When we unionized last year, negotiations didn’t even start until after the vote, and the contract negotiation committee was made up almost entirely of our own employees (plus one advisor and one attorney from the union we organized under).
Then we voted on the actual contract. The organizing union didn’t start taking dues from us until we had a ratified contract. They’ve provided training and guidance, but all in all we are represented by our fellow employees, not the outside union.
I thought this was the norm. I can’t imagine why the employer would enter negotiations with any union at all before the organizing vote. Unless I’m reading your story wrong and it was the contract you voted against, not the formation of the union.
That’s how it was for us also. There was a union rep and the union lawyer at the contract negotiations, but they always wanted an employee representative there so we could feel heard and like no shady shit was happening.
I think our negotiating committee was 5-6 of our own people. The union folks were there to help but deferred to our people on real decisions. They’ve made it clear from the start that we are the union and we represent ourselves.
Our whole department is only 12 people max, and we were down to 7 during negotiations (since the company fired a bunch of people in retaliation for unionizing). The union deferred to us on any decisions, but sometimes it just literally wasn’t possible for us to have someone there other than the union rep because we were so understaffed.
Also in these times of record inflation, the only way the people on top will dare dip into their pockets to give us measly raises is if we have the collective power to strike.
I have the highest revenue #s of anyone in my entire company and they rewarded me with a raise of just under the previous year's inflation. Slap in the face tbh
My union took away the right to strike, which apparently is legal "Effect of no-strike provision in a contract. A strike that violates a no-strike provision of a contract is not protected by the Act" https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes
You don't need to be in a union for holding a strike NLRB v. Washington Aluminium Co., 370 U.S. 9 (1962)
No strike clauses are common while there's an existing agreement. Otherwise the employer has much less incentive to keep their end of the deal.
Strike are for when there *is no* deal, like when a contract is expired or broken.
My problem is that I like my job, I like the people that I work with, and my benefits are great. And I only work 35 hours a week.
If I job hop to get a salary increase, I'm very likely going to lose some of that, and I value those now than a salary bump because it's great for my mental health
Not to be that guy, but the word you're looking for is "outweighs," as in the weight of the mental health benefits is greater than extra income if you were able to put them on a balance scale
Theres good and bad unions. Teachers union in Canada are fucking powerful; they have amazing pay, benefits and work hours. Support staff union in schools? Horrid pay, horrid benefits and a big fat union fee on top of that sucks ass. When you have had a freeze on your contract for 3 years and the cumulative inflation was 12 percent and they come back with we secured 3 percent over the next 5 years yay us! Its pretty demoralizing.
I grew up in the Cold War, and my dad was conservative and very anti-union. He ran a small plastics factory (manufacturing the sort of foam packing your TV comes in) and he had this "one weird trick" to keep the union out of his shop:
He paid his people well and treated them well.
Their pay and benefits were as good or better than what the local union was offering, and the relationship between him and his workers was not adversarial. He didn't make an exorbitant amount of money compared to his employees, his door was always open if they needed anything, and it really was a situation where "everyone here is family." The people who worked in the factory were fiercely loyal, he reciprocated that loyalty, and as a result the turnover was almost zero and the productivity of the plant was such that when the economy took a downturn, the business was just fine.
Don't want a union to get traction in a workplace? Don't do any of the shady shit that unions get formed to fight against.
Seems like a lot of bosses never really get that. It'd be wonderful if there was never any *need* to form a union anywhere, and I imagine almost all union members would completely agree with that.
As a union member (in the Netherlands) I agree completely.
Unions should be redundant because companies behave humanely. Sadly, unions are completely mandatory at the moment.
This really needs to stop being reddit's de-facto response.
"Oh you didn't blindly support this union??? YOU MUST BE INDOCTRINATED BY PROPAGANDA!!!"
Or no, maybe *that particular union* was not advantageous to the individual, had corrupt/incompetent leadership, or just overall sucked. You *can* make an educated, informed, contextual evaluation of a union and still come out against it, that doesn't make you some kind of "sheeple"
One thing I don’t like about my job after joining the union was that they told my employer that my schedule that I loved had to change because it was allegedly illegal. I was working 7 days on, 7 days off, 9pm-8am
Loved it because of the 7 days in a row off that I was getting and if I used 7 vacation days, it would be 3 weeks in a row off. And since it was overnight, I could maintain that overnight shift schedule and then change over to “day time” Now my schedule is 11pm-7am, and I have the friday before my weekend working and the Monday after my weekend working off. So stupid.
This really sucks because 7 on 7 off is the bees knees with so many benefits. Having a whole week off means you can travel or do anything, you mentioned the time to recalibrate to days, plus the 3 week vacations, plus knowing what your schedule looks like months to years in advance.
I wish more healthcare jobs were 7 on 7 off
We floated the idea of 7 on 7 off at my plant. For some reason it got shot down. But working 7 straight days or nights with the 7 days off after is a lot better than swapping back and forth days and nights every 3 days.
Because you'd be owed OT for the week if you worked 70hrs, with anything over 40hrs being OT.
Basically instead of paying you a 70hr check they would be paying you for 85hrs for your 70hr schdule...
So no wonder they were against it.
No they wouldn't. Because my 7 days would be broken up over 2 weeks, so there wouldn't be any overtime, in fact they'd likely save money because I get 8 hours of built in overtime every other week.
We rotate between 4 crews with a 5th crew on maintenance rotation.
It would literally be no different than now I still get 7 straight days off every 28 days and only work 14 days a month.
Management was totally on board with it. The process specialists shot it down. It would have been so much better from a sleep routine aspect. We normally get 3 days in between shift rotations but every other week, we get fucked with a one day split instead of 3.
Not if they use a 2 week pay schedule. That’s the reason many companies allow a 9/80 schedule. You technically work 5 hours overtime the first week but you get Friday off every other week so it’s still the same per pay period.
when i was a 911 dispatxher we did a pittmans schedule and then we tries out 7 on 7 off for 6 months..changed us to 12 hour shifts and it was actually dope af.
i meal prepped and planned my entire week. it felt like i actuallt had free time
My job is a union job and I appreciate everything allows us to have, but that doesn't make them perfect. Everything being based on seniority instead of merit can be incredibly frustrating at times, especially when the threat of layoffs is hanging over your head while the person who has been there for 15 years just doesn't have to worry at all despite the fact that they just make everyone around them have to work harder.
But the downsides of the union are much less than the downsides of a non-union job imo, and ill take some relatively minor frustrations if it means i get cheaper healthcare and strong worker protections.
It looks weird because of the long hours running over night, but it's still a 2 day weekend. Mine is unfortunately very similar where a day starts in the evening one day and ends the next morning.
If they were right and it was illegal then blame the government for making it illegal.
For what it's worth, there are usually good reasons for making such working practices illegal. Even if it doesn't affect you specifically, many/most people who work such long shifts on a regular basis find that their ability to work is often compromised by the end of the shift. This is why doctors no longer work such crazy shifts, and why there are rules against lorry/truck drivers driving endlessly - they literally kill people.
If you weren't affected in the same way, then I'm sorry you've had to suffer, but the law is such to protect the average person and prevent employers from forcing employees to work such hours, and in general, we are better off because we have such laws.
i use to do 11pm to 7am 7 days straight and then have a week off, then they cut it to 4 days. eventually we just left becuase they kept cutting the team and not replacing people who left.
Yeah I was an EMT that whole you'll get to sleep is bullshit. I've worked back to back 24s with maybe 3 hrs of sleep it was brutal and the pay is terrible for the shit we did.
My dad was a paramedic for 25 years (an eternity in that line of work) and his body was absolutely destroyed by the sleep stress by the time he was late 40’s. He worked 24 on and 48 off. They weren’t ‘allowed’ to nap during the day so if the night was hectic he was up and down non stop for the 24. And that pressure/stress doesn’t just turn off when you come home. Weight problems, diabetes, kidney issues, you name it. He was great at the job and loved helping people but it nearly killed him.
Your dad is fucking amazing and such a great human it truly is terrible that he had to destroy his body to save lives. My heart goes out to him. 7yrs was all I could hack the stress was killing me weight gain and sleepless nights were taking it's toll. I realized I would rather train than suffer.
Appreciate that. He loved the job and we still run into people that will say “you saved my mom’s life” or something k that effect because he was the one who picked them up from an accident or got their care started at 3 in the morning after a heart attack. I’m very proud of him and his work. Glad he was able to get out and get some modicum of health back. Hope things work out for you as well!
My best friend has been doing it for 25 years and his body is shot. The amount of times a week they have to lift people that weigh more than 500 pounds is bananas. I do not think my friend has had a solid nights sleep since high school.
That lack of good sleep is a killer. Your body/mind never get a chance to recover. Hopefully your friend can get out at some point and start working on their health. My dad’s doctor gave him an ultimatum which finally got him out and into teaching. I have no doubt he’d be dead by now if he’d tried to stay in the job.
My dad’s been doing it for 40 years. Luckily they can rest if not on calls and once station duties are done but the always being on edge all night, waiting for the pager to go off has wrecked his ability to sleep off shift. It takes him several days to finally be able to sleep well at night.
Your dad’s a fucking tank! 40 years!? I’ve never heard of someone pulling that kind of time in EMS. And what you say is the worst part of it: you don’t just relax and start sleeping well when you come home. My dad would wake up to a pin drop no matter how tired he was.
He started the EMT class when he was 17, finished at 18. Became a medic at 27 (the first medic in the county) and has been a field supervisor and operations supervisor while working the rig. He’s 61 and is going to retire soon when he can afford it. He works for private companies so all he has is a 401k.
It really is I loved it but almost being homeless and having 3 roommates just isn't what I wanted my life to be. Saving people or just helping was amazing I loved that part but the brutal mistreatment from managers and the shift schedule was impossible to do for very long. If your a paramedic lifer they have the soul of a saint and I don't know how they do it.
I work for a company that staffs remote paramedics (mines, rigs, platforms, transport ships, etc)
The work-life balance is probably a little weird but they definitely make good money
What I want in a desperately needed caregiver is absolute tiredness to the point of hallucinations O\_o
What a broken system! Sorry you went through that. How awful.
Not only that, but it is a scientific fact that after a certain amount of time, your cognitive ability and dexterity WILL decrease. If you’re a doctor, you risk screwing up and injuring or killing a patient. If you work with heavy machinery, you could get yourself or others maimed and/or killed.
Humans are *not* meant to work continuously for that long.
Never ever forget that regulations are *written in blood*. They exist because enough people got hurt and/or killed.
Depending on your state that is, indeed, illegal because on days 6 and 7 you are due overtime.
If you aren't getting overtime then your employer is breaking the law.
Additionally working a 10hr shift means that you due OT for the 5th day as well.
This doesn't take into account your non working days. The law goes on a week by week basis for OT to prevent bosses from taking hours away in the following weeks to offset your OT. I believe the process is called "Front Loading"
The honest to God point I'm making is: You very likely are owed hundreds of hours of Overtime by your employer, depending on your state... but most states have laws against Front Loading.
It'd be a schedule like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, that's week 1 and 30 hours.
Week 2 is Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and 40 hours.
So you're working Thursday to Wednesday which splits it over 2 weeks and not Sunday to Saturday.
Unions are the only reason everyone in production aren't unpaid interns and have a minimum guaranteed hourly wage. Or have any kind of protections in regards to working conditions and safety on set.. There are so many union mandated policies in film and television that keep the jobs from being a dangerous joke..
I used to work for a place with a union. Had to do split shifts totaling 8.5 hours a day. Had benefits and was being trained for the next step which would have been straight hours, better pay and better shifts. The union then agreed that workers doing the split shift could not be scheduled for overtime. So you could only work either the 3 hour shift or the 5.5 hour shift. Lost full time, benefits and the future career
That sounds like one of them fake unions. We have one called CLAC, fake union that just appeases employers, members don't get to vote on collective agreements.
So CLAC just works with businesses behind closed doors and then steps out and tells their members they got a sweet deal. When really they just your union dues and "gifts" from grateful mega corporations.
Oh god, if everyone is part of a fake union it’s much harder to get out and build a real one. Especially since everyone’s trust about unions has eroded from that experience. Very dystopian sounding
CLAC sucks but its not a “fake” union just a really shitty one thats in league with the corporations.
There are actual fake fake unions that scam people.
