UNIONS: Good, Bad... which and why?

[Divinus Arma]

I have the benefit of approaching this issue from the perspective of a union employee and an MBA. I understand the rights and motivations of both shareholders and stakeholders.


What is your perspective?

[Yoyoma1910]

What is your perspective?

That you like to see people fight, by giving them two extremes and no compromise.

[Strike For The South]

Generally Bad because they eventually become as bad as the men at the top. Not to mention the mafia like tactics used to keep members in line. As rule an employer should treat his employees with respect and pay them a wage tied into there skills. While I understand this doesnt always happen I find unions to be a worse option.

[Divinus Arma]

That you like to see people fight, by giving them two extremes and no compromise.

Please do not troll.

Banquo's Ghost delete this and his post and allow this thread to enjoy a fresh start. Thank you.

[Divinus Arma]

Generally Bad because they eventually become as bad as the men at the top. Not to mention the mafia like tactics used to keep members in line. As rule an employer should treat his employees with respect and pay them a wage tied into there skills. While I understand this doesnt always happen I find unions to be a worse option.

Respectfully, where did you get this information?

I am a member of a powerful union and our board is approachable and honest. They are regular employees and anybody can run for their position. I have met several of them while they ran for office and just while working. They do their duties uncompensated and are easily replaced should they act with dishonor.

[Strike For The South]

Respectfully, where did you get this information?

I am a member of a powerful union and our board is approachable and honest. They are regular employees and anybody can run for their position. I have met several of them while they ran for office and just while working. They do their duties uncompensated and are easily replaced should they act with dishonor.

I speak from doing some reading when I have time to and some stories from family, so not very good. I will cede you know more than me however I would also like to point out that you are in a firefighter union right? That is a little different than a union for a private company.

Teachers policeman and firefighters are little different than the autoworker or Wal-Mart butcher who didn't get and education and thought he would have a comfy factory job the rest of his life

I could be way off here but I come here to learn so enlighten me.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I wish they were more good than bad, but these days they are more bad than good. Maybe if things get crappy again they will serve a purpose.

[Yoyoma1910]

I've been a union employee in California, and I am from the state of Louisiana, which is a "right to work state." I believe that in some instances unions can be exceptionally beneficial, insure a reasonable wage, as well as standards that produce skilled workers and a quality work environment. But also, in other situations they can cripple an industry, and do quite the opposite of what they should.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I've been a union employee in California, and I am from the state of Louisiana, which is a "right to work state." I believe that in some instances unions can be exceptionally beneficial, insure a reasonable wage, as well as standards that produce skilled workers and a quality work environment. But also, in other situations they can cripple an industry, and do quite the opposite of what they should.

I would more or less agree with this, though I'm not entirely sure to what level they can cripple an industry and am unwilling to blame all of the auto-industry's woes on unions as they've been making horrible management level decisions for years now. To be clear I don't pretend to know your opinion on that Yoyoma. That was just my exhausted rambling.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

They can be good or bad, just like companies can be good or bad. I see it as a system of checks and balances.

[Yoyoma1910]

I would more or less agree with this, though I'm not entirely sure to what level they can cripple an industry and am unwilling to blame all of the auto-industry's woes on unions as they've been making horrible management level decisions for years now. To be clear I don't pretend to know your opinion on that Yoyoma. That was just my exhausted rambling.

The American auto industry is a mess all its own. Its blame lies in all involved in the industry, and their unwillingness to adjust to growing international competition and markets.

[Divinus Arma]

I speak from doing some reading when I have time to and some stories from family, so not very good. I will cede you know more than me however I would also like to point out that you are in a firefighter union right? That is a little different than a union for a private company.

Teachers policeman and firefighters are little different than the autoworker or Wal-Mart butcher who didn't get and education and thought he would have a comfy factory job the rest of his life

I could be way off here but I come here to learn so enlighten me.

I respect your humility and integrity.

I haven't worked in a private union, but I have two friends who came from electricians unions. They spoke very highly of their experience and had no complaint. Formerly being a hard core Republican, I had my reservations. I will absolutely admit I was wrong about unions. They are essential to protecting workers from the power of management.

Unions are the only way for the workers to have a one-to-one exchange between managers and employees. Think about it from a manager's perspective: Your one and only duty, for which you are paid in bonuses if you are sucecssful, is to maximize shareholder wealth. Labor is a cost and every penny given to labor is a penny not given to the shareholder, the owner of the company and the grantor of your bonus. Whether that penny goes to pensions, health care, or salary matters not. It is a cost that must be reduced. With that said, not all labor is equal. While as a manager, I want to pay as little as possible, I understand that skills are an input to my business and I am a consumer of labor skills. Just as the consumer seeks value in products, so to does management want the most bang for his buck from labor inputs. Skills of value will be in shorter supply, and thus be more expensive. The impetus to reward strictly on merit is perfectly understandable.

