DLW - Unions and the like

[Timothy Leary]

DLW,

Lately I've been trying to think of an area of politics that we might find a common goal, and today I think that area might be in worker's unions. I am usually supportive of unions, in that their goals are to create better working conditions by negotiating directly with corporations on behalf of the workers.

I really wish there were some unions where I live, but as far as I know there are not. At my company, we (the managers) have been fighting for higher wages for our employees (and ourselves) for a few months, and we have (*finally*) been promised a raise for everyone coming soon.

Well, anyways what I meant to ask you is - Do you have any experience with unions? Which unions do you like, and why do you like them?

[dizzle]

I will be interested in reading this. I have some bad views of unions in the cases where the unions get corrupted and exploit the workers worse than the employers were!

[Ryokan]

My idea of good unions= No corruption, no incompetance, primarilly operate where employers have some sort of control over the labor markets.
Bad unions= Corrupt, incompetant, screw with healthy labor markets.

[Rubia Warren]

A union is only as good as its representation and the community that will stand behind them during negotiations/strikes, generally (that's from a little guy's perspective).

I was a UAW member for years, a 3rd generation worker at a company. I remember when I was a kid, the union at a local level was strong, they did....not...puh-lay. My grandpa would be on strike and the community would stop by and give them homemade food, even picket with them, even go so far as to physically keep out scabs. It makes it all the better when the local community will unite behind unions and shun scabs everywhere.

Most importantly are local reps, who can literally make or break a union. By the time I was old enough to work there, they'd all turned fat, lazy, and petty. They spent more time falling for the corporation's union busting tricks by diving us from within, turning us against each other., And with local reps who were geting ready to retire and frankly didn't have that spark in them anymore, they got us to take way more crap than we should have, left us with more unanswered questions (regarding shipping our jobs overseas) than what should have been for the 4 years leading up to the company's departure.

On a national level, the UAW in particular stands for things that you don't, hobbit. They are pushing for national health care, open borders, no SS privatisation, etc. They are incredibly desperate for the political power they once had and are trying to reach out to workers & the public with these messages.

My favorite union model is the one that trade unions often use. I think they are more fair to the workers and the employers. It is where the workers are employed by the union--- they are their own bosses. Union is presonsible for their training/education, all their pay & benefits. So basically, the workers run themselves. The contractos have the right to send guys back and request other workers in their places if there is a problem, and are always guaranteed an efficient, well educated, accountable workforce without having to lord over them. This is how early labor organizers wanted unions to be, and one of the models that made labor unions so great, such a good idea for all involved.

The bad thing about working for one like I did is that the company was my employer. It'd have been better if all musical instrument manufacturers would have been unionized in my area and the union would have had apprenticeship programs, as these were not low-skilled factory jobs, they were a craft. They could have, decades ago, had the old-timers training up apprentices thru the union and the manufacturers in my area (which were MANY back then-- the musical instrument capital of the world) could have had contracts with them. Being an employee of the company, and having good times for so long, led to the union becoming very lazy, and unaccountable for itself. It got to the point where we threw fits against the company about other workers, using the company as a mediator! Whereas in the trade unions model, this type of stuff wouldn't happen. The union, which is supposed to be a body of united workers who takes care of itself, could have solved conflicts internally by keeping each other in check, remaining completely self-sufficient. In this way, they could have remained powerful and accountable to one another at a local level and remained strong, better keeping corruption in check. We definitely should have had control over training and education-- that is one big key right there. If you are interested I will tell you why.
The UA is what my stepdad belongs to. His is the union that I particularly like. But due to globalisation (including immigration) they have lost a lot of community support and have not been immune to corruption, either (we are all people here,remember). A few years ago, someone at a national level mismanaged the pension funds and their pensions are now cut in order to make up the difference. But because of its model, I think the corruption is caught quicker and nipped in the bud a lot better than ours would have been, or, say, autoworkers (same union model).

[Ryokan]

A union is only as good as its representation and the community that will stand behind them during negotiations/strikes, generally (that's from a little guy's perspective).

I was a UAW member for years, a 3rd generation worker at a company. I remember when I was a kid, the union at a local level was strong, they did....not...puh-lay. My grandpa would be on strike and the community would stop by and give them homemade food, even picket with them, even go so far as to physically keep out scabs. It makes it all the better when the local community will unite behind unions and shun scabs everywhere.

Most importantly are local reps, who can literally make or break a union. By the time I was old enough to work there, they'd all turned fat, lazy, and petty. They spent more time falling for the corporation's union busting tricks by diving us from within, turning us against each other., And with local reps who were geting ready to retire and frankly didn't have that spark in them anymore, they got us to take way more crap than we should have, left us with more unanswered questions (regarding shipping our jobs overseas) than what should have been for the 4 years leading up to the company's departure.