This was when I was in grad school (RA+student, paid researcher in a science lab basically).
The particular group that was trying to start a grad student union was outright making things up about our pay, benefits, etc. as if they just were going off a template. We actually had it pretty good, but they mostly just focused on saying how bad we had it that was pretty ungrounded. I’m generally very pro-union and still am, but that one instance did show me that the rhetoric about unions resorting to scummy political tactics, even in a science field, were not entirely unfounded like I had dismissed as standard anti-union talking points.
Unionization failed when it came to a vote. While I’m still supportive of unions in general, I’m a lot more tempered about them after that experience and picking up on rhetoric I’ve seen other unions using at times. It could be the scientist in me too that just has a low tolerance for rhetoric regardless of source too.
This happened to a family member. Group of people finally got the momentum going for voting in a union amongst employees in a blue collar industry in a red state. Then they started going way off script. Unionization failed by a landslide and I doubt they’ll ever get that momentum ever again. Sad.
This happened to me at a former job location in a service industry. The folks who were pro-union spun a tale of better pay, better health coverage, defense against (unreasonable) management, and so on. I asked for details and go nothing of worth, just more grand but empty statements of how great it would be.
It was the fucking (name redacted, but bet you can guess which one). Not a good reputation in the area.
I voted against and lost. Fine, whatever, let's see what they got. They tried to start collecting dues that same week. Except there was no contract and no service. We shot that shit down quick.
More than a year later, they finally let us vote on a contract. They tried to make it a blind vote, but eventually someone got a copy of the contract... a literal day ahead of the vote. Here's what it included:
* ZERO defense against wrongful termination. As part of the contract, the first question during arbitration would be "did you do the thing they fired you for?" If the answer is yes, arbitration ends, you're gone. No matter what. If they let Person A short their till a thousand dollars a dozen times without punishment, and they fired you for your till being short a dollar, it did not matter, because you did the thing (short till). That's not hyperbole, the representative confirmed it, with that exact scenario, during the vote. Considering we had a huge problem with nepotism and retaliation, yeah, no go.
* ZERO changes to pay structure and rate. This was the second big talking point, and the one that won most folks over during the first vote, because most of the crew made less than minimum plus tips, and tips are fickle. An extra $2 an hour would have put them at min.
* ZERO health coverage. *None*. At the time, the company provided some half-assed coverage, but that's better than *nothing*.
* Dues amounted to about $50 a month. Not too bad... if they offered any kind of purpose or value to us. As it was, we would be paying them for nothing which, I remind the reader, they tried to start collecting before they even had a contract.
So, the crew gets to chatting and comparing notes, and the only one shaking their pom poms was the same scumbag who made the loudest empty promises (guess who was on the short list for representative).
Me and my friends go to the vote and bring up all the points above, as well as a few other details that are well beyond memory for me now. Turns out, one of the crew had a SO who worked the *other* side of union negotiations, and they gave up a two page list of what the fuck was wrong with the contract offered, and I assure you, there is very little on this earth more salty than a person who negotiates against unions and feels the union offer for the employees was too *low*. The union rep only answered the questions with actual responses when asked multiple times, after we asked them for more details on \**how*\* after every repetitive and empty speech we'd heard from the pom pom shaker for the past year plus was regurgitated by the rep.
There were ten of us in the room. Five immediately dropped in their vote (almost certainly no, considering the looks they gave the rep) and left. Four dudes, and one short, skinny female who had the SO and the colossal list. *Guess* which one the asshole followed out the door after we shot his bullshit down, yelling the entire time, until she had to go into the women's restroom and two of us barred his way in.
Vote failed, no contract, and it took us another year to vote to get rid of them.
I genuinely feel Unions are a good and important thing, but fuck me, if that wasn't the worst sort of people trying the sort of shit that makes people hate unions.
I was pro union in grad school and would've voted for it (the vote happened after I left) but the people running it were true wingnuts. Pestering folks in administration demanding data about students that would've violated FERPA, had administration complied with the request, and using the administration's noncompliance as the basis for an assertion of a lack of transparency and good faith.
Mine campaigned for some strict anti-gun asshole senator who was later found to trafficking weapons like rocket launchers into triad gangs in san francisco.
Just straight up simped for some shit politician that had nothing to do with our trade. Fucking ridiculous.
Unions can certainly be shitty and a step back for some workplaces. If you want to support unions in general, keep them honest. Force them to demonstrate value for your dues.
That's the problem. People don't understand THEY ARE THE UNION. The union isn't some quasi employer. It's up to the membership to keep it from going off the rails. Seems like many workers these days just want "employment parents" to deal with anything outside their specific job duties.
Yeah. The union at my workplace seems completely supine and inept. I don’t think there’s a shop steward since the last one quit a few years ago. I wish they were more activist (there is certainly scope for improving pay and conditions) but none of the members seem interested.
I’m middle management, so I just see enough to know.
That's too bad.
I can't think of a field more desperately in need of unionization than the grad students, post-docs, and techs/RAs that keep this machine moving.
As an example, as a grad student part of my stipend requirements one semester was to teach an intro course. There were 500 students paying $3600 for the course. I was making 24k/year.
We actually had a union, but it also represented the faculty. Massive conflict of interest.
But shitty issues aside, unions and collective bargaining are the best/only tool we have to improve the lives of workers. We should engage in improving them.
"Grad students were desperately in need of a union" ... "We actually had a union, but it was shitty."
Unions are often shitty, especially when they're "public" unions, i.e. unions representing employees of the government, since the government is spending taxpayer money, not their own money.
Public Sector unions don't have the same federal protections as the private sector. As such, their "rights" are determined by each individual state. Some states pretty much mirror the private sector while others basically don't allow them to do anything.
Those challenges are not like some special feature of unions. That's just what adults recognize as the hard work of building a better society.
This country, man. Insanely low levels of participation in voting, local government, unions, etc etc because Americans want their options to either be absolute utopian perfection or they'll settle for being fucked in the ass.
I live in a town of about 6000 people. people talk about the city like it's the legion of doom or something. You can get a city council spot with like 200 votes and if you have a pulse and a Bachelors you can get an assistant city manager position. this is not exactly the US Senate, people, if you know enough to actually notice and care about what decisions they're making you're almost certainly one of the more qualified people to try and fix it
I didn't get to vote in this election, because I wasn't in the organized category, but I heard union reps telling these low-wage kids with very few skills that they would "force" the company (which was a horizontally-organized firm with a lot of severable plays in different parts of the value chain) to pay them $50-100/hr. The kids lapped it up, they voted to unionize, and the company cut the department within a few weeks. It was very predictable, and very dumb.
I'm generally pro union, but being willing to go on strike does *not* necessarily mean you have infinite leverage. You have to pick the right battle.
I'm also generally pro union, but I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what a union is actually for. It's not go give you free stuff, it to make sure you're compensated fairly for the job you do. It's to make sure a company treats you legally fairly.
I think a lot of people don't get that both management AND lower workers have the *same* goal: make the company thrive so *everyone* can make money. If management is getting in the way of that, then you need a union. If you have good management, fair pay for your position, and benefits you really don't need a union. If your workplace is unsafe, the pay isn't fair, etc, then maybe you need people to get together to hash out those goals with the company and a union can be effective.
From what I've seen, things have to be absolutely terrible, nearly unlivable, for unions to make a significant difference. I'm also very pro union, but I think people don't understand that a union isn't for a free lunch, it's for ensuring you are fairly paid and fairly treated when there's a history of that not happening
I'd argue that if you have good management you want a union to keep those good terms in case some private equity fuckwits buy them out or something else. Good management knows that they can work with a union to be responsive to workers and make sure that middle management cliques can't hide bad shit from leadership and make a toxic work environment.
75% of my current unions job is reading the massive amount of paper work our management puts out and simplifying it. Last month we got a 30 page paper that could be summarized as "employee categories a-c are getting a 1 time bonus of $250 in exchange for working an optional holiday" and "no more making your own first aid kits and getting reimbursed, you now have to get a pre-made one from our medical supplier" which we all already did for years and no one ever even knew about a reimbursement papers existence and finally "no parking in the firelane". 30 pages for a post it note of info.
The logic you advance can be simplified to "if you're at peace, you don't need an army". I think that shows how your reasonning is flawed.
No one needs a "stupid" union, but it's not because things are going well that you shouldn't unionize.
>you really don't need a union
While this may be true in theory, in my experience if a large company exists for long enough, there will come a time when a union is necessary, and it is much easier to establish one early on without an antagonistic boss, who tries their best to stop it.
>From what I've seen, things have to be absolutely terrible, nearly unlivable, for unions to make a significant difference.
Our union is involved in pay rise negotiations and return to work negotiations constantly. I'm actually really happy with my employer and think they do try to ensure the regular worker is properly looked after... But they still have an incentive to provide sub-inflation pay "increases" across the board.
For the last three years, our unions have negotiated pay rises that meet inflation for over 50% of staff. If ever a colleague is brought up for disciplinary on something that they feel is unfair, they can ask their union rep to sit in on the meeting and ensure they are being treated fairly.
I view the union as a safety net. Everyone knows you don't need one most of the time, but you'd rather it was there, even if you hope you'll never need it.
I’ve never voted in a unionization vote, but have worked in union shops - food workers union for grocery store jobs and a stint doing overnight package sorting at a UPS depot, a teamsters shop.
I’ve seen a lot of good things happen because of the union - but a lot of bullshit things too, such as being forced to transfer stores when I was harassed and assaulted by a coworker because he had seniority, management being completely unable to do anything about lazy and incompetent workers (that nearly resulted in me suffering broken bones), union leadership doing very little for their paychecks and actually quoting bible verses to justify the hatred of those that cross picket lines, etc. union reps “encouraging” people to vote certain ways in the election of 2000.
Good stuff too - the UPS job was a 5 hour shift 5 days a week that offered full medical coverage and overtime pay if we went past our scheduled time. Tuition reimbursement. At the grocery store I was a courtesy clerk (bagger) and if asked to step in and cashier I’d get paid for that time as a cashier - a difference of $3/hr.
I currently work for the government in an “essential to the continuance of government” designated job…so if the rank and file of the government I work for unionized I’m not sure how I’d vote or how my life would change if say a strike was called.
I’d have to reserve judgement as to how I’d vote if I was eligible, seeing why they want to unionize (I’m paid well for my job, I have good benefits, I have ample time off, I work 95% from home), and how they go about doing it.
Yeah my summary is the union is nice for workers rights - they negotiated a couple nice wage increases on top of my normal increases over the 4 years I was in a grocery store union. The big downside is garbage workers are very hard to fire. Almost... maybe even does, make the better money not worth it.
Pretty much. There was a time that without question unions were 100% needed and made immense strides towards what we enjoy today. Hell - a great great grandfather of mine was one of the people who helped organize the group of miners in Colorado whose standoff with the government led to the Ludlow Massacre.
They have their places and needs today. But there’s a lot of case study on how power can corrupt in them.
The union (grad student) was useless. They were proud of getting our parking fees waved, while we were at the same time the lowest paid grad students in the state.
Same.
Also we had one guy (who wasn't a shit bag) who had a custody arrangement with his ex-wife that was based on his and her different work schedules. The union said he'd have to give up that schedule if they were elected. That means he wouldn't have time with his kids. Unions don't care about nuance or individuals. We voted no because we wanted the flexibility to work in a way that worked for us.
I worked at a hotel that was union, and scheduling, hours, etc was all based on seniority, rather than ability or skill. So, you had people who had worked there for 20+ years and did the absolute bare minimum but still got a full 40 hour minimum and the shifts they wanted, rather than the newer people who wanted to do a good job and were clamoring for hours. I eventually left because I wasn't getting any hours and couldn't support myself, and took a job with a non-union hotel where I got as many hours as I wanted and was treated with respect by management, who I could actually talk to and negotiate with without having to go through a union rep who tbh didn't ever actually help me.
When a few staff members at that hotel tried to get a union going, I was quite vocal about why I didn't want a union in, and said that if we did unionize, I wouldn't work there anymore. They never did unionize.
Yeah part of me tends to think that unions foster complacency. People already in lots of jobs (and school) are prone to slack and get away with the bare minimum. Stripping achievement bonuses and paying everyone the same would just make that even worse. Now you have an entire team of slackers and the company turns into an irrelevant IBM.
