4 ms·

A members-only union is unlikely to last. From the perspective of the employer they have two employee groups - union and non-union. If they pay non-union employ

A members-only union is unlikely to last. From the perspective of the employer they have two employee groups - union and non-union. If they pay non-union employees less those employees are just going to join the union, get increased pay and now the union is even stronger than before. Actually the best strategy from the business' perspective is to set pay/benefits for union members and non-union members at the same rate. As union members bargain for more, non-union members freeride, as non-union members freeride, union members defect, and you kill the union's bargaining power. This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds, it's the only way to maintain the bargaining power of the workers. If you don't like that working for a certain employer requires paying union dues you take the same action as if you don't like the health plan or pay offered by a certain employer, you look somewhere else.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> A members-only union is unlikely to last. This is literally how unions work in most of the developed world outside the US.
pc86 8y ago
Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? > This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds Never. If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot?
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  >Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? Because they can keep their dues? Why is anyone going to pay several hundred dollars for a group which they perceive is doing nothing for them? (this is in the situation where an employer is trying to bust the union by paying both groups the same) >Never. If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot? If you read the rest you can see that you're not forced to join the union in the same way you're not forced to accept subpar pay. Just go work somewhere else.
  - pc86 8y ago
    Someone could just as easily say "if you want to be unionized, go work somewhere else." That's not an acceptable answer then and it's certainly not an acceptable answer for you when explaining why you want to steal money from your coworkers.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
      >Someone could just as easily say "if you want to be unionized, go work somewhere else." Well actually there's plenty of times when you literally couldn't go work for a union shop, there's not many left. >why you want to steal money from your coworkers. Actually in a shop with union members and free-riding non-union members it's the non-union members who are stealing. They are utilizing a public good (the power of collective bargaining) without contributing. In this sense making a workplace union compulsory is the best way to prevent workers from stealing from one another. Also introducing compulsory unions moves us from a situation where (1) employers have massively more bargaining power than a worker and workers are structurally compelled to compete against each other to one where (2) bargaining power becomes much more equalized and workers can collectively choose in which situations it is appropriate for them to compete with each other. Changing that compulsory union back into members only just moves us back to (1). It does this because it grants structural control back to the corporation and it's in the corporation's interest to make union bargaining power a non-excludable public good which introduces free-rider problems and destroys the union.
- dexterdog 8y ago
  > If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot? One argument is that you didn't choose to join the IRS, yet they are allowed to steal money from your check.
  - hpcjoe 8y ago
    ... so then you are saying that a union is a branch or department of the US government? Hmmm ... I don't quite remember it that way. The US constitution specifically gave the right to levy taxes to the federal and state governments. I don't seem to remember them giving that right to unions. In Michigan, the unions went for a kill shot in 2012, that backfired wildly. They tried getting a Michigan constitutional amendment in place that would have mandated their rights over workplaces in perpetuity. They lost that, in a very lobsided vote. The backlash, or karma as it were, was a bitch. People, collectively, realized that giving them as much unfettered power as they wished was only going to hurt us even more, so maybe it is time to rein them in. So we did that. And now, curiously, we are seeing a nice little growth going on here, as companies consider us in their lower cost location decisions. Change that, change our cost structure, and we will lose companies again. How is it that people don't get this?
- comex 8y ago
  > Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? Tragedy of the commons. Whether or not the dues are “reasonable”, they’re not nothing. And as long as union and nonunion employees are paid the same, as an individual employee, leaving the union lets you save that money without giving anything else up in return. But then if everyone does that, the union loses its bargaining power.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > Tragedy of the commons. Whether or not the dues are “reasonable”, they’re not nothing. And as long as union and nonunion employees are paid the same, as an individual employee, leaving the union lets you save that money without giving anything else up in return. This is a common talking point based on a factually incorrect premise. There's no reason union and non-union employees would necessarily be paid the same, because there's no reason the unions have to include non-members in the bargaining unit. They are perfectly free to establish contracts that only cover employees who join the union.
    - comex 8y ago
      I was replying in the context of frgtpsswrdlame's post stating that employers had an incentive to pay nonunion members the same as union members, at least in the short term. (pc86 responded to that post asking "If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave?", and I responded to them.) In reality, there's no guarantee an employer would do this, and in theory the union could even negotiate to make sure it didn't – but it would have a pretty hard time justifying to its members why it was trying to keep other people's wages down. And in lieu of such negotiations, the larger the fraction of union employees, the less the employer has to lose by bumping nonunion employees' wages to match theirs, with the goal of ultimately weakening the union.
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > but it would have a pretty hard time justifying to its members why it was trying to keep other [non-member] people's wages down. They seem to have no trouble with that already at present.
Kalium 8y ago
If you can only maintain membership by coercing membership, you may want to consider taking a hard look at the benefits of membership. If an employer wants to treat employees well enough that they feel no need to unionize, isn't that also a victory for workers?
dexterdog 8y ago
Wouldn't it be smartest for the employer to actually pay the non-union employees more? Why let only the union collect fees on its members?

chimeracoder 8y ago

> A members-only union is unlikely to last. This is literally how unions work in most of the developed world outside the US.

pc86 8y ago

Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? > This is actually why we need traditional compulsory unions if a unionization vote succeeds Never. If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot?

