Unions discussion

[Apathy]

I'm starting a new post on this. Just using Tsa' as a starting point.


You can't simply use a blanket statement regarding unions in general. It's really industry specific.

UAW ... crap
Teamsters ... crap

Unions in place to protect workers in highly hazardous jobs ... pretty worth while.

Most federal organizations are a joke as it is. EPA, OSHA, FWC ... these are wastes of tax payer dollars. They do dandy work at handing out fines and shutting up once their paid, they do very little to protect workers.

Middle management is also pretty laughable in most industries. There are some good people, but MM is largely about self preservation and perpetuation. More unecessary than the UAW in most scenarios.

Its been estimated that the UAW causes the price of the vehicle to increase by something like $2500. Would removing the UAW lower the price of the vehicle?

If you think so you are below par intelligence.

It unnerves me when I see so many people calling for an abolishment of Unions these days, especially sweeping generalizations. Common reasons are "we have laws for that" and "the workers are overpaid" and "it costs me more money to do ______".

I'm fairly sure we can distinguish between where law and union are exclusive without going into it.

Union workers may get paid better than non-union, but they are contributing members to their society, spenders, and customers. Those "high wages" we pay them are recycled back into other local(esque) jobs, allowing other people to enjoy a higher wage.

They are also customers for other people at work. Union requires better equipment than non-union, which in turn means more expensive typically, which in turn means those degreed individuals like engineers are able to maintain a nice living and security.

Keep in mind when those American Union jobs leave America, so does all that consumer and business spending which, in case you didn't know, are part of the biggest contributors to a strong economy.

[Jorddyn]

Its been estimated that the UAW causes the price of the vehicle to increase by something like $2500. Would removing the UAW lower the price of the vehicle?

If you think so you are below par intelligence.


You honestly believe that prices are what they are, and the unions have no effect on that?



Keep in mind when those American Union jobs leave America, so does all that consumer and business spending which, in case you didn't know, are part of the biggest contributors to a strong economy.

And keep in mind that we're living in a world economy. Jobs will migrate given a high enough discrepancy in cost.

I believe in a decent wage for full time workers, and I believe in medical care for all employees. I don't believe in employers being held to continuous "improvement" of contracts that have been in place for 50 years, or guaranteeing staffing levels even when production drops. It saps employers, and can put them out of business.

We recently had a union try to come into our business, with promises of more paid time off, and $2 an hour higher wages. The problem is, if we paid that (edited to add: without changing prices, and to note: our two customers that make up 80% of our business are in the middle of 5 year contracts with pricing based on market), we'd be out of business in 6 months. Given that the town where our facility is located has approximately 3,000 citizens, and we employee over 1,000 on site, how do you suppose that would have gone?

Jorddyn

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

I think that Unions are good, but it depends on what the Union is for. My Father is part of a Newspaper Workers Union, and because that job is hazardous (yes, a lot of making a newspaper is very dangerous, with the press and bender machines) the Union has stepped up to bat too. My dad is also dealing with an ageism problem from the company he's working for. He's right around the corner from retirement, and they're trying to screw him over. Once again, the Union has taken interest.

Now, I don't like it when Unions try to get into Industries that don't exactly require them.. like Jorddyn said, sometimes what they promise is enough to make a company go bankrupt, and then everyone loses. But there are big industries that people need some sort of protection from. When a company has promised something that's not being deliver, then a Union is very handy.

This post was barely coherent, sorry if it's hard to read and crap.

[Goldenranger]

You honestly believe that prices are what they are, and the unions have no effect on that?

Jorddyn

I believe the point he was making was that even if the union was busted, it isn't likely that the consumer would see that much of a downward change in price. It would likely drop just enough for them to hit whatever price point would bring in enough customers to make the drop in price worth it. Hell, if they didn't see enough people coming in at the new lower price point it would likely stay the same. Though I could be wrong in the argument Apathy was making.