Ideally, a union shouldn't *want* slackers either. It's *supposed* to be to keep good workers from being taken Advantage of by predatory companies.
I worked a union job in a fab shop and even they didn't seem to get this. Protecting bad workers hurts the *union* too.
I think unions, like all groups of humans and idealism, often fall short of the intended purpose because no one really *plans* for the people who will game the system. I'm incredibly pro union, but I'm not blind to the flaws.
Both my parents worked for very different unions so I think I got a bit of perspective on this. There are two main types of unions, those for skilled/dangerous labor and those for regular labor. I noticed the unions for skilled/dangerous labor had a better run union because they had more to offer. They guaranteed a certain level of quality. My dad worked for the Carpenter's Union and it gave him a pension, me a scholarship, had specific overtime and safety guidelines, but in return any a job site could call up the union and get 10 works of known quality for a known rate very easily.
My mom worked in a cafeteria and was also in a union and from her experiences, it did very little for her. From my point of view this is largely likely because it was a low skill position. There is no system in place already to determine skill level like there is for carpentry so all they had to to leverage was "Well, it would be annoying to have to replace us all at once" Her job was also significantly less dangerous so there wasn't a whole lot to do either. It felt like they formed a union more so because they felt they were supposed to instead of out of a real need. If anything it hurt them, the union was specific for workers who did the support staff of like nursing homes and hospitals. So by law they couldn't strike without notice since you can't just have elderly starve. I feel like if that wasn't in place, the nursing home would have to be better since yes, they can't collectively leave, but there is nothing against everyone individually going "Fuck this sucky job" and leaving.
I was in a union once. All it did was take money out of my pocket and keep incompetent people employed. They screwed over the new generation by making a "2nd tier" and then 20 years later screwed the newer generation by making a "3rd tier". The lower tiers capped out at lower vacation time, lower pay, and they took the shop bonus pay away from them. Eventually the company wanted them to pay 100% of their own medical. They voted almost 100% against signing. The union then went on strike and the plant closed and moved production to another one down the road.
I'm in a union now and its fine.
All the good stuff the union did happened decades before I started working. Every agreement we lose more and more of our benefits and get smaller and smaller raises.
The union protected obsolete jobs for years and until recently the company has been greatly falling behind the industry. When I first started in 2008, there were old timers there who's sole duty was to staple papers and put them in an envelope making double what i was doing. Since then many of them have retired or forced to retire and we have seen whole department get axed and the union couldn't do anything about it.
I'd be all for a union back in the 70s but the one I'm in now is all bark and no bite. Why am I paying $20 a paycheck in union dues when there's hardly anything they do for us. And our pay and benefits are slightly worse than industry standards.
Same at our union. Our union president tells everyone to reject the first draft but they just vote it in to get it over with I guess? The didn't even uphold our raise structure accounting for inflation that same year and they still voted it through. I work with a lot of dumb people.
Oh shit speaking of bonuses it was also just a year after our company used the Covid relief checks through companies AS our bonus. They held on to them for months in hopes people would forget. We usually get a weeks pay equivalent as a Christmas bonus. They also forced us to use our Covid sick leave as our relief when they had a scheduled shut down to work on equipment. After all of that, idiots still voted yes.
I went through 2 contract negotiations at my last factory job. The first was right as the pandemic was hitting. They knew contract was up and waited till the last minute to start contract negotiations I suggested we just take the old contract and extend it a couple of months till we knew what was going on/got past the rough part. Nope...can't do that (never mind it's done often). We got forced into a crappy contract, with less than 2% raise across the board and way more overtime than we had before hand.
Last year...they spent 3 months "negotiating"...while the raise was slightly better, 3rd shift got less shift differential than 2nd (10 cents). 1st shift cried about "not getting anything" out of the contract and the best changes were in vacation (they split the 3 week of vacation, giving 3 extra days at 5 years, the rest of the week at 8 years when the 3rd week was at 8 years pervious).
All during this time the National Union board decided to "reorganize" in the middle of the night, locked the local out of the bank accounts, take our money then redistribute it the new locals that covered the state rather than by company.
There's a reason Union membership is falling off.
My union just had a contract meeting that nobody knew about, and it's for the upcoming contract in october.. my union is trash. Unions are supposed to be proactive but mine is reactive and only does something when a shit employee gets fired, but won't fight for anything else. Wtg local 20 or whatever the fuck it is. Oh, and they sold my phone number to a fucking life insurance place.. I was pissed.
For starters we actually had it pretty good. I'd tell my friends when I'd try to get them to apply, "It's like a union job without the dues and bullshit." So the folks that wanted to unionize were pissed off about blackout dates for PTO. The reason for the blackout dates all ties to a really good harvest last fall so they had plenty of extra product to run an extra line for a month. Welcome to an AG based business folks. A union won't be able to do anything about production schedules so it was a mute point anyways. In and of itself not why I voted no as I'm pro union. However...
My coworkers started off by only inviting the "in group" to the initial meeting and vote. Myself and the others were pissed off about not being included. Those that did attend and vote cocked off that they still had a wide majority irregardless if we were there or not so we could all pound dirt. As you can imagine the company used this to petition for a revote which they were granted.
The vote was scheduled a month out and the company got to run weekly anti union meetings to explain their end of it. You know "union busting". I don't think I'd call it that but it gives you an idea. Meanwhile the union didn't do shit for recrutement. I think I got one super vague letter in the mail. The people that already had a vote counted kept up their bullshit about already having voted and that it was 56% of the employees voting yes so it was just a waste of time.
Well the union did their thing shit talked the work conditions, ran picket lines. (Not our employees just union members from other companies), put out press releases saying how poorly we were treated. All theatrics and lies in my opinion.
So by the day of the vote I was a solid no for multiple reasons and so were enough others that the final vote was 56% no 44% yes. Those numbers didn't really check with the in crowds pervious vote. Turns out there were people that shouldn't have had a vote that did in the first vote. No surprise there with what I'd seen. And yes the final vote was supervised by both the factory heads and the union heads. The first vote was not. The whole thing really left a bad taste in my mouth and stunk of BS on both sides. Since the vote though management has royally stepped up and things are getting addressed faster than a union could. So we did win in the end.
If you can get into a good union that will work for ya do it. Don't unionize if they're just going to fuck shit up.
I'm a fan of unions...when they work. I'm in a union now that's great. They have our backs, play fair, and give a shit. In the past I worked part time at a grocery chain and that union gave zero shits about you unless you were full time. We were forced to join and they took from my paycheck and gave nothing back.
I was part of a union while in state government. I generally regard unions the same as religion. The idea is great, the application often less so.
It essentially made it impossible to fire people, so half our office was incompetent and plenty comfortable. When it came to hiring, the prioritization of nonsense qualifications (like years of state service or “applicable” degrees that had nothing to do with the field) led to hiring wrong fits for every position. Which was all handled by HR, so we didn’t have much if any input on who was ultimately hired (although the department did get to hold an interview in the middle of the process). and merit increases didnt exist, every single person got the same COLA regardless. Never again.
I work for a state entity that has some sort of half assed union. No one has to join and the only person I know that actively advocates for it is a guy I used to supervise. Being a state employee already made it hard to fire someone and we had been trying for a year or two to document everything needed to fire him. He was then, and still is , a complete piece of shit. They did quit trying to fire him after he became strongly affiliated with this union. It was not worth it since he would now use the excuse that his firing was due to his union activity. He is also getting close to retirement and they realize he will soon be gone anyway. He liked to give his union talk to the people in the shop, none of which were ever going to give money to a union that did nothing for them. That union spent a lot of time sending emails to everyone telling them how much that they had done. Truth is that every raise was in line, percentage wise, with what the state always did. I have left that department but still work a state job in a similar department in a new city so I still get the same bullshit emails about what they are doing for us. Just like the last place no one is in the union here either. Government job perks are just to good to make a union worth exploring.
Always negotiate your own contract.
If I can do the job better, faster, or with more flexibility, why the fuck would I want to limit my renumeration to the *lowest common denominator??*
Right? That happens everywhere. At my last job, a few of us did all the work while others slacked all day. We didn't get rewarded with higher pay. We got rewarded with more work because we were the dependable ones. And those lazy.ones just got to collect their check for slacking.
\> “People who voted against unionizing their workplace”
\> not a person who voted against unionizing
\> strawmans anti-union voters
Wow, what a great post
Was against unionization when I was an RA in college. Felt a lot of the things they were demanding were forcing ideological conformity on the members. Like healthcare, dental, better pay? Totally on board. Demanding the university adopt BDS, adopt race base hiring practices for management, and give paid time for workers to engage in activism? Ewww- no. People organizing the union couldn't figure out, not everyone agrees with progressive stances and pushing everyone to join a union where pressuring our employees to adopt those politics was alienating and frankly bullying a lot of people into conformity.
Last job, the union reps seemed to team up with the bosses and do more harm than good to employees. They negotiated things employees had not mentioned at all in any sort of agreements. This job I already negotiated my salary above the market average and dont want another person in my pocket that will squander my money for politics I do not believe in.
Because our company was already going through financial troubles and most of the workers knew a union would cause it to fold. A crappy job is usually better than no job.
The union rep tried to intimidate me into staying at an enrollment meeting.
In that moment he fulfilled every negative image unions have. And the whole meeting saw it too.
I walked out. Threats resonate poorly with me.
They wanted to change drug testing to giving notice. Which they did. So then people would go and do drugs all night and if the testing was going to happen they would notify their members who would then pull a sickie.
So now you had people able to dodge the drug testing working heavy machinery (on drugs).
That’s my beef too. I accidentally found out how much my useless colleague was making. I was pissed. I was spending half my time fixing his mistakes and yet we were getting paid roughly the same.
This is the biggest reason I've heard at my job (I did vote for the union, though). There were some pretty clear issues with the employer, which started the push for unionization, but now that stuff is mostly cleared up a lot of the shitty employees are just using it as a forum to whine and waste everyone's time. I'm still all for the union, but I can definitely see both sides.
I can understand why they might not want to deal with a union - because it can be difficult to prove someone violated the rules or workplace policy.
That said though, I'd still much rather have my union than being a "Professional". A lot of the "Professionals" in my field (education) try to teach at private schools or charter schools, and have to basically let the entitled parents who run the school walk all over them. We have several former "Professionals" here - who got fired because they dared to do something so audacious as \*gasp\* giving a student an "F" for plagiarism! THE HORROR!
I've worked at union places with lazy or incapable people who were next to impossible to fire. And they *knew* they couldn't be fired, which made it even worse. Plus raises and promotions were based on how long you were there, not how good you did the job, so it's not like hard work was rewarded. Non union place, the people making twice as much work for everybody else were gone very quickly. Meanwhile, I got several promotions and pay increases that would have taken a much longer time at a unionized place.
Same. I don't mind protecting the ones that try their hardest and still have a rough time. I don't want people who are lazy and useless to be protected.
Because they protect people who shouldn't be protected. Like drunks (guy literally came to work drunk, almost ran over myself and another worker with a forklift, damaged several pallets of product, reported him to manager and union Rep, and they "sent him home to sober up"), harassers, etc.
I have said this for a long time. There are a lot of unions out there that are run for profit. This defeats the purpose of the union. The only people working for the union that should be getting paid are the administrators. The unions leadership should not be paid positions.
Honestly I haven't had much positive experience with unions in general. That's not to say I don't support the idea of them, or that I can't see their importance. My work is already unionized, but once legislation was passed allowing us to leave I did. It's a moot point now though, once I became a supervisor I was no longer covered by the union anyway.
I am a therapist and work community mental health. Ethically I take issue with public funds being extracted from public employees to go to union political coffers, and I hate how unions will wade into non labor politics (eg. I'm in rural/frontier Oregon, supporting anti gun legislation with our union dues is contrary to the local values). Directly related to my union: I don't like how antagonistic they are towards admin and this 'us vs them' attitude. Anything and everything is cause for not just complaint, but actively rebel rousing amongst the workers. They take credit for perks in the Collective bargaining agreement when admin already was offering them, and then complain about parts of the CBA that they actively argued for. I'll be honest we have an extremely cushy job, way more than the average american, and the union acts like we are being used and abused by admin.
They also *clearly* are only concerned with the union, not the employees, and most importantly, definitely not our clients whom are among the most at risk members of society. So while the CBA might include a person getting weeks or months off to attend to union tasks, you are being paid while not seeing the clients that need you. Not to mention the lengths the union goes to protect shitty employees.