This basic management perspective ignores two points: (1) The ethics of objectifying labor, and (2) the potential for forced intrapreneurialism.


Arguing point #2 is something that requires objective data to substantiate and I will not bother with that here.

Arguing point #1 is a little easier to chew on and digest. Objectifying labor is a managerial sin that fails to recognize the human toll of decision making. EDIT: Now look at it from a worker standpoint. You are 22 years old and just got out of the Army. You aren't quite sharp enough for college, and not ever really better than mediocre in school with low SATs. But you are good with your hands and you love working with machinery. You find a training school for heavy machinery and use your GI Bill to get through. Once finished, you find employment with a construction company, working a bulldozer. Thanks to your union, you make decent enough money to pay rent, buy a car, and be comfortable for your age. You look forward to staying with the company because you know you will get a small pension when you retire, you have fun driving your bulldozer in the bright blue sky outdoors, and you have good health insurance. You also know that you will get regular raises and that you can eventually buy a house and support a family. Life is pretty good. The union preserves living wages, healthcare, and a secure retirement. You can do your job and enjoy it because you don't have to stress out about cost-cutting layoffs or unfair treatment from a disrespectful arrogant boss.

[naut]

I have no idea about real Unions, so I can't really comment. There was a lot of hankering here about Unions and "work-choices" in the last election. Pretty funny though that now the government is going back on its promises to the Unions. And I actually never understood why the Unions complained so much, having read up on workchoices they weren't actually bad at all.

Student University Unions are rubbish though. Anything that costs me $200-$250 a year for no benefits or return is a waste, of, time. I'm just glad that it'll take a while for the legislation to make them compulsory again to pass.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I voted generally bad, though there's some cases where they do good.

In general, I say they are a temporary solution to a permanent problem. The vast majority of problems happened at the first part of last century.

I've certainly worked my share of crap jobs - on a berry farm with a bunch of migrant workers, making minimum wage in 80+ hour weeks with no overtime, and I've also worked as a laborer in a industrial painting company that used to be unionized and then became un-unionized.

And I still generally am against unions. They limit flexibility in business, by making job descriptions very strict, among a thousand other things. The more powerful the union, the worse it generally is.

I've worked in a large non-union refinery and from all that I hear the experience, for all employees, and especially the relationship between hourly and salaried types, is much better than in unionized refineries under the same company.

Unions are a symptom of poor management or aggressive unionizing attempts by faltering unions (the UAW is trying to unionize the graduate students and assorted folks at my university), so it seems better to me that you solve the underlying problem instead of boasting about a powerful union. It's like thinking that taking strong antibiotics is better than not having a disease in the first place.

CR

[Strike For The South]

Long post that makes me think

I can see what your saying and I guess you're right. In my ideal wrold common sense and dencency would rule over the willingness to make a buck but it doesn't seem that is so. I also agree that many good companies have unions and still remain in the black.

I'm going to have to mull this one over.

[Xiahou]

Thanks to your union, you make decent enough money to pay rent, buy a car, and be comfortable for your age. You look forward to staying with the company because you know you will get a small pension when you retire, you have fun driving your bulldozer in the bright blue sky outdoors, and you have good health insurance. You also know that you will get regular raises and that you can eventually buy a house and support a family. Life is pretty good. The union preserves living wages, healthcare, and a secure retirement. You can do your job and enjoy it because you don't have to stress out about cost-cutting layoffs or unfair treatment from a disrespectful arrogant boss.

None of this can happen without a union?

And I still generally am against unions. They limit flexibility in business, by making job descriptions very strict, among a thousand other things. The more powerful the union, the worse it generally is.

Don't forget how they can discourage exceptionalism. When your pay is determined solely by how long you've been around, there isn't much incentive to bother providing anything than the bare minimum. Such standards hurt the employer and also hurt the employees who are more talented or hard working than their peers. Unions are generally setup to discourage individual excellence and initiative.

[JR-]

generally bad in that they were a tool for the Soviet Union. along with the Co-op bank.

[Andres]

Just some random thoughts.

Instead of having a conflict situation of company vs. employee, why not put them into a different construction?

