Unions.... For or Against?

[redlover1]

Hey all,

I would like some opinions on how some of you perceive unions. This is a heated topic in California as some of you may already know. My feelings on unions are quite negative as I feel they have outlived their usefulness of protecting the average worker (from the 1800 and early 1900's).

The local unions on strike currently are the UFCW grocery union and the MTA mechanics union in southern california. They "say" it's about the decreasing health benefits but its always about money, pure and simple. All I know is that over 90% of the working world has to pay for some orm or percentage of their health insurance and for these greedy schmucks to be griping about contributing something versuses nothing just ticks me off to no end. They already get paid from $12-$20 an hour to start at the grocery end and from $25-$50 per hour on the mechanics end.

There are already thousands of people getting inconvenienced with no buses or trains running our mass transit system in Los Angeles and getting annoyed by the picketers pleading with us to go to another store. By helping these Union racketeers get what they want only increase the costs to us with higher prices.

Any comments or opinions? Am I off base?

Devin

[OperaTenor]

Well, as a union member...

I feel I'm somewhere on middle ground with respect to unions. While I would be extremely hesitant to vote for a strike(I wouldn't have voted for either of the current ones), I'm also extremely hesitant to cross one of their picket lines. I feel that, especially in the grocer's strike, the workers have been fed a load of hogwash by their own union.

Speaking for my own situation, were it not for the union, I wouldn't make but a small fraction of what I do with the opera. At the SDO, I usually gross about $3,000 per production, whereas at any other company in town(SDO is the only union house), I would earn ~$250 per production, entailing the same or more work. To me that more than justifies my $78 per year in union dues. And yes, for me it is absolutely about money.

[Shapley]

I'm not a big fan of unions. The area where I live is heavily unionized, but there is no work. I work across the river, in another state, where the unions are much less powerful, but there is plenty of work.

Are the two related? I think they are. Employers looking to locate a facility will look at the workforce statistics before investing their money. If the workforce has a history of work stoppages and reduced output, they will not locate there if an economically viable alternative exists. They don't come to the area I work to "screw the working class", they locate where their productivity, and thus their profits, can be maximized.

I like the concept of "Right to work" laws, where union membership is optional. Thus, if managements treatment of the workforce necessitates it, the workers can unionize and strike. However, if the union is failing to provide for its members, they can "opt out" without sacrificing their jobs.

[Serenity]

You're right...it's about money; the more union members, the more power to stick it to others.

My father got screwed out of health benefits by his union after 20 years of paying dues. Now he wastes away with Alzheimer's and has nothing to show for his dues. His union suggested to him where to sign his paperwork and the family never saw a penny when his illness started to show!

What does "Arnold" say about the strike?

[barfle]

I have no quarrel with unions or union members, although I've never been a member of a union, in spite of being represented as part of the "bargaining unit."

I've seen some good and some bad come from unions, so they are, like much of the rest of the world, sorta so-so when it comes to overall benefits. I recall one summer I worked at Western Electric for a wage I was more than satisfied with. The union was in negotiations for a raise, and a few months after I quit and went back to school, I got a check for my retroactive raise. Did I deserve it? Not that I could tell. I'll admit that didn't keep me from cashing it, but I never really understood what it was all about.

One giant negative I believe unions have perpetrated is the constantly increasing distance between people and their physicians. Although unions aren't the only culprits, they have, through their demands for "health care benefits" put employers or insurance companies between patients and doctors. When we don't realize or understand the costs of something, we tend to demand the best possible condition of that something. This is one of the most influential factors to the rising costs of health care. We just don't realize how expensive some procedures are, so we have them done (and believe we DESERVE to have them done) even though they may not be necessary or even desirable.

Now one thing I am adamantly opposed to is the so-called "closed shop" - where you cannot work unless you are a union member. You might as well have the union act as your agent with the employer and pay you directly instead of being an employee of the company. I recall an ad for a car where it said it was built by "UAW." Not by auto workers, not by people, but by the union. :p

[jmfryar]

When I was in college I worked in the dining hall as a student manager. It was tough to find students to fill all the positions and we hired "temp" workers to fill empty slots. Next thing you know, they unionized and the "temp" workers were now making $12-$15/hour with benefits while working next to students who were making $6. The union justified it becuase "This was the career of the full time employees, while for the students it was just a job."