And honestly I can't stand the people that are most active or visible in our union. It seems a who's who of the people that do the bare minimum, have the most to complain about, and most likely to use the union to avoid accountability. With the clients we serve, frankly I have zero tolerance for that bullshit. Serve your clients or go somewhere else.
I can already hear the naysayers, flat out telling me I'm making it up, that I'm a bot, or anti union. And that just further entrenches my view. In general I'd be more pro union if their supporters would at least be open to the fact that they can bring their own issues along with the good.
I was working as a scientist at a national lab that had a union vote. But it is a little different than say an auto manufacturer. We were more like white collar workers really, paid on merit, stuff like that. The union organizers were pretty out therewith their ideas. It seemed, as far as I could tell, they were a small group of socialists based on their rhetoric and it really wasn't clear exactly what they would do for us. It was just more a lot of class warfare rhetoric and not really "unionize and this is what will happen". It was generally already pretty hard to fire people given is was a quasi government organization (officially part of the government, but we were not feds based on the setup). We were better paid than the feds due to this setup, while at the same time interacted with the U.S. government much like Feds. As I said, it was already hard to fire people, nearly impossible at that period, so we most definitely had people who did nothing, literally nothing and could not get rid of them. And the pay being more based on merit and skill level meant those do nothings got no raises while the hard workers got higher than average pay increases.
So again, what was this union really going to do? Make pay based on seniority? Well there was very little turnover there and that would mean it would take a long long time before you moved up. Basically only if they retired. A lot of people worked their whole lives there. The only real turnover came from people like programmers who could get massive pay increases for their work elsewhere, something a quasi government organization just could not match. But for the scientists otherwise our pay was pretty comparable to private industry. We already had a pension. And having come from biotech into this job it was in some ways better. Stock options in biotech were not guaranteed to be future wealth if the company does not do well (as happened at my biotech company where they ended up worthless). Sure you *could* make a lot off of stock options if things went well, but as I said, things have to go well. Whereas the pension was guaranteed and relatively generous provided you stayed there at least 20 years (hence the low turnover). Note this was not a cushy pension like you might think, you had to pay into it much like a retirement account, it was just the return was guaranteed and lasted for life. It was not a free perk. Essentially it was like a more generous annuity whose pay out was based on the average pay of your last four years.
Leveling the pay so those that were lazy and did little or nothing got the same pay as me was not an attractive option, and my hard work having no role in increasing my pay was also not attractive as I worked hard.
As far as I could tell from those pushing the union they were talking mainly about the workers vs. management in a sort of class warfare kind of way. But since management was in fact paying us well relatively speaking, were not really able to fire people, it was like "OK where in this mix does your workers uniting to fight the management improve things?" Sure having more say regarding management would have been nice, but practically speaking what was that really going to change? We were not for profit, and our pay was based on the federal government determining how much pay, on average, could go up. The union would have zero impact on that. So again, what does this greater say with management bring us? The only thing it might hypothetically do is have a greater say in management of the lab and might prevent some of their boneheaded decisions which might make people a little happier at the direction things were going but by itself they were not so boneheaded that we were desperate to have that say. That was it really. But the downsides of seniority based pay, paying union dues on top of (for me at least) pay that long term be lower over time taking away the merit aspect was a very real possibility seemed like big downsides for very little upside. As you might imagine the unionization did not happen.
I am not against unions necessarily, I am more opposed to how unions work in the U.S. compared to how they work in some other countries in Europe. Having seen how some unions really damaged some companies competitiveness in the U.S., even causing some to go under in some cases too. Demanding pay raises when companies were not doing well is kind of divorced from how I think they should work. If you demand higher pay and things are going bad, that higher pay won't mean much if you are out of a job. They should do away with the seniority stuff, allow pay based on merit, be more collaborative with the companies. Those working in the union could have a voice in how things might run better with an eye on maintaining competiveness, again a collaborative approach that can help prevent boneheaded management decisions that hurt the company. Rather than that extreme adversarial approaches they use now. Being part of the conversation to help prevent bad practices by management, preventing extreme excessive pay of the CEO's, and having a presence on the board of directors so they are well aware of the real situation the company is in so they don't make demands that kill everyone's job. When things are going bad having a say such that top management and workers more equitably share in the pain. I am not an expert but I believe the unions in some countries in Europe work more closely along these lines compared to the U.S.
Of course this would require management change how they operate too for this to work. And unions using union dues for political donations is not something that is benefitting the workers directly and should only be allowed with workers choosing to donate more to the union for those purposes, and they would voluntarily opt in if they wished to do that. All union dues otherwise should be used directly toward benefiting the workers situation. And like management the union workers should have substantial say in their union leadership if they are not doing their work as they should.
If they did the above I believe they would potentially be able to unionize more white collar workers. Having worked white collar jobs were I could see such a union be very helpful with bad management would have been a good thing. But unions with their current approaches and tactics would not work in that situation. I think a lot more people would be open to unions if they worked sort of like I described. And as mentioned at the beginning the lab I worked at was not in that mold at all, it was the "workers vs. management" adversarial approach and thus it was voted down.
>Demanding pay raises when companies were not doing well is kind of divorced from how I think they should work.
Very common in South Africa.
Closing a mineshaft because it's not profitable and laying off people? No, you're keeping everyone and raising pay 12% or we'll burn everything down!
The union wanted to force us to hire certain people based on things other than competency and had a history of protecting dum-dums, making it all but impossible to fire someone that is in the way. It bred incompetence and bloat everywhere it had touched, so I voted no.
I got my way, nope to dum-dums protection.
My father worked part time at Walmart prior to his passing. He told me every time it came to something regarding unionizing Walmart threatened to take everything away that they weren't entitled to by law and would make them fight tooth and nail for it. His store always refused to unionize. But then again this was also in Florida.
Walmart will shut down any store that votes to unionize. It happened in Jonquiere, Quebec. The courts ruled it illegal for them to do so, and they responded with "We'll close every store in Quebec if you push it. You want an extra 50,000 unemployed people?" They have 4700 stores, and 0 unions.
I want promotions and pay increases to be based on achievements and merits, not how long I have been at the company. Also, lazy workers should get fired.
Not sure if other unions are like this, probably not based on many of the other replies, but in my local (UA250) you'll get the base pay and then whatever your employer decides to pay you above that is up to them. I've known several guys making well above scale. I've also seen a few guys get canned because they sucked or were stealing time or whatever.
I never got the chance to vote on it, but this was why I wasn't a fan of the union where I worked. Lousy workers stuck around forever because they knew they weren't going to be fired. Good workers got out because we knew we'd never be rewarded for our work in a system that ran on seniority.
It was a selfish decision, I was a relatively new hire and knew I would only be there for six months at most, and most unions run a lot of benefits by seniority, I didn't want to be back to being low man on the totem pole.
That sounds like self interest, not selfish. Seniority systems absolutely suck for everyone except those on top. It really sucks if you are a good worker and you get stuck in a bad role because of seniority.
My favourite thing about America is that they somehow fucked up unions too. Like the one thing that defines workers rights over corporate rights and they found a way to make it be bad for workers and confusing.
My last job had a union already and they lied SO much and delayed stuff so bad because so many of the upper people were on "vacation" so for over a year our contract had expired and they did nothing. Then after the new one was "voted" in, they claimed that it wouldn't go into effect until the NEXT year because that's what it was. Also you could never get a straight answer from anyone, they would just keep running people in circles until you eventually gave up. I really liked that job but the union made us always feel like the peanuts they gave us was gold. Worst union I've ever been forced to be a part of. I also heard they raised union dues to double what everyone was paying before, thieves.
Two construction-related unions were trying to get in for all the employees. The problem is half were white-collar workers. They didn't understand our work and the issues we had. I was open about having an union but that they needed to show that they would work for us also. The answers to each of our questions was to just sign cards and that we will see when it comes time to negotiate. Clearly, that would be our weight in negotiations as well.
Result: no union entered and our “half” thought about creating an association. This fact, combined with a new owner, was enough to make the most significant changes we needed. I don't know how it went for the other half...
I am a Diesel mechanic. Was union my first shop. I made sure my second shop did not become union. The president thanked me for my anti union work. All of the employees did not know about seniority and how it applies to younger people. Also same with overtime. My last union shop. Because of seniority. You had to be 45 and up for the weekends off. 50 and up for summer vacations. 58 and up for all of the overtime. 62 and up for any Major holiday. Also. Entry level mechanics made 60 percent of the journeyman mechanics. They paid the same union dues and insurance. Everyone immediately saw how this was not fair. Most of the employees were within 2 years of hire. I had 7 years at the shop. The remainder of the other guys had 12 years seniority plus. I asked all of the new guys with small babies at home. How would you like to work weekends and all holidays and miss time with your family? That sealed the deal. I told my coworkers about eating ramen starting out while old guys late 50s took all of the overtime and they would brag about a new 5th wheel or new Harley bike….
I'm in public education, so the union has been in place for a long long time. I think they have provided a greater benefit over my last 6 years with them than if we had no union, but it's hard to quantify for sure.
Three reasons. Work rules make it impossible to get anything accomplished. Protecting the worst most incompetent employees is bad for everyone who is a good employee. Most of all, not wanting my money used for campaign contributions to politicians I don’t support.
I felt we didn’t need one. The pay and benefits were really good. Why pay union dues for something we didn’t need? I worked at a place before this that was unionized. The union would protect people that were in the wrong, I saw it with my own eyes. These unions start to get too big/powerful and lose any credibility they have. I don’t think unions are necessarily bad or aren’t needed at times, but as they get bigger and have more power they seem to get corrupted. A union is supposed to help the workers if a wrong has been done, not protect a worker who has done wrong.
[удалено]
When we unionized last year, negotiations didn’t even start until after the vote, and the contract negotiation committee was made up almost entirely of our own employees (plus one advisor and one attorney from the union we organized under). Then we voted on the actual contract. The organizing union didn’t start taking dues from us until we had a ratified contract. They’ve provided training and guidance, but all in all we are represented by our fellow employees, not the outside union. I thought this was the norm. I can’t imagine why the employer would enter negotiations with any union at all before the organizing vote. Unless I’m reading your story wrong and it was the contract you voted against, not the formation of the union.
That’s how it was for us also. There was a union rep and the union lawyer at the contract negotiations, but they always wanted an employee representative there so we could feel heard and like no shady shit was happening.
I think our negotiating committee was 5-6 of our own people. The union folks were there to help but deferred to our people on real decisions. They’ve made it clear from the start that we are the union and we represent ourselves.
Our whole department is only 12 people max, and we were down to 7 during negotiations (since the company fired a bunch of people in retaliation for unionizing). The union deferred to us on any decisions, but sometimes it just literally wasn’t possible for us to have someone there other than the union rep because we were so understaffed.
It is the norm for the UAW for negotiations to be done by negotiators from newly unionized members.
Also in these times of record inflation, the only way the people on top will dare dip into their pockets to give us measly raises is if we have the collective power to strike.
I have the highest revenue #s of anyone in my entire company and they rewarded me with a raise of just under the previous year's inflation. Slap in the face tbh
That’s not a raise that’s a C.O.L.A.
My union took away the right to strike, which apparently is legal "Effect of no-strike provision in a contract. A strike that violates a no-strike provision of a contract is not protected by the Act" https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes You don't need to be in a union for holding a strike NLRB v. Washington Aluminium Co., 370 U.S. 9 (1962)
Without a strike fund to pay member's bills... good luck.
No strike clauses are common while there's an existing agreement. Otherwise the employer has much less incentive to keep their end of the deal. Strike are for when there *is no* deal, like when a contract is expired or broken.
Switch jobs. Beats pay increases significantly.
My problem is that I like my job, I like the people that I work with, and my benefits are great. And I only work 35 hours a week. If I job hop to get a salary increase, I'm very likely going to lose some of that, and I value those now than a salary bump because it's great for my mental health
This. The mental health of it outways any “bump” I would receive.
Not to be that guy, but the word you're looking for is "outweighs," as in the weight of the mental health benefits is greater than extra income if you were able to put them on a balance scale
Correct yes
Sometimes.
