Labor unions! Yay or nay?

Today the labor-friendly state of Michigan finally caved to political pressure and became a Right to Work state. A big protest has converged on the capital, but judging by similar protests in Wisconsin they're unlikely to have any lasting effect, as the majority of the population favors long-term economic recovery over labor unions, which are distrusted even more than employers.

Is there a point to the defense of labor unions? Do they have a place in an "employer's market", to say nothing of a country where there's simply too many people to feed, and not enough jobs in an automated and globalised economy?

edited 12th Dec '12 8:36:32 PM by johnnyfog

Please define "right to work," as I (and I assume most other non-Americans) don't know what that means in this context.

It means that joining a union isn't mandatory, which essentially makes a union worthless because the employer will just incentivize not joining.

Firmly Yay. Even when I don't agree with mine I still strike. They'd go to the wall for me, its the least I can do for them.

Why do I like them? Because, especially today, an employer has huge power over their workers - essentially, they are over a barrel. A union provides that much needed counterbalance. With all the blacklisting that has been going on in the UK, strong labor unions are needed more than ever.

@OP

We've had some discussion defending labor unions in US Politics thread, so if you have a responsive argument to that, it would help to start the topic with that.

edited 13th Dec '12 9:48:47 AM by Trivialis

I'm firmly in favour of labour unions, though I'm not in favour of making joining them mandatory. A system like the one we have in Finland - where an employer who is caught favouring employees who are not union members can get fined - is in my opinion the best way to go. I don't think it's OK for employers to discriminate against union members.

In Finland, minimum wages and benefits and so on are negotiated between the emploers' organisations and the labour organisations of each industry. If they can't reach an agreement in a given timeframe the government gets involved and suggests frameworks for compromise until a suggestion is accepted by both sides. These deals are typically made for 2-5 years in advance and neither side is allowed to breach them. If either side goes against the agreed terms (i.e. if the workers strike or the employers cut wages/hours or fire people) they get fined severely.

I think this is a good system because it doesn't allow either side to dictate terms.

If you think this system is harmful to free enterprise, you should also ask if some things are more important than the absolute freedom of the market. Even without that consideration, though, Nordic countries (Finland included) tend to rank at the very top of ease of doing business indices, so our industries don't seem to mind our arrangement.

edited 13th Dec '12 10:17:50 AM by BestOf

@Johnnyfog: well, having it easier to get jobs mean nothing when the jobs dont pay enough to actually support living anyhow.

and powerless unions means racing to the bottom, really.

edited 13th Dec '12 10:17:09 AM by Midgetsnowman

I'm on mixed ground when it comes to unions. Some places need them very badly, and some do not.

My dad was a teamster, and his union went on strike a few times, I was too young to really know why at the time.

On the other hand, in high school I worked as a "scab"(A replacement worker who worked while the union was on strike) for a grocery store. That was because they were paying me 16 dollars an hour untaxed to be a bagboy at the age of 16 with full time hours, which was epic. The reason the Vons employees were striking? Their medical care premiums went up.

I've always taken issue with that decision. You're a fucking bagboy or a cashier, that's not supposed to be a job you can work until your 60 and retire off of. Cashiers made frigging bank over there, and the bagboys got off pretty damn good compared to me when I was making minimum wage as a fast food worker at that age. With no vacation, no sick days, minimum wage, barely any chance of a raise, and I was just happy to have a job.

Speed up to now, I live in a port town. We have a very busy port that offloads lots and lots of cars and fruits/veggies. BMW, Jaguar, Chiquita, Dole, you name it. Now I have a lot of friends who are longshoremen.. They get paid on average 60 fucking dollars an hour for their work, which is fairly basic work that most anybody can learn to do. They all drive extremely nice cars, have really nice houses, and when a slot becomes open to hire someone, there are so many openings that instead of looking for anyone qualified(since just about everybody is qualified) they raffle the fucking job off at the unemployment office. A lot of the workers are lazy as shit, and the port commissioner, who I drink coffee with, as well as the head wharfinger, are always talking about how they'd like to fire about half of them, because after working there for over a decade they start to realize that they can be massively lazy without getting fired.

On the other hand, when I was a Security Guard, I saw how desperately we needed a Union. We were vastly underpaid, never had the chance to take vacations, and the entire industry was being undercut by Allied Barton into a minimum wage industry, while the actual security companies started to demand a lot from their Guards, making the job absolutely shitty. Guards really need a union for just basic things, the whole Industry is fucked.