I, as a steward and a contract rep, argued that these were intended to be student staffed positions, for both part time and work study, and that the "temp" positions were exactly that. If we broke the union and offered just $8/hour we could get rid of these new employees and go back to 100% student employed.

The end result was that the union got the contract over my nay vote, the students stopped applying all together and the dining hall went full time employee.

The contactor refused to renew the following year and the campus went through 4 dining services before finding someone that would take the contract on a permanent basis, but they eventually left and the campus has since run through several others.

This experience taught me that unions are about the union, not the members. As a member of a teachers union for several years, I found that to be true about professional unions as well.

[Nicole Marie]

Unions are a good thing. The CT Musicians Union is an excellent union, has helped many friends (and myself) make being a musician in CT livable.

In CT our terrible wife beating governor wants to privatize social workers, state employees, state health care workers, pretty much all state employees (that means the state police too). The unions have been the one group preventing that from happening.

The governor was successful in privatizing much of the Department of Children and Families in CT. Since that time they have been barred from dealing with female juveniles. They closed young women's facility for cost reasons. They then had to find centers to place these girls. They decided to put them in adult psychiatric hospitals and all male centers. The courts became involved when many family members became concerned and DCF has been barred from dealing with young female delinquents. There have been other foster care cases and one case where DCF let a child leave the state for Florida with the abusive father after the courts order him to have no contact with the child.

I feel when you deal with human service issues, ya need to keep them in state control and not in the private sector. The state needs to take care of the people living in the state. The unions in CT have been fighting that battle ever since Roland took office.

[lliam]

My first union was aslef. I started my working life as an ‘Engine (Locomotive) Cleaner. We needed a union in the early 50’s because we were treated like s**t by the foremen.
A union rep used to be waiting every payday (Friday) for our subs. Everyone had a card and each payment was ticked of under the respective week. If anyone owed any dues through being on the nightshift the rep would make it known to everyone in the wages queue.
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Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen
==================================================
ASLEF was founded in 1880 and is the principal trade union for train drivers.

ASLEF represents the overwhelming majority of train drivers and other train crew. It has 17,000 members employed in all train operating companies, freight companies, London Underground and some Light Rapid Transport.
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National Union of Railwaymen
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In the 19th century railwaymen found it difficult to organize into trade unions. In 1865 men working on the Great Western Railway attempted to form a Railway Working Men's Provident Benefit Society but it was quickly destroyed when the company sacked its leaders. In the next thirty five years there were ten new railway unions were started but many of these failed to survive more than a couple of years. The most successful of these was the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) that was established in 1871 and the Amalgamated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) in 1880.

By 1890 the total number of trade unionists on the railways was about 48,000 out of a total work force of 381,000. Numbers continued to grow and by 1910 it had increased to 116,000, two-thirds of whom were in the ASRS and about one-sixth in ASLEF. In 1913 the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) was formed by the amalgamation of the ASRS, the United Points men and Signalmen's Society and the General Railway Workers Union.

The most important figure in these negotiations was Jimmy Thomas, the Labour MP for Derby. Although still a member of the House of Commons, Thomas was elected General Secretary of the NUR in 1917 and two years later led a successful railway strike. When Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister after the 1924 General Election, he appointed Thomas as Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was expelled from the Labour Party after he joined MacDonald's National Government in 1931.
===============

There was more than one union on the railroad. After 5 yrs I opted out of aslef and joined, ‘There was more than one union on the railroad. After 5 yrs I opted out of aslef and joined, ‘National Union of Railwaymen.
Over the years working conditions got better and management improved vastly we were all treated like humans. Of course as would happen because management were understanding the union reps took this as a weakness. After a while the reps would start to dictate terms on behalf of their members. At this stage I would like to add that none of us members where consulted until the balloon had burst. The next thing a meeting was called and everyone was asked, No, told they would be out on strike after negotiations with the management had failed. All poppy cock of course, this was the time I rebelled against my union for dictating terms to me.
The only reason I stayed in a union was for my own protection and my family. If anything happened to me my family would be looked after.