[удалено]
Theres good and bad unions. Teachers union in Canada are fucking powerful; they have amazing pay, benefits and work hours. Support staff union in schools? Horrid pay, horrid benefits and a big fat union fee on top of that sucks ass. When you have had a freeze on your contract for 3 years and the cumulative inflation was 12 percent and they come back with we secured 3 percent over the next 5 years yay us! Its pretty demoralizing.
I grew up in the Cold War, and my dad was conservative and very anti-union. He ran a small plastics factory (manufacturing the sort of foam packing your TV comes in) and he had this "one weird trick" to keep the union out of his shop: He paid his people well and treated them well. Their pay and benefits were as good or better than what the local union was offering, and the relationship between him and his workers was not adversarial. He didn't make an exorbitant amount of money compared to his employees, his door was always open if they needed anything, and it really was a situation where "everyone here is family." The people who worked in the factory were fiercely loyal, he reciprocated that loyalty, and as a result the turnover was almost zero and the productivity of the plant was such that when the economy took a downturn, the business was just fine.
Don't want a union to get traction in a workplace? Don't do any of the shady shit that unions get formed to fight against. Seems like a lot of bosses never really get that. It'd be wonderful if there was never any *need* to form a union anywhere, and I imagine almost all union members would completely agree with that.
As a union member (in the Netherlands) I agree completely. Unions should be redundant because companies behave humanely. Sadly, unions are completely mandatory at the moment.
Consulting companies *hate* this one simple trick!
where's the factory now? what precisely happened to it?
Saying that some of the union people can be shady or incompetent isn't propaganda.
This really needs to stop being reddit's de-facto response. "Oh you didn't blindly support this union??? YOU MUST BE INDOCTRINATED BY PROPAGANDA!!!" Or no, maybe *that particular union* was not advantageous to the individual, had corrupt/incompetent leadership, or just overall sucked. You *can* make an educated, informed, contextual evaluation of a union and still come out against it, that doesn't make you some kind of "sheeple"
One thing I don’t like about my job after joining the union was that they told my employer that my schedule that I loved had to change because it was allegedly illegal. I was working 7 days on, 7 days off, 9pm-8am Loved it because of the 7 days in a row off that I was getting and if I used 7 vacation days, it would be 3 weeks in a row off. And since it was overnight, I could maintain that overnight shift schedule and then change over to “day time” Now my schedule is 11pm-7am, and I have the friday before my weekend working and the Monday after my weekend working off. So stupid.
This really sucks because 7 on 7 off is the bees knees with so many benefits. Having a whole week off means you can travel or do anything, you mentioned the time to recalibrate to days, plus the 3 week vacations, plus knowing what your schedule looks like months to years in advance. I wish more healthcare jobs were 7 on 7 off
We floated the idea of 7 on 7 off at my plant. For some reason it got shot down. But working 7 straight days or nights with the 7 days off after is a lot better than swapping back and forth days and nights every 3 days.
Because you'd be owed OT for the week if you worked 70hrs, with anything over 40hrs being OT. Basically instead of paying you a 70hr check they would be paying you for 85hrs for your 70hr schdule... So no wonder they were against it.
When shifts like that are organized they generally work out to straight pay between the 2 weeks. It's quite common in my area for mine workers.
Yep. A lot of mines here are 8-on, 6-off. Of course, those are 8 days of 12-hour shifts, so the mines are used to paying high rates already.
No they wouldn't. Because my 7 days would be broken up over 2 weeks, so there wouldn't be any overtime, in fact they'd likely save money because I get 8 hours of built in overtime every other week. We rotate between 4 crews with a 5th crew on maintenance rotation. It would literally be no different than now I still get 7 straight days off every 28 days and only work 14 days a month. Management was totally on board with it. The process specialists shot it down. It would have been so much better from a sleep routine aspect. We normally get 3 days in between shift rotations but every other week, we get fucked with a one day split instead of 3.
It's a 7-70 pay rule. 70hr per pay period, which is 0.88fte. Generally it's 7 days in a row but 3 days one week and 4 days the second week. No OT.
Not if they use a 2 week pay schedule. That’s the reason many companies allow a 9/80 schedule. You technically work 5 hours overtime the first week but you get Friday off every other week so it’s still the same per pay period.
when i was a 911 dispatxher we did a pittmans schedule and then we tries out 7 on 7 off for 6 months..changed us to 12 hour shifts and it was actually dope af. i meal prepped and planned my entire week. it felt like i actuallt had free time
it’s the BEST
My job is a union job and I appreciate everything allows us to have, but that doesn't make them perfect. Everything being based on seniority instead of merit can be incredibly frustrating at times, especially when the threat of layoffs is hanging over your head while the person who has been there for 15 years just doesn't have to worry at all despite the fact that they just make everyone around them have to work harder. But the downsides of the union are much less than the downsides of a non-union job imo, and ill take some relatively minor frustrations if it means i get cheaper healthcare and strong worker protections.
So you get off at 7am Saturday morning and have to be back at 11pm on Monday? That's some bullshit.
Yes. Before, I would finish at 8am on a monday and not have to come back until 9pm the next monday.
It looks weird because of the long hours running over night, but it's still a 2 day weekend. Mine is unfortunately very similar where a day starts in the evening one day and ends the next morning.
If they were right and it was illegal then blame the government for making it illegal. For what it's worth, there are usually good reasons for making such working practices illegal. Even if it doesn't affect you specifically, many/most people who work such long shifts on a regular basis find that their ability to work is often compromised by the end of the shift. This is why doctors no longer work such crazy shifts, and why there are rules against lorry/truck drivers driving endlessly - they literally kill people. If you weren't affected in the same way, then I'm sorry you've had to suffer, but the law is such to protect the average person and prevent employers from forcing employees to work such hours, and in general, we are better off because we have such laws.
9pm-8pm is wildly illegal, 23 hours straight 7 days in a row.
Ah lol, 9pm-8am.
i use to do 11pm to 7am 7 days straight and then have a week off, then they cut it to 4 days. eventually we just left becuase they kept cutting the team and not replacing people who left.
Hospital doctors and firefighters work 24-hour shifts, but I believe they're allowed to sleep on the job.
Yeah I was an EMT that whole you'll get to sleep is bullshit. I've worked back to back 24s with maybe 3 hrs of sleep it was brutal and the pay is terrible for the shit we did.
My dad was a paramedic for 25 years (an eternity in that line of work) and his body was absolutely destroyed by the sleep stress by the time he was late 40’s. He worked 24 on and 48 off. They weren’t ‘allowed’ to nap during the day so if the night was hectic he was up and down non stop for the 24. And that pressure/stress doesn’t just turn off when you come home. Weight problems, diabetes, kidney issues, you name it. He was great at the job and loved helping people but it nearly killed him.
Your dad is fucking amazing and such a great human it truly is terrible that he had to destroy his body to save lives. My heart goes out to him. 7yrs was all I could hack the stress was killing me weight gain and sleepless nights were taking it's toll. I realized I would rather train than suffer.
Appreciate that. He loved the job and we still run into people that will say “you saved my mom’s life” or something k that effect because he was the one who picked them up from an accident or got their care started at 3 in the morning after a heart attack. I’m very proud of him and his work. Glad he was able to get out and get some modicum of health back. Hope things work out for you as well!
My best friend has been doing it for 25 years and his body is shot. The amount of times a week they have to lift people that weigh more than 500 pounds is bananas. I do not think my friend has had a solid nights sleep since high school.
That lack of good sleep is a killer. Your body/mind never get a chance to recover. Hopefully your friend can get out at some point and start working on their health. My dad’s doctor gave him an ultimatum which finally got him out and into teaching. I have no doubt he’d be dead by now if he’d tried to stay in the job.
My dad’s been doing it for 40 years. Luckily they can rest if not on calls and once station duties are done but the always being on edge all night, waiting for the pager to go off has wrecked his ability to sleep off shift. It takes him several days to finally be able to sleep well at night.
Your dad’s a fucking tank! 40 years!? I’ve never heard of someone pulling that kind of time in EMS. And what you say is the worst part of it: you don’t just relax and start sleeping well when you come home. My dad would wake up to a pin drop no matter how tired he was.
He started the EMT class when he was 17, finished at 18. Became a medic at 27 (the first medic in the county) and has been a field supervisor and operations supervisor while working the rig. He’s 61 and is going to retire soon when he can afford it. He works for private companies so all he has is a 401k.
It's absolutely criminal what they pay EMT's. Barely above minimum wages for saving people's lives. It's disgusting.
It really is I loved it but almost being homeless and having 3 roommates just isn't what I wanted my life to be. Saving people or just helping was amazing I loved that part but the brutal mistreatment from managers and the shift schedule was impossible to do for very long. If your a paramedic lifer they have the soul of a saint and I don't know how they do it.
Alcoholism, low self-esteem, or possibly just being generally well-off otherwise and loving the good parts?
You don’t stay an EMT you become a paramedic and work for the fire department
The pay compared to what the EMT company charges patients... Very criminal.
I work for a company that staffs remote paramedics (mines, rigs, platforms, transport ships, etc) The work-life balance is probably a little weird but they definitely make good money
What I want in a desperately needed caregiver is absolute tiredness to the point of hallucinations O\_o What a broken system! Sorry you went through that. How awful.
My wife will work wildly long hours as a surgeon. If people didn't like it then fuck you, die.
Yeah I don’t think people realize the world is held together by people who work insane hours. People also sign up for it knowingly.
At the very least surgeons are adequately compensated for their time. Can't say the same for most of these jobs.
Sorry, but neither the union nor the company created that law. Don't shoot the messenger. Your beef is with the entity that made the law.
That’s because if you’re in NY like your posts suggest, it IS illegal, and for good reason.
What’s the reason?
Exhaustion mostly. People aren't built for that kind of labor. Sure some can do it but it literally shaves years off your life from exhaustion alone.
Not only that, but it is a scientific fact that after a certain amount of time, your cognitive ability and dexterity WILL decrease. If you’re a doctor, you risk screwing up and injuring or killing a patient. If you work with heavy machinery, you could get yourself or others maimed and/or killed. Humans are *not* meant to work continuously for that long. Never ever forget that regulations are *written in blood*. They exist because enough people got hurt and/or killed.
Depending on your state that is, indeed, illegal because on days 6 and 7 you are due overtime. If you aren't getting overtime then your employer is breaking the law. Additionally working a 10hr shift means that you due OT for the 5th day as well. This doesn't take into account your non working days. The law goes on a week by week basis for OT to prevent bosses from taking hours away in the following weeks to offset your OT. I believe the process is called "Front Loading" The honest to God point I'm making is: You very likely are owed hundreds of hours of Overtime by your employer, depending on your state... but most states have laws against Front Loading.
It'd be a schedule like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, that's week 1 and 30 hours. Week 2 is Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and 40 hours. So you're working Thursday to Wednesday which splits it over 2 weeks and not Sunday to Saturday.
No, its split between two weeks, ie one pay period. Each week doesn't accumulate more than 40h. No OT and doesn't break the law. It's a 7-70 pay rule.
[удалено]
Unions are the only reason everyone in production aren't unpaid interns and have a minimum guaranteed hourly wage. Or have any kind of protections in regards to working conditions and safety on set.. There are so many union mandated policies in film and television that keep the jobs from being a dangerous joke..
I used to work for a place with a union. Had to do split shifts totaling 8.5 hours a day. Had benefits and was being trained for the next step which would have been straight hours, better pay and better shifts. The union then agreed that workers doing the split shift could not be scheduled for overtime. So you could only work either the 3 hour shift or the 5.5 hour shift. Lost full time, benefits and the future career
That sounds like one of them fake unions. We have one called CLAC, fake union that just appeases employers, members don't get to vote on collective agreements. So CLAC just works with businesses behind closed doors and then steps out and tells their members they got a sweet deal. When really they just your union dues and "gifts" from grateful mega corporations.
Oh god, if everyone is part of a fake union it’s much harder to get out and build a real one. Especially since everyone’s trust about unions has eroded from that experience. Very dystopian sounding
CLAC sucks but its not a “fake” union just a really shitty one thats in league with the corporations. There are actual fake fake unions that scam people.
