Unions - effective or ineffective?

[bamf775]

I currently work for a local utility company that has a IBEW Local 1245 union. I am currently paying dues every pay period of about $50/mo.

My questions is.... I've heard a lot of negative things about unions lately. That they are selfish and use your money for political advancement and that they only care about retirement plans and union workers. Especially with what happened in Wisconsin, I'm disgusted with Union workers.

However, I have a different experience here at the company I work for. Union seems pretty laid back and aren't as obtrusive as you would imagine. They provide a helpful agreement packet between the company and the union to all Bargaining unit employees which is very helpful if you are looking to advance in this company. The only problem is, its based on only seniority (which I can't stand). Where is the incentive to work hard if there is no competition?

Anyway, other than that... they try and stick up for newer employees, but as you well know and like the majority, they focus on retirees (which I understand). They don't seem to be putting very many restrictions on the company from advancement but there has been "close calls" in strikes and stuff when contracts ended and no one came to an agreement.

Seems like a majority of the unions aren't as effective anymore as they used to be and not sure if paying $50/mo for it is worth it.

[Deleted]

My questions is.... I've heard a lot of negative things about unions lately. That they are selfish and use your money for political advancement and that they only care about retirement plans and union workers. Especially with what happened in Wisconsin, I'm disgusted with Union workers.

That's the point of unions, to benefit the union workers. Anything else they do, such as campaign for minimum wages, is also done to benefit them (higher minimum wage causes higher union wages and lower non-union wages). A bit like the individual worker usually is trying to get the highest possible wage for himself, or the corporation that tries to earn as high enough profits over the longer term.

[shadowkras]

I will be honest, i hardly use union, i prefer a good use of joins on my tables.

[Zeglo]

I'd prefer to be a free rider personally. Of course, more people in one always helps.

However, I find unions very important. I think unions are one of the main reasons the USA has a middle class.

[Tastyfish]

I think unions are demonized because they have created a stop point for buisness that would destroy a person in order to squeeze out of them everything they can, then just toss them away.

People I think rather see unions gone because they don't have what the unions give, rather then Unionize, kinda one of those, "if i can't have that then nobody should" things.

[Pellaeon]

Yet you look at huge retail stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy etc that don't have unions and if some employee's threaten to form one they can and often will close stores down. Case in point was a Canadian Tire store years ago that tried to unionize and they shut the store down in retaliation. In fact I think there's only a handful of Wal-marts in canada that are unionized but it was a long hard fight for them to get that far here in canada.

[Tastyfish]

Yet you look at huge retail stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy etc that don't have unions and if some employee's threaten to form one they can and often will close stores down. Case in point was a Canadian Tire store years ago that tried to unionize and they shut the store down in retaliation. In fact I think there's only a handful of Wal-marts in canada that are unionized but it was a long hard fight for them to get that far here in canada.

Well Why would you want the hastle of paying a better wage, and have people side with the worker? The threat of being exposed for some companies means a higher loss then shutting down stores i guess.

Our food stores are unionized here, which I feel is a good thing. Butchers union trains and has some srs quality control regs that I rather have then not, for instance.

[drwelfare]

They have good work rules for employees, sometimes nicer than they need to be.
Some union workers do damned good work and are efficient, others are masters of milking hours with little productivity.

I have worked with both, it depends on the shop and people working in it. They can get the job done quickest, best and cheapest or run a project into the ground.

[Riidii]

I see this thread going places .

But really, unions are one of the biggest headaches imaginable for a business.

I wish there was a study that chronicled the billions upon billions of dollars that have been sucked out of the economy because of them.

It's mind-blowing.

[Drilnos]

There's two different kinds of unions - public and private. The primary difference between the two is that if management of a private company undernegotiates with a private sector union and gives away huge cushy benefits, they risk becoming unprofitable and going out of business. If a government does the same with a public sector union, they risk...well, nothing, to be frank. The debt incurred by these practices gets obfuscated and hidden until it's too big to sweep under the rug anymore, at which point the person or persons who did the negotiating are living in comfortable retirement or dead of old age. In the short term, if they dish out taxpayer money like it's burning holes in their pockets then they have a dependable voting bloc and organizing machine, and somebody else can worry about the consequences.

Not even FDR thought public sector unions were a good idea, and to this day federal government workers are prohibited from unionizing for the very reason listed above. Most states, however, legalized public sector unions quite a long time ago, and it's only in the past few years that people have started noticing the enormous heaps under all those rugs.

[Logonov]

Unions were born simply with the intended interest of protecting the worker from unnecessary hardships, such as unfair wages, completely unreasonable work conditions (hours, safety), and provide benefits in a time when benefits were not common among businesses.

That said, the US government for the most part has created laws and guidelines in an advancement of human rights in the work place. Which has essentially removed a lot of needs for Unions.

Ive worked for a few companies where you could be in a union to work, but youre not required to be in it. All the while your wages are being fought over to keep you "competitive". Often what you see with union workers is they make more from the company, but that difference is often paid in union dues. It gets ugly as more union workers means the company has less money to use on hired hands. A handful of union workers potentially removes the possibility of more jobs being there because their wages are higher and to make up the difference, they hire less people or offer less hours.

Everyone needs money to live, and often times it really looks like the union, which has great monetary influence, is more interested in the dues than the rights. While all at the same time the government is passing more laws that eliminate the need for unions as rights are established.

If you ask me, id say Unions in general are a product of a different time, and their time has passed, workers rights are vastly improved, and now unions can be potentially taking more jobs away rather than helping people. There may be unions out there that function under honest intentions, working in fields that balance the game for everyone, but from what ive seen and what ive heard, unions are simply leaving a path of destruction.

