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Labour unions are a lot like everything else that works in our society. (Hold your vituperation!) Labour unions, like democracy and capitalism, are the worst t

Labour unions are a lot like everything else that works in our society. (Hold your vituperation!) Labour unions, like democracy and capitalism, are the worst things we've ever tried, except for everything else that failed. We simply don't have a better way to appoint leaders except democracy. It's obviously broken in many ways, but the alternatives are worse. Economically, capitalism is deeply broken, but everything else we've tried is worse. And labour unions as we see them today are just plain wrong.But less wrong than unfettered capitalism. You either need labour unions or you need overregulation, with inspectors everywhere in a business. Just My Two Cents, of course.

cynicalkane 13y ago
The power of labor unions for low-paid workers is not as strong as you think. Where I went to school (U Chicago), there was a very active mostly student-organized university workers' labor union, but workplace violations were still routine. The power to strike is no help when you depend on your paycheck to survive, and the union's legal clout was no help when the laws were hard to enforce and deep-pocketed employers were your adversary. If you look around at lower-class unions, you see a broad pattern of ineffectiveness. For example farm workers have the UFW but being a farm worker remains one of the most intensely miserable jobs in the US, with constant rule-breaking by the employers, and a lot of unrepresented workers. We already have a nearly flawless way to increase the welfare of low-paid workers, and that is to redistribute wealth to them through things like the negative income tax. Having enough money to live is the best negotiating position, union or no union. (For example, I think this is why middle-class unions have been so much more effective than lower-class ones.)
- Amadou 13y ago
  The power to strike is no help when you depend on your paycheck to survive Well managed unions maintain a strike fund so that their members can survive the economic hardship of a strike. After googling a little I think you are talking about Graduate Students United - their dues are only $5/year, which means they aren't even in the same league as the serious blue collar labor unions. http://uchicagogsu.org/faq/ http://uchicagogsu.org/faq/
  - cynicalkane 13y ago
    Actually I was talking about the organization that represents low-paid university workers, like janitors and cafeteria workers. I reworded my post to clarify. Graduate students are a whole 'nother basket of beans.
    - Amadou 13y ago
      farm workers have the UFW but being a farm worker remains one of the most intensely miserable jobs in the US, with constant rule-breaking by the employers, and a lot of unrepresented workers. I don't think it is fair to blame the large number of unrepresented workers on the union itself. I'm sure the UFW wants to increase their membership past the paltry ~5,000 it has.
  - icelancer 13y ago
    >Well managed unions maintain a strike fund so that their members can survive the economic hardship of a strike. Recent grocery store workers voted to strike and the pay was going to be $100/week for picketing 15-20 hours a week. Great.
- earnestfeedback 13y ago
  Whoa- there's no need for you to have name dropped U Chicago. We could have parsed your post just fine without knowing that you attended the world's most elite university.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  In these situations, the main weapon is knowledge. If the law says you have to give people X number of minutes as break, a union rep's job could be to collect records of when that rule was broken. Then you can hold that knowledge over the head of the employers, who often rely on information asymmetry to get away with shit. It's not ideal, and certainly no UAW, but it's much better than unchecked abuses. You can use funds to buy appropriate equipment like gloves for workers and for their replacement when they fall apart.
- raganwald 13y ago
  > The power of labor unions for low-paid workers is not as strong as you think. It's exactly as strong as I think. I just think that all the alternative ways to protect them are even weaker.
- malandrew 13y ago
  I honestly don't know why we try to go after executives at all. It's proven ineffective since you can never mount enough evidence to get a real case and the fines are just seen as a cost of doing business for the company. Instead you need to create labor laws that are enforced in much the same was as moving violations are enforced for driving. For example, if you are hired as a driver for a delivery company, you, the driver, are responsible for speeding or running stop signs and red lights, not your employer. You never here about a manager telling their employers to speed and retaliating against those that don't speed to make a delivery. On the surface, similar laws may appear to victimize the people at the bottom, but it instead does something very very important. It's places a firm barrier across which almost all workers will push back from since they are the ones that will be left holding the bag when law enforcement shows up and starts handing out fines. So in the original article, they could create a law that fines the manager some multiple of the amount that every one of those laborers lost. Let's say it is 15 minutes work times 30 employees at $12/hour. That's $90 dollars in lost pay. Now make the fine 10x that value plus court costs and lawyer fees and now every single manager is going to think twice before willingly victimizing these temp workers, and will question their bosses when asked to do things like this. Laws that make illegal these unethical actions with very real victims would empower workers to stand up for their rights better than anything else. No one would ever have to stick his or her neck out, they can just call the cops anonymously and tip them off to unethical business practices. The enforcement of violations would be handled right there on the spot without ever involving the legal department of the corporation responsible for the abuse.
  - MediaSquirrel 13y ago
    Not so! I used to drive a 911 ambulance. We we're told to drive safe and not break various rules, but were punished when we didn't arrive in the allotted timeframe of 9min. The punishment was that workers on 24-hour shifts (who normally had a house to sleep in) were forced to post on street corners and not allowed into their quarters. This made the shift miserable and the lack of sleep was a real safety problem.
    - malandrew 13y ago
      Ok, however I would imagine that ambulance driver's are in a class very different than most other types of drivers (take out food, FedEx/UPS, taxi, limo, etc.)

