8 ms·

The anti-union rhetoric in America is staggering. You like weekends? Then stop ragging on unions.

adamrezich 8y ago
I have a friend who worked at a grocery store for a few months while waiting for his teacher's certification to get processed and sent to the state he'd moved to. It was a minimum-wage job, yet mandatory union membership at this grocery store chain meant that a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks was taken from him without anything he could do about it. The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are inherently, universally bad.
- cgag 8y ago
  we all just join hands and free money and time rain down upon us, how is that not universally good?
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  >>The idea that unions are universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are universally bad. You are arguing against a strawman. No one is saying unions are "universally good". However, it is an irrefutable quality of capitalism that collective bargaining is superior to bargaining as an individual. If you truly understand how capitalism works, and the way it puts the interests of employers in conflict with those of employees (i.e. employers want to maximize profits, whereas employees want to maximize their pay and benefits, and this game is zero-sum), you will realize that, on average, having a union represent you will yield better results for you (and your fellow coworkers) than you representing just yourself.
  - adamrezich 8y ago
    Okay so how did the Kroger union help my friend at all? Once again, membership was mandatory for employment, and a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks went to it, with him seeing zero benefit in exchange. Is there some hidden benefit both he and I (being his roommate at the time) just weren't seeing? (Trust me, we looked.)
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Just because your friend didn't see the benefits doesn't mean he didn't have them. Kroger union members have health care benefits, dental and vision benefits, and other benefits that they wouldn't normally get with a minimum wage job. Protections against forced and unpaid overtime (while allowing for voluntary, paid overtime). Hell, the fact he got paid minimum wage in the first place--since unions were, and still are, the big drivers behind minimum wage (and raises to minimum wage) in the US.
      - enraged_camel 8y ago
        You said it better than I could. The whole "I cannot immediately see the benefits of paying for something, therefore those benefits probably don't exist!" mentality needs to die.
      - adamrezich 8y ago
        None of these things applied to him. He did not get medical or dental benefits because he was employed there for less time than their minimum to begin receiving benefits (or maybe he had just qualified when his teaching license finally got through? I can't remember now). Membership was mandatory for employment, so anyone who works there part-time for less than whatever the minimum amount of time to receive benefits is (six months or a year I think?) is literally paying money to a union that will do nothing for someone who shows up to work, does what he's paid to do, and goes home without incident. It's like a mandatory tax on temporary hires that benefits long-term hires that means temporary hires make less than minimum wage as a result! EDIT: Oh and I forgot, they also took a fat chunk of his first paycheck as an additional fee, too. Previously my friend and I had both worked at various Walmart stores in our home state and not only were we paid above minimum wage starting salary, but there were no hidden mandatory fees of any kind. I know Walmart's famously anti-union to the point of absurdity (the propaganda in the training materials is outright laughable), but from the point of view of a couple of young guys looking to work part-time at a grocery store, Walmart treated us both far better than Kroger treated him, and without unions.
        gamblor956 8y ago
- omegaworks 8y ago
  So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work? Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.
  - fastball 8y ago
    Yeah, literally everyone was worked to death before the existence of unions. /s
    - matthewowen 8y ago
      I mean... they kinda _were_
