someone to death on camera, the UAW will and has attempted to defend the employee) they will use every means necessary to do so. In this case, they argued that the department hasn't followed the contractually obligated process to demonstrate cause, and that they also didn't follow the contractually obligated process to terminate employment. Two related, but separate complaints.
"Oh, it'd be unfair to some schools if we allowed their student athletes to unionize! It's also unfair to the student athletes not to let them unionize, but fuck 'em. Cuz if we let them unionize, other people might also want to unionize, and things might change, and since change is bad, fuck 'em."
It's a status quo dodge. But not an entirely unfounded one. To rule that Northwestern could Unionize would put federal and state labor law against each other with respect to public sector unions.
The problem of course is that college sports are a business at all.
It's a status quo dodge. But not an entirely unfounded one. To rule that Northwestern could Unionize would put federal and state labor law against each other with respect to public sector unions.
The problem of course is that college sports are a business at all.
You mean would overturn awful state laws? I see no issue there. Banning unions is a flagrant violation of the first amendment anyways.
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400k really isn't much in the grand scheme of things, no. Especially when a Chief Engineer can easily pull 200k working only half the year and dealing with 90% less crap.
The first thing is that simply because one 'supplier' may be the primary (or only) supplier of the labor 'product' for an industry, but that doesn't mean they are comparable to a monopoly. You may have an industry that relies heavily on a single supplier, but that doesn't mean that supplier is a monopoly if there are other suppliers with the same product but that industry doesn't utilize them for whatever reason. Along the same lines, there are many, many suppliers of labor - essentially 300 million of them in the US, and many different unions. Just because the Teamsters, UAW, or Longshoreman national unions are the primary union representing their specific industries doesn't mean there aren't non-union suppliers / contractors that are available to provide the same 'product', be it in that industry or not. There are few, if any, professions that are entirely dominated by a single union and non-union or contract help simply isn't an option.
Companies also have options that don't involve working with the union. Lockouts and scabs are a thing, and a company can simply go with non-union personnel if they wish - contractors, salaried employees, offshoring, etc. This isn't especially different than any other 'product' - breaking a relationship or otherwise choosing not to renew a contract with ANY major supplier is going to be disruptive. If your IT department decided not to renew their contract with Oracle / Microsoft, or a manufacturer decided not to renew their contract with a key material / part supplier, that would be just as disruptive and expensive.
Contract negotiations? A contract is a contract. Any supplier is free to walk at the end of a contract, just like how a company is free to choose other options. It's not illegal for other suppliers (i.e. other unions in this case) to choose not to do business with that company - maybe it's just too difficult to work with them, or they aren't willing to pay the market price for that supply.
Not allowing large / national unions? Well, free association for one. Can't really get around that. We also don't limit corporations to a certain size, and if unions are forced to be independent and local / regional, well - they essentially have no power at all when dealing with a large or multi-national corporation. The amount of resources and political power a large corporation (to say nothing of the collusion you see in many industries against unions in general) would be insurmountable without unions also working together.
The libertarian 'free to do what I want' mentality is interesting how unevenly it's applied when you talk about corporations vs. unions. I can't see how the libertarian philosophy can argue for employer 'freedom' but argue against things like closed shops. Why shouldn't a union / business be able to establish a closed shop if the same industry is allowed to prohibit a union forming? Well, the answer is that when people WERE able to do that, it turns out those closed shops and union owned businesses annihilated other businesses. Believe it or not, well paid and loyal employees can make a business successful and beat out a business that exists to only line management / capital's pockets.
Most of those laws that people get worked up about are to protect businesses, and more often than not things people hate about unions (i.e. can't fire bad employees for one) are the result of poor management that doesn't want to do their job. You can easily fire people for misconduct - you just need to document and follow the process. It's no different than dumping an independent contractor - you need to follow the process laid out in the agreement you - as a company - made with them.
Add to that the fact that a union is obligated - just like a defense attorney - to represent their client, regardless of how shitty that client may or may not be.
Basically, all the union hate is propaganda from people who want to have their cake and eat it too. While there are situations where unions might not make sense, or places where workers are treated well without unions, more often than not it's because those companies or industries are scared shitless of union organization.
This very aptly describes Congress as well...
Also German/Scandinavian unions are baller awesome and do great things for their workers. My union (IATSE) copies them where possible, and it leads to pretty sweet dealings for workers all around, in my local area.
Shit, that describes the leaders of any large organization, including Corporate CEO's.
That's because at a certain size it becomes more important to manage personnel rather then managing what they do.
There is even a tv show called Undercover Boss where big shot CEO's take entry level jobs in their own Companies. Unsurprisingly they usually prove hilariously inept at it.
Unions are no different.
Oh, wait, you mean that's gone now, too?
Who could have seen that coming?
Edit: About the bold, state employees have not seen a raise that didn't come with an increase in their contribution towards benefits that was higher than the raise amount. For the last 10 years. I'm fairly certain I make more as a 2.5 year old employee than my co-worker who has been here for 17 years doing the same job. To make it worse, it's also a male/female comparison. I just don't have the heart to confirm it incase it's true.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Teachers, while often part of the state retirement and benefit system, aren't state employees but are employees of their district. They'd be considered municipal or county employees, depending on the district, so this doesn't affect them.
Edit: 2010's Act 10 was law regarding all public sector unions in Wisconsin, which is why it did change what they can bargain for (basically nothing) and the rules to keep them active (purposefully hard and time consuming).
