Right to Work Vs. Forced Union

[PokerGuy]

You're not forced to join a Union either.

Yes, you are forced to join a union in certain places. In right to work states you can opt out, in other states you are often forced to join the union in certain lines of work.

 

[PokerGuy]

Same goes for a Job that's a Union Shop, you aren't forced to work there.

There's a difference between requirements to do the job versus requirements imposed by third party leeches like unions. Joining a union is not part of doing a job, it should be an option to those who decide they want to form/join.

 

[PokerGuy]

You are consistent in your blindness. Business owners never engage in politics.

They do, but that's not the question posed by the OP. That, and I'm not forced to fund their political ambitions like you are if you are forced to be in the union.

 

[PokerGuy]

It's much easier to have your way with your employees if you can deal with them one at a time instead of as a group. Unions make managements job harder.

You seem to have this crazy notion that "management" is one entity, while employees are helpless beings. Companies have to compete with other companies for a valuable resource: labor. If another company offers a better package then the employee leaves and goes to work for someone else.

The only time I can see an imbalance is if there's only one major employer in a particular town or area, and the jobs are relatively low skill jobs.

 

[Red Dawn]

There's a difference between requirements to do the job versus requirements imposed by third party leeches like unions. Joining a union is not part of doing a job, it should be an option to those who decide they want to form/join.

It's all up to the Company whether they want to be a Union shop or not. If you don't want to belong to a Union find a different company to work for.

 

[Patranus]

It's all up to the Company whether they want to be a Union shop or not. If you don't want to belong to a Union find a different company to work for.

Incorrect.

You cannot be fired for trying to unionize. If workers unionize, they now gain additional legal rights backed by the full force of the federal government. If 51% vote for a union then 100% of the workers are in the union and you have to fire 100% of those workers not the 51%.

 

[PokerGuy]

It's all up to the Company whether they want to be a Union shop or not. If you don't want to belong to a Union find a different company to work for.

No, it's not up to the company. If the workers want to organize there's not much the company can do other than shut the place down. You could be working at a non-union place, then end up being forced to join a union when other employees decide to unionize.

 

[Darwin333]

Plus they are easier for companies like yours to exploit.

Let me tell you a secret but you gotta promise not to tell anyone because it is a really big secret, ok?

Companies like mine, and damn near every other small/mid sized business, aren't trying to exploit our workers. In fact it is quite the opposite, we treat our workers very well and in return our workers treat us well. Don't get me wrong, I can be a bastard at times but I always go above and beyond for my employees. The bonus structure I have set up for the field hands is one of the best in the industry (as a percentage of profit). Why am I dumb enough to give away my prized profit you ask? It is rather simple, when the guys doing the actual work have a profit motivator besides their normal hourly pay to do a good job guess what usually happens? They do a better job!

I don't think its a coincidence that I also have one of the lowest warranty costs and return rates (to fix something that should have been done properly the first time) in the industry.

I personally don't hire anyone that can not speak English simply because I can't effectively communicate with them. Luckily my company is in a market that is relatively new to the area so my competition hasn't been forcing me to drive costs down.... yet.

Thanks for playing though, btw, what exactly do you consider "exploitation"? In my previous examples the workers went to the employers not the other way around and they are extremely happy with their arrangements. Hell, they aren't even treated like illegals because that would mean the companies "knew", as I see it they are treated no differently than the people they replaced. The only person being exploited is the skilled US worker who no longer has a job due to our inability to do anything about the importing of cheap labor.

 

[Red Dawn]

Let me tell you a secret but you gotta promise not to tell anyone because it is a really big secret, ok?

Companies like mine, and damn near every other small/mid sized business, aren't trying to exploit our workers. In fact it is quite the opposite, we treat our workers very well and in return our workers treat us well. Don't get me wrong, I can be a bastard at times but I always go above and beyond for my employees. The bonus structure I have set up for the field hands is one of the best in the industry (as a percentage of profit). Why am I dumb enough to give away my prized profit you ask? It is rather simple, when the guys doing the actual work have a profit motivator besides their normal hourly pay to do a good job guess what usually happens? They do a better job!

I don't think its a coincidence that I also have one of the lowest warranty costs and return rates (to fix something that should have been done properly the first time) in the industry.

I personally don't hire anyone that can not speak English simply because I can't effectively communicate with them. Luckily my company is in a market that is relatively new to the area so my competition hasn't been forcing me to drive costs down.... yet.

Thanks for playing though, btw, what exactly do you consider "exploitation"? In my previous examples the workers went to the employers not the other way around and they are extremely happy with their arrangements. Hell, they aren't even treated like illegals because that would mean the companies "knew", as I see it they are treated no differently than the people they replaced. The only person being exploited is the skilled US worker who no longer has a job due to our inability to do anything about the importing of cheap labor.

