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Tesla Factory Workers Pushing For a Union Send Letter of Requests To Company's Board Members (phys.org)
One of the many challenges facing Tesla right now is the escalating worker complaints about pay and safety. At its California factory, a move to unionize is gaining steam. Workers recently sent a letter to Tesla's independent board members requesting access to the automaker's safety plan as well as clarity on compensation and a promise of no retaliation against employees as they try to form a union. From a report via Phys.Org: The United Auto Workers is in the process of trying to unionize the 10,000 Tesla workers at the Fremont plant, alleging the company has a poor safety record -- a charge it vehemently denies.
"We're tired of suffering preventable injury after preventable injury. It impacts morale, it slows down production and it's of course traumatizing," said Michael Catura, a Tesla production worker who signed the letter. Starting pay for production associates in the Fremont facility is $18 an hour, far below the national average for auto workers of $25.58 and even farther below the living wage in Alameda County, California, where the average wage is $28.10, according to the letter sent by workers. In addition, the letter said the paths to promotion are not clear. "Many of us have worked for years with the vague promise of a raise, with nothing to show for it," said Richard Ortiz, who works in the paint shop. "We have no idea what the criteria is to move forward, and no idea of what defines success. We've raised these issues repeatedly, and have gotten no response," he added.
I think that people should be free to unionize if they like, but I can't help but feel like UAW has grown hungry and needs fresh prey.
UAW has been a millstone around the neck of Detroit auto workers, while auto workers outside of Detroit are in need of protection.
Many of the people objecting aren't against unionizing, they're just against UAW. Why doesn't anyone attempt to unionize WITHOUT UAW?
Anyone? Okay, fine, I will.
And, concerning pay:
Both sides claims should of course be taken with a big grain of salt. For example, Tesla's argument of stock options is great, and yes, the workers could end up quite well off if Tesla does well. But they don't pay the rent until they vest, and UAW is right that local housing prices are killer. On the other hand, UAW doesn't bother to mention in their overwork claims that during crunch times Musk has been known to sleep in a sleeping bag at the factory, and has pledged (and at least so far, upheld) to work on any line where any employee gets injured.
So, apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
I keep seeing the same story replayed over and over the last few weeks.
Poor workers paid unfair wages at giant tech companies while living in the highest cost of living areas of the country.
They would be forced to pay better wages if you guys stopped taking the jobs at low pay!
You being employed means you have a skill. Leave CA or NY or WA, or suck it up and get papered for the better jobs and crushing debt.
It sucks. I don't want to leave home anymore than you do, but the companies don't owe you better wages *because*, anymore than you owe more on your grocery bill *because*
Form your union, demand your raises, and drive the hell on.... but keep in mind that you don't HAVE to be spending 75% of your take-home on rent (or living out of your S10 and showering at the Y) just to have a tech job.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
I was vaguely sympathetic until I read that.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
if you unionize, what promotion is there? Isn't the idea behind the union that everyone's equal? Also, why would you work for years without a raise? Is it possibly because you can't find another job that pays more than Tesla?
Companies want people off the union. Ergo, in union shops people get promoted faster into non-union management.
The idea behind a union is for a fair bargaining position between workers and companies instead of one person against a behemoth.
People work without raises because of promises and fear. People sometimes forego the greedy option of quitting as soon as better pay is found elsewhere because companies in nearly every industry heavily look down on people that switch jobs more often than every five to ten years. People often hang on to those promises. They actually believe their employers.
All coming from the union that's trying to unionize them, and a tiny number of workers supporting the unionization. Funny that.
Where's your actual statistics that Tesla's rate of accidents is higher than average? Because Tesla cites OSHA data saying that their accident rate is a little over 2/3rds that of the industry average.
So, apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
My goodness, you don't know the first thing about labor unions, do you? They do not seek "equality", they seek the best wage for their members. They seek seniority rules, benefits guarantees and worker safety. And they've got an amazing record of success in these areas.
A union seeks to aggregate labor for leverage in the workplace the same way corporations aggregate capital in the marketplace. .
Anyone who believes that unions are the cause of the problems in the US auto industry over the past 50 years just doesn't know much about unions or the auto industry.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Let me point something out about Unions.
They will fight tooth and nail for wage increases and adding new titles that fall under the Union umbrella.
