4 ms·

>Most of the warehouse workers are now making _less_ than they were before due to union dues. If most of the workers are making less now, why would they vote t

>Most of the warehouse workers are now making _less_ than they were before due to union dues. If most of the workers are making less now, why would they vote to unionize? Before the union formed did workers get vacation and sick time, or were their unaddressed safety issues, or was management treating employees unfairly? In the US it is a lot of work to convince people to form a union even when the benefits are clear. Companies will bring in professional union busters, force employees to watch anti union propaganda, many employers will illegally fire employees who are pro union, and they will threaten(illegally) to shut down the whole company if a union is formed.

endtime 8y ago
> If most of the workers are making less now, why would they vote to unionize? You seem to be confusing the direction of time...
- lovich 8y ago
  What we're the expected benefits of joining the union that they didn't get then? For instance in most low level jobs I've had like that, just getting a consistent schedule would be worth half the hourly wage, without a bonus all. You'd be able to have a life or a second job. When you don't have a union you get companies ignoring even basics like that and doing random scheduling with leaves you with the inability to do anything but be ready for work, without being paid for the time. There are tons of little things like this that all add up to value that's just as good as money and that we take for granted by being in the tech world
  - angry_octet 8y ago
    Yep there are heaps of reasons. For example, 'zero hours' contracts are all too common now. You have to be available for a shift, but if there is no work they send you home. (Or if you don't suck up to the supervisor he gives you less hours.) It's an unfair one way obligation.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Something we also take for granted in the tech world is companies running on ridiculously high net margins. Apple, for instance, makes about $400,000 in profit per employee. They could literally give every single one of their 123,000 workers a $200k raise and still be making tens of billions of dollars in profit per year. Now let's consider WalMart, the largest employer in the US and one many have chastised for poor pay. The make a bit less than $4,300 in profit per employee. And that's one of the largest companies in the world that can take advantage of economy of scale to push their profit margins as high as possible. Most companies operate on very thin margins, made up for by scale. Selling $300 hardware for $1000 is, fortunately, an exception rather than the rule. But what this means is that unions are not going to suddenly send major benefits towards employees, because the companies simply do not have the money for these benefits. Factor in the frequently unreasonably high union fees and unions are often going to be a negative overall outcome at many companies. For instance the united autoworkers union demands 30 hours of pay, or 1.44% (which is 30/2080) of your annual pay in dues per year. So in other words workers would need to see an extra 30 hours of pay or a ~1.5% raise, just to break even. But many people don't consider economic realities when they believe they can get more stuff. If you had a national vote on enacting a $50/hour minimum wage you'd have tens of millions people vote for it even though it would lead not only to their direct unemployment, but also throwing the entire nation into complete chaos and crashing the US and world economies as well. For instance you regularly see things like employees trying to unionize at companies that are operating in the red. What exactly do they think is going to be the outcome there?
    - lovich 8y ago
      On the other hand, you constantly see people defend ultra rich CEOs by dividing their salary across all employees in the company and showing how it would only be a raise of a few hundred a year. Those defenders then claim that's barely a raise so why take from the CEO? When you are minimum wage even 100 extra a year would have absolutely helped. I thinks it's fairly disengenous for any company to be raking in billions in profits while employees need public assistance to survive. Yea, you can suddenly double your work forces wage, but you can still improve the situation.
    - gnopgnip 8y ago

endtime 8y ago

> If most of the workers are making less now, why would they vote to unionize? You seem to be confusing the direction of time...

lovich 8y ago
What we're the expected benefits of joining the union that they didn't get then? For instance in most low level jobs I've had like that, just getting a consistent schedule would be worth half the hourly wage, without a bonus all. You'd be able to have a life or a second job. When you don't have a union you get companies ignoring even basics like that and doing random scheduling with leaves you with the inability to do anything but be ready for work, without being paid for the time. There are tons of little things like this that all add up to value that's just as good as money and that we take for granted by being in the tech world
- angry_octet 8y ago
  Yep there are heaps of reasons. For example, 'zero hours' contracts are all too common now. You have to be available for a shift, but if there is no work they send you home. (Or if you don't suck up to the supervisor he gives you less hours.) It's an unfair one way obligation.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Something we also take for granted in the tech world is companies running on ridiculously high net margins. Apple, for instance, makes about $400,000 in profit per employee. They could literally give every single one of their 123,000 workers a $200k raise and still be making tens of billions of dollars in profit per year. Now let's consider WalMart, the largest employer in the US and one many have chastised for poor pay. The make a bit less than $4,300 in profit per employee. And that's one of the largest companies in the world that can take advantage of economy of scale to push their profit margins as high as possible. Most companies operate on very thin margins, made up for by scale. Selling $300 hardware for $1000 is, fortunately, an exception rather than the rule. But what this means is that unions are not going to suddenly send major benefits towards employees, because the companies simply do not have the money for these benefits. Factor in the frequently unreasonably high union fees and unions are often going to be a negative overall outcome at many companies. For instance the united autoworkers union demands 30 hours of pay, or 1.44% (which is 30/2080) of your annual pay in dues per year. So in other words workers would need to see an extra 30 hours of pay or a ~1.5% raise, just to break even. But many people don't consider economic realities when they believe they can get more stuff. If you had a national vote on enacting a $50/hour minimum wage you'd have tens of millions people vote for it even though it would lead not only to their direct unemployment, but also throwing the entire nation into complete chaos and crashing the US and world economies as well. For instance you regularly see things like employees trying to unionize at companies that are operating in the red. What exactly do they think is going to be the outcome there?
  - lovich 8y ago
    On the other hand, you constantly see people defend ultra rich CEOs by dividing their salary across all employees in the company and showing how it would only be a raise of a few hundred a year. Those defenders then claim that's barely a raise so why take from the CEO? When you are minimum wage even 100 extra a year would have absolutely helped. I thinks it's fairly disengenous for any company to be raking in billions in profits while employees need public assistance to survive. Yea, you can suddenly double your work forces wage, but you can still improve the situation.
  - gnopgnip 8y ago