In these days of recession, I, among many I assume, have been reflecting on several phenomena in our capital oriented societies and I think we should dare to question everything, even those things we have always taken for granted and un-changeable (sp?) thus far.

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea that a company is, in the end, owned by the accidental owners of some pieces of paper, the shareholders.

A company is a symbiosis of money and labor.

When a company starts, you need an input of money, but you also need work force.

The one who brings the money, gets the shares and owns the company and will get the profits made by the company. The one who works gets a salary, but no ownership, allthough his input is as crucial as the input of the guy with money. Can't have a company with money alone, can't have a company with labor alone, yet from the very start there is this discrepancy between the guy who brings in money and the guy who brings in labor.

But over the years, it is the people who actually work in that company that generate income and, once the initial investments are paid of, profit. At a certain point of time, it just feels plain wrong that the one who holds the shares that once belonged to a guy who put in a small amount of money (small in comparison to the income/profits made by the company over the years thanks to the hard work of the employees), owns the company (i.e. "the money" owns the company) and the years of hard work don't give ownership in the company (i.e. "the labor" doesn't get any ownership whatsoever) (unless they buy shares on the stockmarket or the benevolent board of directors decides to reward an employee with stock options etc., but that's not my point. The point is that ownership of the company should be inherent on working in that company, as in : you work for company A = you own a piece of company A).

It feels even worse when a company makes profits during e.g. 10 years and then, when it goes bad for one year, those who have worked their butts off, are the ones to lose their jobs, while the guy who had the piece of paper in the previouos 10 years ran away with most, if not all, the profits of the company. Sure, his piece of paper loses value, but he also had all the profits, and, unless the company goes bankrupt, if he keeps it, he'll get profits again when the company is back on its' feet.).

I know there are some flaws in the previous paragraphs, and it's more a feeling then rational thinking, but it just feels wrong somehow.

Why not giving the employees ownership of the company by attributing 25 or even 50 % of the shares to the pool of employees? Not as an individual right to each employee as in, each employee gets x shares in the company and even when he leaves the company, he holds those shares, but more as a permanent property right to the group of employees at any given time. Make abstraction of the individual employee, they come and go, but consider the employees an entity that always holds a certain percentage of the property rights in the company. A percentage that isn't for sale but will always belong to the group of employees and which gives them the right to vote on the meeting of shareholders. They can vote among themselves to decide how they will vote in a shareholder meeting or what points they'll put on the agenda.

Make the employees a group of shareholders in the company with actual decision power. Instead of the conflict model that is inherent on Unions vs. Employer, employees and employer would both, together, be running the company. Well, not running it, you have a board of directors for that, but both employees and (the other) shareholders will have the power to have the last say in the company. A form of obligatory employee ownership as an alternative for unions.

I hope this isn't too much OT, because this probably belongs more in a topic about corporate governance then about unions. My problem with unions is that it starts from a conflict model. Employees need protection, but imho (partial) employee ownership is a much better alternative.


Am I a communist now?

[CountArach]

You are missing "The worker's best friend in the workplace" option.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Collective bargaining for wages, benefits, worker training, work place safety, seniority rights, health care coverage, etc... is what made the middle class. Would non-union shops today provide anything more than the barest minimum to labor without the past and present collective voice of labor unions? I doubt that very much.

Is management free from office politics, fair,ethical, non-vindictive, and objective in determining job positions, promotions, raises, downsizing etc...? Not unless human nature has changed recently.

Unions aren't perfect, but then neither is management.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Div'

It's difficult to answer your "forced choice" question -- so much begs qualification and exception. I chose generally bad, but there is more to it than that, as I know you intended.


First -- Background

During my career as an academic, I specialized in organizational conflict management and have done (and published) studies relating to strikes and management/labor disputes -- Notably Caterpillar Tractor and Newport News Shipbuilding. In the process, I interviewed dozens of management and labor leaders at a number of levels. I have family who were virulent unionists (one cousin even working as an organizer) and my father resigned from PATCO 6 months before the strike and stayed on the job.

Second -- Perspective

Your frame of reference, at the outset of this thread, as well as that of a majority of posters so far, is that of the US workplace. We should all be well aware that unions and unionism functions QUITE differently in other countries -- notably Japan and in W. Europe -- and that the adversarial character that so dominates the US Labor-managment landscape is fairly different in other regions.

Third -- Early Unions in the USA

The relatively unregulated capitalism of the 1870-1917 era was, all too often, a time when "management" did regard "labor" as nothing but a cost to be minimized and/or functionally enslaved (see company town). Organizing unions was perhaps the ONLY way workers could defend themselves from management excesses. This was, logically, opposed by management. The era was characterized by violence as both "sides" fought for their agendas.

