5 ms·

> This seems like a perfect example of why labor organization is important I've just always seen life as "unfair" and "up to you to fight for what is right". A

> This seems like a perfect example of why labor organization is important I've just always seen life as "unfair" and "up to you to fight for what is right". A labor organization/union has always struck me as "too good to be true" and unrealistic.

vkou 6y ago
You can fight for what you want more effectively when you fight collectively. There also seems to be a popular misconception that unions prevent you from negotiating for yourself. Unions set salary and benefit floors, not ceilings. If you think you are a superstar negotiator, you're free to demand a higher wage than that floor. Actors and football players have unions, yet also have an incredible wage disparity between the top and bottom end of the pay scale.
- SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
  What if you're simply not worth as much as you used to be in a given region?
  - elihu 6y ago
    Even in that case, labor organization might help you keep a larger percentage of the value you generate for your employer than you otherwise would.
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  Unions representing professional athletes have in some cases agreed to maximum salaries for players (e.g. in the NBA) as a concession, so that isn't always true. Team salary caps negotiated in leagues without a salary max also depress player salaries.
- belval 6y ago
  Not sure how positive your interactions with unions were to hold this opinion, but that hasn't been my experience at all. - Unions add more politics to an already increasingly political environment. I don't want to spend an hour or more every month in a meeting to vote on stuff I usually don't care about. - Unions cost money, and while 200$/2 weeks (which is what one big union in my country charges) might seem reasonable to you, I don't like being forced to do anything. - Unions usually end up with rules regarding who gets promoted and who doesn't. Broke your back working OT to help out the company? Well tough luck Martha came in one month before you and has priority on promotions. - Unions make it harder to fire under performing employees. While that might fit in your ideal society, I prefer working with overachievers.
  - shaftway 6y ago
    Don't forget - Unions often ignore individuals because "the majority aren't affected by that scenario"
  - vkou 6y ago
    > - Unions add more politics to an already increasingly political environment. I don't want to spend an hour or more every month in a meeting to vote on stuff I usually don't care about. Would you prefer these decisions to be made unilaterally, without any input from you? Because that's the status quo. If you are happy with these decisions being made unilaterally, don't vote. If you aren't, you have more of a lever than you do without a union. > - Unions cost money, and while 200$/2 weeks (which is what one big union in my country charges) might seem reasonable to you, I don't like being forced to do anything. I'm assuming most of that money is going into a strike fund. Having a strike budget makes your negotiating position much stronger, just like how if you don't live paycheck to paycheck, your negotiating position is much stronger. If most of that money goes into administrative expenses, you may want to consider voting to reduce those expenses. > Unions make it harder to fire under performing employees. Unions require management to follow a process to fire employees, under-performing or otherwise. My wife worked in a union for 8 years, and plenty of poorly performing employees were fired during that time. The difference is that they weren't fired arbitrarily. You'd appreciate protection from that, if you were to ever be fired for political, personal, retaliatory, or just purely fabricated reasons. If your management can't figure out how to document how an employee is underperforming, and to give them notice to shape up, I'm not sure your management can be trusted with anything. > - Unions usually end up with rules regarding who gets promoted and who doesn't. Broke your back working OT to help out the company? Well tough luck Martha came in one month before you and has priority on promotions. Did the union make those rules, or did management make those rules in an effort to control costs, and then blame it on the union? Unions are democratic, by the way. If you don't like tenure-based promotion, vote to change it. You have no such recourse with a manager who arbitrarily promotes people they like.
  - yardie 6y ago
    Ahh yes the libertarian boogey man, unions. So you picked up a book or pamphlet about anti-union tropes and spewed them out here. Let's refute these statements 1 by 1: - Voting on stuff monthly? Seems to be a really active union. Must be getting ready to strike and if that's the case why wouldn't they check to make sure they have broad support for one. Also, no one is literally holding a gun to your head. You can vote, vote no, or not vote. - Don't know what union this is but dues I've seen are 1-2%. Whoever is getting paid $5000/week I'd like to join that union, too. Fine, maybe it's a really good union that charges 5%. I'd still want in because someone is taking home $2000/week. - The word is seniority and this has nothing to do with unions. It's how factories from the very beginning have doled out promotions. Job for life and all that. Since most people don't want to be working the shit stirring tank how do you get promoted out the shit stirring tank? A simple metric the factories and offices came up and the union workers agreed to. - Unions don't control this. But if someone gets fired for underperforming you know who's going to get a labor lawyer? The worker who's been paying dues to collectively have a lawyer on retainer. You see if I get fired, I get told I was a poor performer with no evidence. If the worker in the union gets fired there lawyer is going to want to see the evidence. And you'd be amazed at how poorly most companies document this. See the union doesn't keep someone from being fired. But it does make sure the firing is fair.
sarakayakomzin 6y ago
>A labor organization/union has always struck me as "too good to be true" and unrealistic. remarkably ignorant. why doesn't the United States just send around one soldier as needed? Strength in numbers is how hundreds of species survive, this is pretty basic logic that extends into business and commerce as well.
guyzero 6y ago
Sure, but on the other hand, the empirical proof of what labour unions have accomplished. Flying seems impossible too, but yet planes take off every day.
heavyset_go 6y ago
White collar employees that are union members have higher pay[1], better benefits, more time off, and report higher life satisfaction[2] compared to their non-union peers. [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321

vkou 6y ago

You can fight for what you want more effectively when you fight collectively. There also seems to be a popular misconception that unions prevent you from negotiating for yourself. Unions set salary and benefit floors, not ceilings. If you think you are a superstar negotiator, you're free to demand a higher wage than that floor. Actors and football players have unions, yet also have an incredible wage disparity between the top and bottom end of the pay scale.

