“Look for, the Union label . . . .” (Redux)
Think unions give a damn about their members, and look out for their best interests? Really?
Well, if you still think that – you might want to look at this.
“Care about their members” my azz. All unions care about these days is dollars and influence. It’s been that way for some time now.
Maybe unions today ought to adopt this as their jingle:
Category: Unions
My first experience in a unionized environment is with my current employer. Michigan passed ‘right to work’ legislation last year, and as soon as our current contract expires in 2015, I’m opting out.
Long story, but essentially, several of my fellow employees and I filed a grievance about getting bumped by unqualified employees with higher seniority, and our local president bold-face lied to us about “being on our side” and “not knowing that this was going to happen”, when in fact he’d met with management three times before it happened.
The local initially filed the grievance for us, and it was rejected by union leadership because the local did such a shitty job of writing it up. We had to write it up ourselves, and in the end we lost because of a quirk in the contract that was subsequently corrected in the next contract. Lotta good that did us…after I was bumped into lower-grade jobs, I lost $25K+ in four years before I was returned to my original department.
Still haven’t figured out WTF I was paying union dues for, not with that kind of incompetent (mis)representation.
Marine_7002: my guess would be union officials’ pensions and perks, mostly. Most of the rest likely went to expenses associated with lobbying Congress and/or state officials.
Anyone who thinks union dues really go towards helping the rank and file is IMO about 50 years behind the times.
My wife was a union member for many years. From what I remember, most of her dues money went to a union that spent the majority of their time telling my wife and others “sorry, nothing we can do, next time it will be better”. My wife was in the union basically because if you didn’t join, you were blackballed.
The way I see it, the unions are only taking for themselves what their members want from collective bargaining: more, more, and more. It’s justice that those unionized public-sector employees who have been, through their unions, screwing the rest of us for years are getting screwed themselves. I’m good with it.
Sweat shops, child labor, six and seven-day workweeks, 12-hour days, no work meant no pay…rightly or wrongly, the end of these things was credited to unions or the threat of unionization. Today, unions are about what exactly? Keeping malperformers on the job, bankrolling politicians, and collecting dues. Oh, and in some instances, bankrupting employers.
I was running janitor crews for a what was called a medium sized company in Texas. I was sent to Waco to develop the ATT contact. They liked the work and we got the job with the hook that I ran the crews. So I moved from Arlington to Waco . A problem arose at the main blg. .I met the blg. maintence manand a union rep. David and work out a plan and the union rep starts trying to throw a lot of BS on me. I told him it it was not a greivance and get out of my face . The rep left in a huff. David tells me he has wished he was able to do that for years.My boss just asked me to be more polite. Joe
My civilian career is in a union shop. Our union has over 95% membership because they represent us. They refused to enforce the Mayor in last election even though most others did. (He has a D after his name and in the last several years has done all he can do to gut contracts and block union contracts, so now we look smart instead of traitors )
Our union, rather our local, only focuses on us. Not about are left handed migrant apple pickers paid a living wage. Our leaders are realistic and managed to hold the line on our last contract negotiations in 2008 when the economy tanked. They did not sugar coat it or lie.
Of course five of the six elected leaders are prior enlisted, three were senior NCO’s. I think that is what the real difference is, a greasy union is that way because the members choose leaders who are greasy.
I have never been part of a union. I have heard so many stories, in any case. Where in God’s green earth do these thugs really believe it’s right to steal the dues and then squash what people have put away for 30 productive years?
Here’s the thing. Anyone who belongs to a union with a trade learned on the job who is making 60 bucks an hour? You are not EVER going to make that outside of a union. EVER. So, that traps the worker, because they become used to the life they built and whoop der it is. The Government comes along with a “bailout” only to sell their pensions down the river. They lose everything because they’ll never afford it, after that. As an uneducated worker, the unions have promulgated the idea that experience will keep them on top, until reality hits. It’s bad no matter what way you slice it.
I don’t begrudge anyone the right to unionize to collectively bargain for better working conditions or better pay.
If not for unions most of us would still be working assembly lines with our children. 40 hour work weeks and overtime pay were paid for with the blood and sweat of some pretty tough and decent people.
The issue is what have some of these unions become? It turns out they’ve become the very same as the wrong they were intended to fight oh so long ago…those bloated, worthless unions that protect no one except the leadership and their cronies are exactly the reason so many people want to leave these unions. This case is particularly egregious in that the opt out period is during a time when most of the people under contract aren’t working, I would suspect that was done by design for exactly the reasons the article lays out.
A union that rules by fiat without concern for the very people it is supposed to be protecting is no better than a senior military officer shitting on his subordinates and stealing tax payer money, both need to go and go quickly.
I won’t go as far as to state that all unions suck, but far too many have abdicated their responsibility to their members in favor of a cushy life provided at the expense of their members.
I was a union member once in my career and would never want it again, but I understand that in some places there is still a need. Hopefully we find that balance where the need meets a decent responsibility.
I’d buy that argument if it was maybe the early 1960s, VOV. But IMO unions haven’t been doing much of that since the 1950s.
Since then, that role has been taken over by a combination of government regulations, Federal law, the NLRB, and the EEOC. Unions IMO now do little more than skim off the top to fund themselves. They do damn little to help the “little guy” today.
No huge disagreement here, I know a few guys here in the carpenters union and electricians union that claim they are well taken care of and always seem to be working so I believe their stories about their particular local taking care of them. I also see that employees have the right to unionize if they think it helps their position with management. In some locales there are companies that are either the only game in town, or one of only a couple games available. In those places I understand the desire to be treated fairly and a union makes the rules clear and you have the ability to find representation should your company take a big dump on you that violates the terms of the contract. In an employment at will state absent a union you have none of that, unless you can prove in court on your own dime you were discriminated against the best you can do is unemployment….and that won’t last forever. The protections the feds offer suck ass if you live in an employment at will state, I know because I’ve taken advantage of that law to trim some deadweight. As long as you layoff without attempting a firing or dismissal for cause you can terminate anyone at any time for any reason in spite of what the fed would have you believe. Without a union I’m not obligated to consider anything beyond whether or not I like you when it comes to termination at layoff times or at a slow down in business. Additionally, it’s easy in an employment at will state to disregard seniority in the termination process during layoffs, that allows you to keep some lower paid younger employees while shit canning some higher paid older people. A union makes that a lot harder. If you are not replacing people the older employee who was terminated has no age discrimination case, especially if you keep a couple older people and shit can one or two younger slackers as well. Unions make that harder as well. It’s why I have no quarrel with… Read more »
I tend to disagree.
It was building pressure from the population at large, not the unions, that made the good changes to work environment.
Imo, unions did much the same as FDR. Glommed onto a bad situation, latched onto that situation like a parasite, and in the end, not only helped extend the bad in some ways, but added to the bad in others.
The one for sure about unions is that they’ve just about succeeded in pricing union labor out of the market.
As I remember a similar case was decided by the EEOC.
A person wanted to leave the union but the union contract specified a time for when the person had to make their desires known.
The Union received requests prior to the time (in some cases days before the window opened) but argued that as the requests had not been received during the negotiated window, the members could not leave the union.
Members sued the union saying that the union had notice and fair warning of the member’s desires but the EEOC ruled that the window to withdraw was a negotiated part of the contract and the union could not arbitrarily ignore the dates of the window.
So even though the union had the notices in their possession during the window to withdrawal, because they had not received them during that window, the requests were invalid.
Go figure.