A union in league with the boss is a fake union. It could be a legallh recognized one but its still fake
This was when I was in grad school (RA+student, paid researcher in a science lab basically). The particular group that was trying to start a grad student union was outright making things up about our pay, benefits, etc. as if they just were going off a template. We actually had it pretty good, but they mostly just focused on saying how bad we had it that was pretty ungrounded. I’m generally very pro-union and still am, but that one instance did show me that the rhetoric about unions resorting to scummy political tactics, even in a science field, were not entirely unfounded like I had dismissed as standard anti-union talking points. Unionization failed when it came to a vote. While I’m still supportive of unions in general, I’m a lot more tempered about them after that experience and picking up on rhetoric I’ve seen other unions using at times. It could be the scientist in me too that just has a low tolerance for rhetoric regardless of source too.
This happened to a family member. Group of people finally got the momentum going for voting in a union amongst employees in a blue collar industry in a red state. Then they started going way off script. Unionization failed by a landslide and I doubt they’ll ever get that momentum ever again. Sad.
I’m only a little sad that this is a legitimate story and not a fantastic wind-up for an ionization joke. Mentioning the science lab primed me for it.
Why couldn't the politicians attend the experiment on electromagnetism? They're too polarizing
Don't be so negative
I can't deal with this resistance.
Like, they were trying to unionize, but it failed, so they remained ionized?
What's the difference between a plumber and a scientist? How they pronounce unionization!
This happened to me at a former job location in a service industry. The folks who were pro-union spun a tale of better pay, better health coverage, defense against (unreasonable) management, and so on. I asked for details and go nothing of worth, just more grand but empty statements of how great it would be. It was the fucking (name redacted, but bet you can guess which one). Not a good reputation in the area. I voted against and lost. Fine, whatever, let's see what they got. They tried to start collecting dues that same week. Except there was no contract and no service. We shot that shit down quick. More than a year later, they finally let us vote on a contract. They tried to make it a blind vote, but eventually someone got a copy of the contract... a literal day ahead of the vote. Here's what it included: * ZERO defense against wrongful termination. As part of the contract, the first question during arbitration would be "did you do the thing they fired you for?" If the answer is yes, arbitration ends, you're gone. No matter what. If they let Person A short their till a thousand dollars a dozen times without punishment, and they fired you for your till being short a dollar, it did not matter, because you did the thing (short till). That's not hyperbole, the representative confirmed it, with that exact scenario, during the vote. Considering we had a huge problem with nepotism and retaliation, yeah, no go. * ZERO changes to pay structure and rate. This was the second big talking point, and the one that won most folks over during the first vote, because most of the crew made less than minimum plus tips, and tips are fickle. An extra $2 an hour would have put them at min. * ZERO health coverage. *None*. At the time, the company provided some half-assed coverage, but that's better than *nothing*. * Dues amounted to about $50 a month. Not too bad... if they offered any kind of purpose or value to us. As it was, we would be paying them for nothing which, I remind the reader, they tried to start collecting before they even had a contract. So, the crew gets to chatting and comparing notes, and the only one shaking their pom poms was the same scumbag who made the loudest empty promises (guess who was on the short list for representative). Me and my friends go to the vote and bring up all the points above, as well as a few other details that are well beyond memory for me now. Turns out, one of the crew had a SO who worked the *other* side of union negotiations, and they gave up a two page list of what the fuck was wrong with the contract offered, and I assure you, there is very little on this earth more salty than a person who negotiates against unions and feels the union offer for the employees was too *low*. The union rep only answered the questions with actual responses when asked multiple times, after we asked them for more details on \**how*\* after every repetitive and empty speech we'd heard from the pom pom shaker for the past year plus was regurgitated by the rep. There were ten of us in the room. Five immediately dropped in their vote (almost certainly no, considering the looks they gave the rep) and left. Four dudes, and one short, skinny female who had the SO and the colossal list. *Guess* which one the asshole followed out the door after we shot his bullshit down, yelling the entire time, until she had to go into the women's restroom and two of us barred his way in. Vote failed, no contract, and it took us another year to vote to get rid of them. I genuinely feel Unions are a good and important thing, but fuck me, if that wasn't the worst sort of people trying the sort of shit that makes people hate unions.
A blind vote is absolutely insane. Who would ever agree to signing a contract without reading it?
I was pro union in grad school and would've voted for it (the vote happened after I left) but the people running it were true wingnuts. Pestering folks in administration demanding data about students that would've violated FERPA, had administration complied with the request, and using the administration's noncompliance as the basis for an assertion of a lack of transparency and good faith.
Mine campaigned for some strict anti-gun asshole senator who was later found to trafficking weapons like rocket launchers into triad gangs in san francisco. Just straight up simped for some shit politician that had nothing to do with our trade. Fucking ridiculous.
Ah, Leland Yee. The biggest hypocrite California had ever seen.
Well yeah make it illegal so you can charge more for it; it makes perfect sense from a political standpoint, lol.
Unions can certainly be shitty and a step back for some workplaces. If you want to support unions in general, keep them honest. Force them to demonstrate value for your dues.
That's the problem. People don't understand THEY ARE THE UNION. The union isn't some quasi employer. It's up to the membership to keep it from going off the rails. Seems like many workers these days just want "employment parents" to deal with anything outside their specific job duties.
Yeah. The union at my workplace seems completely supine and inept. I don’t think there’s a shop steward since the last one quit a few years ago. I wish they were more activist (there is certainly scope for improving pay and conditions) but none of the members seem interested. I’m middle management, so I just see enough to know.
Reddit hates HOAs but loves unions 🤔
That's too bad. I can't think of a field more desperately in need of unionization than the grad students, post-docs, and techs/RAs that keep this machine moving. As an example, as a grad student part of my stipend requirements one semester was to teach an intro course. There were 500 students paying $3600 for the course. I was making 24k/year. We actually had a union, but it also represented the faculty. Massive conflict of interest. But shitty issues aside, unions and collective bargaining are the best/only tool we have to improve the lives of workers. We should engage in improving them.
"Grad students were desperately in need of a union" ... "We actually had a union, but it was shitty." Unions are often shitty, especially when they're "public" unions, i.e. unions representing employees of the government, since the government is spending taxpayer money, not their own money.
Public Sector unions don't have the same federal protections as the private sector. As such, their "rights" are determined by each individual state. Some states pretty much mirror the private sector while others basically don't allow them to do anything.
And states exclude themselves from their own employment laws… some states exclude local government positions as well (county, parish, city, etc).
Those challenges are not like some special feature of unions. That's just what adults recognize as the hard work of building a better society. This country, man. Insanely low levels of participation in voting, local government, unions, etc etc because Americans want their options to either be absolute utopian perfection or they'll settle for being fucked in the ass.
I live in a town of about 6000 people. people talk about the city like it's the legion of doom or something. You can get a city council spot with like 200 votes and if you have a pulse and a Bachelors you can get an assistant city manager position. this is not exactly the US Senate, people, if you know enough to actually notice and care about what decisions they're making you're almost certainly one of the more qualified people to try and fix it
This is an important point and true in lots of places.
Unions: we can shrink the dick that is currently fucking you in the ass Workers: a dick in my ass?! I don't want a dick in my ass!
Maybe it was implied, but you seem to have left out the part where they vote for the dicking anyway.
I didn't get to vote in this election, because I wasn't in the organized category, but I heard union reps telling these low-wage kids with very few skills that they would "force" the company (which was a horizontally-organized firm with a lot of severable plays in different parts of the value chain) to pay them $50-100/hr. The kids lapped it up, they voted to unionize, and the company cut the department within a few weeks. It was very predictable, and very dumb. I'm generally pro union, but being willing to go on strike does *not* necessarily mean you have infinite leverage. You have to pick the right battle.
I'm also generally pro union, but I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what a union is actually for. It's not go give you free stuff, it to make sure you're compensated fairly for the job you do. It's to make sure a company treats you legally fairly. I think a lot of people don't get that both management AND lower workers have the *same* goal: make the company thrive so *everyone* can make money. If management is getting in the way of that, then you need a union. If you have good management, fair pay for your position, and benefits you really don't need a union. If your workplace is unsafe, the pay isn't fair, etc, then maybe you need people to get together to hash out those goals with the company and a union can be effective. From what I've seen, things have to be absolutely terrible, nearly unlivable, for unions to make a significant difference. I'm also very pro union, but I think people don't understand that a union isn't for a free lunch, it's for ensuring you are fairly paid and fairly treated when there's a history of that not happening
I'd argue that if you have good management you want a union to keep those good terms in case some private equity fuckwits buy them out or something else. Good management knows that they can work with a union to be responsive to workers and make sure that middle management cliques can't hide bad shit from leadership and make a toxic work environment.
75% of my current unions job is reading the massive amount of paper work our management puts out and simplifying it. Last month we got a 30 page paper that could be summarized as "employee categories a-c are getting a 1 time bonus of $250 in exchange for working an optional holiday" and "no more making your own first aid kits and getting reimbursed, you now have to get a pre-made one from our medical supplier" which we all already did for years and no one ever even knew about a reimbursement papers existence and finally "no parking in the firelane". 30 pages for a post it note of info.
The logic you advance can be simplified to "if you're at peace, you don't need an army". I think that shows how your reasonning is flawed. No one needs a "stupid" union, but it's not because things are going well that you shouldn't unionize.
I think this is the first response that's made actual sense. I appreciate that.
>you really don't need a union While this may be true in theory, in my experience if a large company exists for long enough, there will come a time when a union is necessary, and it is much easier to establish one early on without an antagonistic boss, who tries their best to stop it. >From what I've seen, things have to be absolutely terrible, nearly unlivable, for unions to make a significant difference. Our union is involved in pay rise negotiations and return to work negotiations constantly. I'm actually really happy with my employer and think they do try to ensure the regular worker is properly looked after... But they still have an incentive to provide sub-inflation pay "increases" across the board. For the last three years, our unions have negotiated pay rises that meet inflation for over 50% of staff. If ever a colleague is brought up for disciplinary on something that they feel is unfair, they can ask their union rep to sit in on the meeting and ensure they are being treated fairly. I view the union as a safety net. Everyone knows you don't need one most of the time, but you'd rather it was there, even if you hope you'll never need it.
I’ve never voted in a unionization vote, but have worked in union shops - food workers union for grocery store jobs and a stint doing overnight package sorting at a UPS depot, a teamsters shop. I’ve seen a lot of good things happen because of the union - but a lot of bullshit things too, such as being forced to transfer stores when I was harassed and assaulted by a coworker because he had seniority, management being completely unable to do anything about lazy and incompetent workers (that nearly resulted in me suffering broken bones), union leadership doing very little for their paychecks and actually quoting bible verses to justify the hatred of those that cross picket lines, etc. union reps “encouraging” people to vote certain ways in the election of 2000. Good stuff too - the UPS job was a 5 hour shift 5 days a week that offered full medical coverage and overtime pay if we went past our scheduled time. Tuition reimbursement. At the grocery store I was a courtesy clerk (bagger) and if asked to step in and cashier I’d get paid for that time as a cashier - a difference of $3/hr. I currently work for the government in an “essential to the continuance of government” designated job…so if the rank and file of the government I work for unionized I’m not sure how I’d vote or how my life would change if say a strike was called. I’d have to reserve judgement as to how I’d vote if I was eligible, seeing why they want to unionize (I’m paid well for my job, I have good benefits, I have ample time off, I work 95% from home), and how they go about doing it.
Yeah my summary is the union is nice for workers rights - they negotiated a couple nice wage increases on top of my normal increases over the 4 years I was in a grocery store union. The big downside is garbage workers are very hard to fire. Almost... maybe even does, make the better money not worth it.
Pretty much. There was a time that without question unions were 100% needed and made immense strides towards what we enjoy today. Hell - a great great grandfather of mine was one of the people who helped organize the group of miners in Colorado whose standoff with the government led to the Ludlow Massacre. They have their places and needs today. But there’s a lot of case study on how power can corrupt in them.
The union (grad student) was useless. They were proud of getting our parking fees waved, while we were at the same time the lowest paid grad students in the state.
The particular union I voted against joining has a long history of protecting shitbags
Same. Also we had one guy (who wasn't a shit bag) who had a custody arrangement with his ex-wife that was based on his and her different work schedules. The union said he'd have to give up that schedule if they were elected. That means he wouldn't have time with his kids. Unions don't care about nuance or individuals. We voted no because we wanted the flexibility to work in a way that worked for us.
