Unions: Good or Bad??

[trish]

One (not the only) measure of loyal a worker might be to a company is to look at the length of time he's been working for the company. Unfortunately, many non-union shops reward long term loyalty with giving older workers the boot. If school administrators were doing their job correctly poor workers wouldn't get seniority, they'd be kicked out right away. If a teacher or worker has seniority but is no longer doing an acceptable job, most contracts have procedures in place that allow the administration to document their charges against the employee and fire them, provided the employee is given a chance to grieve the accusations. The trouble is that many public school administrators are unfamiliar with the contract or too lazy to document the complaints against a teacher and investigate their legitimacy...then when the administration loses the grievance it's the union's fault!

[NYBURBS]

Unions did start in response to certain abuses; however, they have their own issues also. Mainly the mafia like tactics some of them use, the union bosses who never leave office, and the fact that you're forced to pay dues to them in a lot of jobs even if you don't join.

I think people should be free to unionize and collectively bargain. I also think that people should be just as free to decline membership and negotiate their own contracts. It's a basic concept of individual freedom.

[hippifried]

I appreciate the concept of having a union. Like communism, socialism, democracy, capitalism and totalitarianism, it starts as a well-meaning concept, but ends up being used by its leaders for their own advantage.

As with everything else, power corrupts and lemmings blindly follow. That's the failure of every system (government, church, corporations and union).

If I have to one item in specific that I don't like about the NJ teachers union is
the high regard for seniority.

The purpose of any union is to represent its membership on the job &sometimes beyond. Conversely, the social purpose of the labor movement as a whole is to make itself obsolete. We tend to take things for granted if we weren't there at their inseption. Somebody had to fight for all the things we automatically expect from an employer nowadays.

I don't have that big a problem with seniority. Tenure is a bit more radical, but it predates teacher's being unionized. It's a long standing tradition at the university level & was just picked up on as government employees & other career jobs started to organize. Seniority isn't that big a part of industrial contracts & is pretty much non-existent in the trades.

[hippifried]

Burbs,

That sounds good in theory, but it's not that simple & it doesn't work. The contract is between the union & the employer & covers the entire bargaining unit. That includes every job that's described in the contract. The union is bound by law to represent every worker in the unit in bargaining the contract & all grievances pertaining to his/her job, regardless of membership. The contract covers everything. Wages, benefits, pensions, grievance proceedures, working conditions, hiring & firing proceedures, etc... That's why non-members pay dues. It's a pittance, & that contract is the only reason for the pay & benefits that come with that job. There's no rule anywhere that says compells someone to join. In "right to work States", there are no "union shops", & the workers are all still covered by the contract & represented by the union whether they pay or not. Hope you're not making a claim for fairness here.

[NYBURBS]

Hippi,

I was in a Union, so I know that what you just said is correct. What I'm saying is that you're forced to bargain via this collective method, even if you'd rather represent yourself. If the union is good at what it does then people will want to join it anyways.

However, it should still come down to an individual choice on whether or not to participate. The job I'm in now is non-union and I negotiate my own salary and rates (I'm an hourly employee). Granted I don't have a contract, but I still worked out the conditions (hours, rates, etc) that I needed in order to accept the job.

[hippifried]

I was union too, for a long time. You're free to negotiate your own deal now. If you think you're so key that you should be getting more than anybody else, you're free to take it up with the employer. Good luck with that, especially in an industrial setting where everybody's in the same unit. What you can't do is underbid the unit compensation package. That's built into the contract. That package is minimum wage for the bargaining unit. Why would anybody do that anyway, unless they had some reason to undermine the union? The reality is that individuals have no clout, & the only people who are going to get a better deal are those moving into management where they wouldn't be covered under the agreement. Whining about the dues is just that. It's a complaint about not being able to freeload.

[NYBURBS]

I was union too, for a long time. You're free to negotiate your own deal now. If you think you're so key that you should be getting more than anybody else, you're free to take it up with the employer. Good luck with that, especially in an industrial setting where everybody's in the same unit. What you can't do is underbid the unit compensation package. That's built into the contract. That package is minimum wage for the bargaining unit. Why would anybody do that anyway, unless they had some reason to undermine the union? The reality is that individuals have no clout, & the only people who are going to get a better deal are those moving into management where they wouldn't be covered under the agreement. Whining about the dues is just that. It's a complaint about not being able to freeload.