It isn't because they are looking out for their members. It's because union dues are typically a percentage of a members base pay.
Thus, while the Union loves to claim it's fighting for YOU, the truth is they are really securing a pay raise for themselves. As union worker pay goes up, so too does the union dues.
You're just the proxy they're using so it isn't so obvious.
Is why they could give two shits about how expensive your health care has become. It's money out of YOUR pocket, not theirs. They get theirs regardless of how little remains for you.
Understand this concept and you'll be able to make a better decision about pushing for or joining a Union.
Now it all makes sense... Musk being on Trump's committee.... his investment in boring machines.... he's planning to tunnel underneath the wall!
So, apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
As has happened many times in American history, this will either fail or Tesla will move its factory to Texas. The UAW has a long and illustrious history of cooking geese.
Comparing the starting pay at Tesla to the national average for auto workers doesn't seem very fair.
So is this going to be like other locations, where the companies said "yeah, go ahead and vote". The vote failed - so the union had another. And another. Then tried to publish all the individual votes that were suppose to be secret so they could force and intimidate folks? Then that failed. So they sued. And that failed. So they had another vote. Ad Nauseum. The UAW isn't a millstone. It's a cancer. They are a gateway to fraud, kickbacks, nepotism, favoritism, and popularism.
The minimum wage activists tell us that anything below $15/hr is not a "living wage."
Now we learn that people who already make a good deal more than that still declare it to be far below a "living wage."
This cycle quickly gets old to those of us who choose to live within our means rather than to constantly whine and try to bully our way into a higher income.
Communism did that? Hmm.
to rank and file. As someone who worked in the late 90s I can tell you that companies can and will swindle you out of them. AOL did it most famously during the Time Warner buyout. Onlive did it recently where they built the company with cheap engineers paid in stock options then folded the company to walk away with the proceeds from selling it. There are plenty of other ways to do it.
Join a Union. If you don't you'll just get picked apart by the companies expert lawyers. You can't compete with them without help, they pay those guys too much. Their monthly salary's more than your house's worth. While you're trying to make next month's payment they're screwing you out of the money you needed to make it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Why would anybody want to own a fuckwit? It's not like they are paying assets, money pits.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I see a lot of apathy for Unions. Very sad. They gave you: Weekends off, eight hour work day, Holidays off. And a safer workplace. People died in the fight to start unions for you. If you like working 60 hours a week on a regular basis; keep on disliking unions.. Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/1886...
In general you find the employees that are pushing for a union are also the most senior employees.
The union will then protect them over everyone else based on their superior seniority.
Its just selfish. It isnt about communism.
"His name was James Damore."
Not paid enough? Quit, because you can obviously get a better job.
Safety? Same thing, except OSHA is rooting for you, too.
Short form, paraphrased from Ann Landers and John Prine: "STFU, You have no complaints, you is what you is, you ain't what you ain't."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I see a lot of apathy for Unions. Very sad. They gave you: Weekends off, eight hour work day, Holidays off.
No, no, and no. Unions got you payed overtime for such things. You can still be expected to work on a weekend, on a holiday or more than 8 hours. Pre-union it might be part of your daily/weekly salary, you might not even be getting an hourly rate, not a penny extra. Post-union you got 1.5 to 2 times your normal hourly rate, in general.
And a safer workplace. People died in the fight to start unions for you. If you like working 60 hours a week on a regular basis; keep on disliking unions.
You got that half-right. As my 40-year IBEW member grandfather explained that was all true and unions were a godsend back in those early decades. However he said that in the 1960s-70s timeframe they became a useless bureaucracy working to perpetuate their own existence and the salaries and perks of the union staff/leadership, not the members. That all the important stuff (those fights you refer to) was not contract, but law. And that now the union fights over BS stuff and rarely does anything to help a worker against management. He said management and union had this working symbiotic relationship perpetuating their interests, neither of them thinking much about the workers interests. In summary, he said the unions were once important and greatly needed, but now they are just a racket doing little beyond skimming some percentage of the money, not unlike the mob.
... its not part of the union contract. When they said they are taking home less money ... I warned you not to trust the union organizer. The workers were now eagerly looking forward to the passage of two years (?) so they could vote to leave the union. But it never got there, the owner decided to retire, sold the company to a larger company. About a year later they shut it down and moved it offshore.