Yeah right and if you fuck over one of those illegals who are they going to complain too?

 

[Darwin333]

Yeah right and if you fuck over one of those illegals who are they going to complain too?

The same people any other employee would.

Amusingly, around here at least, its the "thugs" that are fucking over the illegals not the companies. Illegals generally don't have bank accounts so the thugs prey on illegals on payday because they have a ton of cash on them.

Could you elaborate on the "yeah right" part?

 

[Hacp]

Incorrect.

You cannot be fired for trying to unionize. If workers unionize, they now gain additional legal rights backed by the full force of the federal government. If 51% vote for a union then 100% of the workers are in the union and you have to fire 100% of those workers not the 51%.

I'm pretty sure you can't even do that. You would not be bargaining in good faith and the union can get a judge to fuck you up.

 

[ShawnD1]

Incorrect.

You cannot be fired for trying to unionize.

What? Walmart and McDonalds do this all the time. If you ever talk about forming a union, you're gone. The job is unskilled enough that they can replace someone the same day


Right now I'm working as an entry level electrical engineer for a non-union company, and it's great so far. The pay isn't the best, but the benefits are fantastic. Honest to god, there's no set schedule for the day. It doesn't matter if I get there at 7:30 or at 9:00 as long as I work for 8 hours. Lunch can be as long or short as I want as long at I work 8 hours. I have this whole week off right now. The vacations are really flexible too because there isn't a minimum number of people who need to be working at any given time. There was one week this past summer where at least half of the office was on vacation. The medica/dental/vision/disability/retirement benefits are top notch as well.

 

[Zebo]

Only idiots vote their power away. As a worker you have little power but as a collective you have more leverage to solve the ancient riddle of how product/proceeds of your labor is distributed. If I were a worker, forced union, duh. If I were an investor. Right to work.

 

[ShawnD1]

Only idiots vote their power away. As a worker you have little power but as a collective you have more leverage to solve the ancient riddle of how product/proceeds of your labor is distributed. If I were a worker, forced union, duh. If I were an investor. Right to work.

It's good until your union does something stupid and it causes people to get fired. Remember how unions had the balls of GM and Ford in a death grip? Incredibly high operating costs that drive them to bankruptcy. It also means driving up the cost of vehicles so they can't compete. Cars made by Honda or Toyota were tip top quality for the price because the price reflected the actual product. GM was stuck with pensions to tens of thousands of people who don't even work there and haven't been working for the past 20 years, so the GM product that is the same price as a Honda is actually a significantly worse product because there's all this other shit that needs to be included in the price. Then they lose market share and factories close. Thanks for getting everyone fired!
That oil rig guy in this thread mentioned something about this earlier. If the unions go too far and a company can no longer compete against non-union companies, eventually that union company fails and those union guys all lose their jobs.


Another hilarious event happened at my dad's place of employment. He worked for the phone company which was at one time government owned, so it's all union. A few years ago, they had a "walk out" which is apparently not the same thing as a strike. Lots of people left the job and simply didn't go to work, but a small group kept working since it's not a strike. As a sick irony, the company was running like this for about 6 months and it seemed to be doing just fine. Those 10% of guys who still showed up? Yeah apparently they were doing about 90% of the work. After seeing how disgustingly overstaffed the company was since the walk out didn't seem to affect anything, the higher ups decided to hack and slash the company. Installers? They were all fired. Every single one of them. The phone company now uses contractors for phone and DSL installation.


Something similar happened that relates to my work, but I don't want to give too many details about company names or anything like that. A brief summary is that much of the transportation in Canada was done by one large company, and it is a union company. That company didn't want to deal with unions anymore so it started dealing with contractors. While that company is still huge and still very profitable, all they do now is transportation. Their engineering departments were butchered, and I work for a contract company that does the engineering work for that large company. In fact, most of my coworkers were canned by the big union company and are now doing pretty much the exact same work they were doing before but for a different company and with no union.

 

[Zebo]

Only idiots vote their power away. As a worker you have little power but as a collective you have more leverage to solve the ancient riddle of how product/proceeds of your labor is distributed. If I were a worker, forced union, duh. If I were an investor. Right to work.

Actually I would not even employ Americans at any rate. Which is what Wall Street is choosing. Offshore is 90 cents an hour. Hard to beat that. Plus they work twice as hard and don't complain.

Jobs that can't be outsourced you employ illegal aliens for minimum wage or less like Tyson Chicken. McDonalds and contractors.

That's real free market. Suck it up.

