It's about time the US had some 'union tyranny'

[dreamdancer 0]

unions are cool...

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Last week the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in Congress – in the Senate by none other than Ted Kennedy, in what might be a last roar of the ailing liberal lion. But what a roar it would be if the bill went through. You might think it is a matter of simple justice. But for employers, it signifies the advent of socialism or worse.

Strip away the propaganda, though, and what's at stake is clear. The measure finally levels a playing field that has been tilted against organised labour ever since the Founding Fathers – or at least since a Philadelphia judge ruled in 1806 that an attempt by a group of shoemakers to secure a wage increase was an "illegal criminal conspiracy". Abraham Lincoln, who extolled the moral superiority of labour over capital, might have been a supporter of unions – but most often the movement struggled against the overwhelming power of the bosses.

The story of Jay Gould, financier, railroad magnate and archetypal "robber baron", sums up an era. In 1886, Gould was confronted by the so-called Great SouthWest Railroad Strike. Was he worried? someone asked. Not at all, Gould is said to have replied: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." Predictably, the strike failed.

More than a century later, employers still practise intimidation, albeit of a subtler variety.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-its-about-time-the-us-had-some-union-tyranny-1645372.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
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[Andrewwhyte 1]

My God what a pile of drivel!

[JohnRich 4]

Isn't "union tyranny" why the U.S. automakers are going out of business?

[Beachbum 0]

I have to preface my thoughts with this ... I think unions were a very good and necessary idea when they started, and served a purpose .... UNTIL they got out of hand and became a hinderance.

ASbout the bill - I don't see it as progress to remove a worker's ability to a private vote about unions. Giving unions more of an iron fist over workers at this point can't be a good thing!

And JR ... I agree that unions have had a large impact on the US auto industry, but also at fault is their management's reluctance to abandon their gas guzzler lines in favor of smaller more efficient models.

As long as you are happy with yourself ... who cares what the rest of the world thinks?

[Thanatos340 1]

Fuck Unions. They completely take away the power of the INDIVIDUAL.

If I can do a job better and more reliably than someone else, I deserve to be paid more for that work. Union do nothing but keep the dead weight occupied and make things harder on those of us that take pride in our work.

If I dont think an employer is pay me what I am worth, I am free to go elsewhere and find a better job. That is the way I like it.

I have worked for over 25 years in manufacturing plants, Both Union and non-union. I would NEVER take a another job in a union Plant. Too damn hard to fire the incompetent and the rest of us have to carry their dead weight. I got so sick of "grievances" being filed over trivial petty bullshit (All that adds to over head) and forces management to either offshore or go out of business.

[lawrocket 3]

The playing field has been tilted against unions.

Okay. I know that. I also know that:

Democrats have been union-busters.

And the mob has never been involved with unions either - there's no money in running a union.

The Sherman Antitrust Act was specifically created to ensure that employees could not form anticompetitive monopolies.

Indeed - it's been so bad that workers everywhere need only opt out and are always afforded personal autonomy.

Unions have always put themselves ahead of their members and have never taken a dime from the pockets of its dues-charitably-donating members.

All of the above statements are equally true.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 2,998]

>It's about time the US had some 'union tyranny'

We have it already. The UAW is about to destroy GM. They've got their tyranny.

[kelpdiver 2]

I'm not nearly so worried about the effect on businesses as I am on the worker. Removing private voting takes away free will, and I'm amazed the notion can be introduced at all, let alone seriously.

[lawrocket 3]

How dare you suggest that secret voting is untrustworthy. Especially if unions run it.

Simply because it would greatly increase union revenues if secret votes are for unionization doesn't mean that it will happen.

Oh, no. Unions have never had any corruption. Ever.

And billvon - it's not the UAW's fault that GM's workers needed UAW protection. The UAW did everything it could make sure that GM staid viable. Much like any parasite, it does loittle good to actually kill the parasitic host. It just wants to suck everything but what is absolutely necessary to keep the host alive. So the UAW took a little too much. That's not its fault. Had GM merely shed arms and legs, the UAW tapeworm and GM could still coexist.