There was, moreover, infighting between "craft" unionism as advocated by the AFL and pan-industry unionism as advocated by the Wobblies. One important source of differentiation between US and other Union experiences is that the craft unionist won (in part because the IWW peaked in the early 20s, shortly after our troops returned from fighting Russian communists and during a time when government was willing to repress any communist organization). The suppression of the IWW is important because European unionism is much closer to the IWW ideal "one big union" than is the American approach. Most if not all W European nations have a "Labor Party" and the ideal of "all workers united as one" was much more closely followed in Europe than in the USA.

Nevertheless, this early era saw the reduction of the workday to more bearable levels, the beginning of workplace safety practices, and the inception of retirement pensions and the like. Unions and unionism played a role in bringing all of these changes about. Effectively, the union was the tool by which labor brought "market" forces to bear in order to garner an appropriate share of the profits.

Labor Unions were gradually protected by laws and regulations, culminating in the Wagner act of 1935. Union power reached its peak following the passage of this act, and unions remained a particularly powerful force, often generating substantial economic gains for their members throughout the post World War II era (1946 through c. 1970).

Fourth -- A Failure to change with the times

I'll take a break and get back to edit this in.

[rory_20_uk]

Collective bargaining for wages, benefits, worker training, work place safety, seniority rights, health care coverage, etc... is what made the middle class. Would non-union shops today provide anything more than the barest minimum to labor without the past and present collective voice of labor unions? I doubt that very much.

Is management free from office politics, fair,ethical, non-vindictive, and objective in determining job positions, promotions, raises, downsizing etc...? Not unless human nature has changed recently.

Unions aren't perfect, but then neither is management.

Pretty much what I was going to say, but better worded.

[Yoyoma1910]

Anyway, if you want an example of a nation with very strong unions, simply look to France. It is one of the last great labor powers, especially before Sarkozy.

[LittleGrizzly]

generally bad in that they were a tool for the Soviet Union. along with the Co-op bank.

Well theres two good things i didn't know the soviet union did... if they really were essential in the forming and running of the unions then im glad that they did it, by doing so they improved the lives of millions in the western world and by advancing our middle classes helped defeat themselves!

In the past unions were essential, lots of things workers take for granted had to be fought for, if the fat cats had thier way back then and the unions were defeated we would still be dying and getting worked to death for a pittance, and society as a whole would be far worse off...

They are not as important now as they were in past times but there are still fat cats willing to walk all over thier workforce in the search of profit and still fat cats who would like nothing better than to slowly turn the clock back on workers rights, we need unions to defend the rights our forefathers worked so hard to earn us!

[Meneldil]

France certainly doesn't have strong unions, at least in the private sector.

We indeed have very vocal unions in the public sector (administration, public services), that can basically stop the country when something they dislike happens. They are basically the reason why teachers, railroad workers, judges and all are always on strike.
Let me say that I don't think this is how unions should work. They should promote dialogue and not simply decide to block the country whenever they want to. On the other hand, french governments most of the time aren't really interested in discussion and rather try to pass their laws and reforms without any talk.

But outside of that, in the private sector (where unions are the most needed, by far), there's basically no or little unions left since the 90's and the downfall of the communist party.
If you want to see a country with strong and representative unions, you should rather look at Norway, Sweden or even Germany.

[Yoyoma1910]

The economic and social policies are reflective of a nation with strong labor. One example, the 35 hour work week.

[LittleGrizzly]

Well from what i hear of the 35 hour working week is not nessecarily all about employee's

because of the less hours worked the worker is more productive during the hours he is there

an extra job for every 7 people cutting down from a 40 hour week

[rory_20_uk]

Generalisation.

The employees are also becoming less skilled, require more people to swop shifts meaning more handovers and less efficiency. Many might also require more money than they can earn in the 35 hours.

Some might be efficient for 40 or more hours; a blanket ruling on all is hardly the most efficient way to manage the system.

[Mangudai]

Employee stock options are useful, they help align everyone's interest.

Unions can be beneficial or harmful. I oppose Unions in industries like carpentry because there are (were) so many employers and owners that market mechanisms could satisfy everyone's demand. Union carpenters are just lazy protectionists.

[LittleGrizzly]

Generalisation.

I was more trying to make the argument that a 35 hour working week isn't nessecarily down to labour demands because there are various different reasons different groups may want it, i realise a 35 hour working work has downsides as well...