5 ms·

You earn a union. You earn a union by not treating your employees well, if you knew the history of the labor movement in the 30's you'd better understand how t

by Aloha 11y ago

You earn a union. You earn a union by not treating your employees well, if you knew the history of the labor movement in the 30's you'd better understand how things got to be the way they are, and why the relationship is adversarial, instead of cooperative. If your employees are trying to unionize its because of longstanding grievances held by a significant minority if not majority of your workforce - grievances that have either not been meaningfully addressed, or can't be aired, because there is no workable mechanism to air them. It's not just pay (though often is primarily pay - we'll put up with all sorts of shenanigans for a big paycheck) if often as much about working conditions and esprit de corps as it is pay. If you don't want a union, pay your employees well (well above market), or have a great working environment and instill a sense of pride and appreciation in your management - and make it clear you value their contributions as well - it's this balance of pay and working environment that keeps a workplace healthy and union free. The car companies stumbled because they had a high cost structure and they ziged when the market zagged - while the union contributed to the high cost structure, they had nothing do to with changing market conditions.

rebootthesystem 11y ago
> if you knew the history of the labor movement in the 30's News flash: We are nearly one hundred years away from the 30's. Just because things made sense then (and they absolutely did) does not mean they make sense today. What I am putting on the table is a verifiable mathematical fact. No opinions here. Fire-up Excel and do the math. Not sustainable. And that's the point. I didn't say unions need to evaporate, I said they need to mutate into something that truly works for a sustainable common goal. Today, for the most part, they do not. And we all pay for it in one way or another.
- Aloha 11y ago
  In other countries, they do work, just not here in a bunch of cases (the auto workers are a worst case). I'm not trying to justify the adversarial relationship the UAW takes with the big three - but as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango, and for a long time, neither side was willing to change the status quo. Not all unions are the same, many have what could more be described as a partnership. I don't have much in the way of sympathy with the Big Three however, they rather than really negotiate when times were good, they agreed to absurd contract provisions - a little pain now, can save a whole lot of pain later. The reason GM as you pointed out had 4.6 pensioners for every worker, is General Motors used to be a much much larger company - in 1970, GM had 395,000 UAW workers, in 1998, 210,000 and in 2007 had around 75,000, today (February of 2015) it has around 50,300. So in, 1998, it was roughly 1/2 its 1970 size, 2007, it was around 1/5th - today its around 1/7th. 1/5th is awful close to the 1:4.6 ratio you pointed out. As far as the 20 years and you're out provisions? I have a friend who worked for GM for 20 years, he has - bad hearing, bad knees, bad ankles, bad feet - plus 15 years of exposure to chemicals in the paint booth - then another 5 of working in a stamping plant. He earned every dime of his pension, and paid for it with ill health, and a diminished quality of life for his remaining 20-30 years on the planet, because essentially he's a man in his early 40's with a body of someone 15 years his senior.
  - rebootthesystem 11y ago