Edit2: And yeah, a raise simply because you're there for 5/10/15 years or whatever isn't merit and wouldn't be affected with this anyway, but as far as I'm aware there isn't any state jobs that are like that.
Yes, because they contributed to his campaign.
You know class tensions are getting up to dangerous levels when WALMART of all places decides to raise their minimum wage.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/19/3624666/walmart-minimum-wage-increase/
Fairpoint and the unions reached a tentative agreement!
Union members still need to ratify the agreement, and there are meetings scheduled for that to happen, or not. But, if the members all accept, then everybody is back to work next Wednesday. That will be 131 days after work stoppage.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
What's interesting about this, when you think about it, is that Wal-Mart raising wages has the practical effect of raising minimum wage nationwide.
Wal-Mart being the largest employer in the USA (and the world) means that the Mcdonalds, Subways, Targets of the country have to raise their wages to compete. It won't happen immediately, but even as shitty as Wal-Mart is, you really don't want to be the company whose applicant pool is 'The People Wal-Mart wouldn't hire.'
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Just pack your things at work and have them ready to go. Keep your phone charged, etc.
which union/local? best thing that I can see that my friends in New England did was have a facebook page and an amazingly well organized group of mobilizers.
I really hope that you don't have to go on strike, but you do have support out here.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
U of T teaching assistants on strike after rejecting deal
MWO: Adamski
YorkU TAs did get legislated back to work 3 years ago after a 3-month strike. But that was by the McGuinty government.
(They are also possibly voting to strike Monday?)
It is written into US labor law that unions are run by worker democracy. If your union leadership is corrupt, you can vote them out (a power you will typically lack with respect to your management).
Although I agree with the overall sentiment that Unions are nice, I don't think this analogy is that strong--unions are a legal object that involve a special set of rights and duties over and above a typical commercial relationship. These rights were arrived at as a sort of compromise: the corporations gave up certain rights, like the right to fire union members; in return, the union members gave up certain rights, like the right to hold sympathy strikes.
Whether the compromise is still being respected is, unfortunately, another matter.
Salon refuses to recognize union.
Hedgie enjoys exquisite flavor of irony tinged with notes of hypocrisy.
The article linked just said that Salon management didn't immediately comment, not that they weren't recognizing the union. Is there a follow up?
Go Get Fucked.
However, tinwhiskers was highlighting point 1 of the union's statement. And point 2 is about due process. Point 1 is clearly madness.
Unions are required to play defense attorney even for horrible employees, as they should. They don't have to go all reality-denial and scorched-earth like police unions do.
In an imperfect, adversarial system, somebody has to play devil's advocate.
What are they supposed to say? "We filed the grievance, even though there is totally probably cause for firing him,"
To use the defense attorney analogy, that would be sort of like saying, "We plead innocent, although we totally agree that my client is guilty as charged,"
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A full-throated defense is not "pathological lying".
If you think the UAW would defend a factory worker who was, let's say, summarily fired rather than being put through the proper channels after they were caught on camera beating someone to death with a wrench for not having a security lanyard by saying there was no actual cause for them to lose their job, I really don't know what to tell you. They don't have to say "Oh, yes, there was cause, but we're disputing it anyway!" They can avoid that topic and just contend that they weren't fired through the contractually obligated procedure, because the University legally can't do that.
So I looked Thomas Fehr up, and he's a Senior Staff Representative of the union, likely the one handling the grievance itself.
When you look at that quote... it's not clear to me that he's saying that HE believes there's no just cause. I'm also unsure that he's speaking for the union, not being an elected official. It could be, literally, that there are two claims in the grievance, #1 and #2.
As much as, perhaps, Tensing should be fired, realistically, I don't doubt that it's PR-driven on the university's part. He was the same officer last month that he was this month.
I dunno. There's a delicate tightrope walk with how to handle these sorts of situations with police officers, and we've mostly seen employers falling on both sides of the line over the past few months.
'Just Cause' is a specific legal term where - in a collective bargaining agreement, a company (or police department, in this case) must follow a process that demonstrates the individual was fired 'for just cause'. Usually this 'just cause' is determined after an investigation and documentation process, as well as (usually) some sort of hearing.
In the case of a criminal act, the employer may be permitted to place the employee on indefinite administrative leave or have guidelines on when the employment hearing will take place - for example, after the conclusion of a criminal case to permit the employee to mount a vigorous defense without fear of self-incrimination in the criminal case. This is pretty typical stuff, even in the most obvious situations.
This is similar to "totally guilty" and "proven guilty" in a court of law. Just because someone appears "totally guilty" doesn't mean the courts aren't required to follow a conviction and sentencing process before they put someone in prison.
Since the union is required to take any necessary measures (and - in the example @Shadowen gave of the UAW employee beating someone to death on camera, the UAW will and has attempted to defend the employee) they will use every means necessary to do so. In this case, they argued that the department hasn't followed the contractually obligated process to demonstrate cause, and that they also didn't follow the contractually obligated process to terminate employment. Two related, but separate complaints.
"Student"-athletes at Northwestern
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"Oh, it'd be unfair to some schools if we allowed their student athletes to unionize! It's also unfair to the student athletes not to let them unionize, but fuck 'em. Cuz if we let them unionize, other people might also want to unionize, and things might change, and since change is bad, fuck 'em."
The problem of course is that college sports are a business at all.
You mean would overturn awful state laws? I see no issue there. Banning unions is a flagrant violation of the first amendment anyways.
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