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Most of it is marketing. Notice how hard companies fight whenever there is an attempt at unionizing a workplace. My wife is a member of a nurses union and it i

Most of it is marketing. Notice how hard companies fight whenever there is an attempt at unionizing a workplace. My wife is a member of a nurses union and it is nice to have a contract with your employer (something all top executives have) instead of work conditions being at the whim of a manager. A downside of most contracts is there is little room for performance bonuses - almost all contracts are based on time in the union and not performance. The effect is an A player and a D player all get the same wages and benefits. There is no reason a union contract has to be structured this way, but for some reason they almost always are based on time and not performance.

asmithmd1 8y ago
So what does every nurses get in terms of pay and benefits after they are all averaged together? A pretty good deal! After 20 years almost $100/hour of work, 1.5X that after 40 hours per week. 6 weeks vacation, paid sick time and paid major holidays. The contract is renegotiated every 2-3 years to keep the rates increasing with inflation
- rileymat2 8y ago
  Are you sure about your numbers outside of a few select localities with high cost of living? https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Hourly_Rate/e57a1cea/Late-Career https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R...
- zaarn 8y ago
  >paid sick time Isn't the nurse at work if they're sufficiently sick? (That thought occurred to me reading this and I found it somewhat amusing.)
Kalium 8y ago
Guaranteeing people advancement and pay improvements over time tends to make everyone at least a little happy. It means a future you can plan around for everyone. For union leadership, this has the great perk of more or less aligning incentives among members. This works as long as a sizable chunk of members don't start to see themselves as equipped to do significantly better than their supposed-peer. And, well, as soon as you do performance pay it means someone's going to lose out, because now workers are competing with each other. And this definitely aligns incentives away from where the union leadership wants them.

asmithmd1 8y ago

So what does every nurses get in terms of pay and benefits after they are all averaged together? A pretty good deal! After 20 years almost $100/hour of work, 1.5X that after 40 hours per week. 6 weeks vacation, paid sick time and paid major holidays. The contract is renegotiated every 2-3 years to keep the rates increasing with inflation

rileymat2 8y ago
Are you sure about your numbers outside of a few select localities with high cost of living? https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Hourly_Rate/e57a1cea/Late-Career https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R...
zaarn 8y ago
>paid sick time Isn't the nurse at work if they're sufficiently sick? (That thought occurred to me reading this and I found it somewhat amusing.)

Kalium 8y ago

Guaranteeing people advancement and pay improvements over time tends to make everyone at least a little happy. It means a future you can plan around for everyone. For union leadership, this has the great perk of more or less aligning incentives among members. This works as long as a sizable chunk of members don't start to see themselves as equipped to do significantly better than their supposed-peer. And, well, as soon as you do performance pay it means someone's going to lose out, because now workers are competing with each other. And this definitely aligns incentives away from where the union leadership wants them.