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
What if you're simply not worth as much as you used to be in a given region?
- elihu 6y ago
  Even in that case, labor organization might help you keep a larger percentage of the value you generate for your employer than you otherwise would.
tomjakubowski 6y ago
Unions representing professional athletes have in some cases agreed to maximum salaries for players (e.g. in the NBA) as a concession, so that isn't always true. Team salary caps negotiated in leagues without a salary max also depress player salaries.
belval 6y ago
Not sure how positive your interactions with unions were to hold this opinion, but that hasn't been my experience at all. - Unions add more politics to an already increasingly political environment. I don't want to spend an hour or more every month in a meeting to vote on stuff I usually don't care about. - Unions cost money, and while 200$/2 weeks (which is what one big union in my country charges) might seem reasonable to you, I don't like being forced to do anything. - Unions usually end up with rules regarding who gets promoted and who doesn't. Broke your back working OT to help out the company? Well tough luck Martha came in one month before you and has priority on promotions. - Unions make it harder to fire under performing employees. While that might fit in your ideal society, I prefer working with overachievers.
- shaftway 6y ago
  Don't forget - Unions often ignore individuals because "the majority aren't affected by that scenario"
- vkou 6y ago
  > - Unions add more politics to an already increasingly political environment. I don't want to spend an hour or more every month in a meeting to vote on stuff I usually don't care about. Would you prefer these decisions to be made unilaterally, without any input from you? Because that's the status quo. If you are happy with these decisions being made unilaterally, don't vote. If you aren't, you have more of a lever than you do without a union. > - Unions cost money, and while 200$/2 weeks (which is what one big union in my country charges) might seem reasonable to you, I don't like being forced to do anything. I'm assuming most of that money is going into a strike fund. Having a strike budget makes your negotiating position much stronger, just like how if you don't live paycheck to paycheck, your negotiating position is much stronger. If most of that money goes into administrative expenses, you may want to consider voting to reduce those expenses. > Unions make it harder to fire under performing employees. Unions require management to follow a process to fire employees, under-performing or otherwise. My wife worked in a union for 8 years, and plenty of poorly performing employees were fired during that time. The difference is that they weren't fired arbitrarily. You'd appreciate protection from that, if you were to ever be fired for political, personal, retaliatory, or just purely fabricated reasons. If your management can't figure out how to document how an employee is underperforming, and to give them notice to shape up, I'm not sure your management can be trusted with anything. > - Unions usually end up with rules regarding who gets promoted and who doesn't. Broke your back working OT to help out the company? Well tough luck Martha came in one month before you and has priority on promotions. Did the union make those rules, or did management make those rules in an effort to control costs, and then blame it on the union? Unions are democratic, by the way. If you don't like tenure-based promotion, vote to change it. You have no such recourse with a manager who arbitrarily promotes people they like.
- yardie 6y ago
  Ahh yes the libertarian boogey man, unions. So you picked up a book or pamphlet about anti-union tropes and spewed them out here. Let's refute these statements 1 by 1: - Voting on stuff monthly? Seems to be a really active union. Must be getting ready to strike and if that's the case why wouldn't they check to make sure they have broad support for one. Also, no one is literally holding a gun to your head. You can vote, vote no, or not vote. - Don't know what union this is but dues I've seen are 1-2%. Whoever is getting paid $5000/week I'd like to join that union, too. Fine, maybe it's a really good union that charges 5%. I'd still want in because someone is taking home $2000/week. - The word is seniority and this has nothing to do with unions. It's how factories from the very beginning have doled out promotions. Job for life and all that. Since most people don't want to be working the shit stirring tank how do you get promoted out the shit stirring tank? A simple metric the factories and offices came up and the union workers agreed to. - Unions don't control this. But if someone gets fired for underperforming you know who's going to get a labor lawyer? The worker who's been paying dues to collectively have a lawyer on retainer. You see if I get fired, I get told I was a poor performer with no evidence. If the worker in the union gets fired there lawyer is going to want to see the evidence. And you'd be amazed at how poorly most companies document this. See the union doesn't keep someone from being fired. But it does make sure the firing is fair.

sarakayakomzin 6y ago

>A labor organization/union has always struck me as "too good to be true" and unrealistic. remarkably ignorant. why doesn't the United States just send around one soldier as needed? Strength in numbers is how hundreds of species survive, this is pretty basic logic that extends into business and commerce as well.

guyzero 6y ago

Sure, but on the other hand, the empirical proof of what labour unions have accomplished. Flying seems impossible too, but yet planes take off every day.

heavyset_go 6y ago

White collar employees that are union members have higher pay[1], better benefits, more time off, and report higher life satisfaction[2] compared to their non-union peers. [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321