Actually, a lot of union contracts specify that the union is the sole recognized bargaining unit, and forbids the employer from negotiating separately with someone other than the union. I can even understand the reasoning behind that, but I have to disagree with your statement that individuals have no clout. We all have a certain degree of worth associated with our abilities (and our track record). There are do nothings in a union that will automatically get the same raise you do, and therefore that can act as a disincentive to produce or perform at an above average rate. However, if you were able to negotiate your for yourself, then your individual performance would be a far more significant factor.

As I said before, there are valid reasons why a group of people would want to negotiate collectively. There are also valid reasons why you might want to go it alone. I'm just advocating for the choice, and in certain areas of employment the choice is not there.

[JerseyMike]

One (not the only) measure of loyal a worker might be to a company is to look at the length of time he's been working for the company. Unfortunately, many non-union shops reward long term loyalty with giving older workers the boot. If school administrators were doing their job correctly poor workers wouldn't get seniority, they'd be kicked out right away. If a teacher or worker has seniority but is no longer doing an acceptable job, most contracts have procedures in place that allow the administration to document their charges against the employee and fire them, provided the employee is given a chance to grieve the accusations. The trouble is that many public school administrators are unfamiliar with the contract or too lazy to document the complaints against a teacher and investigate their legitimacy...then when the administration loses the grievance it's the union's fault!

Teacher unions are far different from the normal unions that are out there. It's not that poor workers get seniority, administrations give them the boot, but its the seniority workers who have tenure that are the bad employees but because they have tenure it is easier to keep bad, old, out of touch teachers than it is to fire them. The union don't budge when it comes to getting rid of older teachers. It is rare for a teacher to lose their job based on PERFORMANCE. A teacher can only really lose their job if there is an sex scandal and sometimes that does not even remove the teacher because the teacher union will still protect the teacher till the end. The reason why I wanted to ask was what is going on here in New Jersey. The NJEA is at war with the governor because he would like to base more pay and tenure on performance but unions do now like this because it destroys the idea of seniority. Also a pay freeze for teachers and having them pay 1.5% of their pay for their insurance is unheard of for the NJEA. THE NJEA uses children and threats of children's future to hurt the children by more than helping and this go for all teacher unions. Charter schools which usually aren't under the control of unions do vastly superior to children in regular public education. Unionis will fight against charter schools or the expansion of it, good example is in Washington, D.C. when President Obama bowed down to the unions and revoked funding for more charter schools for D.C. Also does keeping older teachers in schools helping the children? Most just go there to pick up a pay check and survive through the day due to their spirit being broken. Just annoyed by the way things and needed to vent basically because that is why all political writers write, they know nothing is going to happen but they just write to vent anger and frustration making their writings totally pointless in the end.

[hippifried]

Burb,

Pfffft! They all say that. The individual makes more money by changing status. Key personnel make more. Added responsibility comes along with that too. It's called upward mobility, & unions don't frown on it. It's in their best interest to have their members in key positions & all through management. Lower level management is usually part of the unit. There's no reason to give somebody more money for doing the exact same thing as the guy next to him.

Different jobs pay differently in any setting. The only union I know of that has piece work bonuses built into their contracts are the UFW. Maybe the hard rock mining division of the Steelworkers. Yet bonuses still get paid for various things. Case in point: I worked several tunnels. There was no kind of bonus worked into the contract, yet the miners on the heading crew who drove the tunnel made boatloads of cash. How? Through an incentive deal above & beyond the contract. Daily, after the second set (6'), they went on time & a half. After the 3rd, they went to doubletime. After 4, they went to doubletime & a half. I saw one crew knocking out 5 & 6 sets a day in a 9 hour shift. 8 really, because the tunnel segment of the contract gives you an extra hour every day to cover shift break & poratal pay. You get paid 9 for 8. There's incentives for slipform crews who work the high stacks too, & all sorts of other odd projects. You need skilled people to do all this stuff. The trades have a bit of a different mindset though. There's still a huge difference between the AFL & the CIO.

Collective bargaining is really the only reason so many people are able to get the pay & benefits they get, regardless whether they or their employer are organized. Nobody pays more out of the kindness of their heart, & every employee's expendable from the janitor to the CEO. Anybody can work their way up the ladder. That's the American dream, & unions don't get in the way of that.

[BeardedOne]

Unions = good. Union politics = bad.

It's all relative.

I've had experience with the ATU, AFSCME, Teamsters, APWU, IBEW, UTU, ad infinitumU.