[Shapley]

Nicole,

Child services seem to have major problems, no matter who runs them or what state they are in. There are plenty of horror stories here in Illinois of children who "slipped through the cracks" and were beaten, molested, or died despite tons of evidence that that would be the result. When the state runs the program, your legal recourse is more limited than with a private operator, though neither can repair the damage done.

There is a mistaken belief that the government will "care" for whoever is placed under its charge. That is absolutely false. The state, as an entity, cannot "care". Individual caregivers may or may not "care" about their charges, but often as not their concerns are lost in the beaurocratic maze they work in. Private concerns, at least, usually have less beaurocracy than government, and thus a shorter route to the top.

V/R
Shapley

[Nicole Marie]

CT did not have the amount of problems we have now with DCF, my point is it's increased since DCF has gone private. The increase has come in the form of formal complains filed with the state against DCF. They obviously are doing something wrong.

As for the state taking care of people, most countries have universal health care and other programs that take care of their citizens. Sure no program is perfect but government is designed to take care of it's citizens.

[lliam]

The worst strike in my day was the NUM strike of '84. COAL strikes sweep Britain. But trouble runs deeper than the threat of mine closure: not everyone has voted for the strike, and father is pitted (sorry) against son, husband against wife. Even to this day some families don't speak to each other.

National Union of Mineworkers.
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UK miners' strike (1984-1985)
===============================
In 1984, the National Coal Board announced that an agreement reached after the 1974 miners' strike had become obsolete, and that they intended to close 20 pits. 20,000 jobs would be lost, and many communities in the North of England and Wales would lose their primary source of employment.

Depending upon the impact of the proposed closures in their own areas, miners in various coal fields began strike action. In the Yorkshire coal field strike action began on March 5 following a local ballot, and the following day pickets from the Yorkshire area appeared at pits in the Nottinghamshire coal field (one of those least threatened by pit closures). On March 12, 1984 Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) declared strikes in the various coal fields to be a national strike and called for strike action from NUM members in all coal fields.

Crucially, although there was widespread support for the strike amongst mine workers, Scargill did not call a ballot for national strike action.

This tactical error allowed the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher to bring the full weight of the law down on the striking miners and the union. The NUM's funds were seized on October 24, 1984 by order of the High Court.

Miners were denied state benefits and their wages, and the police were mobilised to deal with picket lines on the grounds that they represented illegal public disturbances.

The miners also split with certain groups, notably from Nottinghamshire, forming the pro-government Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM).

One of the most famous clashes of the Miners' Strike took place at Orgreave near Rotherham on June 18, 1984. This confrontation between striking miners and police, dubbed the Battle of Orgreave, was the subject of a historical reenactment in 2001, which was recorded in a Channel 4 documentary by Mike Figgis.

The strike ended on March 3, 1985, nearly a year after it had begun, when the NUM conceded defeat, faced as it was with an impoverished membership and hostile government.

Dame Stella Rimmington (MI5 Director General, 1992-1996) published an autobiography in 2001 in which she revealed the extent of MI5 "counter-subversion" exercises against the NUM and the striking miners, which included the tapping of union leaders' phones.

[Valerie]

my two cents - okay, maybe a little more...

unions are self-serving - as other posters have noted

at one time, they actually did do some good - i am talking about blue collar folks, not musicians

the unions got corrupted in the 50's - 60's

at one point in our country's history they served a purpose - not anymore

i think people need to read the constitution more - our government is not about socialism - we are a republic, not a democracy, and we aren't a socialist or communist nation...yet...ok - too dramatic, we all know communism doesn't work - great theory, but it doesn't work

nowhere in the constitution does it talk about providing health care, et al. - it does talk about providing for the national defense - what a concept - maybe we need to focus on that???

as for the social ills of our country - pouring money into a situation never works - look at the democratic legacy - education, welfare, etc.

when our country was founded, we relied on family, community and churches for social issues - again, what a concept

most recently, look at the unionized/federal workers of the TSA (oh thank you democrats in congress...) what a joke - these people are morons and we can't fire them, because they are now government workers and protected

again - the problem with government - protected/unionized government workers that cannot be fired, or if they are, it is an amazing feat and takes years! and they will sue the government because they don't deserve to be fired, because they are government workers and they are "hired for life"

now - i know many government workers who actually earn their paychecks and are a credit to the government - but many of them are worthless, and i am helping to pay their salary and their benefits

enuf...