    While I have sympathy for your friend, nobody forced him to stay on. I have a couple of friends who own air conditioning and heating companies. They do very well now, yet they both started with one beat-up truck crawling in attics by themselves to earn a living. Years later they have employees and do well. They have both gone through surgeries of all kinds due to the punishment they subjected their knees and bodies to during their years crawling in attics doing duct work. I know graphic artists who have had multiple surgeries on their wrists due to carpal tunnel injuries. Carpenters who have lost fingers due to unfortunate accidents. And musicians with permanent Tinitus due to playing in loud environments for twenty years. I spend my days working in front of a computer, probably 80 hours a week. There are consequences to that as well. I guess the point I am trying to make is that all activities come with consequences. Yet not one of these people were forced to take and keep these jobs. Let's not blame employers for providing work people take freely. I am not justifying negligence in the case of unsafe working conditions. That is a criminal matter.
    - Aloha 11y ago
      Why would he leave, yes the work is physically hard, and mentally monotonous, but the reward and pay is great - thats the tradeoff - they go in work their 20 years, and come out beat up and somewhat broken, and get a decent pension out of it. Would he have stayed on without the great pay, benefits and pension? probably not, not enough financial reward for the work, he's smart enough to do anything he decides he wants to. That on some level is the price of doing business - or was at least for a long time - the UAW gave concessions to save the Big Three in the form of a two tier wage structure, which the big three appear to be willing to gradually eliminate the two tier structure - or at least bring them closer together now that they are financially healthier. The thing is, I'd bet money though, if if I looked into it, you'd find autoworkers in each company (or anyone doing heavy assembly like that to be similarly well paid, relative to their local wage).
prostoalex 11y ago
> If you don't want a union, pay your employees well (well above market), or have a great working environment Third option seems to move the jobs out of the country, which is what happened to highly unionized manufacturing sector.
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  It isn't about not wanting them. It's about them being constructive as opposed to destructive in the long term.
  - prostoalex 11y ago
    Right. I'm just pointing out proponents of unionization usually pretend that unionization costs zero to the workers' wallets. Well, there's the dues, but in theory they pay for themselves in increased benefits, therefore any rational employee should join the union. The elephant in the room is the migration strategies the employer starts exploring when faced with an added cost (offshoring, moving to a right-to-work state, increasing automation, switching from vertical integration to third-party contractors).
    - rebootthesystem 11y ago
      For many industries a hike in costs (with unionization related costs being one example) triggers a chain reaction causing companies to seek lower costs. This often means leaving the US or Europe. Going to China isn't, as some like to put it, due to greedy executives. It's actually due to responsible executives who are left with not choice but to go to China. As competitors stared to offshore many, many years ago, companies who did not were left with significantly greater cost structures and unable to compete. I had exactly that problem 15 years ago when my competitors started to manufacture products in Korea while I was manufacturing in the US. And it wasn't just about labor costs. Our supply pipeline can be incredibly expensive. Our costs are higher every step of the way, the more you "touch" a component or assembly the more cost increases. The same electronic components --same part number, same manufacturer, not clones-- can cost five or six times less in China due to supply chain advantages. Sometimes I feel folks who push unions in the US and think they are good for workers truly don't have a clue. All one has to do is try to manufacture something, anything, in the US to start understanding why we can't think 1930's mentality will continue to work. Even something as seemingly simple as a dog leash is almost impossible to manufacture in the US on a competitive basis. People just don't get it.