So I don't really know what to think about Unions, beyond that I've seen what an Industry can do without them, and I've seen that it's just as bad when a Union has a business or industry completely by the ballsack. Both are equally bad.

The problem with saying that something like a cashier isn't something you're supposed to live off of for life is that for many people that's how it turns out anyway. And it happens more often than many of us would like to admit. So yeah, I'm not going to say that grocery store employees and the like don't deserve union protection. Especially as long as companies like Wal-Mart exist.

So yeah, I'm in favor of unions. I'd love for us to be developed to the point that Best of developed above; it keeps unions from being hosed and manages to take care of the fears of businessmen. It's a damn shame that a lot of people would cry socialism though. Not quite sure how union leaders would respond to that suggestion either, considering the massive assault they're under in this country.

It's not that they don't deserve protection from exploitation, just that it comes to a point where jobs only cap out at a certain amount of money for the work provided. Should a longshoreman be making 60 dollars an hour? Essentially the same as, say, a doctor might be getting paid? Umm.. No.

The compensation is supposed to match a combination of the quality of the employees work, the skill or experience required to perform the job, and the standards set by the workplace. When Unions are there to ensure that is fair, then I'm ok with them. But I see lots of examples of unions being given an inch by virtue of being unions, and then deciding to take like 5 miles.

Some facts and such to give some context to the arguments:

First, Right to Work simply means that it is illegal for negotiations between labor union and business which requires that non-union members pay for the benefits they receive from the union being there. In essence, if the union were to negotiate for a contract which granted higher wages to the members of the workforce of that business, it would be better for the workers to not be in the union, as less of their wages would go towards union fees. It has the effect of disincentivizing union participation as a result.

States without Right To Work laws cannot force non-union members into full union membership.

Numerous studies done using BLS statistics have found that wages and benefits for the general workforce are lower in Right To Work states, by an average of 1.5k per year.

Right To Work laws have negligible effects on employment.

And Unions cannot, by law, force non-members to support the political cause of the union. Right to Work does not protect them from it, two separate supreme court decisions do.

Not knowing what a longshoreman does except that I think boats are involved, I can't comment on that. But the thing is if unions don't try for those five miles they often don't even get that one inch. Not to mention that part of the disagreement over "fair" quite often comes from not working in a particular environment that someone else is. It's easier to pick apart the problems when you're right there in it. And easier to criticize when you're not.

Texas is Right to work, and all I see is the negative effects of not having union protection. It's easy to say that a cashier shouldn't make sixteen dollars an hour, until you realize that Wal-Mart and the like are deliberately keeping someone who was formerly a full time employee from having that forty hours to prevent the new healthcare act from kicking in on several thousand of them. And randomly switching up their hours on them in ways that make it harder to look for other jobs or have free time, or assigning work on holidays they didn't volunteer for. (Which happened this last Thanksgiving, forcing them to go to work that evening.)

Supporting unions in this day and age just seems like erring on the side of caution and justice. If one group needs a union, then they all do. None of this saying one group of employees can have them and not the other. That's bullshit, and saying a longshoreman can't have a union and the security guard does just opens up the union for security guards for attacks later on. I'm not saying you have to like it, but this is a stand together or hang separately situation.

But without full Union membership, and where employers can create incentives for not joining a Union, the entire system is undermined and becomes pointless. Non-Union workers have considerably less bargaining power and are more vulnerable to exploitation. Unions are a very important part of ensuring the rights of workers. This is especially true if your healthcare system is tied to the nature of your employment, America.

That's not to say that Unions themselves can't be unscrupulous and undermine workers, and that is where some kind of independent regulation should exist to ensure that Union actions are justified and that Union members aren't being exploited.

edited 13th Dec '12 11:02:31 AM by TheBatPencil

What if I don't want to pay union dues? Do I still deserve to work?

What if the union is making decisions I don't agree with? Or if I decide that the 20-some odd dollars an hour that would be offered to a non-union employee is fair?

That's where the problem comes in, there isn't much to actually check unions. There's nothing, nobody. So when a Union realizes that it can strangle the shit out of a business, it does so. When they do that, it's wrong and honestly increases the risk of them losing all their jobs, because they business might simply shut down, because of how expensive it is.

