Ooh, politics fun...
Feb. 4th, 2009 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blairprovenceHas anybody been hearing about the law being proposed regarding unionization? It would provide for open balloting for unionization for industries/companies, instead of secret ballots. The arguments are long and technical (and I'm totally simplifying), but how can people fall for this? Secret ballots allow employees to vote for what they truly want, without fear of reprisal. How is it better for workers to be exposed to retaliation and bullying?
Full disclosure - I'm totally biased. I worked for years in a union company, and it bugged the hell out of me that the union would fight for every piece of dirt employee that got fired, even if they spent their whole shift in the bathroom or had no productivity whatsoever and forced their fellow employees to cover their lazy asses. One guy I worked with got fired/rehired 14 times and was only finally booted when they caught him stealing ON CAMERA. The union would fight every attempt of the company to improve the starting pay and benefits - in order to keep employees and stop churn - by demanding that every proposed raise in the minimum wage ($8) had to be mirrored for the guy who'd been there for 25 years and already made $38 bucks an hour and had 6 weeks of vacation and full health care. The union liked having 85% new employees turnover because they could keep getting that initial huge union payment (on top of monthly dues) over and over again. In that union, being a good, productive, innovative employee was a lot less important that having your ass in place longest. They ate a huge chunk of my paycheck monthly and never did a damn thing for me.
I've studied a lot of history and understand the roles that unions have played in it. I know that they have long kept workers from dangerous, horrible working conditions and insane workdays/weeks. I'm never going to argue that they should all be outlawed, abolished or marginalized. But you should definitely have the option of saying "No" without having to worry about hatemail and ostracism.
Whew!
Full disclosure - I'm totally biased. I worked for years in a union company, and it bugged the hell out of me that the union would fight for every piece of dirt employee that got fired, even if they spent their whole shift in the bathroom or had no productivity whatsoever and forced their fellow employees to cover their lazy asses. One guy I worked with got fired/rehired 14 times and was only finally booted when they caught him stealing ON CAMERA. The union would fight every attempt of the company to improve the starting pay and benefits - in order to keep employees and stop churn - by demanding that every proposed raise in the minimum wage ($8) had to be mirrored for the guy who'd been there for 25 years and already made $38 bucks an hour and had 6 weeks of vacation and full health care. The union liked having 85% new employees turnover because they could keep getting that initial huge union payment (on top of monthly dues) over and over again. In that union, being a good, productive, innovative employee was a lot less important that having your ass in place longest. They ate a huge chunk of my paycheck monthly and never did a damn thing for me.
I've studied a lot of history and understand the roles that unions have played in it. I know that they have long kept workers from dangerous, horrible working conditions and insane workdays/weeks. I'm never going to argue that they should all be outlawed, abolished or marginalized. But you should definitely have the option of saying "No" without having to worry about hatemail and ostracism.
Whew!
