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"When you grew up in a country where unions are healthy and working both for the employees and for the business" That's rarely the case with unions however. Th

by dkopi 10y ago

"When you grew up in a country where unions are healthy and working both for the employees and for the business" That's rarely the case with unions however. They usually work for the interests of a select few. They harm the business, they lobby government for special benefits and protections, and they're often willing to harm employees at the bottom of the ladder (or unemployed people who are never allowed on the ladder) to benefit employees on the top and closest to the union leaders.

pessimizer 10y ago
I understand what the Chamber of Commerce thinks, but do you have any references, or any information independent of them? And by this, I don't mean a reference to the existence of a bad union or a bad union incident, or stories about how your dad told you that every meeting was a bunch of blind drunks voting down training and making up new holidays. You're making a claim of prevalence, it'd be interesting to know where you got that opinion from.
- dkopi 10y ago
  While that was a fairly aggressive way of commenting, I'll still answer for the sake of other people reading this. Here's an example of how social workers in Israel were let down by the Histadrut - Israel's organization of trade unions. http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Social-workers-feel-let-down-by-minister-Histadrut http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Social-workers-feel-let-d... Social workers are some of the lowest paid government workers in Israel, and they always participate in general strikes when requested by the Histadrut. They've helped secure higher salaries for bank unions, airport unions, electric unions and port worker unions. But when it was there turn to strike (After decades of stagnant income), they were thrown under the bus, with the Histadrut negotiating a deal that didn't even offer a raise that would cover the lost income. Leader of the Israeli Labor Party (Closely tied with the union leaders) Shelly Yachimovich even put out a public letter calling on social workers to end their strike. Effectively taking away any bargaining power they had left. (Hebrew link, couldn't find coverage in English): http://www.blacklabor.org/?p=29042 http://www.blacklabor.org/?p=29042

by dkopi 10y ago

pessimizer 10y ago

I understand what the Chamber of Commerce thinks, but do you have any references, or any information independent of them? And by this, I don't mean a reference to the existence of a bad union or a bad union incident, or stories about how your dad told you that every meeting was a bunch of blind drunks voting down training and making up new holidays. You're making a claim of prevalence, it'd be interesting to know where you got that opinion from.

dkopi 10y ago
While that was a fairly aggressive way of commenting, I'll still answer for the sake of other people reading this. Here's an example of how social workers in Israel were let down by the Histadrut - Israel's organization of trade unions. http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Social-workers-feel-let-down-by-minister-Histadrut http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Social-workers-feel-let-d... Social workers are some of the lowest paid government workers in Israel, and they always participate in general strikes when requested by the Histadrut. They've helped secure higher salaries for bank unions, airport unions, electric unions and port worker unions. But when it was there turn to strike (After decades of stagnant income), they were thrown under the bus, with the Histadrut negotiating a deal that didn't even offer a raise that would cover the lost income. Leader of the Israeli Labor Party (Closely tied with the union leaders) Shelly Yachimovich even put out a public letter calling on social workers to end their strike. Effectively taking away any bargaining power they had left. (Hebrew link, couldn't find coverage in English): http://www.blacklabor.org/?p=29042 http://www.blacklabor.org/?p=29042