The only reason our longshoremen get away with 60 dollars an hour is because our port is getting to be about a century old. It's one of the most important ports in the pacific southwest, and you can't just go "Meh, I'm gonna go put my port down in the midwest." instead. The management is essentially getting bent over and reamed, being forced to pay longshore workers 60 an hour with benefits to drive fucking forklifts.

Ideally you should be able to bring it up with union leaders. Which means you need to be actively bringing these things up with whoever the union leader is, instead of just not paying attention or complaining with friends.

Also, read what Best of said about how unions work in Finland. That would do a lot to even things out. If anyone could listen to Europeans without screaming "socialism is evil."

And the thing about union dues is it's comparable to taxes. We have to pay taxes and quite often it does to things we don't support. It doesn't mean we don't pay taxes because if we don't then it definitely doesn't go to things we do support. And the unions are basically fighting to get you, personally, a bigger paycheck so that you're better off and making more money even with that little bit going off to union dues. Which, again, is the point of the union. It's a give and take that's pretty much in every part of life.

edited 13th Dec '12 11:40:04 AM by AceofSpades

IF you don't want to pay union dues and you're in a union? Or you don't want to pay the share of the Union-security agreement? There's a difference there. If you're not in the union but still getting benefits from it, then you should pay for it.

Assuming you're talking about being in a union and the union does things you dont' agree with, then I assume, having never beenin a union or involved in union politics myself, that you voice those concerns.

And frankly I find it hard to believe that given the chance a union would strangle its own source of funds.

The problem is if unions aren't mandatory, it hurts everyone in the long term, because in a economy with massive unemployment like we have, we get Industrial Revolution Era conditions where scabs are hired on to replace all union workers, because they can't afford to take the long view, they've got families to replace. In the long run, Union benefit everyone. (Except the people who are exploiting desperate workers.)

We've already pretty much proven that companies, if they deserve to stay open, can and should pay their employees at least a comfortable living wage.

I would just like to point out that Best Of suggested that unions aren't mandatory, but there's a backup measure. How do you feel about that system?

I'm fine with that. If we lived in a world where unions were not necessary to let people have proper working conditons and a liveable wage, that would... basically be everything I want out of a society.

I'd be okay without unions if there were more government regulations that prevented the kind of worker exploitation that unions fight against.

Well the problem is that we have more and more jobs that "one should not be able to make a living off of" and fewer and fewer that you should be able to. There are definitely people who end up bagboys for the rest of their lives and can barely make ends meet, and that's awful, but do I really feel sorry for the teenager working as a bagboy and making the shitty current minimum wage? No.

I mean probably the best solution would be to set different minimum wages between dependents and independents, and for independents based on how many dependents one has. But we can't do that, that would be communism.

That.

edited 13th Dec '12 12:59:15 PM by Pykrete

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/12/10/47554/michigan-right-to-work-bill-is-the-wrong-economics-for-the-middle-class/

The pros of unions outweigh the cons of them, far as I can tell. And the cons can be worked out. The fact that the lazy benefit is not a reason to be against the unions. It's a reason to encourage people not to be lazy.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13258-fast-food-workers-ride-the-crest-of-a-shimmering-strike-wave-thats-sweeping-the-nation

relevant because it's a current event.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:51:49 PM by AceofSpades

If I understand it correctly, the key here is that in the US, non-union members generally get the same raises the union members do in the same position. Also, there is no legal reason preventing employers from giving perks to employees for not joining the union. If those two features were changed (iirc they are a matter of federal law) then there would actually be an incentive to join a union where the union is able to negotiate benefits from the employer.

That still leaves the "critical mass" problem (the union will only be in a position to negotiate such benefits if they represent some minimum percent of the employees at a business).

I used to work in HR (the other side of the table) and I saw first hand how corrupting the negotiations were. Basically neither side dealt in good faith. Both sought to make the contracts as complicated as possible in order to confuse the employees (who had to vote to approve the agreement). Union leaders did not appear to have the best interests of their members at heart. The final result often resembled two large bureaucracies playing politics and seeking influence over the other, often at the expense of employment fairness. It doesnt help that, in the US, the government body intended to provide oversight is basically defunct at this point.

Bottom line- I think the labor system in this country is screwed up, and need massive reform, actually.

@De Marquis: So, we see unions get power by defending the interests of the workers against entrenched corporate management. They develop into entrenched bureaucracies more interested in preserving their own power than in fighting for the workers.

In other words, people are involved. That pretty much sums up all the problems with any system.