 

[Zebo]

It's good until your union does something stupid and it causes people to get fired. Remember how unions had the balls of GM and Ford in a death grip? Incredibly high operating costs that drive them to bankruptcy. It also means driving up the cost of vehicles so they can't compete. Cars made by Honda or Toyota were tip top quality for the price because the price reflected the actual product. GM was stuck with pensions to tens of thousands of people who don't even work there and haven't been working for the past 20 years, so the GM product that is the same price as a Honda is actually a significantly worse product because there's all this other shit that needs to be included in the price. Then they lose market share and factories close. Thanks for getting everyone fired!
That oil rig guy in this thread mentioned something about this earlier. If the unions go too far and a company can no longer compete against non-union companies, eventually that union company fails and those union guys all lose their jobs.


Another hilarious event happened at my dad's place of employment. He worked for the phone company which was at one time government owned, so it's all union. A few years ago, they had a "walk out" which is apparently not the same thing as a strike. Lots of people left the job and simply didn't go to work, but a small group kept working since it's not a strike. As a sick irony, the company was running like this for about 6 months and it seemed to be doing just fine. Those 10% of guys who still showed up? Yeah apparently they were doing about 90% of the work. After seeing how disgustingly overstaffed the company was since the walk out didn't seem to affect anything, the higher ups decided to hack and slash the company. Installers? They were all fired. Every single one of them. The phone company now uses contractors for phone and DSL installation.


Something similar happened that relates to my work, but I don't want to give too many details about company names or anything like that. A brief summary is that much of the transportation in Canada was done by one large company, and it is a union company. That company didn't want to deal with unions anymore so it started dealing with contractors. While that company is still huge and still very profitable, all they do now is transportation. Their engineering departments were butchered, and I work for a contract company that does the engineering work for that large company. In fact, most of my coworkers were canned by the big union company and are now doing pretty much the exact same work they were doing before but for a different company and with no union.

Only because they are offered alternatives. We have chosen to roast the working person and put them in competition with third world labors in a race to bottom. This "solution" causes us borrow trillions from future taxpayers to fund current consumption and a growing army of unemployed foodstampers with few prospects. This model of maximizing corporate profits to the determent of American workers is as unsustainable as a recalcitrant union.

 

[ShawnD1]

Jobs that can't be outsourced you employ illegal aliens for minimum wage or less like Tyson Chicken. McDonalds and contractors.

That's real free market. Suck it up.

lol. That problem is so uniquely American.

I worked at McDonalds, and it's absolutely true that half of my coworkers were immigrants, but they were all legal immigrants and they were paid legal rates. I asked what the deal was, and apparently McDonalds has this thing where employees from different countries all move around. One of my managers had also worked at McDonalds in the Philippines, Russia, USA (Nevada), and Japan. My other manager was an immigrant from Philippines. The manager who worked a different shift was apparently an exchanged manager from Mexico. The food prep guy nobody liked was from Philippines too, and he worked in a Saudi Mcdonalds before coming to Canada. That guy was interesting because he could speak fluent Arabic with one of the immigrants from Iran. The Iran lady was weird because she wore gloves when cooking bacon but never wore gloves for any other reason.

As for being paid below minimum wage, the guy nobody liked was paid less than minimum wage because his rent was subsidized by McDonalds. That way it counts as a "taxable benefit" and the yearly wage works out to be higher than minimum wage.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

i've said it many times before, f*ck unions.

look at the wonderful things that the UAW has done for Ford, GM and ChryCo.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

It's good until your union does something stupid and it causes people to get fired. Remember how unions had the balls of GM and Ford in a death grip? Incredibly high operating costs that drive them to bankruptcy. It also means driving up the cost of vehicles so they can't compete. Cars made by Honda or Toyota were tip top quality for the price because the price reflected the actual product. GM was stuck with pensions to tens of thousands of people who don't even work there and haven't been working for the past 20 years, so the GM product that is the same price as a Honda is actually a significantly worse product because there's all this other shit that needs to be included in the price. Then they lose market share and factories close. Thanks for getting everyone fired!
That oil rig guy in this thread mentioned something about this earlier. If the unions go too far and a company can no longer compete against non-union companies, eventually that union company fails and those union guys all lose their jobs.


Another hilarious event happened at my dad's place of employment. He worked for the phone company which was at one time government owned, so it's all union. A few years ago, they had a "walk out" which is apparently not the same thing as a strike. Lots of people left the job and simply didn't go to work, but a small group kept working since it's not a strike. As a sick irony, the company was running like this for about 6 months and it seemed to be doing just fine. Those 10% of guys who still showed up? Yeah apparently they were doing about 90% of the work. After seeing how disgustingly overstaffed the company was since the walk out didn't seem to affect anything, the higher ups decided to hack and slash the company. Installers? They were all fired. Every single one of them. The phone company now uses contractors for phone and DSL installation.