A friend was an assistant manager at a small local manufacturer back in the 1990s. The owner was once a worker in a larger plant, went out on his own, grew a business. He was a pretty good boss, his shop was clean and safe and well equipped. When things were going really well and profits way up, he gave bonuses to everyone. Something comes up, someone needs the flexibility to take some time off without using vacation or sick time, sure we'll juggle some hours around. He was genuinely concerned about his workers and treated them like extended family. Then a union organizer came around with lots of promises. The employees voted in favor of unionizing, they didn't have any grievances but like the idea of more money in their pocket. When no more bonuses showed up, they asked why not. The reply, its not part of the union contract. When there was less scheduling flexibility
Voting to unionize is not necessarily some panacea. In the distant past it might have been, but not any more.
If true, the reason that senior employees are the ones pushing for a union is that they're the ones too incompetent to be promoted.
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Unions helped somewhat with shifting employment in those directions, but increasing competition between firms for workers and increasing worker mobility played a large role in making those changes too -- and these, not unions, are the reason the benefits persisted.
From the early Industrial Revolution until the New Deal, labor monopsonies (only one purchaser of labor) were common. Barriers to changing employers were high in the day of "company towns," horse and buggy travel, limited access to education, etc. Because these companies had market power as monopsonies, it sometimes made sense to form a labor monopoly - a union - to counter that market power and achieve better outcomes for workers.
But at the same time, antitrust law, new entrants into markets, the spread of cars, better access to education and mass communication, and many other factors led to the demise of the "company town" and the advent of a time when workers had more realistic options. Employers had to compete for workers via wages and benefits. Unions became less important.
These days, there are few situations where an employer has sufficient labor market power to worry about, and in most of those situations, antitrust rather than unions should be the measure to turn to. (Exceptions include certain kinds of government workers; we don't want to have ten competing police agencies in a town.)
Nah, its not about incompetence.
When you've been working the same job for 15 years, you start getting worried that if you had to get a new job that its going to suck in comparison in some major way (more work, less pay, what-have-you.)
Sometimes times are good. Sometimes times are bad. Sometimes the company hires. Sometimes the company lays off.
The most senior people are worried about the layoffs. They dont care who gets hurt so long as they don't. Its really is extremely selfish.
I am a member of a union at a business that wasn't unionized before I started and later unionized under an existing union. I watched the whole process, from the stirring up of discontent, to the empty promises about what unionization will mean, to the eventual negotiated union contract that doesnt live up to the hype, to the contractual protection of seniority above all else.
The union does negotiate raises whenever the contract is up. Its the only time anyone gets a raise. The amount of raises they have negotiated so far is less than what the company was giving out automatically before unionization. The union also really screwed up the health insurance, allowing the company to pull coverage for non-generic drugs (not all drugs have a generic alternative) because the union bargaining committee is a bunch of rubes.
Non-union positions at the same company dont have any of the issues that the union positions have. But those senior employees... they got their protection.
"His name was James Damore."
The hell you did. This tired anti-union trope is based on the premise that Steve is just dying to step in and do Bob's work if Bob starts to slack off. Which of course is complete batshit nonsense. If you are Steve would you want to do your own work plus Bobs at a non-union company? Of course not. Would joining a union make you want to do your own work plus Bob's? Of course not. Which means you are engaging in willful dumbfucerky, same as every other toolbag in this story.
Anti-union dumbfuckery. Unions weren't responsible for the management decisions that drove the big three into the ground - unreliable gas guzzlers when gas prices were at all time highs - management was.
Yes, yes, and yes - you're handwaving. Working retail you are likely to have to work on weekends -but then you have other days off during the week.
I'm handwaving? When most people are presented with the notion of working on the "weekend" they are presuming the typical scenario where they already worked the "work week". And you are now claiming that if your 5-day workweek includes the weekend, if your two days off are not on the weekend, we have a big issue? Seriously, that is your crisis? Sorry, the semantic games are being played by you. And yes, I have worked in retail and have worked weekends, holidays, etc. 1.5x overtime in excess of 8 hours in a day, in excess of 40 hours a week, 2x overtime on holidays. No union contract. Government regulations, except maybe the 2x holiday, not sure if gov reg require 2x compared to 1.5x.
