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I did not think all union contracts where closed shop in the USA. And this case why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers unio

I did not think all union contracts where closed shop in the USA. And this case why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers union.

anchpop 6y ago
I don't know, but I go to school at Michigan State and many of my professors are in the UAW.
kevingadd 6y ago
If you look at modern unionization efforts, new unions tend to align with existing larger unions to leverage their legal representation, experience with unionization efforts, and general resources
morpheuskafka 6y ago
In US law, closed shop refers to something different, which is illegal. It means that you have to be a member of the union to be hired in the first place at a certain employer/job site. However, what is allowed is to require people who are hired to join the union, with the exception that if they do not want to join the union, they can opt to pay only "financial core" dues, to compensate the union for its work negotiating an agreement that the non-members supposedly benefit from too. The effect of this is that workers remain governed by collective bargaining, pay a lesser amount than members, and have no say in union leadership. They are also exempt from union discipline (ex fines for strikebreaking). In some states, with so-called "right to work" laws, the employees who do not want to join the union pay nothing at all. This is actually not inherently a right of the states to make such laws, but an option they are delegated as part of the federal laws. After a recent SCOTUS ruling, all government employees can do this in any state. In any case, what OP said is true re: our collective bargaining system is built around one union (whether or not everyone is required to pay dues) representing all workers, whose pay/benefits/other matters cannot vary from the union contract. Whether or not non-members must pay any dues As to your point, the names for the old unions are largely historic vestiges. The "Big Labor" unions are massive conglomerates (just like the companies they rail against) that grow as big as they can. Ironically, the true hard-leftists like the IWW originally advocated for "One Big Union" as opposed to small, factional unions for each trade--but they would hardly be pleased with the highly-capitalist mammoth unions we have today.
- appleflaxen 6y ago
  that "lesser amount" is often close to 95% of the union amount, though, so you still end up financially supporting an entity that you disagree with, and not being able to use the full resources they provide. If you are philosophically opposed to unions, you shouldn't have to pay them at all.
  - trowawee 6y ago
    If you benefit from the union's work, you should absolutely have to pay for that work.
    - dependenttypes 6y ago
      Chances are that you benefit from open source code that I wrote. Where is my money?
      - trowawee 6y ago
        Well, you choosing to donate your time and effort to an open source project is really not analogous to a union's work improving workplaces, but! As it so happens I do believe that having huge swathes of the tech industry built on unpaid labor is also a pretty bad thing, that the political stance taken by large parts of the FOSS community that "free means no restrictions, EVER!" is foolish, and that companies should have to pay for their use of FOSS. It enables exploitation of individual maintainers by massive corporations. And to loop back around to the topic most of us are discussing, if there were some type of SWE Guild, standardizing rules around FOSS usage and remuneration for FOSS creators and maintainers should be high on that guild's list of priorities. There're thousands of people in the entertainment industry making comfortable livings off a combination of some work and residuals; why can't that be us? Why shouldn't people who've created, maintained, and improved projects that companies have leveraged for billions of dollars of profit see some of that money?
        dependenttypes 6y ago
thefringthing 6y ago
> why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers union An innovation in organized labour from around the turn of the 20th century known as the "industrial union" (as opposed to the "craft union") wherein the union seeks to organized all workers in a particular industry rather than a particular job. The idea is that this prevents workers of different jobs being pitted against one another, and provides more power as a strike could shut down an entire industry.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Yes I know that but normally you would expect a union to stick to that industry, also blue collar unions don't always know how to organise and represent professional workers and some members may not want "their" union to represent mangers eg the CWU in the UK Trying to go back to the ancient one big union just wont cut it
  - thefringthing 6y ago
    Managers are not eligible to join the one big union: https://iww.org/membership/ https://iww.org/membership/

I did not think all union contracts where closed shop in the USA. And this case why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers union.

anchpop 6y ago

I don't know, but I go to school at Michigan State and many of my professors are in the UAW.

kevingadd 6y ago

If you look at modern unionization efforts, new unions tend to align with existing larger unions to leverage their legal representation, experience with unionization efforts, and general resources

morpheuskafka 6y ago

In US law, closed shop refers to something different, which is illegal. It means that you have to be a member of the union to be hired in the first place at a certain employer/job site. However, what is allowed is to require people who are hired to join the union, with the exception that if they do not want to join the union, they can opt to pay only "financial core" dues, to compensate the union for its work negotiating an agreement that the non-members supposedly benefit from too. The effect of this is that workers remain governed by collective bargaining, pay a lesser amount than members, and have no say in union leadership. They are also exempt from union discipline (ex fines for strikebreaking). In some states, with so-called "right to work" laws, the employees who do not want to join the union pay nothing at all. This is actually not inherently a right of the states to make such laws, but an option they are delegated as part of the federal laws. After a recent SCOTUS ruling, all government employees can do this in any state. In any case, what OP said is true re: our collective bargaining system is built around one union (whether or not everyone is required to pay dues) representing all workers, whose pay/benefits/other matters cannot vary from the union contract. Whether or not non-members must pay any dues As to your point, the names for the old unions are largely historic vestiges. The "Big Labor" unions are massive conglomerates (just like the companies they rail against) that grow as big as they can. Ironically, the true hard-leftists like the IWW originally advocated for "One Big Union" as opposed to small, factional unions for each trade--but they would hardly be pleased with the highly-capitalist mammoth unions we have today.

appleflaxen 6y ago
that "lesser amount" is often close to 95% of the union amount, though, so you still end up financially supporting an entity that you disagree with, and not being able to use the full resources they provide. If you are philosophically opposed to unions, you shouldn't have to pay them at all.
- trowawee 6y ago
  If you benefit from the union's work, you should absolutely have to pay for that work.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    Chances are that you benefit from open source code that I wrote. Where is my money?
    - trowawee 6y ago
      Well, you choosing to donate your time and effort to an open source project is really not analogous to a union's work improving workplaces, but! As it so happens I do believe that having huge swathes of the tech industry built on unpaid labor is also a pretty bad thing, that the political stance taken by large parts of the FOSS community that "free means no restrictions, EVER!" is foolish, and that companies should have to pay for their use of FOSS. It enables exploitation of individual maintainers by massive corporations. And to loop back around to the topic most of us are discussing, if there were some type of SWE Guild, standardizing rules around FOSS usage and remuneration for FOSS creators and maintainers should be high on that guild's list of priorities. There're thousands of people in the entertainment industry making comfortable livings off a combination of some work and residuals; why can't that be us? Why shouldn't people who've created, maintained, and improved projects that companies have leveraged for billions of dollars of profit see some of that money?
      - dependenttypes 6y ago

thefringthing 6y ago

> why on earth where professional roles being represented by an Auto workers union An innovation in organized labour from around the turn of the 20th century known as the "industrial union" (as opposed to the "craft union") wherein the union seeks to organized all workers in a particular industry rather than a particular job. The idea is that this prevents workers of different jobs being pitted against one another, and provides more power as a strike could shut down an entire industry.

C1sc0cat 6y ago
Yes I know that but normally you would expect a union to stick to that industry, also blue collar unions don't always know how to organise and represent professional workers and some members may not want "their" union to represent mangers eg the CWU in the UK Trying to go back to the ancient one big union just wont cut it
- thefringthing 6y ago
  Managers are not eligible to join the one big union: https://iww.org/membership/ https://iww.org/membership/