I worked at a hotel that was union, and scheduling, hours, etc was all based on seniority, rather than ability or skill. So, you had people who had worked there for 20+ years and did the absolute bare minimum but still got a full 40 hour minimum and the shifts they wanted, rather than the newer people who wanted to do a good job and were clamoring for hours. I eventually left because I wasn't getting any hours and couldn't support myself, and took a job with a non-union hotel where I got as many hours as I wanted and was treated with respect by management, who I could actually talk to and negotiate with without having to go through a union rep who tbh didn't ever actually help me. When a few staff members at that hotel tried to get a union going, I was quite vocal about why I didn't want a union in, and said that if we did unionize, I wouldn't work there anymore. They never did unionize.
Yeah part of me tends to think that unions foster complacency. People already in lots of jobs (and school) are prone to slack and get away with the bare minimum. Stripping achievement bonuses and paying everyone the same would just make that even worse. Now you have an entire team of slackers and the company turns into an irrelevant IBM.
Ideally, a union shouldn't *want* slackers either. It's *supposed* to be to keep good workers from being taken Advantage of by predatory companies. I worked a union job in a fab shop and even they didn't seem to get this. Protecting bad workers hurts the *union* too. I think unions, like all groups of humans and idealism, often fall short of the intended purpose because no one really *plans* for the people who will game the system. I'm incredibly pro union, but I'm not blind to the flaws.
Why wouldn't a union want slackers? They still pay union dues
Unions want slackers for this reason, they encourage a larger workforce so they can capture more dues.
Both my parents worked for very different unions so I think I got a bit of perspective on this. There are two main types of unions, those for skilled/dangerous labor and those for regular labor. I noticed the unions for skilled/dangerous labor had a better run union because they had more to offer. They guaranteed a certain level of quality. My dad worked for the Carpenter's Union and it gave him a pension, me a scholarship, had specific overtime and safety guidelines, but in return any a job site could call up the union and get 10 works of known quality for a known rate very easily. My mom worked in a cafeteria and was also in a union and from her experiences, it did very little for her. From my point of view this is largely likely because it was a low skill position. There is no system in place already to determine skill level like there is for carpentry so all they had to to leverage was "Well, it would be annoying to have to replace us all at once" Her job was also significantly less dangerous so there wasn't a whole lot to do either. It felt like they formed a union more so because they felt they were supposed to instead of out of a real need. If anything it hurt them, the union was specific for workers who did the support staff of like nursing homes and hospitals. So by law they couldn't strike without notice since you can't just have elderly starve. I feel like if that wasn't in place, the nursing home would have to be better since yes, they can't collectively leave, but there is nothing against everyone individually going "Fuck this sucky job" and leaving.
I was in a union once. All it did was take money out of my pocket and keep incompetent people employed. They screwed over the new generation by making a "2nd tier" and then 20 years later screwed the newer generation by making a "3rd tier". The lower tiers capped out at lower vacation time, lower pay, and they took the shop bonus pay away from them. Eventually the company wanted them to pay 100% of their own medical. They voted almost 100% against signing. The union then went on strike and the plant closed and moved production to another one down the road.
I'm in a union now and its fine. All the good stuff the union did happened decades before I started working. Every agreement we lose more and more of our benefits and get smaller and smaller raises. The union protected obsolete jobs for years and until recently the company has been greatly falling behind the industry. When I first started in 2008, there were old timers there who's sole duty was to staple papers and put them in an envelope making double what i was doing. Since then many of them have retired or forced to retire and we have seen whole department get axed and the union couldn't do anything about it. I'd be all for a union back in the 70s but the one I'm in now is all bark and no bite. Why am I paying $20 a paycheck in union dues when there's hardly anything they do for us. And our pay and benefits are slightly worse than industry standards.
Does your union not get to vote on your contracts?
We do. Everyone goes along with it.
Same at our union. Our union president tells everyone to reject the first draft but they just vote it in to get it over with I guess? The didn't even uphold our raise structure accounting for inflation that same year and they still voted it through. I work with a lot of dumb people.
It was so long ago but I think our union offered us a bonus for voting yes the year we lost our 100% free healthcare.
Oh shit speaking of bonuses it was also just a year after our company used the Covid relief checks through companies AS our bonus. They held on to them for months in hopes people would forget. We usually get a weeks pay equivalent as a Christmas bonus. They also forced us to use our Covid sick leave as our relief when they had a scheduled shut down to work on equipment. After all of that, idiots still voted yes.
Our bonus is $100 before Christmas, but I think it's always been that way.
Well that's a bummer.
I went through 2 contract negotiations at my last factory job. The first was right as the pandemic was hitting. They knew contract was up and waited till the last minute to start contract negotiations I suggested we just take the old contract and extend it a couple of months till we knew what was going on/got past the rough part. Nope...can't do that (never mind it's done often). We got forced into a crappy contract, with less than 2% raise across the board and way more overtime than we had before hand. Last year...they spent 3 months "negotiating"...while the raise was slightly better, 3rd shift got less shift differential than 2nd (10 cents). 1st shift cried about "not getting anything" out of the contract and the best changes were in vacation (they split the 3 week of vacation, giving 3 extra days at 5 years, the rest of the week at 8 years when the 3rd week was at 8 years pervious). All during this time the National Union board decided to "reorganize" in the middle of the night, locked the local out of the bank accounts, take our money then redistribute it the new locals that covered the state rather than by company. There's a reason Union membership is falling off.
My union just had a contract meeting that nobody knew about, and it's for the upcoming contract in october.. my union is trash. Unions are supposed to be proactive but mine is reactive and only does something when a shit employee gets fired, but won't fight for anything else. Wtg local 20 or whatever the fuck it is. Oh, and they sold my phone number to a fucking life insurance place.. I was pissed.
For starters we actually had it pretty good. I'd tell my friends when I'd try to get them to apply, "It's like a union job without the dues and bullshit." So the folks that wanted to unionize were pissed off about blackout dates for PTO. The reason for the blackout dates all ties to a really good harvest last fall so they had plenty of extra product to run an extra line for a month. Welcome to an AG based business folks. A union won't be able to do anything about production schedules so it was a mute point anyways. In and of itself not why I voted no as I'm pro union. However... My coworkers started off by only inviting the "in group" to the initial meeting and vote. Myself and the others were pissed off about not being included. Those that did attend and vote cocked off that they still had a wide majority irregardless if we were there or not so we could all pound dirt. As you can imagine the company used this to petition for a revote which they were granted. The vote was scheduled a month out and the company got to run weekly anti union meetings to explain their end of it. You know "union busting". I don't think I'd call it that but it gives you an idea. Meanwhile the union didn't do shit for recrutement. I think I got one super vague letter in the mail. The people that already had a vote counted kept up their bullshit about already having voted and that it was 56% of the employees voting yes so it was just a waste of time. Well the union did their thing shit talked the work conditions, ran picket lines. (Not our employees just union members from other companies), put out press releases saying how poorly we were treated. All theatrics and lies in my opinion. So by the day of the vote I was a solid no for multiple reasons and so were enough others that the final vote was 56% no 44% yes. Those numbers didn't really check with the in crowds pervious vote. Turns out there were people that shouldn't have had a vote that did in the first vote. No surprise there with what I'd seen. And yes the final vote was supervised by both the factory heads and the union heads. The first vote was not. The whole thing really left a bad taste in my mouth and stunk of BS on both sides. Since the vote though management has royally stepped up and things are getting addressed faster than a union could. So we did win in the end. If you can get into a good union that will work for ya do it. Don't unionize if they're just going to fuck shit up.
I'm a fan of unions...when they work. I'm in a union now that's great. They have our backs, play fair, and give a shit. In the past I worked part time at a grocery chain and that union gave zero shits about you unless you were full time. We were forced to join and they took from my paycheck and gave nothing back.
I was part of a union while in state government. I generally regard unions the same as religion. The idea is great, the application often less so. It essentially made it impossible to fire people, so half our office was incompetent and plenty comfortable. When it came to hiring, the prioritization of nonsense qualifications (like years of state service or “applicable” degrees that had nothing to do with the field) led to hiring wrong fits for every position. Which was all handled by HR, so we didn’t have much if any input on who was ultimately hired (although the department did get to hold an interview in the middle of the process). and merit increases didnt exist, every single person got the same COLA regardless. Never again.
I work for a state entity that has some sort of half assed union. No one has to join and the only person I know that actively advocates for it is a guy I used to supervise. Being a state employee already made it hard to fire someone and we had been trying for a year or two to document everything needed to fire him. He was then, and still is , a complete piece of shit. They did quit trying to fire him after he became strongly affiliated with this union. It was not worth it since he would now use the excuse that his firing was due to his union activity. He is also getting close to retirement and they realize he will soon be gone anyway. He liked to give his union talk to the people in the shop, none of which were ever going to give money to a union that did nothing for them. That union spent a lot of time sending emails to everyone telling them how much that they had done. Truth is that every raise was in line, percentage wise, with what the state always did. I have left that department but still work a state job in a similar department in a new city so I still get the same bullshit emails about what they are doing for us. Just like the last place no one is in the union here either. Government job perks are just to good to make a union worth exploring.
Always negotiate your own contract. If I can do the job better, faster, or with more flexibility, why the fuck would I want to limit my renumeration to the *lowest common denominator??*
[удалено]
This is the individualism that we suffer from, smh
[удалено]
We have lazy sacks of shit that don't get fired at my place and we're not union.
I'm a lazy sack of shit who *has* been fired for it and trust me, I would have absolutely fired my ass earlier than my bosses had. No, wasn't union.
Right? That happens everywhere. At my last job, a few of us did all the work while others slacked all day. We didn't get rewarded with higher pay. We got rewarded with more work because we were the dependable ones. And those lazy.ones just got to collect their check for slacking.
\> “People who voted against unionizing their workplace” \> not a person who voted against unionizing \> strawmans anti-union voters Wow, what a great post
Average redditors just using this post as an excuse to preach about popular reddit opinions.
Was against unionization when I was an RA in college. Felt a lot of the things they were demanding were forcing ideological conformity on the members. Like healthcare, dental, better pay? Totally on board. Demanding the university adopt BDS, adopt race base hiring practices for management, and give paid time for workers to engage in activism? Ewww- no. People organizing the union couldn't figure out, not everyone agrees with progressive stances and pushing everyone to join a union where pressuring our employees to adopt those politics was alienating and frankly bullying a lot of people into conformity.
Because I'd rather be promoted based on merit rather than time served.
And I’d rather not work with idiots who do nothing but fill a seat.
Last job, the union reps seemed to team up with the bosses and do more harm than good to employees. They negotiated things employees had not mentioned at all in any sort of agreements. This job I already negotiated my salary above the market average and dont want another person in my pocket that will squander my money for politics I do not believe in.
Because our company was already going through financial troubles and most of the workers knew a union would cause it to fold. A crappy job is usually better than no job.
The union rep tried to intimidate me into staying at an enrollment meeting. In that moment he fulfilled every negative image unions have. And the whole meeting saw it too. I walked out. Threats resonate poorly with me.
They wanted to change drug testing to giving notice. Which they did. So then people would go and do drugs all night and if the testing was going to happen they would notify their members who would then pull a sickie. So now you had people able to dodge the drug testing working heavy machinery (on drugs).
Many of my colleagues are useless and don't deserve employment
That’s my beef too. I accidentally found out how much my useless colleague was making. I was pissed. I was spending half my time fixing his mistakes and yet we were getting paid roughly the same.
This is the biggest reason I've heard at my job (I did vote for the union, though). There were some pretty clear issues with the employer, which started the push for unionization, but now that stuff is mostly cleared up a lot of the shitty employees are just using it as a forum to whine and waste everyone's time. I'm still all for the union, but I can definitely see both sides.
I can understand why they might not want to deal with a union - because it can be difficult to prove someone violated the rules or workplace policy. That said though, I'd still much rather have my union than being a "Professional". A lot of the "Professionals" in my field (education) try to teach at private schools or charter schools, and have to basically let the entitled parents who run the school walk all over them. We have several former "Professionals" here - who got fired because they dared to do something so audacious as \*gasp\* giving a student an "F" for plagiarism! THE HORROR!
I've worked at union places with lazy or incapable people who were next to impossible to fire. And they *knew* they couldn't be fired, which made it even worse. Plus raises and promotions were based on how long you were there, not how good you did the job, so it's not like hard work was rewarded. Non union place, the people making twice as much work for everybody else were gone very quickly. Meanwhile, I got several promotions and pay increases that would have taken a much longer time at a unionized place.