We recently had a union try to come into our business, with promises of more paid time off, and $2 an hour higher wages. The problem is, if we paid that (edited to add: without changing prices, and to note: our two customers that make up 80% of our business are in the middle of 5 year contracts with pricing based on market), we'd be out of business in 6 months. Given that the town where our facility is located has approximately 3,000 citizens, and we employee over 1,000 on site, how do you suppose that would have gone?
Jorddyn

This can illustrate some of the shittiness of the demands of unions when they make promises to workers that really can't be kept when trying to get a foothold into a new company/business. Using this specific situation as an example, if the union would have based the increase in wages on the expiration and then contingent upon the gaining of new contracts that would be able to financially carry that burden, perhaps there might have been a chance at real negotiation. Many need to learn that one can't jump into a functioning business and possibly really disrupt the bottom line of that business and expect to have their workers gain the full benefits of being unionized.

If the unions were able to trust the company to keep to the contracts and not to try to maneuver out of reasonable planks like wages being tied to both inflation and the profitability of the company in a certain fiscal year; perhaps businesses would be more willing to have their workers unionize. We do need to get rid off bullshit demands on both sides of the equation though in order to make these organizations work together.

[Back]

I have to call bullshit on this. My family owned several coal mines in w PA. Unions were created to keep situations like little children from working to death in such mines and under terrible conditions, which they did. They act as safeguards. Whenever I hear someone talking about removing unions, I have to roll my eyes because it proves you honestly don't understand what happened in America before they existed, or you'd like to go back to those types of conditions, which is sad in a humanitarian sense.

-M

This sums up my opinions on the subject. Without worker’s rights, we’d all be working for 50¢ an hour in detrimental conditions. If you think the corporations would not have it this way, you are really living on another planet.

[Gan]

This sums up my opinions on the subject. Without worker’s rights, we’d all be working for 50¢ an hour in detrimental conditions. If you think the corporations would not have it this way, you are really living on another planet.

Riiiiight, because we all know the American worker is uneducated and stupid enough to put up with these conditions now days.

:rofl:

Being in a Union in today's work environment is like learning latin and expecting it to really help you succeed in life.

In a way, Unions remind me of organized religion. They prey on the ignorant, promising a better life if you follow their guidance, make you attend meetings, and they require you to pay a tithe in order to support those who sit around and do nothing all day but tell others what they can and cant do. All the while reminding you of what kind of hellhole you'd be in if you did not have them.

Educated labor markets know when a company is mistreating the workforce, and either the maltreatment is dealth with via lawsuits, by government intervention, or the workers simply go to work somewhere else. The days of being nailed down to one job and one company are as extinct as the days of needing Unions to protect the backs of the working man.

[Back]

Riiiiight, because we all know the American worker is uneducated and stupid enough to put up with these conditions now days.

:rofl:

Being in a Union in today's work environment is like learning latin and expecting it to really help you succeed in life.

In a way, Unions remind me of organized religion. They prey on the ignorant, promising a better life if you follow their guidance, make you attend meetings, and they require you to pay a tithe in order to support those who sit around and do nothing all day but tell others what they can and cant do. All the while reminding you of what kind of hellhole you'd be in if you did not have them.

Educated labor markets know when a company is mistreating the workforce, and either the maltreatment is dealth with via lawsuits, by government intervention, or the workers simply go to work somewhere else. The days of being nailed down to one job and one company are as extinct as the days of needing Unions to protect the backs of the working man.

First of all, you can make fun of unions all you want... they came about as a necessity to protect the worker’s rights.

Second of all, you want government to regulate it? That sounds to me like “Big Government” which I though you, as a conservative, were against.

[Back]

And third... a union is not the Church of Christ, never has been, never will be, and if anything is closer to Christ’s message than the corporation’s bottom line.

[Gan]

hahaha, obsfucate all you want. The parallels are there between the two organizations if you open your eyes.

[Gan]

First of all, you can make fun of unions all you want... they came about as a necessity to protect the worker’s rights.

Second of all, you want government to regulate it? That sounds to me like “Big Government” which I though you, as a conservative, were against.

I never said they were not needed at the time of their development. I'm saying they are NOT needed now.

As for big/small government. I am in favor of small government, which by my defination means cut out all the bullshit pork and keep the agencies that are necessary and needed. OSHA being one of many that I'm in favor of. You can have all the understudies of coffee bean mating habits and other useless crap that gets funding. Quit trying to put words in my mouth, you should know by now that when you do that, you just wind up wearing them back on your grill.