      - fastball 8y ago
        Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week. Without Unions.
        matthewowen 8y ago
        No, he didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen#Eight-hour_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen#Eight-hour_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States
        bobwaycott 8y ago
        Where did you get that idea? That is so very far from true about either Ford or the 40-hour-week. Are you of the opinion that more than a century of labor fighting for reasonable working hours and conditions meant nothing, or are you just wanting to give Ford all the credit, despite him drawing on decades of increased movement toward an 8-hour workday before he ever decided to try it as a company policy?
  - eqdw 8y ago
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Not sure about your area, but the grocery store strike circa 2003 in California is the only reason that the employees received health benefits from stores that were trying to compete with Walmart
- joemi 8y ago
  > The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are inherently, universally bad. This is something I think a lot of idealistically pro-union people don't understand, at least in the college/grad school circles I've discussed it with. The concept of a union is good, sure. But unions themselves are businesses, and it's their business to be needed and to convince people to join and pay dues.
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Your friend should have been working 80 hours a week for 20 cents an hour instead. Ban unions!
  - adamrezich 8y ago
    I don't understand this hyperbolic sarcasm. Minimum wage exists, labor laws exist. Not paying mandatory union dues wouldn't result in your wages being reduced that low, or being forced to work that many hours a week. This doesn't make any sense or support the point you're presumably trying to make whatsoever.
    - anth_anm 8y ago
      > Minimum wage exists, labor laws exist. Thanks to unions.
      - adamrezich 8y ago
        The union my friend was forced to be a member of, in particular? And if he didn't pay his union dues, these laws would go away somehow?
nichos 8y ago
You mean the American 5 day work week, brought to us by Henry Ford and not unions?
- normal_man 8y ago
  I assume you got this from an asinine meme designed to deceive people: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/09/viral-image/does-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-come-henry-ford-or-lab/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep...
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    > For instance, Ford’s " ‘sociological department’ had to inspect a worker’s home to make sure they ‘deserved’ the $5 first," said Ileen A. DeVault, a professor of labor relations, law and history at Cornell University. wow.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  The truth is a bit more nuanced than that. Henry Ford did not institute a 40-hour workweek out of the goodness of his heart. In an interview to World's Work magazine in 1926, he said: "Leisure is an indispensable ingredient in a growing consumer market because working people need to have enough free time to find uses for consumer products, including automobiles." In other words, he understood that a consumer-based economy needs consumers, and consumers need sufficient leisure time to be able to go shopping and buy things.
  - scotch_drinker 8y ago
    Louis Brandeis had similar beliefs. Leisure was important for workers and his battles against the monopolies of the day were often focused on this belief. Though his focus was on self-growth and learning in the leisure time provided.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  You mean the 5-day work week, originated by Henry Ford, and spread throughout the world by unions? More than a decade past before another company adopted the 5-day work week. Unions took Ford's example and made it the standard.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hannasanarion 8y ago
Many American businesses no longer have weekends. I worked at a restaurant where most of the staff was expected to work 6 days a week. Nowhere has mandatory closing times anymore, and more and more nonsensical places are operating 24/7.

