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Do You Support Employees Having A Union?

SirReginald

SirReginald

Black Jew. Baruch Adonai
How do you feel about union's? At this stage in my life I believe that union's are needed. Because without them employers can have free reign to do whatever and screw the employees out of a living wage. In my state, Virginia, we are a Right To Work state. So, if it's not the shipyard or a government job there's no union. The closest thing is Human Resources.

How do you feel about workers rights?
 
I think unions are good.

Alot of people are skilled at what they do (electricians, plumbers, stone masons, carpenters, metal workers, bulldozer operators, etc.) But they aren't good at sitting down at the negotiating table with business execs. If a team of, say 10 people, know how to build an apartment complex that is going to house 100 families and last for a foreseeable 100 years, those 10 people should be paid fairly with that lifespan of the apartment complex in mind.

You might think that $15-$20 per hour is fair and a reasonable salary.

But when you consider that apartment complex will be in business, collecting rent from it's tenants for 100 years, $15-$20 per hour for 10 employees is much lower than the intrinsic value of the work being done.

Those 10 employees need somebody to represent them in the board room. Considering the foreseeable lifespan of the building and the amount of rent that will be collected, it's more fair to pay them in the neighborhood of $35-$50 per hour.
 
Unions are trash now, haha. That union talk sounds good in theory, but OFTEN what unions do is protect lazy ass workers, and de-motivate motivated workers.

You ever perform great at your job and want a raise or some reward for it? Not getting that shit in a union. Your boss couldn't give you a raise even if he wanted to. You ever get sick of having a lazy ass coworker and having to pick up their slack? Well they're not going anywhere because of the union.
 
Dwitty said:
Human resources is not for the employees. Their allegiance and priorities are of the company.

There is no sane/valid reason that any person should be anti union or express any anti union sentiment. This goes Especially for Americans.
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Sound like you haven't seen how these unions really work.
 
Historically, unions have played an important role in fighting for many of the workers' rights and benefits we enjoy today. Collective might is vital against the tide of unscrupulous business. So I'm definitely pro Union.
 
Bow to Royalty said:
Remember how much y'all love unions the next time you're mad a foul ass cop isn't fired.
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Every entity should be expected to operate under guidelines of transparency, responsibility and accountability. Unions are no different. Unfortunately, sometimes people poison the well with their corruption. It's happens in government, it happens in business and yeah, it can happen in unions.

But when it happens you weed it out, you don't shoot it down altogether. Besides, police unions are a drop in the bucket of union representation. There are millions more workers in jobs that don't entail being a bully with a gun. And they shouldn't fall prey to having their collective power denounced because some idiot cops wanna cover eachother asses.
 
Bobjones said:
Every entity should be expected to operate under guidelines of transparency, responsibility and accountability. Unions are no different. Unfortunately, sometimes people poison the well with their corruption. It's happens in government, it happens in business and yeah, it can happen in unions.

But when it happens you weed it out, you don't shoot it down altogether. Besides, police unions are a drop in the bucket of union representation. There are millions more workers in jobs that don't entail being a bully with a gun. And they shouldn't fall prey to having their collective power denounced because some idiot cops wanna cover eachother asses.
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The cops are just the ones you see the impact of more often, but it's the same everywhere. Unions protect the workers even when they're dead wrong. Cops, teachers, the shipyard (mentioned in OP), whoever. Unions sound good when you look at them in their most ideal form, but that's not how they exist.

When people do their job poorly, you should replace them with people that will do it well. That benefits the company, the customers (or whoever they help), and the coworkers. Unions make that extremely difficult. Also makes rewarding good employees extremely difficult which is demotivating.
 
Bow to Royalty said:
The cops are just the ones you see the impact of more often, but it's the same everywhere. Unions protect the workers even when they're dead wrong. Cops, teachers, the shipyard (mentioned in OP), whoever. Unions sound good when you look at them in their most ideal form, but that's not how they exist.

When people do their job poorly, you should replace them with people that will do it well. That benefits the company, the customers (or whoever they help), and the coworkers. Unions make that extremely difficult. Also makes rewarding good employees extremely difficult which is demotivating.
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Non unionized "at will" employees can be fired without just cause. Unions at least provide just cause protection. It gives workers a fighting chance. But it's ultimately on management to provide indisputable proof of poor performance. In other words, backing their case up to show a pattern of bad attendance, bad punctuality, poor evaluations, etc. Not just boss man noticing an employee on his cellphone too much and firing him on the spot. Unions members can be fired, it's just harder to do because u gonna need receipts for it. Hard, factual evidence, not whims.

Mind u, there might be other avenues to take than just firing ... When I was working at UPS (teamsters union) a woman was hired to do what's largely heavy duty man work. She was really slow and holding everyone up, and when supervisors and managers caught on and she was moved to less strenuous duties in the factory. In other cases perhaps the company re-trains employees. These alternatives to firing are more likely to be implemented if pressured by union representation. It's a fairer process.

And I think that's the most important justification... Unions act on their duty of fair representation. Meaning they can't pick and choose who to defend from discipline and firing. They are bound to defending all workers by virtue of fairly representing everyone. If they didn't do this, it'd open the door to discriminate practices. Does this leave the door open for ppl to take advantage of/con the union system? Sure. It happens with welfare as well. But I don't question the necessity of a safety net for genuinely vulnerable people. Everything has its pros and cons.
 
Also, u say hiring better ppl benefits the company. Great. But how often does increased productivity at a company actually carry over into increased benefits or improved wages for their employees? That shit rarely happens. So u dump Unions to benefit the profit margins of a company who in turn aren't up for negotiating anything with their castrated base of workers. We need to weigh the pros and cons before we decide that being able to more quickly fire bad workers is worth the cost of the benefits that would be lost in doing away with unions.

And raises... Raises without unions are often measly. I was getting a dollar raise per year up to a collectively bargained limit at UPS. My new non unionized workplace gave me something like 20 or 30 cents.

U think good wages and raises come easy? Lol. Unions fought for minimum wage generations ago for a reason.
 
Unions are needed for high-risk jobs like construction, police, education. Shit can really cause harm to people on the job, and they need a way to jot get screwed over.

The problem is unions have been corrupt since way before the days of Hoffa. It’s hard to think they’ll do good when their history just has been trash for decades.
 
Mister B. said:
Unions are needed for high-risk jobs like construction, police, education. Shit can really cause harm to people on the job, and they need a way to jot get screwed over.

The problem is unions have been corrupt since way before the days of Hoffa. It’s hard to think they’ll do good when their history just has been trash for decades.
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Yea unions are really out here trashing up the place with Overtime pay, child labor laws, 40hr work weeks, weekends, lunch breaks, minimum wage, social security, and advocating against discriminatory hiring practices.
 
The "Unions protect lazy and poor workers" is a conservative talking point

I've actually worked in a Union environment....There are agreements put in place when it comes to discipline.....If a worker violates the agreements, the worker can be fired.....I've seen it happen, so this "Unions protect lazy and poor workers" is horse shit

If Unions were so useless, why is that corporations are paying millions of dollars in campaign contributions to kill unions?......

Its because Unions are the difference between, raises, insurance and proper benefits and you are not at the mercy of a tyrant on the job

Middle class Americans started losing wealth they started giving up on their Union rights

American workers are losing out on 200 Billion dollar in salary

www.epi.org

Weakened labor movement leads to rising economic inequality

The basic facts about inequality in the United States—that for most of the last 40 years, pay has stagnated for all but the highest paid workers and inequality has risen dramatically—are widely understood. What is less well-known is the role the decline of unionization has played in those...
www.epi.org www.epi.org
 
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