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
>Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? Because they can keep their dues? Why is anyone going to pay several hundred dollars for a group which they perceive is doing nothing for them? (this is in the situation where an employer is trying to bust the union by paying both groups the same) >Never. If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot? If you read the rest you can see that you're not forced to join the union in the same way you're not forced to accept subpar pay. Just go work somewhere else.
- pc86 8y ago
  Someone could just as easily say "if you want to be unionized, go work somewhere else." That's not an acceptable answer then and it's certainly not an acceptable answer for you when explaining why you want to steal money from your coworkers.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    >Someone could just as easily say "if you want to be unionized, go work somewhere else." Well actually there's plenty of times when you literally couldn't go work for a union shop, there's not many left. >why you want to steal money from your coworkers. Actually in a shop with union members and free-riding non-union members it's the non-union members who are stealing. They are utilizing a public good (the power of collective bargaining) without contributing. In this sense making a workplace union compulsory is the best way to prevent workers from stealing from one another. Also introducing compulsory unions moves us from a situation where (1) employers have massively more bargaining power than a worker and workers are structurally compelled to compete against each other to one where (2) bargaining power becomes much more equalized and workers can collectively choose in which situations it is appropriate for them to compete with each other. Changing that compulsory union back into members only just moves us back to (1). It does this because it grants structural control back to the corporation and it's in the corporation's interest to make union bargaining power a non-excludable public good which introduces free-rider problems and destroys the union.
dexterdog 8y ago
> If I don't want to join a union, who are you to force me to join and steal money out of my paycheck to boot? One argument is that you didn't choose to join the IRS, yet they are allowed to steal money from your check.
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  ... so then you are saying that a union is a branch or department of the US government? Hmmm ... I don't quite remember it that way. The US constitution specifically gave the right to levy taxes to the federal and state governments. I don't seem to remember them giving that right to unions. In Michigan, the unions went for a kill shot in 2012, that backfired wildly. They tried getting a Michigan constitutional amendment in place that would have mandated their rights over workplaces in perpetuity. They lost that, in a very lobsided vote. The backlash, or karma as it were, was a bitch. People, collectively, realized that giving them as much unfettered power as they wished was only going to hurt us even more, so maybe it is time to rein them in. So we did that. And now, curiously, we are seeing a nice little growth going on here, as companies consider us in their lower cost location decisions. Change that, change our cost structure, and we will lose companies again. How is it that people don't get this?
comex 8y ago
> Union members have no incentive to leave the union except to save dues. If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave? Tragedy of the commons. Whether or not the dues are “reasonable”, they’re not nothing. And as long as union and nonunion employees are paid the same, as an individual employee, leaving the union lets you save that money without giving anything else up in return. But then if everyone does that, the union loses its bargaining power.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > Tragedy of the commons. Whether or not the dues are “reasonable”, they’re not nothing. And as long as union and nonunion employees are paid the same, as an individual employee, leaving the union lets you save that money without giving anything else up in return. This is a common talking point based on a factually incorrect premise. There's no reason union and non-union employees would necessarily be paid the same, because there's no reason the unions have to include non-members in the bargaining unit. They are perfectly free to establish contracts that only cover employees who join the union.
  - comex 8y ago
    I was replying in the context of frgtpsswrdlame's post stating that employers had an incentive to pay nonunion members the same as union members, at least in the short term. (pc86 responded to that post asking "If your dues are reasonable why would anyone leave?", and I responded to them.) In reality, there's no guarantee an employer would do this, and in theory the union could even negotiate to make sure it didn't – but it would have a pretty hard time justifying to its members why it was trying to keep other people's wages down. And in lieu of such negotiations, the larger the fraction of union employees, the less the employer has to lose by bumping nonunion employees' wages to match theirs, with the goal of ultimately weakening the union.
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > but it would have a pretty hard time justifying to its members why it was trying to keep other [non-member] people's wages down. They seem to have no trouble with that already at present.

Kalium 8y ago

If you can only maintain membership by coercing membership, you may want to consider taking a hard look at the benefits of membership. If an employer wants to treat employees well enough that they feel no need to unionize, isn't that also a victory for workers?

dexterdog 8y ago

Wouldn't it be smartest for the employer to actually pay the non-union employees more? Why let only the union collect fees on its members?