And asshole GM is deciding it'd rather die and take the tapeworm with it. The nerve...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[TheAnvil 0]

Unions suck ass. They've wrecked the American auto industry. Now that they've wrecked that, they want to take away the right to a secret ballot so it's easier for them to intimidate workers into unionizing.

The pieces of shit who support this bill will never admit that, however.

Losers.

[barf]

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[Andy9o8 2]

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Isn't "union tyranny" why the U.S. automakers are going out of business?

No; it's the reason the rest of us still have to put up with the Confederacy.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Removing private voting takes away free will, and I'm amazed the notion can be introduced at all, let alone seriously.

fallacy...

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Listen to corporate America, and its allies in the Republican party and right-wing think-tanks, and you'd imagine the bill is a charter for union tyranny. It will increase organised labour's bargaining power, they complain. Of course it will; that is the whole point. Such objections might have merit if America were like pre-Thatcherite Britain, when the unions held government to ransom. But they don't. The US is one of the least unionised Western countries. Only 12 per cent of the workforce belong to unions, compared with 30 per cent during organised labour's golden age in the 1940s and 1950s.

Employers point to the legislation's "card check" clause, whereby if a majority of workers at a company sign cards calling for the establishment of a union, and the process is ratified by the National Labor Relations Board, a union is automatically set up, with the right to negotiate a contract with management. If the two sides can't reach agreement, a government-appointed arbitrator will impose a contract. Opponents say the "card check" amounts to a public vote, which would permit intimidation, even violence, against workers who don't want a union. Whatever happened to the secret ballot, that foundation stone of American democracy, they ask, ignoring the Act's provision of a secret ballot, should a majority of employees request one.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-its-about-time-the-us-had-some-union-tyranny-1645372.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
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[TrophyHusband 0]

you are dead wrong. i worked as a technician along side union welders (pipefitters and boilermakers) for four years and not a single day went by that these goons didn't try to tell me that i needed to be union. i tried to explain there wasn't a union for me, but it didn't matter. they said i should be union anyway. i told them i had a very good deal and that there was no guarentee that i would get as good of a deal if the techs joined the union. i had to be very carefulabout what i said against a union, because one thing you never do in front of a union man is speak ill of the union. i had the pipefitters union calling me to pressure me to join the union. there is no way in hell that unions wouldn't intimidate people into signing those cards. the vote must be private in order for the workers to really get what they want.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[lawrocket 3]

Secret ballot? Are you high?

Tell me, do the union organizers know who these people are?

The situation is not akin to secret balloting. The situation is akin to giving th GOP responsibility for the vote. "Sign this card if you vote for McCain. Really? Do you know what failure to sign this card would mean to you? Nowan we've ensured that there is no way that the Obama campaign can know you voted for McCain. So there can be no threat of retribution from them. Still don't want to vote for McCain? I'm sure you are merely afraid of what will happen if you vote the wrong way. As I said, there is no wau the Obama campaign can break your fucking thumbs for voting the wrong way because, unlike us, they don't know who you are."


This is the worst possible system. The "ballot" is secret but only to one side. Yeah - there is no chance at all of nefariousness by the side who recruits and gathers the signatures.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Yeah - there is no chance at all of nefariousness by the side who recruits and gathers the signatures.

what do you think of this intimidation?

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Under NLRB's distorted rules, union organizers are not allowed to enter the workplace to talk with employees! Nor are they given a contact list, so they have no way to reach all the voters and present their side.

On the other hand, corporate executives can call mandatory, closed-door meetings to harangue all employees about the evils of unionization. They can also force every employee to have intimidating, one-on-one sessions with their supervisors to be told why voting for the union would not be a good career move. Corporations bring in outside muscle, too, spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire professional "labor consultants" (aka union busters) who are experts in often-unsubtle ways of convincing employees to vote no on unionization.