by Aloha 11y ago

rebootthesystem 11y ago

> if you knew the history of the labor movement in the 30's News flash: We are nearly one hundred years away from the 30's. Just because things made sense then (and they absolutely did) does not mean they make sense today. What I am putting on the table is a verifiable mathematical fact. No opinions here. Fire-up Excel and do the math. Not sustainable. And that's the point. I didn't say unions need to evaporate, I said they need to mutate into something that truly works for a sustainable common goal. Today, for the most part, they do not. And we all pay for it in one way or another.

Aloha 11y ago
In other countries, they do work, just not here in a bunch of cases (the auto workers are a worst case). I'm not trying to justify the adversarial relationship the UAW takes with the big three - but as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango, and for a long time, neither side was willing to change the status quo. Not all unions are the same, many have what could more be described as a partnership. I don't have much in the way of sympathy with the Big Three however, they rather than really negotiate when times were good, they agreed to absurd contract provisions - a little pain now, can save a whole lot of pain later. The reason GM as you pointed out had 4.6 pensioners for every worker, is General Motors used to be a much much larger company - in 1970, GM had 395,000 UAW workers, in 1998, 210,000 and in 2007 had around 75,000, today (February of 2015) it has around 50,300. So in, 1998, it was roughly 1/2 its 1970 size, 2007, it was around 1/5th - today its around 1/7th. 1/5th is awful close to the 1:4.6 ratio you pointed out. As far as the 20 years and you're out provisions? I have a friend who worked for GM for 20 years, he has - bad hearing, bad knees, bad ankles, bad feet - plus 15 years of exposure to chemicals in the paint booth - then another 5 of working in a stamping plant. He earned every dime of his pension, and paid for it with ill health, and a diminished quality of life for his remaining 20-30 years on the planet, because essentially he's a man in his early 40's with a body of someone 15 years his senior.
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  While I have sympathy for your friend, nobody forced him to stay on. I have a couple of friends who own air conditioning and heating companies. They do very well now, yet they both started with one beat-up truck crawling in attics by themselves to earn a living. Years later they have employees and do well. They have both gone through surgeries of all kinds due to the punishment they subjected their knees and bodies to during their years crawling in attics doing duct work. I know graphic artists who have had multiple surgeries on their wrists due to carpal tunnel injuries. Carpenters who have lost fingers due to unfortunate accidents. And musicians with permanent Tinitus due to playing in loud environments for twenty years. I spend my days working in front of a computer, probably 80 hours a week. There are consequences to that as well. I guess the point I am trying to make is that all activities come with consequences. Yet not one of these people were forced to take and keep these jobs. Let's not blame employers for providing work people take freely. I am not justifying negligence in the case of unsafe working conditions. That is a criminal matter.
  - Aloha 11y ago
    Why would he leave, yes the work is physically hard, and mentally monotonous, but the reward and pay is great - thats the tradeoff - they go in work their 20 years, and come out beat up and somewhat broken, and get a decent pension out of it. Would he have stayed on without the great pay, benefits and pension? probably not, not enough financial reward for the work, he's smart enough to do anything he decides he wants to. That on some level is the price of doing business - or was at least for a long time - the UAW gave concessions to save the Big Three in the form of a two tier wage structure, which the big three appear to be willing to gradually eliminate the two tier structure - or at least bring them closer together now that they are financially healthier. The thing is, I'd bet money though, if if I looked into it, you'd find autoworkers in each company (or anyone doing heavy assembly like that to be similarly well paid, relative to their local wage).

prostoalex 11y ago

> If you don't want a union, pay your employees well (well above market), or have a great working environment Third option seems to move the jobs out of the country, which is what happened to highly unionized manufacturing sector.

rebootthesystem 11y ago
It isn't about not wanting them. It's about them being constructive as opposed to destructive in the long term.
- prostoalex 11y ago
  Right. I'm just pointing out proponents of unionization usually pretend that unionization costs zero to the workers' wallets. Well, there's the dues, but in theory they pay for themselves in increased benefits, therefore any rational employee should join the union. The elephant in the room is the migration strategies the employer starts exploring when faced with an added cost (offshoring, moving to a right-to-work state, increasing automation, switching from vertical integration to third-party contractors).
  - rebootthesystem 11y ago
    For many industries a hike in costs (with unionization related costs being one example) triggers a chain reaction causing companies to seek lower costs. This often means leaving the US or Europe. Going to China isn't, as some like to put it, due to greedy executives. It's actually due to responsible executives who are left with not choice but to go to China. As competitors stared to offshore many, many years ago, companies who did not were left with significantly greater cost structures and unable to compete. I had exactly that problem 15 years ago when my competitors started to manufacture products in Korea while I was manufacturing in the US. And it wasn't just about labor costs. Our supply pipeline can be incredibly expensive. Our costs are higher every step of the way, the more you "touch" a component or assembly the more cost increases. The same electronic components --same part number, same manufacturer, not clones-- can cost five or six times less in China due to supply chain advantages. Sometimes I feel folks who push unions in the US and think they are good for workers truly don't have a clue. All one has to do is try to manufacture something, anything, in the US to start understanding why we can't think 1930's mentality will continue to work. Even something as seemingly simple as a dog leash is almost impossible to manufacture in the US on a competitive basis. People just don't get it.