cynicalkane 13y ago

The power of labor unions for low-paid workers is not as strong as you think. Where I went to school (U Chicago), there was a very active mostly student-organized university workers' labor union, but workplace violations were still routine. The power to strike is no help when you depend on your paycheck to survive, and the union's legal clout was no help when the laws were hard to enforce and deep-pocketed employers were your adversary. If you look around at lower-class unions, you see a broad pattern of ineffectiveness. For example farm workers have the UFW but being a farm worker remains one of the most intensely miserable jobs in the US, with constant rule-breaking by the employers, and a lot of unrepresented workers. We already have a nearly flawless way to increase the welfare of low-paid workers, and that is to redistribute wealth to them through things like the negative income tax. Having enough money to live is the best negotiating position, union or no union. (For example, I think this is why middle-class unions have been so much more effective than lower-class ones.)

Amadou 13y ago
The power to strike is no help when you depend on your paycheck to survive Well managed unions maintain a strike fund so that their members can survive the economic hardship of a strike. After googling a little I think you are talking about Graduate Students United - their dues are only $5/year, which means they aren't even in the same league as the serious blue collar labor unions. http://uchicagogsu.org/faq/ http://uchicagogsu.org/faq/
- cynicalkane 13y ago
  Actually I was talking about the organization that represents low-paid university workers, like janitors and cafeteria workers. I reworded my post to clarify. Graduate students are a whole 'nother basket of beans.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    farm workers have the UFW but being a farm worker remains one of the most intensely miserable jobs in the US, with constant rule-breaking by the employers, and a lot of unrepresented workers. I don't think it is fair to blame the large number of unrepresented workers on the union itself. I'm sure the UFW wants to increase their membership past the paltry ~5,000 it has.
- icelancer 13y ago
  >Well managed unions maintain a strike fund so that their members can survive the economic hardship of a strike. Recent grocery store workers voted to strike and the pay was going to be $100/week for picketing 15-20 hours a week. Great.
earnestfeedback 13y ago
Whoa- there's no need for you to have name dropped U Chicago. We could have parsed your post just fine without knowing that you attended the world's most elite university.
vinceguidry 13y ago
In these situations, the main weapon is knowledge. If the law says you have to give people X number of minutes as break, a union rep's job could be to collect records of when that rule was broken. Then you can hold that knowledge over the head of the employers, who often rely on information asymmetry to get away with shit. It's not ideal, and certainly no UAW, but it's much better than unchecked abuses. You can use funds to buy appropriate equipment like gloves for workers and for their replacement when they fall apart.
raganwald 13y ago
> The power of labor unions for low-paid workers is not as strong as you think. It's exactly as strong as I think. I just think that all the alternative ways to protect them are even weaker.
malandrew 13y ago
I honestly don't know why we try to go after executives at all. It's proven ineffective since you can never mount enough evidence to get a real case and the fines are just seen as a cost of doing business for the company. Instead you need to create labor laws that are enforced in much the same was as moving violations are enforced for driving. For example, if you are hired as a driver for a delivery company, you, the driver, are responsible for speeding or running stop signs and red lights, not your employer. You never here about a manager telling their employers to speed and retaliating against those that don't speed to make a delivery. On the surface, similar laws may appear to victimize the people at the bottom, but it instead does something very very important. It's places a firm barrier across which almost all workers will push back from since they are the ones that will be left holding the bag when law enforcement shows up and starts handing out fines. So in the original article, they could create a law that fines the manager some multiple of the amount that every one of those laborers lost. Let's say it is 15 minutes work times 30 employees at $12/hour. That's $90 dollars in lost pay. Now make the fine 10x that value plus court costs and lawyer fees and now every single manager is going to think twice before willingly victimizing these temp workers, and will question their bosses when asked to do things like this. Laws that make illegal these unethical actions with very real victims would empower workers to stand up for their rights better than anything else. No one would ever have to stick his or her neck out, they can just call the cops anonymously and tip them off to unethical business practices. The enforcement of violations would be handled right there on the spot without ever involving the legal department of the corporation responsible for the abuse.
- MediaSquirrel 13y ago
  Not so! I used to drive a 911 ambulance. We we're told to drive safe and not break various rules, but were punished when we didn't arrive in the allotted timeframe of 9min. The punishment was that workers on 24-hour shifts (who normally had a house to sleep in) were forced to post on street corners and not allowed into their quarters. This made the shift miserable and the lack of sleep was a real safety problem.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Ok, however I would imagine that ambulance driver's are in a class very different than most other types of drivers (take out food, FedEx/UPS, taxi, limo, etc.)