Thus begins every warmed over piece of anti-union bullshit - my brother's wife's cousin's best friend says ...
The point you failed to realize is that I didn't receive second-hand info, or is it third-hand, I received the info **directly** from a 40+ year International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union member who worked union jobs from the 1930s to the 1970s, taking off some time for WW2 where he worked for the Army (non union job). The conversation came about as I visited him on the picket line in the 1970s and I asked "why are you on strike". He said he'd answer later after dinner, then explained the the current disagreement was BS. Then followed the history of unions in America, how important they once were, and how they have devolved into fairly useless self-serving things in recent times.
Not his argument at all. His observations had to do with union leadership, which essentially became a racket to enrich themselves and do little for the workers. That union leadership had more in common with company management than with the workers. Just another entitled privileged group taking their cut of things and not doing much beyond protecting their cut, certainly not protecting the workers beyond making nice speeches.
... If your grandfather was a real person, and that's what he actually said, he was a fucking idiot and a traitor to his class ...
When your job history and experience approach 10% of his your opinion might have value, until then, who cares what you think. Until then enjoy your petty little rationalization if it makes you feel better.
... Unions will always be a necessary counterbalance to bosses, to capitalists, to greed.
Again, your deficiently simplistic model forgets government. Nearly all those great things early unions fought for are *not* delivered by union contracts todays. They are delivered by **government regulations**. Those old union demands are essentially the law of the land today. That is why unions are far less important today, they won the battle.
Don't ever do a trade show at a hall with a union contract - you won't be allowed to plug in your power strip. You have to hire two (buddy system, apparently) union electricians to do it for you, because safety.
Because apparently when you walk through the doors of the Javitz Center in New York City, you forget how to plug a household lamp in without killing yourself and setting fire to the place.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Tesla are doing great things, but they're not perfect. There. Now you no longer have to be amused when you see some people liking some things a company does and not others.
PopeRatzo is making sense .... what is this alternate reality that I've been thrust into?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Thus begins every warmed over piece of anti-union bullshit - my brother's wife's cousin's best friend says unions protect laaaazy people.
They really do, but those lazy people aren't workers. They're union executives. They get paid whether the workers get what they need or not, and it's difficult to remove them because most workers expect to be fucked over and are apathetic.
If you oppose unions being able to pool their labor, then you must also oppose capitalists being able to pool their capital. If not, you're a corporatist hack.
I, for one, am not completely anti-union, and I think that the right to unionize is completely valid. But I am also not pro-union, because there are drawbacks to the existence of unions. There are two main drawbacks to their existence. In government including education, unions can still be mandatory which is illegal in every other case. This is clearly wrong, and that's a significant percentage of the jobs in the country so it's worth mentioning in its own right on that basis, but it also has had severe negative effects on education. Administrators are drawing ever-higher salaries for doing the same work, which is detracting from the amount available to pay actual educators.
But the bigger problem with the existence of unions is that unions don't care enough about the minimum wage, or about national health, because their wages are above the minimum wage, and because they have health care. Sometimes they care a little bit about the minimum wage, but only when their salaries are tied to it by being defined as a multiple thereof, which only illustrates the problem. The minimum wage is meant to be enough to live on, and not just for a single person living in their parents' basement. And don't get me started on health care.
I would also add that I favor strong restrictions on capitalists being able to pool their capital, which is what makes me a liberal (when coupled with the opinion that the government should not be instructing me as to what I may do in my bedroom.) They derive much more benefit from the system of capitalism than plebes, and as such they have to be prevented from abusing their advantageous position not simply because that is what is right but also because the system will not continue to function otherwise.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
on't ever do a trade show at a hall with a union contract - you won't be allowed to plug in your power strip. You have to hire two (buddy system, apparently) union electricians to do it for you, because safety.
Don't forget that you suddenly became too feeble to push a cart or carry your own gear in, got to wait for a couple of teamsters to come do that for you as well.