[Riidii]

There's two different kinds of unions - public and private. The primary difference between the two is that if management of a private company undernegotiates with a private sector union and gives away huge cushy benefits, they risk becoming unprofitable and going out of business. If a government does the same with a public sector union, they risk...well, nothing, to be frank. The debt incurred by these practices gets obfuscated and hidden until it's too big to sweep under the rug anymore, at which point the person or persons who did the negotiating are living in comfortable retirement or dead of old age. In the short term, if they dish out taxpayer money like it's burning holes in their pockets then they have a dependable voting bloc and organizing machine, and somebody else can worry about the consequences.

Not even FDR thought public sector unions were a good idea, and to this day federal government workers are prohibited from unionizing for the very reason listed above. Most states, however, legalized public sector unions quite a long time ago, and it's only in the past few years that people have started noticing the enormous heaps under all those rugs.

Ya, I thought I read somewhere that public sector employees are compensated 43% more than the private sector counterpart, on average.

I don't know why more people are pissed about this.

[Tydrane]

In the vast majority of workplaces, unions are redundant, at least in Australia. Unions have an important role to play, but like every interest group (for example, religions), they seek political power to advance their agendas of acquiring more power to exert more control, in the case of unions, over employers. It's dangerous for unions to have too much power to interfere in a workplace, because most union officials have little or no practical experience in the pressures and demands of operating a successful business and can strangle them.

On the other hand, in the exceptional cases where employees' rights are not being upheld, unions do need to be able to exert a limited amount of influence over the employers to protect their members.

I think a huge trouble for unions, like with other 'movements' like affirmative action and feminism, all (or nearly all) the major battles have been fought and won to the benefit of society as a whole, so they struggle to find activity to justify their continued existence. Desperation leads to extremism, I mean, just look at the lengths the faux-environmentalist movement is willing to go to in order to spread the mass deception of anthropogenic global warming.

[IIamaKing]

Unions typically raise costs of services. Hiring a Union carpenter will cost you about 15-25% more than non union. For that extra cost you get no noticeable difference in quality vs non-union. Look at what happened to GM a few years back, part of their problem was that they were contractually obligated to pay 20-25 dollars an hour for unskilled labor as well as very lucrative retirement packages. These excess costs raise the prices of their cars, not because the cars are built better or with better materials but only because they had to pay more than the work was worth. I remember hearing the for every car GM put out 5k of the sticker price went to union retirement packages.

There is a GOOD reason why company's close shop instead of letting unions in. Unions raise costs. Higher costs leads to Higher prices on services. Which in turn can lead to less costumers.

[fidelm]

I think the time has come and gone for unions. For a time they were absolutely necessary. You had companies that didn't give a rat's ass about their workers and you had a government that didn't give a shit either.

Now we have a government that does seem to care (at least in terms of getting reelected). And, companies, while they may not care as much still, have to fight a thing called the "Internet". Look what happened to Apple and Foxconn in China. You have media, the internet, and all the other easy forms of communication and spreading the word. These will all help workers if unions ceased to exist.

I really doubt that unions are need anymore. Unfortunately, we'll never know because of all the freaking piles of cash unions throw at politicians. I will say that I'd be more apt to support a private sector union than a public sector union though.

[Deleted]

Unions shift power from the employer to the employee.

Depending on the current balance of power and the amount of antagonism between both, this can be a good or a bad thing.

It's a battle neither side should be allowed to win.

[Badpaladin]

Unfortunately the public sector is caught in a pissing match between legislators who want to cut pay and benefits to combat aggressive lobbying from unions who keep wanting to increase pay and beneifts to combat aggressive legislation against them. This also leads to similar industries in the private sector to either operate in a niche market or offer pay and benefits that surpass the work being done, because they have to now compete with an entity that shouldn't be a huge competitor to begin with.

Are they effective? Absolutely, but if they're not run correctly then it's a big issue. Probably an even bigger issue is many unions don't really represent th workforce like they should -- instead of protecting worker's rights, some unions are more interested in protecting the union's rights, as if it were a facet of the company or companies it operates with. As an entity, some have also clevery linked worker pay with legislative bullshit such that if you attack the union, it's the workers it represents that take the hit.

[ptwonline]

Unions shift power from the employer to the employee.

Depending on the current balance of power and the amount of antagonism between both, this can be a good or a bad thing.

It's a battle neither side should be allowed to win.

Bingo!

Unions are sometimes necessary. Sometimes they are a negative force overall. The current problem with unions--aside from being so successfully scapegoated for the suffering of workers in the private sector--is that in an era of globalization and wage disparity they can basically cause their own jobs to leave. This has given incredible power to the employers, and for the forseeable future there is no way for the workers to get some of it back. The result is the massive income disparity we are seeing now and the spin-off economic problems that creates.

[Drilnos]

Ya, I thought I read somewhere that public sector employees are compensated 43% more than the private sector counterpart, on average.

I don't know why more people are pissed about this.

That was the entire deal with the Wisconsin incident the OP mentioned. The private unions - carpenters, metalworkers and so forth - were never in danger of anything there. The focus of the reforms was public unions and the balance of power between them and the government of the state of Wisconsin. Long story short, the teeter totter was almost vertical on the side of the unions. Now it's balanced, just like the state budget.

More people aren't pissed about it because it's a problem that politicians pointedly try to avoid tackling or even mentioning, and it takes decades for the effects to spill out into the open. It's gotten to the point we're at now because the baby boomers are all in the process of retiring, so there are more pensions coming due and fewer working taxpayers to hide the shortfall than at any point in recorded history.

[Punxi]

being in a right to work state, i've worked both union side and non union side of my field (pipeline construction) and the difference is staggering to the point where i would never do non-union side again... but indeed there are some terrible unions out there causing the stereotype. sometimes they are needed sometimes they aren't, the ones that aren't are usually the ones tipping the scale sadly