Research by Kate Bronfenbrenner, a widely respected professor of labor studies at Cornell University, finds that 92% of companies involved in organizing campaigns use the mandatory-meetings tactic, 78% require one-on-one sessions with supervisors, and 75% hire union busters to squeeze employees.

She also found that half of the corporations facing elections threaten that they will close the plant or store if the union prevails, costing all employees their jobs. (Interestingly, when unions do succeed, only 1% of the corporations actually follow through on this threat.) Even when workers win these elections, however, they still haven't won. Corporate executives can simply stonewall, unilaterally nullifying the election results by refusing to negotiate in good faith (or at all) to produce a collective-bargaining agreement with the workers. This, too, is illegal, but corporate lawyers can easily draw out the process for years, making it extremely costly. A study published last year in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review found that 44% of companies do not agree to a contract after their workers vote to form a union.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/131456/americans_are_rearing_for_a_fight_with_corporate_power/?page=entire

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[billvon 2,998]

> union organizers are not allowed to enter the workplace to talk with employees!

?? If you ran an assembly line, and non-employees kept walking in and shutting it down, would you be OK with that?

>On the other hand, corporate executives can call mandatory, closed-door
>meetings to harangue all employees about the evils of unionization.

Of course. That's called a "meeting" and can be called for any reason at all. People who work are quite familiar with them. After all, the employer is paying for the employee's time.

>She also found that half of the corporations facing elections threaten that they
>will close the plant or store if the union prevails, costing all employees their
>jobs.

Looks like GM is proving that that statement is true.

[funjumper101 15]

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Unions suck ass. They've wrecked the American auto industry. Now that they've wrecked that, they want to take away the right to a secret ballot so it's easier for them to intimidate workers into unionizing.

The pieces of shit who support this bill will never admit that, however.

Losers.

[barf]

Bad management wrecked the auto companies. Right wing bullshit wrongly attributes the fault to the unions. And the gullible suck up the bullshit like it was manna from heaven.

Labor makes up about 10 percent, that is correct ten percent, of the cost of a car. The rest is materials and overhead. Cutting wages and benefits by 25-40% is going to reduce the manufacturing cost by how much? This is a math test for the union haters out there.

How does that kind of wage cut make the economy better and improve the circumstances for the middle class?

The stupid assholes that buy the mass media bullshit that "The unions are killing the cars companies" are helping drive this country into the ground. The management of the auto companies has killed the auto companies. Not the workers.

Gullibility and poor research skills = the average righty parrot

[billvon 2,998]

>Bad management wrecked the auto companies. Right wing bullshit
>wrongly attributes the fault to the unions.

And left wing bullshit blames a fat cat corporate guy smoking cigars and pissing on the workers for all the problems with the company.

It was, of course, both management and labor that have wrecked the auto companies. When neither is willing to compromise, you have GM. When both are willing to compromise, you have Ford.

[marks2065 0]

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> union organizers are not allowed to enter the workplace to talk with employees!

?? If you ran an assembly line, and non-employees kept walking in and shutting it down, would you be OK with that?

>On the other hand, corporate executives can call mandatory, closed-door
>meetings to harangue all employees about the evils of unionization.

Of course. That's called a "meeting" and can be called for any reason at all. People who work are quite familiar with them. After all, the employer is paying for the employee's time.

>She also found that half of the corporations facing elections threaten that they
>will close the plant or store if the union prevails, costing all employees their
>jobs.

Looks like GM is proving that that statement is true.

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with the government programs now in effect to maintain safe and good working conditions, min wages, and employee insuance like workers comp, the only thing the union can do is lobby for wages and benifits. Wages and benifits are what is killing the companies. the unions cause the dead wait to stay around to long causing lower effiency of the company. the unions still do some good, but the good it does is smothered by the problems they cause to the company.

The vote should be private and unions really need to scale back their pressure tactics and let the companies work to regain strength so they can become more viable in todays word market. Or they can disapear along with the jobs and the company.