Seems to me like the solution is to make the booth a robot (or fleet of robots) that come in and self-deploy. Neither you nor the teamsters has to plug anything in. Of course, they'll lobby against self-charging robots next, setting up the world for the union meatbags v robots wars of 2088
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Be careful what you take in your mind. They are tying to convince you that Unions are the enemy and Unions must go. You took part of the bait. I'm glad you were lucky and had your grandfather to talk to you. You have no idea of how hard Washington and Corporations want to kill unions. That way you will have absolutely no defence against what they pay you, treat you, or anything they want to do to you. For instance: Take having "The right to work.in your State. The true statement is "The right to work for less pay". People find out about it later..much too late. What you said about Unions in the 70's is true. They got too greedy and made a lot of idiot mistakes. (So do politicians to this day). I think Unions realized their mistakes and have changed for the better. But today you can be part of a Union and not pay dues! This is their way of crippling Unions. The United States Post Office is one of the biggest Unions to exist. Why do you think they wanted them to pay retirement benefits 75 years into the future?? They want to kill the post office and it's Union. They are also under the illusion that privatizing the post office will bring a profit to them. It will in the city, but be a huge loss in the rural areas.
they won the battle.
I find this recurring and interesting in and of itself. There are so many movements and ideas that "won" yet there are a lot of people that still hold on to some notion that it still needs to be solved or pushed despite it being the law of the land.
Be careful what you take in your mind. They are tying to convince you that Unions are the enemy and Unions must go. You took part of the bait. I'm glad you were lucky and had your grandfather to talk to you.
The theory of unions is just fine. The history of unions is important, their achievements great. However do not confuse these things with the state of unions *today*. Today many unions are corrupt and work for the interests of the union itself, not for the workers they represent. Today many do not uphold the standards of the industry, the craft, making sure members live up to the standards of quality of the industry. Do not confuse the unions of the "golden era" with those of today. They have little in common. Many of the rights and benefits workers receive today are due to law, not union membership or contract. Yes, laws brought about by the unions of that "golden era", but law never the less.
You have no idea of how hard Washington and Corporations want to kill unions. That way you will have absolutely no defence against what they pay you, treat you, or anything they want to do to you.
Other than the law of the land?
For instance: Take having "The right to work.in your State. The true statement is "The right to work for less pay". People find out about it later..much too late. What you said about Unions in the 70's is true. They got too greedy and made a lot of idiot mistakes. (So do politicians to this day). I think Unions realized their mistakes and have changed for the better. But today you can be part of a Union and not pay dues! This is their way of crippling Unions.
The first hand accounts I've heard from the late 1990s show little difference from the 1970s.
The United States Post Office is one of the biggest Unions to exist. Why do you think they wanted them to pay retirement benefits 75 years into the future?? They want to kill the post office and it's Union. They are also under the illusion that privatizing the post office will bring a profit to them. It will in the city, but be a huge loss in the rural areas.
Government employee unions are a separate topic, and a trouble idea to begin with.
"“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd."
"The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfo...
""All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he wrote. "It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management." Roosevelt didn’t stop there. "The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations," he wrote. When Walker claimed FDR said "the government is the people," he had Roosevelt’s next line in mind. "The employer," Roosevelt’s letter added, "is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, pro
they won the battle.
I find this recurring and interesting in and of itself. There are so many movements and ideas that "won" yet there are a lot of people that still hold on to some notion that it still needs to be solved or pushed despite it being the law of the land.
Those (union leadership) financially benefiting from the "battle" don't want to see their rewards end. In this regard unions are similar to the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of. Again, not my idea, my 40+ IBEW union member grandfather's observation.
They seek seniority rules, benefits guarantees
Problem is, I can join a unionised company, be just flat out fucking better than any other cunt in there, and the union would demand I get paid fuck all because I'm new and haven't been there fifteen years.
Fuck that. Seniority rules are for lazy worthless shits incapable of competing on merit.
Admitting that your mom was unsatisfied AND TOLD YOU, does not make you the winner, big moron.
You are conflating trade unions with professional unions.
It's pretty clear that the people who are most hostile to unions are the people who understand them least. I'm sorry, friend, but you are insufficiently informed.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Professional unions don't demand seniority. They demand competence and professionalism.
Trade unions demand idiocy and fuck over everybody. They fight against competence and professionalism.
It's pretty clear that the people who are most hostile to unions are the people who understand them least.
You must be in a genocidal fucking war against them then.
