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My girlfriend worked at Macys. She was paid $14hr to do white collar admin work and was in a "union". Each month we would walk a few blocks away downtown to a
by ransom1538 7y ago
My girlfriend worked at Macys. She was paid $14hr to do white collar admin work and was in a "union". Each month we would walk a few blocks away downtown to a small office. This is where we paid "dues". We couldn't pay online or have it deduct from her check. The person we handed our check to would just roll their eyes and throw her check into a pile of checks. She couldn't afford these dues. The best part? You were required to be in the union.
The union helped Macys layoff thousands of workers including her with no severance in a nice streamlined fashion. I am wrong, but this is what I learned: Unions are basically fat cat organizations that leach hard working people.
- arrosenberg 7y agoPoorly run unions produce bad outcomes. There are also governments and corporations that leech off hard working people. It's a human dynamics problem, not a problem specifically with unions.
- frabbit 7y agoLike democracies, unions will exploit the people in them if the people in them do not organize and agitate actively for their own interests. Like democracies, unions suck, but they are not as bad as the alternative -- unless you're the boss or the generalissimo.
- moron4hire 7y agoAre you saying that union members need to... unionize against their union? It's all unions, all the way down.
- morelisp 7y agoNon-ironically, yes, and many union members in the US agree. Even before COVID-19, there were high-profile wildcat strikes this year, and it's only accelerating now.
- frabbit 7y agoEssentially yes. Unions have varying levels of active members which sometimes leads to a self-interested bureaucracy acting against the wishes of the membership. See for instance this recent well-known example: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nidhiprakash/bernie-sanders-nevada-caucus-culinary-union https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nidhiprakash/bernie-san... There is nothing magic about unions or democracy which means that they guarantee good outcomes. You have to work at it and be involved. In fact everyone has to.
- koheripbal 7y agoHaving a union is literally worse than not having one at all. ...unless people are literally dying in the factory. Unions were made for worker safety and made sense THEN - not today.
- frabbit 7y agoPeople are dying due to lack of investment of corporate profits in health care. I cannot believe you need this pointed out to you right now. In other shocking news today's capitalists don't wear top-hats and drive around in Rolls Royces: they wear hoodies and drive modest cars.
- greendestiny_re 7y agoIf your girlfriend was in a union, why do you say "we paid"?
- effingwewt 7y agoI'm going to assune good faith here, maybe it's a cultural thing, who knows? Regardless, here in the US it is typical for couples to form a partnership in which both income and expenses are shared. Possibly the reason for the recent emergence of the term 'Partner' to describe one's Significant Other.
- greendestiny_re 7y agoI'm from Europe and it struck me as odd that the subject of the sentence switched from singular to plural for no good reason. >My girlfriend worked at Macys >She was paid >(She) was in a "union" >Each month we would walk >we paid "dues" >we couldn't pay online >we handed our check >throw her check I was just wondering if there was some hidden twist behind the change of subject, so I asked bluntly.
- Zenbit_UX 7y agoWhy are you being such a dick, who cares?
- ric2b 7y agoUnion members pay the union, supposedly to support costs like materials and salaries for union representatives.