[Back]

I never said they were not needed at the time of their development. I'm saying they are NOT needed now.

As for big/small government. I am in favor of small government, which by my defination means cut out all the bullshit pork and keep the agencies that are necessary and needed. OSHA being one of many that I'm in favor of. You can have all the understudies of coffee bean mating habits and other useless crap that gets funding. Quit trying to put words in my mouth, you should know by now that when you do that, you just wind up wearing them back on your grill.

I get the impression you have no real thoughts of your own.

[Jazuela]

Unions, blech. I was in three of them. The first when I worked for the town engineer. Civil service job, big-time heavy-hitter union. First 6 months of employment, and I was removed from my job because the girl I replaced managed to get rehired. She was forced to quit, I can't remember why. It had something to do with union ineligibility. With civil service, you can only be fired for cause. I wasn't. But because I was in my first 6 months of employment, the union refused to help me. That was AFTER I had been paying union dues. I had to fight with the union president just to get my past-paid dues back.

Second union - the phone company. We got bought out by SBC. The union sat on their asses and told us how wonderful it'll be to become part of such a huge family. Then they told us that 8 departments would be completely dissolved, another 10 would be moved to Texas, and another dozen absorbed into other departments. Over 500 employees lost their jobs, because the union thought the merge was such a great idea they didn't make any attempt to fight it. OR - they were paid off to keep their mouths shut. Then the union merged with another union, and we went on strike to get more than we needed, since we were already getting more than most people in the state to begin with. So, instead of getting a little more of this and that, we got nothing for 3 months, and ended up getting some of the worst options for medical available, and a raise higher than most people would dream of getting.

Third union - Stop and Shop. Union shop, not joining was not an option. It was a condition of employment. Even though that happens to be illegal in Connecticut. So they took $75 out of our paychecks, over the first 2 months of employment, and we started out at minimum wage, which meant we were getting less than minimum wage, *before taxes*, for the first 2 months. Over half the bi-weekly dues went to pay for medical benefits, and if you didn't want the medical benefits, you wouldn't get a reduction in dues. The benefits sucked major ass, and I was already covered 100% by my husband's employer, so I had to pay dues for benefits I wasn't even eligible to take advantage of.

Unions benefit the unions. They USED to benefit employees.

[Gan]

I get the impression you have no real thoughts of your own.

And I get the impression that once again your drug induced paranoia/fantasy land viewpoints are skewing your usually warped monochromatic outlook.

Your point is? I'm not entitled to have my opinion? Your viewpoint is threatened by the obvious fact that Unions are an unnecessary part of today's labor market? Or you're just amusing yourself by attempting to make witty comments on a bulliten board forum?

Tell me Backlash, have you ever worked in a union? I have, it sucked. I wound up quitting the job because of it. Lets hear your direct experience about 'the working man' and unions. If you have any...

[Tsa`ah]

Let's take a look at how well the UAW looks after it's members.

Delphi is a good example. You can't just look at the wage, you have to look at the entire benefit package with the wage. Delphi went into bankruptcy because it spent an average 76 bucks an hour per employee. That's total benefit on top of the 29 USD per hour wage.

Let me ask you this. How well did the UAW serve the Delphi employees that are no where near retirement? Where are all of those HS diploma bearing individuals in Michigan going to find work that pays even 1/3 of the hourly they were getting?

This is the plain and simple truth when it comes to unions such as the UAW. They are in it for themselves. The more money they can get employees, the more money they make for themselves. It's unfortunate that unions such as the UAW are so short sited. 14,700 members are likely to be jobless and not paying dues.

Were these employees mistreated? In comparison to their rival companies and support vendors ... they took their bathroom breaks on golden toilets and every break was like a dining experience in a 5 star restaurant.

I'm sorry, but I deal with unions almost daily. 80% of my customer base has union protection of some sort. When I managed quality for a plastic container, over half of our customers were union. Every time a union is involved the create added costs that impact anyone involved in dealing with the company who's employees they're "protecting".