And that would be all well and good, if it wasn't so often the case that people are forced to join the union whether they want to or not. I know the justifications that are given for this, but it's pretty hypocritical to say it's all about freedom when there are often people roped into it against their will.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Just exactly how is it that the union is operating in a free market environment in California where the government has promised to use guns and violence to prevent an employer from hiring a single non-union employee at any time after 50% + 1 of the employees voted to be represented by a union? Using the guns of the government as your muscle kind of removes the whole free market thing.
Forming a union and making it do enough that people want to join on their own and not as a condition of employment is a much more free market idea.
"Everyone I don't like is a shill: a child's guide to online discussions"
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
And then there's this gem:
even if your grandfather is a made-up person
I also love how in most of your comments here, you seem to think that because people don't support some current unions, they think unions should be banned. Newsflash: saying a specific union (like the UAW) has done some bad things, or that you don't want to join it, doesn't mean you want all unions everywhere to be illegal.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
My goodness, you don't know the first thing about labor unions, do you? They do not seek "equality", they seek the best wage for their members. They seek seniority rules, benefits guarantees and worker safety. And they've got an amazing record of success in these areas.
A union seeks to aggregate labor for leverage in the workplace the same way corporations aggregate capital in the marketplace. .
Anyone who believes that unions are the cause of the problems in the US auto industry over the past 50 years just doesn't know much about unions or the auto industry.
You are correct that unions seek seniority rules (compensation based on how long you've been a member, rather than based on your skill and/or productivity). That said, they also seek equality. Here is an example: my father worked for an auto workers union. There was a maintenance worker there with large seniority who was taking 3hr+ lunches most days. When he finally got written up, the union went to bat for him saying the company cannot give the guy a warning because it is singling him out and in order to write him up they needed to show that other people don't do that - i.e. equality. So, in order to do that, the company had to implement timecard type system, tracking everyone's break times (used to be a mostly honor system) and hard, non-negotiable, computer enforced rules that for example stated if you were late 60+ seconds or more on 3 occasions in a single month, you'd get fired. A line in the bathroom would cause people stress, but I guess that's ok by the union because everyone was treated equally.
The moral of the story is that unions tend to create hostile workplaces where the employees hate the employer and vice versa. Both sides think the other side is is out to get them. Employer is hostile because of things like the unions prevent them from rewarding high-performing workers and/or firing non-performers with seniority (heck, even shift allocation cannot be skill based, has to be seniority based). The employees are hostile because the employer treats them like they are all lazy slackers, but that's because the union requires this - if you have any lazy slackers in the company, especially if they have high seniority, the employer is forced to treat all employees as if they were lazy slacker because unions require everyone be treated equally.
Then there is the unfair legal advantage that unions get, which vary from place to place, but basically boil down to laws that prevent employers to hire non-union worked when union worked decide to go on strike, or even the fact that unions can enforce contract terms that would prevent the employer from hiring non-union workers. Why don't individual workers get the same protections? If I decide not to work you cannot hire anyone to replace me, or if you hire me you cannot hire anyone else? If you go to the store to buy bread and the baker is on strike, you should not be allowed to buy bread from anywhere else, right? If the unions were simply groups of people who all volunteered to bargain as a collective, no problem, but they shouldn't have any special rights - for example if a worker prefers not to belong to a union and negotiate individually, they should not have that right taken away from them by the union.
Unions are a counterbalance to corporate greed. Has corporate greed ended? No, it hasn't. Do you also say that needing food and drug regulations are the a thing of the past, for the same reasons? If not, why not?
Professional unions do seek compensation rules based on skill and/or productivity. There are many types of unions.
Son, you are dangerously close to actually figuring this thing out. Why don't individual workers get the same protections? Because ownership and management don't want to give them those same protections. In the absence of a union, there is absolutely no counterbalance to corporate power. In many places, corporations have monopsonistic power over the employment market. In an environment of increasing consolidation, those monopsonies will only increase. You don't want to see what happens then. The alternative to balancing the power between labor and capital is inevitably social unrest. It's the reason labor unions came to exist in the first place: Because there was a real threat of communism in western democracies. It was happening here in the US before the rise of the labor movement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I've been in a union for many years. A union isn't a cure all. It has pros and cons. One of the major features, also has drawbacks. A union has "collective" bargaining. That means a couple of things. The first being is that they bargain the contract for all members, so you do not have to go it alone. This essentially allows that together you have more power than apart, but I'd say from experience that it acts more as a stabilizer than anything else. When times are bad it acts as a bit of a buffer/protection, however at the same time when they are good, you may not always get the best deal. This also means you CANNOT individually bargain at all. Sometimes you may have processes where you might grieve something through the union, but it is typically a long drawn out process. I know I have had instances in the past where I am certain given my situation I could have bargained a much better deal for myself, however was totally unable to do so. You just accept the whatever deal the union makes. I've mostly seen (due to economic climate etc...) a decline in most benefits, while wages struggle to keep above inflation, however without a union that erosion may have happened at a more accelerated rate (maybe).