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[kelpdiver 2]

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Labor makes up about 10 percent, that is correct ten percent, of the cost of a car. The rest is materials and overhead. Cutting wages and benefits by 25-40% is going to reduce the manufacturing cost by how much? This is a math test for the union haters out there.

GM claimed to spend $1700 in medical costs per car made, which suggests that either they're lying, or you made up the 10% number. Or you're packing "overhead."

[kelpdiver 2]

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Whatever happened to the secret ballot, that foundation stone of American democracy, they ask, ignoring the Act's provision of a secret ballot, should a majority of employees request one.

So a majority of employees have to request a secret ballot in order to be able to made this decision without union coercion? And you think that actually removes the problem here? Wow.

[marks2065 0]

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Labor makes up about 10 percent, that is correct ten percent, of the cost of a car. The rest is materials and overhead. Cutting wages and benefits by 25-40% is going to reduce the manufacturing cost by how much? This is a math test for the union haters out there.

GM claimed to spend $1700 in medical costs per car made, which suggests that either they're lying, or you made up the 10% number. Or you're packing "overhead."

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the bottom line is everyone uses numbers to benifit their ideas. labor is in most cases one of the lagest costs to a company.if you don't have a competitive labor cost your company will have problems being able to match other companies that have their labor costs under control.

My company's labor and benifits are about 35% of what I take in every year, if I had a labor total like GM I would be out of business. If I have an employee that wants a raise higher than my company can afford they will need to go elsewere for that increase. If I had a union here and had to pay a comparable pay and benefit package to my employees i would be out of business in a few months.

[wmw999 2,452]

There's some pretty serious cherry picking going on for both sides (and I haven't even spent a particularly long time looking, and didn't go searching for backup data -- sorry Marg).

For the "labor is killing the company" side we have, in this corner, money.cnn.com with lots of information (but not a lot of backup data) about how much the total cost of labor is as a factor of each vehicle. And it's quite significant.

In the other corner, we have digg.com with some quoted material from the president of United Steel Workers showing what the salaries are.

The truth, oddly enough, is probably in the middle (but closer to the "labor is killing" side from my worker-level point of view).

Yes, actual salaries are 5-10% depending on what you consider to be an estimate for average wage. But even the most naive can't really believe that salary cost is the only cost of labor. Retirement, health costs, matching gifts to 401K's, other benefits (e.g. scholarships) are all really part of the cost of labor. And those are substantial.

Just as the cost of raising a child isn't just the food and clothing on their backs (i.e. they need a bedroom, furniture, etc. etc.), the cost of having a worker isn't just the salary to pay them.

Personally, I think that the industries where a labor union is still really necessary for safety and basic rights/dignity are very limited. But the threat is needed, because, frankly, Americans revere power and wealth too much, and a massive, exploitative employer will generally try to see what they can get away with.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[dreamdancer 0]

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GM claimed to spend $1700 in medical costs per car made."

a national health service will sort this problem out

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[lawrocket 3]

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Under NLRB's distorted rules, union organizers are not allowed to enter the workplace to talk with employees!

Two things - this first sentence gives it away. "Spin." It could have simply been written, "Under NLRB rules, union organizers may not enter the workplace to talk with employees."

Second - if I don't want a union organizer on my property or interrupting my business, fuck him. I also did not allow hawkers to talk to my employees unless they were selling Girl Scout Cookies.

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Nor are they given a contact list,

Give me your name and address. Put it right online. Give your telephone number, too. Or, why put your employer's contact information up here, write your name, so that I can request your contact information from your boss. There are telemarketers out there who would love to give you calls.

Or is it that you don't really view an employer's failure to give contact information to marketers to be a bad thing? That's what union organizers are - marketers and salesmen.

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On the other hand, corporate executives can call mandatory, closed-door meetings to harangue all employees about the evils of unionization. They can also force every employee to have intimidating, one-on-one sessions with their supervisors to be told why voting for the union would not be a good career move.