I picked up two contracts from Caterpillar because union "protection" allowed large scale attrition from their union logistic warehouses. The former packaging suppliers went belly up due to the constant charge backs and caving into pressure from the UAW to allow a local labor union to move in.

Now Caterpillar pays 4 times as much to my company for a higher density "reusable" foam packing that never gets reused because their UAW employees can't be bothered with repacking the shit.

Mitsubishi Bloomington suffers 2-3 line shut downs a day that at one time cost my company 35 grand a stop because their material handlers can't follow a color coded rotation chart for cure times. We went to color coding and time stamping because their UAW members couldn't be bothered with reading a date and time tag.

One of my previous employers used to get hit with 80-140k in charge backs from union Pepsi plants on a weekly basis. Not because there was anything wrong with the bottles we sent them, but because their union maintenance people wouldn't service the filling lines regularly and their techs would half ass a volume change. If something went wrong on the filling line, it was the bottle every time. Union plants suffered a 12% attrition rate due to "defect", non union plants couldn't come up with a real number. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 8 mill.

This is not to say that every union is worthless. This is to say that most unions are worthless. Unless your union protects you in a job that requires you to literally put your life in the hands of your employer ... they're not protecting you, they're protecting themselves at your expense.

[Parkbandit]

If this was the 1920's.. yea, I agree that unions are needed.

[Jazuela]

Yeah, Parkbandit remembers that time oh so well.

:)

[Gan]

:rofl:

Be careful, he'll break out the 'little whippersnapper'...

:whistle:

[HarmNone]

:rofl:

Be careful, he'll break out the 'little whippersnapper'...

:whistle:

PB is NOT allowed to break out the "little whippersnapper" on these boards! It's obscene and it breaks TOS! PB MUST keep the "little whippersnapper" in his damned pants! :medieval:

[Warriorbird]

"As for big/small government. I am in favor of small government, which by my defination means cut out all the bullshit pork and keep the agencies that are necessary and needed."

IE: Triple spending in ten years under a Republican Congress.

[Jazuela]

Aside from the little whippersnapper being obscene, it wouldn't be all that effective on me - since I am pretty sure I'm older than PB, by a year or two.

[Gan]

"As for big/small government. I am in favor of small government, which by my defination means cut out all the bullshit pork and keep the agencies that are necessary and needed."

IE: Triple spending in ten years under a Republican Congress.

How many threads are you going to troll with your bullshit political bandwagoning posts? Start a thread if you want to disucss it. Quit acting like a politican and jumping in every chance your agenda might get its 15 minutes of fame.

[HarmNone]

I've moved this discussion to the Politics forum, as it's bound to go that way. Whether we like it, or not, this issue has strong political overtones.

[Buckwheet]

I never said they were not needed at the time of their development. I'm saying they are NOT needed now.



That depends on the industry you work in. I am part of the CWA as part of my job, and because of the constant changes made to PUC regulations, there are many times where the PUC advocates release of an employee for violation of the rules.

The Union was able to work out protective measures to keep people employed who do not make it a habit to misquote things.

[Gan]

"As for big/small government. I am in favor of small government, which by my defination means cut out all the bullshit pork and keep the agencies that are necessary and needed."

IE: Triple spending in ten years under a Republican Congress.

The same Republican Congress that maintained power/majority througout the majority of the Clinton years.

See:
103rd Congress, 104th Congress, 105th Congress

So with all of the budget 'success' that Clinton had throughout his administration, at no point do you attribute it to the Republican Congress in that span of years; yet somehow the deficit we now have is all the Republican Congress's fault. I guess you'll have to go back to your standby Bush bashing stance since bashing Republicans in general seems to fail you.

Way to be consistent.

When you can compare the congressional terms and world events equally between past terms and current terms then you might, MIGHT, have some credibility. Until then, do us all a favor and STFU.

[Warriorbird]

Uhh. How does that have anything to do with invalidating my point? I hate "tax and spend" liberals as much as you do. I just hate "spend and spend" conservatives equally as much. They're also more effective at spending huge amounts of cash, as they sort of dispense with the tax bit.

