Poll of the Day > Labor Unions

(+) Yeah! (+)

Personally I have not been a member of a union but I do feel that hourly pay employees need a voice in the workplace to combat employer abuses.

i haven't been in a union, but unions are good. Unions are why police can abuse anyone, so why can't regular people abuse too!

I haven't been in a union but everyone I know that has been in a union hates their union. I guess paying union dues just to get fucked over when they keep trash workers employed pisses people off

Money taken out monthly for something I must be a part of, mandatorily, or else not work for the company at all... versus working for a company with shit pay or zero benefits or sick pay. :hmm:

Yes, the store I work at has a union for most of the food service departments (not the bakery for some reason) and a separate union for front end. It's also the best job I've worked thus far, despite the majority of customers being worse than your MMO raid party stereotypes combined with numerous Karens.

Yay to unions here. Mine has a decent contract with guaranteed raises, seniority based overtime, grievance processes to settle disputes, pension plan and above all the best healthcare benefits (seriously, Id pay triple the dues I pay and still think its the best).

I'm in a public employee union and see both sides. Unions need to exist for some salary/etc protection, but they also need some stronger ethics controls to consider when bad employees should be defended and when they should be allowed to be fired for everyone's benefit. They shouldn't act like defense lawyers and defend people no matter what. They also shouldn't make processes that make it so difficult to fire people that bad employees get moved around to different positions rather than undergo the difficult procedure.

Balance in all things.

Firewood18 posted...

Mine has a decent contract with guaranteed raises, seniority based overtime, grievance processes to settle disputes, pension plan and above all the best healthcare benefits (seriously, Id pay triple the dues I pay and still think its the best).

Fuck that, if I work harder than someone that's been there longer I should be able to get ot over them

Seniority for anything is trash, you shouldn't be able to skate by just because you've been there a while, everything should be merit based

Muscles posted...

Fuck that, if I work harder than someone that's been there longer I should be able to get ot over them

So old people in retail get paid less despite being there for 30 years because the new guy can lift heavier boxes

Not everything has to be for the benefit of the company

Seniority pay guarantees that a worker has something to work towards and that their loyalty will be repaid

Pro-union, but never been a part of one.

Welcome back, TC!

wpot posted...

They shouldn't act like defense lawyers and defend people no matter what.

Sure they should. That's their role: To make sure that if somebody's getting fired or otherwise screwed over by their boss, it's for a reason they can adequately defend. Now, the lack of a neutral third party to pass judgement on the case does throw a bit of a wrench into that, but the basic idea of defending people indiscriminately isn't a bad one.

Anyone saying unions are a joke have a blatant misunderstanding of their function. There are active communities that go out of their way to bash unions so they can keep people subjugated. The misinformation always tout that all your money goes to dues. Ok, my dues are $33 a month and I have incredible benefits and am practically guaranteed employment. Stay salty

Unions are fundamentally a good thing, but they are sometimes abused (especially in the US, where the laws have undermined their function to the point where they're basically just a middleman corporations that play favourites with their friends and let everyone else be exploited). Some people just have difficulties seeing past the abuses (not helped by substantial amounts of anti-union propaganda from corporations that would absolutely love to get rid of them).

Yellow posted...

So old people in retail get paid less despite being there for 30 years because the new guy can lift heavier boxes

Not everything has to be for the benefit of the company

Seniority pay guarantees that a worker has something to work towards and that their loyalty will be repaid

If both the new guy and the old guy work hard then sure, seniority can come into play but if you let the old guys just skate by while the new guys work hard then I'm not sure why they deserve anything over the new guys. Also I'm taking about effort not ability, if you are 60 and aren't as strong as you used to be then sure, you can cut them some slack on heavy lifting but they should still be putting in effort. What incentive is there to work hard for either group? If you are an old guy locked in then you can slack by without any trouble why not do the minimum? and if you're a new guy and it doesn't matter how hard you work them why not do the minimum as well?

I work in IT, I don't think there is an IT union. There should be.

captpackrat posted...

I work in IT, I don't think there is an IT union. There should be.

most Verizon workers are in the CWA union (Communications Workers of America)

Yes, at my last job for seven and a half years.

Muscles posted...

I haven't been in a union but everyone I know that has been in a union hates their union. I guess paying union dues just to get fucked over when they keep trash workers employed pisses people off

Was going to say something along these lines.

The main problem with unions is that workers tend to get fucked when they don't have one, but once they do the union itself tends to grow more and more corrupt over time, until the workers start getting screwed over by the union just like they used to get screwed over by their employer.

My father was in the autoworkers' union and used to complain all the time. His stance was always that he would have been better off without it. But that's also a union that was old, ingrained, and at least somewhat mobbed up at various points.

Certain trade unions (like plumbers) probably do benefit their members fairly effectively, and are good overall. Other unions (like the teachers' union) often benefit their members at the expense of the general public (tenure is bullshit, for starters) and should probably be reined in way more than they are.

Like most things in life, context is key. Unions are diverse enough that no single answer really applies to all of them.

I work at a University where nearly every non-faculty position is a union job. The unions have helped keep our benefits pretty decent and when the University tried to take away their 2 times match towards retirement contributions during the beginning of the covid lock down, the unions shut that shit down while faculty had to eat the loss because they didn't have the safety of the unions we do.

Unions can have some shitty things about them, but their intended purpose is to look out for employees and keep the employer from taking advantage of its workforce.

I work for a union, but I'm not actually a member of mine, it's a bit different in Australia though.

Depends on the field and Union.

some unions are valid others not.

and over and above that some unions within a valid field have less power or no power and are just robbing from their members.

no one should be forced to or shamed into hirring union labor over independents in any case ever.