Anyway I think they are generally a good idea, only that they are not the answer to everything, and they certainly have their own drawbacks. One of the concerns I have really is that at a certain point a union can be simply just self-perpetuating, that is more concerned with increasing membership, dues, and it's own survival than actually looking out for their members well being. I have a feeling that the super large ones may have this issue, also linked to organizational costs. A good analogy might be those large charities you see that when you look at their books all the money goes to admin, marketing, etc... and only a small percentage actually goes to the cause in question. In the case of a union, this can be perhaps dealt with by increased union involvement, tho I certainly can't be bothered with that so I can't really complain (much).
"useless bureaucracy working to perpetuate their own existence and the salaries and perks of the union staff/leadership, not the members." ... "management and union had this working symbiotic relationship perpetuating their interests, neither of them thinking much about the workers interests."
Those would be my concerns from my experience. They exist to self perpetuate their existence, and work with management just enough to justify their existence to their members. Sometimes the workers gets a slight benefit as an indirect result. That said, the fix for that is for increased worker involvement in the union, however most are too ambivalent to care.
Anyway a union isn't a cure all, they have drawbacks, but can have improvements. We had layoffs a number of years ago. As a result of the union LESS people got laid off than probably would have otherwise. However it still didn't prevent people from getting laid off. It did however make sure that those people that did got a bit more severance than they would have been obligated to by law, so there is that. So while a union can help, it doesn't always, and when it does many times the advantage is only slight to moderate.
No, the Unions seek to exploit the workers, and extract money from them, in order to bribe politicians to ensure that Union Administrators live like kings. It's an extortion racket. That's not what it started out to be, but that is what is has become.
Jeez where have you been? Reading textbooks maybe?
Murphy was an optimist
Thus the expression - going south. Out of whacko Cali anyhow.
Just more willful obtuseness. A worker being opposed to unions on principle is as asinine as a woman being opposed to the right to vote or being able to own property, a black person opposed to the repeal of Jim Crow, or a wheelchair-bound person being opposed to equal-access laws. Of course, it's near impossible to find women, blacks or disabled people engaged in such levels of willful dumbfuckery, as opposed to corporatist bootlickers who hate unions ignoring corporate failures & corruption while handing 90% of their output over to the boss.
Newsflash: that's just more dumbfuckery. If you've been paying attention to my posts, all of them have been in response to mindless anti-union FUD. If the posts were saying the UAW shouldn't be allowed into Tesla because they were instrumental in Volkswagen's emissions cheating or GM killing 100+ people with faulty ignitions (in some other universe where that happened) I wouldn't have commented. But of course that's not the case. It's all the same "unions only protect the lazy derp derp" and vague handwaving "my brother's girlfriends cousins uncle said blah" bullshit.
So, yeah, if you work for someone else and hate unions on principle, you are a traitor to your class and are a fucking idiot. Like I said the first time.
Except: you can vote to replace that union executive. How are you, as an employee of XYZ company, going to replace the CEO or other top management at the company. If you don't like union leadership, you must be itching to break out the torches and pitchforks on company headquarters.
Except: "a rising tide lifts all boats", and unions have traded compensation in return for reduced rates on health insurance. A higher minimum wage forces up wages for other workers, including unions, and nationalized health care would mean (lots) more money in union worker's paychecks, because it wouldn't be going to premiums and deductibles.
So, any union executive arguing against either is likely to be a corporatist plant, and in need of replacement.
Awesome! Probably means the FBI has a file on you, though.
The person you replied to was literally just complaining about corruption in current unions, and how in some cases they don't represent the workers well or don't have their best interests at heart. But keep lying that it's general anti-union FUD.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.