To your more pointed assumption? Take a look at the spending curve. It's cute. You'll notice this odd little fucking astronomical rise. The "budget success" that Clinton had was largely in the time before he got saddled with the Congress of spend. Remember when they shut government down because of wanting their budget? They've also agreed to a lot more spending when ... a President of their party has suggested it.

Triple spending. Damn that reality stuff. You clearly love some small government where small means bloated. "But, but, I love the ideas that the Republicans have! They're conservatives! Really!" Like hell. I'd like to know what's conservative about endless war expenditures (But, but, they don't count! Neither does money spent on New Orleans because we savaged FEMA to form an ineffective DHS!). As a kid, before I got older, I used to think that Henry Cabot Lodge must've been a horrible person....a strong historical Republican advocating isolationism....man, those old time Republicans were evil! Nowadays, I wish we had some of that breed back. I'd probably fucking vote for them.

[Apathy]

Though I could be wrong in the argument Apathy was making.


No, you're right. I noticed it wasn't explicit then decided I was too lazy to edit.


We recently had a union try to come into our business, with promises of more paid time off, and $2 an hour higher wages. The problem is, if we paid that (edited to add: without changing prices, and to note: our two customers that make up 80% of our business are in the middle of 5 year contracts with pricing based on market), we'd be out of business in 6 months. Given that the town where our facility is located has approximately 3,000 citizens, and we employee over 1,000 on site, how do you suppose that would have gone?

Not too sure exactly what you're asking me to suppose here. Do you mean what would have happened to the company if you let the union in? You already answered that question. Do you mean what would have happened to the city? It would collapse. I grew up in a town, bigger than that, but regardless there was an International Harvester plant on the east side that shut down in the 80s and the whole east side is still trying to recover from that loss.

I think this example to your unions are bad argument is irrelevant, in fact, that whole point just strengthens my argument when I say we forget that these are major contributing members to our economy and that higher wage is beneficial to the *entire community*. Its basically the invisible hand at work.

[Parkbandit]

When you can compare the congressional terms and world events equally between past terms and current terms then you might, MIGHT, have some credibility. Until then, do us all a favor and STFU.

QFT. The ignorance of WB really shines when he says "BUT BUSH IS SPENDING MORE THAN CLINTON! LOOK!!!" given the world events. Not that I'm surprised....

[GSTamral]

I'm starting a new post on this. Just using Tsa' as a starting point.



Its been estimated that the UAW causes the price of the vehicle to increase by something like $2500. Would removing the UAW lower the price of the vehicle?

If you think so you are below par intelligence.

It unnerves me when I see so many people calling for an abolishment of Unions these days, especially sweeping generalizations. Common reasons are "we have laws for that" and "the workers are overpaid" and "it costs me more money to do ______".

I'm fairly sure we can distinguish between where law and union are exclusive without going into it.

Union workers may get paid better than non-union, but they are contributing members to their society, spenders, and customers. Those "high wages" we pay them are recycled back into other local(esque) jobs, allowing other people to enjoy a higher wage.

They are also customers for other people at work. Union requires better equipment than non-union, which in turn means more expensive typically, which in turn means those degreed individuals like engineers are able to maintain a nice living and security.

Keep in mind when those American Union jobs leave America, so does all that consumer and business spending which, in case you didn't know, are part of the biggest contributors to a strong economy.

Actually, the UAW does not get higher wages. Honda plant workers make the same money, have essentially the same benefits.

Instead of a paid pension plan, non unionized workers are given retirement savings options (which admittedly are not as good).

It takes more union labor to produce a car than non union, because they demand more positions, regardless of use.

And the worst case is that with the teamsters, for example, any company hiring teamsters have to pay for the retirement and pensions of workers who never even work for them. UPS pays several million a year towards the retirement of people who work for now defunct trucking companies. Why should companies be forced to pay for people they never even employed?

Unions in their original concept were a necessary need in then early 1900's. Now, they are a money sucking force that is doing nothing but expedited the loss of manufacturing in this country. Companies do and will ship more and more jobs overseas rather than deal with what crap unions are putting forth today.

Our crappy public school system is entirely the product of one of the worst unions on the planet. One day I hope we can contract out those jobs as well to people who will actually do the job right.