On a national level, the UAW in particular stands for things that you don't, hobbit. They are pushing for national health care, open borders, no SS privatisation, etc. They are incredibly desperate for the political power they once had and are trying to reach out to workers & the public with these messages.

My favorite union model is the one that trade unions often use. I think they are more fair to the workers and the employers. It is where the workers are employed by the union--- they are their own bosses. Union is presonsible for their training/education, all their pay & benefits. So basically, the workers run themselves. The contractos have the right to send guys back and request other workers in their places if there is a problem, and are always guaranteed an efficient, well educated, accountable workforce without having to lord over them. This is how early labor organizers wanted unions to be, and one of the models that made labor unions so great, such a good idea for all involved.

The bad thing about working for one like I did is that the company was my employer. It'd have been better if all musical instrument manufacturers would have been unionized in my area and the union would have had apprenticeship programs, as these were not low-skilled factory jobs, they were a craft. They could have, decades ago, had the old-timers training up apprentices thru the union and the manufacturers in my area (which were MANY back then-- the musical instrument capital of the world) could have had contracts with them. Being an employee of the company, and having good times for so long, led to the union becoming very lazy, and unaccountable for itself. It got to the point where we threw fits against the company about other workers, using the company as a mediator! Whereas in the trade unions model, this type of stuff wouldn't happen. The union, which is supposed to be a body of united workers who takes care of itself, could have solved conflicts internally by keeping each other in check, remaining completely self-sufficient. In this way, they could have remained powerful and accountable to one another at a local level and remained strong, better keeping corruption in check. We definitely should have had control over training and education-- that is one big key right there. If you are interested I will tell you why.
The UA is what my stepdad belongs to. His is the union that I particularly like. But due to globalisation (including immigration) they have lost a lot of community support and have not been immune to corruption, either (we are all people here,remember). A few years ago, someone at a national level mismanaged the pension funds and their pensions are now cut in order to make up the difference. But because of its model, I think the corruption is caught quicker and nipped in the bud a lot better than ours would have been, or, say, autoworkers (same union model).
I mostly agree Roobz, though I think the trade union model works best with people who have actual trades, not just say service employees in general. One of the union strengths is it can guarantee a certain level of skill to justify the higher price.

[Da Lone-Warrior]

I have personal experience with my participation in the establishment of a graduate employee union at Michigan State University. I was a volunteer organizer. I did this both because of the situation of many graduate employees at MSU and because I saw it as an opportunity to form relationships with others that would allow me ultimately to share about my faith with them.

We succeeded(though if I had not been helping them so much as I was, they probably wouldn't have succeeded.) and I did get the chance to form relationships with people that I never would have been able to do so otherwise.

This also gave me the opp to dialogue some with gay-rights activists and it helped me become aware that my own position was quite different from there position.

And so, I'm quite in favor of the socialization of the academie, inasmuch as it allows more participation by professors/grad students, voice for students in the decision-making of what is taught and what sorts of research are done.

Big Money has had an increasing influence on the Academy in these past thirty some years and it has impacted academic freedom, drying up research funding for areas that are not so immediately profitable. It also has led for many grad students to be exploited as teachers, leading for them to take too long to get their degree and then be unable to get decent employment afterwards.

I don't have a lot of experience with the union outside of the academy. I did teach a course on Labor Relations and Labor Market policies. Unions ideally shd keep communication between workers and management. In Europe, they generally helped advance a larger set of reform issues, whereas in the US they have generally been very self-centered. Corruption is possible for any human institution. If owners are able to have collective action supposedly in their interests in the form of the corporate management then workers shd be able to have collective action in the form of unions.

Although, I think unions are more appropriate for medium to larger businesses that tend to employ workers for extended time periods.

dlw

[Timothy Leary]

I will be interested in reading this. I have some bad views of unions in the cases where the unions get corrupted and exploit the workers worse than the employers were!

I have some reservations about certain unions. The only union that I was ever involved was the union that controls the Albertsons workers in California, and you were forced to join the union (or lose your job), and the union's thug methods against Albertsons had improved some of the working conditions, but ended up actually *lowering* the wages that everyone recieved.

I'm hoping that most unions are better than that union.

[Da Lone-Warrior]

I have some reservations about certain unions. The only union that I was ever involved was the union that controls the Albertsons workers in California, and you were forced to join the union (or lose your job), and the union's thug methods against Albertsons had improved some of the working conditions, but ended up actually *lowering* the wages that everyone recieved.

I'm hoping that most unions are better than that union.

I'd need to know more of the facts of the situation. I presume benefits improved and that the lowering of the wages was after the dues?

It is true that unions tend to cause wage compression so that the wage dispersion in a firm is less than it otherwise would be, but they also tend to cause more dispersion in decision-making, as well...

dlw