I have a friend who worked at a grocery store for a few months while waiting for his teacher's certification to get processed and sent to the state he'd moved to. It was a minimum-wage job, yet mandatory union membership at this grocery store chain meant that a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks was taken from him without anything he could do about it. The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are inherently, universally bad.

cgag 8y ago
we all just join hands and free money and time rain down upon us, how is that not universally good?
enraged_camel 8y ago
>>The idea that unions are universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are universally bad. You are arguing against a strawman. No one is saying unions are "universally good". However, it is an irrefutable quality of capitalism that collective bargaining is superior to bargaining as an individual. If you truly understand how capitalism works, and the way it puts the interests of employers in conflict with those of employees (i.e. employers want to maximize profits, whereas employees want to maximize their pay and benefits, and this game is zero-sum), you will realize that, on average, having a union represent you will yield better results for you (and your fellow coworkers) than you representing just yourself.
- adamrezich 8y ago
  Okay so how did the Kroger union help my friend at all? Once again, membership was mandatory for employment, and a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks went to it, with him seeing zero benefit in exchange. Is there some hidden benefit both he and I (being his roommate at the time) just weren't seeing? (Trust me, we looked.)
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Just because your friend didn't see the benefits doesn't mean he didn't have them. Kroger union members have health care benefits, dental and vision benefits, and other benefits that they wouldn't normally get with a minimum wage job. Protections against forced and unpaid overtime (while allowing for voluntary, paid overtime). Hell, the fact he got paid minimum wage in the first place--since unions were, and still are, the big drivers behind minimum wage (and raises to minimum wage) in the US.
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      You said it better than I could. The whole "I cannot immediately see the benefits of paying for something, therefore those benefits probably don't exist!" mentality needs to die.
    - adamrezich 8y ago
      None of these things applied to him. He did not get medical or dental benefits because he was employed there for less time than their minimum to begin receiving benefits (or maybe he had just qualified when his teaching license finally got through? I can't remember now). Membership was mandatory for employment, so anyone who works there part-time for less than whatever the minimum amount of time to receive benefits is (six months or a year I think?) is literally paying money to a union that will do nothing for someone who shows up to work, does what he's paid to do, and goes home without incident. It's like a mandatory tax on temporary hires that benefits long-term hires that means temporary hires make less than minimum wage as a result! EDIT: Oh and I forgot, they also took a fat chunk of his first paycheck as an additional fee, too. Previously my friend and I had both worked at various Walmart stores in our home state and not only were we paid above minimum wage starting salary, but there were no hidden mandatory fees of any kind. I know Walmart's famously anti-union to the point of absurdity (the propaganda in the training materials is outright laughable), but from the point of view of a couple of young guys looking to work part-time at a grocery store, Walmart treated us both far better than Kroger treated him, and without unions.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
omegaworks 8y ago
So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work? Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.
- fastball 8y ago
  Yeah, literally everyone was worked to death before the existence of unions. /s
  - matthewowen 8y ago
    I mean... they kinda _were_
    - fastball 8y ago
      Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week. Without Unions.
      - matthewowen 8y ago
        No, he didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen#Eight-hour_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen#Eight-hour_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States
      - bobwaycott 8y ago
        Where did you get that idea? That is so very far from true about either Ford or the 40-hour-week. Are you of the opinion that more than a century of labor fighting for reasonable working hours and conditions meant nothing, or are you just wanting to give Ford all the credit, despite him drawing on decades of increased movement toward an 8-hour workday before he ever decided to try it as a company policy?
- eqdw 8y ago
Rebelgecko 8y ago
Not sure about your area, but the grocery store strike circa 2003 in California is the only reason that the employees received health benefits from stores that were trying to compete with Walmart
joemi 8y ago
> The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are inherently, universally bad. This is something I think a lot of idealistically pro-union people don't understand, at least in the college/grad school circles I've discussed it with. The concept of a union is good, sure. But unions themselves are businesses, and it's their business to be needed and to convince people to join and pay dues.
anth_anm 8y ago
Your friend should have been working 80 hours a week for 20 cents an hour instead. Ban unions!
- adamrezich 8y ago
  I don't understand this hyperbolic sarcasm. Minimum wage exists, labor laws exist. Not paying mandatory union dues wouldn't result in your wages being reduced that low, or being forced to work that many hours a week. This doesn't make any sense or support the point you're presumably trying to make whatsoever.
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    > Minimum wage exists, labor laws exist. Thanks to unions.
    - adamrezich 8y ago
      The union my friend was forced to be a member of, in particular? And if he didn't pay his union dues, these laws would go away somehow?

nichos 8y ago

You mean the American 5 day work week, brought to us by Henry Ford and not unions?

normal_man 8y ago
I assume you got this from an asinine meme designed to deceive people: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/09/viral-image/does-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-come-henry-ford-or-lab/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep...
- anth_anm 8y ago
  > For instance, Ford’s " ‘sociological department’ had to inspect a worker’s home to make sure they ‘deserved’ the $5 first," said Ileen A. DeVault, a professor of labor relations, law and history at Cornell University. wow.
enraged_camel 8y ago
The truth is a bit more nuanced than that. Henry Ford did not institute a 40-hour workweek out of the goodness of his heart. In an interview to World's Work magazine in 1926, he said: "Leisure is an indispensable ingredient in a growing consumer market because working people need to have enough free time to find uses for consumer products, including automobiles." In other words, he understood that a consumer-based economy needs consumers, and consumers need sufficient leisure time to be able to go shopping and buy things.
- scotch_drinker 8y ago
  Louis Brandeis had similar beliefs. Leisure was important for workers and his battles against the monopolies of the day were often focused on this belief. Though his focus was on self-growth and learning in the leisure time provided.
gamblor956 8y ago
You mean the 5-day work week, originated by Henry Ford, and spread throughout the world by unions? More than a decade past before another company adopted the 5-day work week. Unions took Ford's example and made it the standard.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hannasanarion 8y ago

Many American businesses no longer have weekends. I worked at a restaurant where most of the staff was expected to work 6 days a week. Nowhere has mandatory closing times anymore, and more and more nonsensical places are operating 24/7.