These criteria are smart, they can exert control over vulnerable people this way. And if they admit seeing unionizing as such a threat, they admit they're treating people shittily on several levels. I'd wonder how it's legal but they have the power of money.
Curiosity will be my demise: maybe I'm misunderstanding your first comment, but from what I see you stated that they increase poor worker numbers, as well as cost money and divide. However, I don't see where you said how they do so? (that's a genuine question, I'm just interested)
Thank you and I wish more people were like you.
I work in a union. My father worked in three of them. I speak from personal experience and hopefully this is isolated to my country because this isn't good news.
When I was given full time my job changed. I am no longer expected to work. Period. I do the very minimum of my job and anything extra has no value. I can't get a wage increase, I can't get tips, I can get nothing to encourage me to work harder. I also can't get fired which for me is good since I work hard. However when a $40 an hour foreman is sleeping in the open in the middle of the factory nobody can say amything about his actions or influence to encourage that behaviour.
As for the cost of the union they take a percentage of everyones check regardless of what happens. I have not and will not need someone to defend me. I have a voice and know my rights and responsibilities as a worker. Paying a union is of no benefit to me.
As for division I don't like my union because they create an attitude of aggression towards the company. I have great appreciation for my company because they pay me a grossly over paid wage for a very easy job. I should be making $10 an hour less. However instead of gratitude the union riles up the employees, heavily suggests they neglect portions of their job, and expects perfection from the company. This isn't a local union that operates just in this company. It's a national union as well. I hope their attitude elsewhere is better.
Well, I would sign up right now for the optional pay. You can opt out of the union but must pay regardless here. It's quite unfair and a rather large deterrent for a lot of guys.
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· 3 years ago
You have every right to criticize your individual union like you did, but that's NOT what you did in the beginning.
One of the things they track is "Diversity." I wonder if diversity increases or decreases the likelihood of unionizing. That is, does a highly diverse workforce lean pro-union in some way, or is a more diverse group able to be fractionalized, with more "lines" that can be used to separate "us" from "them?" And of course, the lines can be changed to make it seem like "that gender" is being better served, or "that skin color" has an advantage this week, or people from that church/synagogue/mosque have an advantage, depending on the union-preventing theme at the time.
I work in a union. My father worked in three of them. I speak from personal experience and hopefully this is isolated to my country because this isn't good news.
When I was given full time my job changed. I am no longer expected to work. Period. I do the very minimum of my job and anything extra has no value. I can't get a wage increase, I can't get tips, I can get nothing to encourage me to work harder. I also can't get fired which for me is good since I work hard. However when a $40 an hour foreman is sleeping in the open in the middle of the factory nobody can say amything about his actions or influence to encourage that behaviour.
As for the cost of the union they take a percentage of everyones check regardless of what happens. I have not and will not need someone to defend me. I have a voice and know my rights and responsibilities as a worker. Paying a union is of no benefit to me.
Thankfully, your experience doesn't seem universal. I don't have firsthand experience of unions, but know people who have been in some and here (in France) it's very different. Only those who want to be part of it pay for it. They smooth things out when isolated employees require help when their rights are not being respected and intervene in cases of job suppressions, factories closing, etc., things that affect large groups. Federating employees gives them a voice to treat as equals with employers.
There is however an image of unionized people being tempted to do less, but from what I've read and heard it seems to be a cliché as empty as our policemen supposedly having a Southern accent.