Educate me please

[Wrider]

OK so all I have here is my personal experience and my mom's HR experience to educate me so I'm trying to learn more about Unions.
From what I've seen they were great for people up until about the 1960s. And to some extent still very good today. But at the same time they also hurt the people they're created to protect.

Take the automotive unions for example, they helped bring in safety equipment and raised the wage level. But at the same time they raised the wage level to a ridiculous level. (25 bucks an hour or so STARTING wage) Then when the auto companies were forced to make cutbacks, they tried lowering wages to a less ridiculous level, but instead of having everyone take a 2 dollar an hour cut in pay (yes I realize how much that is, but bear with me) they had 1/3 of the workforce get fired and take a 25 dollar an hour cut... Is it just me or did they just hurt those they were designed to help?

[ceemes]

OK so all I have here is my personal experience and my mom's HR experience to educate me so I'm trying to learn more about Unions.
From what I've seen they were great for people up until about the 1960s. And to some extent still very good today. But at the same time they also hurt the people they're created to protect.

Take the automotive unions for example, they helped bring in safety equipment and raised the wage level. But at the same time they raised the wage level to a ridiculous level. (25 bucks an hour or so STARTING wage) Then when the auto companies were forced to make cutbacks, they tried lowering wages to a less ridiculous level, but instead of having everyone take a 2 dollar an hour cut in pay (yes I realize how much that is, but bear with me) they had 1/3 of the workforce get fired and take a 25 dollar an hour cut... Is it just me or did they just hurt those they were designed to help?

Actually contrary to popular opinion and I have to say it, a biased corporate lead media, the CAW and its American counter-part have made considerable concessions in the past ten or so years.

They have also invested into the various Big Three operations by buying up stock and placing it into their pension plans. Far from sabotaging the Big Three, they have been working hard to ensure their survival and viability. Of course the unions are not doing this out of any concepts of altruism, but to protect their members and their jobs.

If you really want to put the blame on why the Big Three are failing, one just has to look at its various upper management who continued to push out the wrong products and crappy quality. Guess they figured that we would always buy North American no matter how crappy the products are. They were wrong.

[Wrider]

Oh I completely agree on how stupid the management of the Big 3 were being. I'm not blaming the failure on the unions at all. I'm honestly curious as to the workings/modern purposes of the unions. I was just using that as an example is all.

[blues2cruise]

My current situation is such that if not for my union, I would have no benefits, reduced pay, no job security, job contracted out to the lowest denominator, no seniority, etc....

People cannot be fired for no good reason....yes, people can still get fired while in a union, but there is a process....your union will stand up for you if you are being harrassed or bullied, your union will help you if the boss gives work to someone with less seniority.....it helps prevent favouritism...

With a union contract there are clearly outlined rates of pay and hours of work,and someone looking out for you.

We are not "gouging" the taxpayer funded custom transit system....the company that currently holds the contract, just wants more than ten million profit.

[king robb]

My current situation is such that if not for my union, I would have no benefits, reduced pay, no job security, job contracted out to the lowest denominator, no seniority, etc....

People cannot be fired for no good reason....yes, people can still get fired while in a union, but there is a process....your union will stand up for you if you are being harrassed or bullied, your union will help you if the boss gives work to someone with less seniority.....it helps prevent favouritism...

With a union contract there are clearly outlined rates of pay and hours of work,and someone looking out for you.

We are not "gouging" the taxpayer funded custom transit system....the company that currently holds the contract, just wants more than ten million profit.

+1

[Amdonim]

Actually contrary to popular opinion and I have to say it, a biased corporate lead media, the CAW and its American counter-part have made considerable concessions in the past ten or so years.

They have also invested into the various Big Three operations by buying up stock and placing it into their pension plans. Far from sabotaging the Big Three, they have been working hard to ensure their survival and viability. Of course the unions are not doing this out of any concepts of altruism, but to protect their members and their jobs.

If you really want to put the blame on why the Big Three are failing, one just has to look at its various upper management who continued to push out the wrong products and crappy quality. Guess they figured that we would always buy North American no matter how crappy the products are. They were wrong.

+1. No where else in the capitalist world can a company of that magnitude refuse to respond to the demands of the market/consumers for so long and survive.

[blues2cruise]

Our union has asked for binding arbitration. The company does not want to go to arbitration.
The company is afraid of arbitration because they know it will not go well for them.
The union has made application for arbitration, so the company may have no choice in the matter.

We hope this will make the public realize that the union is serious about settling this labour dispute and that it shows the company is not.

We have managed to find a lot of info on the internet to prove that MVT has lied and is only interested in one thing....their bottom line.
We are a custom transportation service (part of transit) that transports people with disabilities and seniors that are unable to get to a regular bus.

You simply cannot "schedule" how long a wobbly old person takes to walk to our bus.

