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One thing I fail to understand is, why don't these people unionize? That's what organized labour is for: to protect a workforce from abusive conditions in the w

One thing I fail to understand is, why don't these people unionize? That's what organized labour is for: to protect a workforce from abusive conditions in the workplace. Why let the sociopaths win?

rotten 11y ago
To unionize you need to have time to interact with your co-workers. You have to convince everyone that unions are not evil. And I'm not even sure unions are legal in the US any more. In the article they feature UPS as an example, yet UPS _has_ a union - the Teamsters. Does it do anything except feed off of the workers it is suppose to represent? I'm not sure. I was in a union once and it was worthless and expensive. We need something else with a new name that actually does work.
- anon4 11y ago
  How about "Labour Law"? Federally-mandated rules of employment, applying to people who work as little as one hour per month up to 175 hours per week.
  - mercurial 11y ago
    How can you work 175 h a week? That's more than 24 hours a day.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      That's the proverbial 25 hours a day, times 7. But then again, you'd be surprised how people sometimes have to work two jobs at the same time.
acdha 11y ago
Unionization is difficult in much of the United States, particularly since businesses have successfully spread the image of union workers as lazy sponges to lower voter support. Businesses whose workers are unionizing run PR campaigns claiming all sorts of scary downsides and threaten to or actually do close stores if a union actually wins the vote. Since many of the most exploitative conditions happen where workers are low-status and have great reasons to fear unemployment or reduced hours, this is a powerful message unless the local economy is booming. The Atlantic had a piece about how Walmart handles this: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-walmart-convinces-its-employees-not-to-unionize/395051/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-walm... If you remember the news in August about the NLRB allowing franchise workers to unionize with a parent company rather than each franchisee, this is why that was a big deal: currently, if the workers in Podunk unionize and the local franchisee decides to close the business instead of negotiating, it's a minor write-off for the parent company. After that ruling, e.g. McDonald's would have to take the heat for any retaliatory action. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/business/labor-board-says-franchise-workers-can-bargain-with-parent-company.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/business/labor-board-says-...

One thing I fail to understand is, why don't these people unionize? That's what organized labour is for: to protect a workforce from abusive conditions in the workplace. Why let the sociopaths win?

rotten 11y ago

To unionize you need to have time to interact with your co-workers. You have to convince everyone that unions are not evil. And I'm not even sure unions are legal in the US any more. In the article they feature UPS as an example, yet UPS _has_ a union - the Teamsters. Does it do anything except feed off of the workers it is suppose to represent? I'm not sure. I was in a union once and it was worthless and expensive. We need something else with a new name that actually does work.

anon4 11y ago
How about "Labour Law"? Federally-mandated rules of employment, applying to people who work as little as one hour per month up to 175 hours per week.
- mercurial 11y ago
  How can you work 175 h a week? That's more than 24 hours a day.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    That's the proverbial 25 hours a day, times 7. But then again, you'd be surprised how people sometimes have to work two jobs at the same time.

acdha 11y ago

Unionization is difficult in much of the United States, particularly since businesses have successfully spread the image of union workers as lazy sponges to lower voter support. Businesses whose workers are unionizing run PR campaigns claiming all sorts of scary downsides and threaten to or actually do close stores if a union actually wins the vote. Since many of the most exploitative conditions happen where workers are low-status and have great reasons to fear unemployment or reduced hours, this is a powerful message unless the local economy is booming. The Atlantic had a piece about how Walmart handles this: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-walmart-convinces-its-employees-not-to-unionize/395051/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/how-walm... If you remember the news in August about the NLRB allowing franchise workers to unionize with a parent company rather than each franchisee, this is why that was a big deal: currently, if the workers in Podunk unionize and the local franchisee decides to close the business instead of negotiating, it's a minor write-off for the parent company. After that ruling, e.g. McDonald's would have to take the heat for any retaliatory action. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/business/labor-board-says-franchise-workers-can-bargain-with-parent-company.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/business/labor-board-says-...