[Shapley]

Nicole,

Our government is not designed to take care of people, it is designed "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".

In order for the government to provide security, it must deprive some or all of us of liberty. It was Bob Dole who said that "A government that takes control of the economy for the good of the people will eventually take control of the people for the good of the economy." I don't know if he was the first to say that, but I think it is a fine statement. Other governments provide social services because they do not have a Constitution which guarantees the blessing of Liberty to their citizens.

I, myself, prefer freedom to security. I still believe the majority of Americans do as well. I know the Constitution, no matter how often is misinterpreted, still guarantees it.

V/R
Shapley

[Nicole Marie]

Yet once again you people frighten me. So how do you suppose we take care of people without health care? How do we take care of an abused child? How would you propose that homeless people get a meal, get off the street?

[Shapley]

Charity. As an ex-Catholic, I would expect you to know that the Church has been doing this for longer than our government has existed, and will continue to do so for longer than our government will exist.

Why does that frighten you. Do you think people will not give up their money unless government takes it from them.

If you and I are walking down the street, and we see a homeless person, and I reach into my pocket and give him a dollar, that is charity. However, if I reach into your pocket and give him a dollar, that's theft. Our governments pockets are full of holes. If they want to be charitable, they have to reach into our pockets.

V/R
Shapley

[Marye]

Oh my....oh my... scary thread.....

[Shapley]

Mary,

RE: Scary thread

It is close to Halloween!

[BenMurphy6]

stravinsky: i pretty much agree with what you are saying.

but this thread is trouble

[Nicole Marie]

Sure churches should help out but as a tax payer I want my money to go to helping people. I do have issues with churches donating. Often an organization will request that a person conform to their standards before they get aid. I worked in a soup kitchen run by a local church. The soup kitchen required the Our Father to be said before the men ate. A few did not take part and were asked not to return after dinner. Hmm... men are starving but we won't give then food unless you conform to our standards. Not very Christian. But there is the Head Star program (tax dollar run) that provides children with breakfast and lunch. Scary part is that what happens to those children when summer comes along. There is no program filling that gap.

This form of selective hand outs goes all the way up the scale. If you give there can be no strings attached, government or private. And unfortunalty we do not have enough helpful organizations in this country to help everyone in need. You still did not address my question on health care. What private organization is going to cover that? Tax payers already have to cover the cost of care if someone visits a city or state run hospital and can not pay. Why not put those tax dollars to use and pay for universal health care?

<small>[ 10-22-2003, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: Nicole Marie ]</small>

[redlover1]

I have been following all of your comments thoughout the day and I must say my topic seems to have struck a chord with a lot of you. However, health care and welfare issues aside, how does all this pertain to the union strikes that have crippled Southern California? This strike is about money pure and simple. Should regular citizens such as the poor and indigent be held hostage to these unions? A statistic was raised that 80% of all people who ride public transportation made less then $25,000 per year. If the mechanics union or grocery union get their way, the bus fare and food prices will definitely go up. Is this right? If the economy doesn't warrant a raise or it does warrant reductions in benefits, why can't people stop being so selfish and deal with it? Lots of people right now don't even have jobs let alone benefits. Unions to me seem so egocentric that they think they can get away with darn near anything.

H.R.H., I know you don't care much for Reagan, but I really think he had the right idea back in the 80's when he fired all of the striking Air Traffic Controllers. When their jobs were on the line, they came back just happy to get their jobs back (some were not so fortunate and took years to get it back).

Devin