Something similar happened that relates to my work, but I don't want to give too many details about company names or anything like that. A brief summary is that much of the transportation in Canada was done by one large company, and it is a union company. That company didn't want to deal with unions anymore so it started dealing with contractors. While that company is still huge and still very profitable, all they do now is transportation. Their engineering departments were butchered, and I work for a contract company that does the engineering work for that large company. In fact, most of my coworkers were canned by the big union company and are now doing pretty much the exact same work they were doing before but for a different company and with no union.

we need more of this.

 

[trenchfoot]

The title of this thread just absolutely cracks me up.

It's like so many other misleading jingo-ism's and slick contrarian language that the repubs have come up with over the years, especially in the way of naming their proposed legislation.

 

[Zebo]

lol. That problem is so uniquely American.

I worked at McDonalds, and it's absolutely true that half of my coworkers were immigrants, but they were all legal immigrants and they were paid legal rates. I asked what the deal was, and apparently McDonalds has this thing where employees from different countries all move around. One of my managers had also worked at McDonalds in the Philippines, Russia, USA (Nevada), and Japan. My other manager was an immigrant from Philippines. The manager who worked a different shift was apparently an exchanged manager from Mexico. The food prep guy nobody liked was from Philippines too, and he worked in a Saudi Mcdonalds before coming to Canada. That guy was interesting because he could speak fluent Arabic with one of the immigrants from Iran. The Iran lady was weird because she wore gloves when cooking bacon but never wore gloves for any other reason.

As for being paid below minimum wage, the guy nobody liked was paid less than minimum wage because his rent was subsidized by McDonalds. That way it counts as a "taxable benefit" and the yearly wage works out to be higher than minimum wage.

Way it works here is you have employee fill-out an i9 form which he presents a valid looking social security card and identification like drivers license. About 9 months later IRS sends you a letter telling your employee may have a duplicate, no match or wrong number. usually you lay them off but I know some guys who rehire them with different ID. Think about it. You can justifiably get rid of bad and keep the good. +1. Real corps like Mcdonalds franchisees don't pay under min wage but smaller employees do. It's trivial to hire illegal labor since documents are easy to obtain.

Muslims are not allowed to touch pork is why she wore gloves..Technically it's illegal to even serve it with hard core Muslims like in Saudi you will not find pork.

 

[nobodyknows]

You seem to have this crazy notion that "management" is one entity, while employees are helpless beings. Companies have to compete with other companies for a valuable resource: labor. If another company offers a better package then the employee leaves and goes to work for someone else.

The only time I can see an imbalance is if there's only one major employer in a particular town or area, and the jobs are relatively low skill jobs.

To me it doesn't matter how much skill a job requires. Regardless of their skill level, people need to make enough money to afford food, clothes, decent health care, an occasional vacation, and have some left over to supplement for their Social Security. That is why unions are still needed and why they will always be needed. I'm suddenley reminded of the Mobil/Exxon CEO who was making $70 million/yr but needed a $400 mill retirement package.

 

[ShawnD1]

To me it doesn't matter how much skill a job requires. Regardless of their skill level, people need to make enough money to afford food, clothes, decent health care, an occasional vacation, and have some left over to supplement for their Social Security. That is why unions are still needed and why they will always be needed. I'm suddenley reminded of the Mobil/Exxon CEO who was making $70 million/yr but needed a $400 mill retirement package.

Yeah but raising the wages for everyone increases the cost of goods and services for everyone. People making 70 million will still be super rich compared to everyone else.

 

[skyking]

The business owner can run a non union shop if he wants. If he wants to use Union Labor then he has to deal with their terms.

That is patently false.

you have no idea what you are talking about, and you prove it yet again. I live in Washington, work in the trades and have worked both non-union and union on jobs. There are non-union shops in my trade that are very successful at staying non-union.

 

[pcgeek11]

I think it is wrong to have to pay to work. No one should be forced to pay union dues. If some people want to join a union and others do not fine, let them, but they should all get the same benefits and pay for the same job.

I have found that a union will protect workers that really should be fired, just because they are in the union. That being said in a right to work state the company can also fire a worker just because they want to for no reason at all.

I'm sure they all have some positives and negatives. In just my opinion I would rather have a right to work state than a union state. I feel that the union brings a lot more negatives to the table. Such as the fat cat union bosses, excessive union dues, forced walk outs and strikes even if you don't want to.

I am able to make my own decisions. I prefer to keep it that way.