This company treats the workers like commodities and the clients like cargo.

If it were not for the union, our call centre could very well have been contracted out by now.

[sv-wolf]

This company treats the workers like commodities and the clients like cargo.

That's par for the course.

I don't know a lot about unions in the U.S.or Canada except, historically, they have often had to fight employers who were more than usually happy to use extrene violence against their workforce.

Over here in the UK, unions have had a chequered history. They have not always acted in the best interests of their members or the interests of working people in general. They have often been taken over by individuals or cabals who have used them as platforms for their own political or personal ambitions. They have often made mistakes. And they have often gambled at the negotiating table (as they often must), but unwisely, and their members have lost out But despite all these failings and the general uncertainties of collective bargaining, unions are the only effective way that wage earners really have to maintain their income.

The logic of capital is to maximise profit by any means necessary, fair or foul. Competition constantly forces it to do that. If a company doesn't make at least the average rate of profit, investors will withdraw their money pretty quickly and put it elsewhere. Then the company will go bust. Maximising proft ahead of your rivals to attract new capital is the name of the game. And the most basic way to do that is to reduce wages and salaries.

There is no such thing as a fair wage. Every penny extra in profit for the employer is a penny less for the wage earner, and vice versa. It's a straight fight to cut the cake. Except of course that wage and salary earners don't just create the wealth that they get back as wages, they create the employer's profits as well. Fighting to increase their income is just a way of getting back as much of the wealtth they have created as they can.

The basic job of unions is to bring to bear what pressure they can to do just that: maximise wages - and to get better working conditions as well.

Ironically, unions are strongest in times of economic boom (precisely, when they are generally most complacent and least active). In boom time companies often like to have a representative union. When they are busy making lots of profit it is often easier to negotiate with a union than to face wildcat strikes. And they are also often more ready to accept union demands to keep production going. At times like the present, when there are many people out of work and looking for a job companies can resist union pressure more easily, and have more incentive to do so. Ironically again, that's when unions tend to sit up and start to get active.

Large employers in the US have always been very conscious of themselves as a class apart, more so perhaps than elsewhere, and take considerable exception to any challenge to their right to control their workforce any way they want. So when profits peak US companies often becme powerful as well, but for other reasons. With exceptional amounts of profit being made they can afford to build extra capacity elsewhere, so if their workforce chafes against low wages they just threaten to move their business to another location. That was very common during the eighties and nineties.

Like most unions in the UK, mine is pretty toothless these days. British unions were largely broken by Thatcher, by ideology, by the breakup of working class communities, and by anti-union legislation. They do whatever they can though and I have no doubt that I would be earning less if they didn't fight to maintain wages in each round of annual wage bargaining. Even if they have not managed to keep wages above the level of inflation, the company has to deal with them and would certainly have taken advantage of their absence to force down wages even further.
( )

[NorthernPete]

Ive worked at 3 non union and only ever worked at a unionized mine site once, and its the first place I was ever laid off from. I was actually bumped, so the union helped someone else get their job back at my expense. (not that I blame them, Id have done the same thing, but its little comfort when youre told on dec 22 to pack your gear.) Have a look at whats happening in Sudbury Ontario right now with Vale vs Steel workers. The company they are fighting is huge, and sudbury accounts for about 5% of their global opperations. their contract offer was reasonable given the prices. The union made off like bandits in the last few contracts due to prices, and when the tables turn, well, heyve been on strike for 7 months, and I doubt the end of that one will come any time soon.

So, while I guess Unions do have their place, Im of the opinion that they had their time. But Im a bit biased I guess.

[blues2cruise]

In our case...the contract was awarded to a "for profit" company. We are a community based service and in the history of this work, it was always run by non profit societies. In the almost 30 years of the operation, there was never a labour dispute.
Enter MVT....they made their bid based on the collective agreement in place. They claimed and signed an MOU (memorandum of understanding) that they would operate with the collective agreement until a new "first" collective agreement got made.
They have often contravened the contract causing many grievances. We already had a municipal pension plan in place...the new company has been taking money from peoples paycheques, but they still refuse to register us in the pension plan.
They have done a lot of dirty dealings.....without our union, we would be without guaranteed hours for full time workers, the office would be contracted out to somewhere....leaving many many people without a job. They have done things illegal...we have proof and pictures....and management even instructed a driver to do something illegal....
The union has been invaluable for keeping them honest....they keep trying, but the union gets on their case.
Bottom line, this work should never have been contracted to a for profit company in the first place. (it's not just me saying that...thousands of people in the community hate what this company has done to the workers and mostly to the clients. )
There is a negotiation meeting with a mediator on Thursday. If that does not produce any reasonable effects, we will push for arbitration.

The contract offered had a few clauses with vague language. Nobody in their right mind would agree to sign to accept....they just can't understand why 95% rejected the offer. Too many loopholes....