4 ms·
I'm in a union and see similar things, but instead of using lawyers, the union would note that the contract had been violated, and management will typically agr
by grasshopperpurp 6y ago
I'm in a union and see similar things, but instead of using lawyers, the union would note that the contract had been violated, and management will typically agree to pay the people who would have done the work. If it's just 10 minutes, the union probably wouldn't bother with it - unless it's a pattern, and in that case, they'd add up all the 10-minute transgressions. I often disagree with the focuses of my union, but I'm still happy to support it. As many have noted, the main thing a union does is balance the leverage. Without them, the employer has all of it.
For seemingly silly rules like the ones you're describing, the union is attempting to protect jobs and hours.
I wish my union was more like some European unions I've read about, where they're involved in the decision-making process. Mine fights for wages, positions, and conditions, but management decides how things work - so long as they're not violating the agreed-upon conditions. I expect your workplace is similar. Instead of mapping out a path with management, my union reacts to the path set out by management, and I think a lot of the weird rules come as a result of reacting, rather than helping to create.
I also think this sort of collaboration would be better for companies, particularly larger companies, where there is a disconnect from how things actually work and how corporate thinks they work. We have this particularly terrible piece of machinery that corporate is obsessed with justifying. We have other machines that do its jobs better, but it does the jobs of many machines - just much worse. It just wastes a lot of time, but corporate incentiveses management to use it, and when discussing the POS machine, management cites those incentives as reasons for why the machine is actually good. When you say, "Yes, but how does wasting all this time using this particular machine help the company?" management highlights the incentives.
- koheripbal 6y ago> ...a union does is balance the leverage. Without them, the employer has all of it. Maybe that's true of low labor jobs, but Employees in six figure jobs have tremendous power. One of the reasons companies try to create anti-potching rules is exactly to try to get back some power. The unemployment rate in the US was 4% prior to covid, and even lower for tech and white collar desk jobs. This issue simply must take a back seat to bigger problems in America.
- take_a_breath 6y ago== This issue simply must take a back seat to bigger problems in America.== What if labor rights is actually the single biggest problem that drives all the others? I can think of things like a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave, anti-discrimination in hiring, maternity/paternity leave, and guaranteed PTO that could be helped by unionization to make us a stronger country, collectively.
- koheripbal 6y agoMaybe other labor rights - but definitely not Facebook six-figure-salary labor rights - the context of this post.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoThe problem is that the anti–union sentiment of the Facebook employees leaks into the tools they build. Facebook may give six–figure salaries, but Facebook Workplace is used by e.g. Walmart, which has a median salary of $19,177 [0] and a notoriously bad track record of labor violations. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-walmart-the-ceo-makes-1-188-times-as-much-as-the-median-worker-1524261608 https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-walmart-the-ceo-makes-1-188-...
- jkestner 6y agoWhy tech workers should unionize is to have a say in their company's values and deeds. [1] And when a company has an enormous influence on our country, its employees should (and do) want to be part of decisions. It's okay, society can handle more than one issue at a time. 1. https://www.wired.com/story/how-kickstarter-employees-formed-union/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-kickstarter-employees-formed...
- tomatotomato37 6y agoExcept it doesn't. Labor rights does not have an appreciable affect on racial discrimination, environmental concerns, infrastructure, immigration concerns, defense against the passive/active actions against other hostile nation-states, or a lot of other things. And no, leveraging a union to force your company to drop a controversial customer has absolutely nothing to do with labor rights, that's just taking advantage of a organization your tribe happens to control
- kcolford 6y agoInteresting, so you're saying the union is most concerned with hours and making sure that none of the hours that would be directed to union members as per their collective bargaining agreement are redirected elsewhere. Are your union members actually paid by the hour or are these hours tracked to justify/demand a certain headcount of salaried union members?
- grasshopperpurp 6y agoIt is hourly. These are issues that arise most often, but the union is most concerned with wages, positions, benefits, etc.. But, all of that is negotiated in the contract, so it only comes to the forefront every few years. The tracking of work affects future contracts, though, because management (particularly at the corporate level) is continually looking to cut hours and positions, and the union looks to justify keeping them. In non-union jobs I've worked, those hours/positions get cut without meaningful pushback, and the workers left were forced to do more work without receiving more compensation.