Yep. I can do it for my employees for a full week. Of course, I have to PAY them for their attendance, during whihc time they are not working to make money for me. What do you think a greedy employer will do?

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Corporations bring in outside muscle, too, spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire professional "labor consultants" (aka union busters) who are experts in often-unsubtle ways of convincing employees to vote no on unionization.

Yep. Think of what you just wrote - it's cheaper to spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year to hire union-busters than to go union. A better statement of how unions fuck shit up I have not heard.

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Research by Kate Bronfenbrenner, a widely respected professor of labor studies at Cornell University,

Her results are bullshit. We know this because they cannot be believed unless she is "widely respected." "Ohh! She's widely respected. Debate over." (Pssst. Bernie Madoff was widely respected, too.)

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92% of companies involved in organizing campaigns use the mandatory-meetings tactic, 78% require one-on-one sessions with supervisors, and 75% hire union busters to squeeze employees.

All that wasted time and money is better for an employer than a union. Think about that.

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She also found that half of the corporations facing elections threaten that they will close the plant or store if the union prevails, costing all employees their jobs.

Yep. Employers actually saying, "This is my business." How about that? You mean, they aren't in business to put a union on the payroll? Amazing.

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(Interestingly, when unions do succeed, only 1% of the corporations actually follow through on this threat.)

Maybe. They'll just lay off a large portion of the workforce.

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Even when workers win these elections, however, they still haven't won.

That's what people like me say. The only winners are unions. You think a lawyer can suck people dry of money? Try unions.

Take a look at this: http://op.bna.com/dlrcases.nsf/id/smgk-7h7qw2/$File/amersteel.pdf

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Because of the labor-intensive nature of steel erection work, labor expenditures account for about half of the cost. Signatory contractors are obligated to pay laborers the minimum wage set by the CBA. Non-union contractors, such as Plaintiffs, are not bound to the CBA minimum wage and can negotiate their labor costs. As a result, non-union erectors are often able to submit lower bids for erection contracts.
The gravamen of Plaintiffs' complaint relates to a job targeting program, the Market Recovery Program ("MRP"), which Local 7 created to mitigate the disadvantage imposed on signatory contractors by union wages.3 Under the MRP, Local 7 "targets" certain construction projects and offers a subsidy to signatory contractors bidding on the project. The subsidy is intended to offset the higher cost of union labor, thus enabling union employers to bid competitively against non-union contractors. When a signatory contractor is awarded the target project contract, Local 7 executes an agreement with the contractor detailing the terms and amount of the subsidy. The subsidy is taken from the target fund (the "Fund"), which is financed with sums withheld by union employers from Local 7 member paychecks. The job targeting program was first established by member vote, and it was incorporated into the Union by-laws in 1992.

The union used a job-targeting scheme. The union took money from workers' paychecks. It then paid this money to the union contractors. This meant that the union contractors could underbid the non-union contractors. This was because operating costs were lower for the union contractors because the union was paying the contractors with money seized from the union workers!

Result? Union workers are paid less than the non-union workers. The union employers get paid the same. Where does the residue go? To the union.

A perfect example of how unions are about making money for themselves.

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Corporate executives can simply stonewall, unilaterally nullifying the election results by refusing to negotiate in good faith (or at all) to produce a collective-bargaining agreement with the workers.

Then it goes to the NLRB.

Similarly, unins can simply stonewall, fail to negotiate in good faith. Or even run guys out of business because they don't like them.

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This, too, is illegal, but corporate lawyers can easily draw out the process for years, making it extremely costly.

When lawyers cost less than a union, what's that say about a union?

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A study published last year in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review found that 44% of companies do not agree to a contract after their workers vote to form a union.

Do you blame them? If so, why?

And - how does giving the union control of balloting change any of this? This whole post is an example of empowering unions more while not fixing any problems.

My wife is hotter than your wife.