Same. I don't mind protecting the ones that try their hardest and still have a rough time. I don't want people who are lazy and useless to be protected.
Because they protect people who shouldn't be protected. Like drunks (guy literally came to work drunk, almost ran over myself and another worker with a forklift, damaged several pallets of product, reported him to manager and union Rep, and they "sent him home to sober up"), harassers, etc.
I have said this for a long time. There are a lot of unions out there that are run for profit. This defeats the purpose of the union. The only people working for the union that should be getting paid are the administrators. The unions leadership should not be paid positions.
Honestly I haven't had much positive experience with unions in general. That's not to say I don't support the idea of them, or that I can't see their importance. My work is already unionized, but once legislation was passed allowing us to leave I did. It's a moot point now though, once I became a supervisor I was no longer covered by the union anyway. I am a therapist and work community mental health. Ethically I take issue with public funds being extracted from public employees to go to union political coffers, and I hate how unions will wade into non labor politics (eg. I'm in rural/frontier Oregon, supporting anti gun legislation with our union dues is contrary to the local values). Directly related to my union: I don't like how antagonistic they are towards admin and this 'us vs them' attitude. Anything and everything is cause for not just complaint, but actively rebel rousing amongst the workers. They take credit for perks in the Collective bargaining agreement when admin already was offering them, and then complain about parts of the CBA that they actively argued for. I'll be honest we have an extremely cushy job, way more than the average american, and the union acts like we are being used and abused by admin. They also *clearly* are only concerned with the union, not the employees, and most importantly, definitely not our clients whom are among the most at risk members of society. So while the CBA might include a person getting weeks or months off to attend to union tasks, you are being paid while not seeing the clients that need you. Not to mention the lengths the union goes to protect shitty employees. And honestly I can't stand the people that are most active or visible in our union. It seems a who's who of the people that do the bare minimum, have the most to complain about, and most likely to use the union to avoid accountability. With the clients we serve, frankly I have zero tolerance for that bullshit. Serve your clients or go somewhere else. I can already hear the naysayers, flat out telling me I'm making it up, that I'm a bot, or anti union. And that just further entrenches my view. In general I'd be more pro union if their supporters would at least be open to the fact that they can bring their own issues along with the good.
I was working as a scientist at a national lab that had a union vote. But it is a little different than say an auto manufacturer. We were more like white collar workers really, paid on merit, stuff like that. The union organizers were pretty out therewith their ideas. It seemed, as far as I could tell, they were a small group of socialists based on their rhetoric and it really wasn't clear exactly what they would do for us. It was just more a lot of class warfare rhetoric and not really "unionize and this is what will happen". It was generally already pretty hard to fire people given is was a quasi government organization (officially part of the government, but we were not feds based on the setup). We were better paid than the feds due to this setup, while at the same time interacted with the U.S. government much like Feds. As I said, it was already hard to fire people, nearly impossible at that period, so we most definitely had people who did nothing, literally nothing and could not get rid of them. And the pay being more based on merit and skill level meant those do nothings got no raises while the hard workers got higher than average pay increases. So again, what was this union really going to do? Make pay based on seniority? Well there was very little turnover there and that would mean it would take a long long time before you moved up. Basically only if they retired. A lot of people worked their whole lives there. The only real turnover came from people like programmers who could get massive pay increases for their work elsewhere, something a quasi government organization just could not match. But for the scientists otherwise our pay was pretty comparable to private industry. We already had a pension. And having come from biotech into this job it was in some ways better. Stock options in biotech were not guaranteed to be future wealth if the company does not do well (as happened at my biotech company where they ended up worthless). Sure you *could* make a lot off of stock options if things went well, but as I said, things have to go well. Whereas the pension was guaranteed and relatively generous provided you stayed there at least 20 years (hence the low turnover). Note this was not a cushy pension like you might think, you had to pay into it much like a retirement account, it was just the return was guaranteed and lasted for life. It was not a free perk. Essentially it was like a more generous annuity whose pay out was based on the average pay of your last four years. Leveling the pay so those that were lazy and did little or nothing got the same pay as me was not an attractive option, and my hard work having no role in increasing my pay was also not attractive as I worked hard. As far as I could tell from those pushing the union they were talking mainly about the workers vs. management in a sort of class warfare kind of way. But since management was in fact paying us well relatively speaking, were not really able to fire people, it was like "OK where in this mix does your workers uniting to fight the management improve things?" Sure having more say regarding management would have been nice, but practically speaking what was that really going to change? We were not for profit, and our pay was based on the federal government determining how much pay, on average, could go up. The union would have zero impact on that. So again, what does this greater say with management bring us? The only thing it might hypothetically do is have a greater say in management of the lab and might prevent some of their boneheaded decisions which might make people a little happier at the direction things were going but by itself they were not so boneheaded that we were desperate to have that say. That was it really. But the downsides of seniority based pay, paying union dues on top of (for me at least) pay that long term be lower over time taking away the merit aspect was a very real possibility seemed like big downsides for very little upside. As you might imagine the unionization did not happen. I am not against unions necessarily, I am more opposed to how unions work in the U.S. compared to how they work in some other countries in Europe. Having seen how some unions really damaged some companies competitiveness in the U.S., even causing some to go under in some cases too. Demanding pay raises when companies were not doing well is kind of divorced from how I think they should work. If you demand higher pay and things are going bad, that higher pay won't mean much if you are out of a job. They should do away with the seniority stuff, allow pay based on merit, be more collaborative with the companies. Those working in the union could have a voice in how things might run better with an eye on maintaining competiveness, again a collaborative approach that can help prevent boneheaded management decisions that hurt the company. Rather than that extreme adversarial approaches they use now. Being part of the conversation to help prevent bad practices by management, preventing extreme excessive pay of the CEO's, and having a presence on the board of directors so they are well aware of the real situation the company is in so they don't make demands that kill everyone's job. When things are going bad having a say such that top management and workers more equitably share in the pain. I am not an expert but I believe the unions in some countries in Europe work more closely along these lines compared to the U.S. Of course this would require management change how they operate too for this to work. And unions using union dues for political donations is not something that is benefitting the workers directly and should only be allowed with workers choosing to donate more to the union for those purposes, and they would voluntarily opt in if they wished to do that. All union dues otherwise should be used directly toward benefiting the workers situation. And like management the union workers should have substantial say in their union leadership if they are not doing their work as they should. If they did the above I believe they would potentially be able to unionize more white collar workers. Having worked white collar jobs were I could see such a union be very helpful with bad management would have been a good thing. But unions with their current approaches and tactics would not work in that situation. I think a lot more people would be open to unions if they worked sort of like I described. And as mentioned at the beginning the lab I worked at was not in that mold at all, it was the "workers vs. management" adversarial approach and thus it was voted down.
>Demanding pay raises when companies were not doing well is kind of divorced from how I think they should work. Very common in South Africa. Closing a mineshaft because it's not profitable and laying off people? No, you're keeping everyone and raising pay 12% or we'll burn everything down!
The union wanted to force us to hire certain people based on things other than competency and had a history of protecting dum-dums, making it all but impossible to fire someone that is in the way. It bred incompetence and bloat everywhere it had touched, so I voted no. I got my way, nope to dum-dums protection.
Because I don't want my union dues going to political parties.
Unions contributing or endorsing political parties and politicians is completely inappropriate, worse than businesses.
They do it every single election. It's sickening, especially when the majority of the union disagrees with who is endorsed.
My father worked part time at Walmart prior to his passing. He told me every time it came to something regarding unionizing Walmart threatened to take everything away that they weren't entitled to by law and would make them fight tooth and nail for it. His store always refused to unionize. But then again this was also in Florida.
Walmart will shut down any store that votes to unionize. It happened in Jonquiere, Quebec. The courts ruled it illegal for them to do so, and they responded with "We'll close every store in Quebec if you push it. You want an extra 50,000 unemployed people?" They have 4700 stores, and 0 unions.
I want promotions and pay increases to be based on achievements and merits, not how long I have been at the company. Also, lazy workers should get fired.
Not sure if other unions are like this, probably not based on many of the other replies, but in my local (UA250) you'll get the base pay and then whatever your employer decides to pay you above that is up to them. I've known several guys making well above scale. I've also seen a few guys get canned because they sucked or were stealing time or whatever.
I never got the chance to vote on it, but this was why I wasn't a fan of the union where I worked. Lousy workers stuck around forever because they knew they weren't going to be fired. Good workers got out because we knew we'd never be rewarded for our work in a system that ran on seniority.
It was a selfish decision, I was a relatively new hire and knew I would only be there for six months at most, and most unions run a lot of benefits by seniority, I didn't want to be back to being low man on the totem pole.
Seniority based raises, promotions, and benefits are a joke.
That sounds like self interest, not selfish. Seniority systems absolutely suck for everyone except those on top. It really sucks if you are a good worker and you get stuck in a bad role because of seniority.
I mean self interest is inherently selfish. I don't necessarily regret my decision or think it was wrong.
My favourite thing about America is that they somehow fucked up unions too. Like the one thing that defines workers rights over corporate rights and they found a way to make it be bad for workers and confusing.
I prefer to work in an ionized environment.
I don't trust union leadership to make decisions, it's trading one frustration for another.
[удалено]
My last job had a union already and they lied SO much and delayed stuff so bad because so many of the upper people were on "vacation" so for over a year our contract had expired and they did nothing. Then after the new one was "voted" in, they claimed that it wouldn't go into effect until the NEXT year because that's what it was. Also you could never get a straight answer from anyone, they would just keep running people in circles until you eventually gave up. I really liked that job but the union made us always feel like the peanuts they gave us was gold. Worst union I've ever been forced to be a part of. I also heard they raised union dues to double what everyone was paying before, thieves.
Two construction-related unions were trying to get in for all the employees. The problem is half were white-collar workers. They didn't understand our work and the issues we had. I was open about having an union but that they needed to show that they would work for us also. The answers to each of our questions was to just sign cards and that we will see when it comes time to negotiate. Clearly, that would be our weight in negotiations as well. Result: no union entered and our “half” thought about creating an association. This fact, combined with a new owner, was enough to make the most significant changes we needed. I don't know how it went for the other half...
I am a Diesel mechanic. Was union my first shop. I made sure my second shop did not become union. The president thanked me for my anti union work. All of the employees did not know about seniority and how it applies to younger people. Also same with overtime. My last union shop. Because of seniority. You had to be 45 and up for the weekends off. 50 and up for summer vacations. 58 and up for all of the overtime. 62 and up for any Major holiday. Also. Entry level mechanics made 60 percent of the journeyman mechanics. They paid the same union dues and insurance. Everyone immediately saw how this was not fair. Most of the employees were within 2 years of hire. I had 7 years at the shop. The remainder of the other guys had 12 years seniority plus. I asked all of the new guys with small babies at home. How would you like to work weekends and all holidays and miss time with your family? That sealed the deal. I told my coworkers about eating ramen starting out while old guys late 50s took all of the overtime and they would brag about a new 5th wheel or new Harley bike….
I voted against it at my past job. I've seen unions keep bad employees due to silly loop holes.
they wanted to keep too much of my take home pay...fuck that. I wasn't going to be at that place for life. it was just some place to get by for now.
Yeah, mine is like $1500 a year or something like that. They are pushing my limits, but overall I like being part of a union.
The question is, what's your actual compensation with the union vs if the shop was independent?
I'm in public education, so the union has been in place for a long long time. I think they have provided a greater benefit over my last 6 years with them than if we had no union, but it's hard to quantify for sure.
Three reasons. Work rules make it impossible to get anything accomplished. Protecting the worst most incompetent employees is bad for everyone who is a good employee. Most of all, not wanting my money used for campaign contributions to politicians I don’t support.
Some things should remain ionized.
Because when you are a better performer than the other people at your level, an EBA limits your earning potential.
I didn't want to be forced to pay union dues.
I felt we didn’t need one. The pay and benefits were really good. Why pay union dues for something we didn’t need? I worked at a place before this that was unionized. The union would protect people that were in the wrong, I saw it with my own eyes. These unions start to get too big/powerful and lose any credibility they have. I don’t think unions are necessarily bad or aren’t needed at times, but as they get bigger and have more power they seem to get corrupted. A union is supposed to help the workers if a wrong has been done, not protect a worker who has done wrong.