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US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

theguardian.com

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Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#161

Post by salawat »

HappMacDonald wrote: post #124
WillAdams wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience which I had which sums up the negatives about unions was when I was working at the then 4th largest printer in the U.S., and the largest privately owned print shop, when I pulled up in my then several years old Chevy Cavalier and parked next to a one year newer one --- an erstwhile union rep then pulled up in a brand new Lincoln Town Car and got out and asked me if I was interested in unionizing the co…

My name is Jesse James and I would like to know more about the history of the Pinkertons 8I

A group of private investigators and strike breakers engaged by the wealthy to quell the rabble. When you hear someone talking about it being cheaper to pay 10% of the working class to keep the other 90% down, shit like the Pinkertons is always the answer as to how.

https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-pinkertons

https://daily.jstor.org/how-steelworkers-stopped-a-paramilit...

Not hard to find.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#162

Post by mplanchard »

briandw wrote: post #8

This is an adversarial process. Unions exist to fight employers. Unions spend about 23 billion a year in total. Only spending 1.5B to defend against 23B looks like a bargain.

It’s clearly a more effectively spent 1.5B too, seeing the majority of comments on this post.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#163

Post by WillAdams »

salawat wrote: post #161
HappMacDonald wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My name is Jesse James and I would like to know more about the history of the Pinkertons 8I

A group of private investigators and strike breakers engaged by the wealthy to quell the rabble. When you hear someone talking about it being cheaper to pay 10% of the working class to keep the other 90% down, shit like the Pinkertons is always the answer as to how. https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-pinkertons https://daily.jstor.org/how-steelworkers-stopped-a-paramilit... Not hard to find.

That was actually a reference (joke?)

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/January-26/pinke...

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#164

Post by josefritzishere »

phil21 wrote: post #25
aliasxneo wrote: post #18

I have pretty mixed feelings on unions. I spent most of my early career as a non-union blue collar worker embedded into mixed teams (union + non-union members). The general experience I walked away with was that unions seemed to attract the worst employees. I remember one individual in particular who, having worked with him for two years, never once actually did any work. He was actually one of my first mentors and I…

Similar life experiences. Like the idea of unions - especially how they are explained at a textbook level. I fully believe labor needs as much leverage against capital as possible for the scales to be balanced at all. But US unions seem to exist nearly exclusively to protect people who don’t want to work. Not my thing. At all. One should be able to be rewarded for hard work and productivity when you are expending mor…

I am sorry but that is utter nonsense. Unions exist to bargain collectively to protect workers from exploitations, full stop. You will find more people who don’t want to work in the C-suite than anywhere else.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#165

Post by wat10000 »

mothballed wrote: post #82
wat10000 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Involuntarily binding the company to the contract would be bad, I agree. But what's wrong with forcing the other employees to join to keep their jobs? That is fundamentally a requirement on the company, that they only hire people in the union. And that's no different from any other sort of exclusive contract. If a restaurant has an exclusive contract with Coke, is it sinister to say that Pepsi employees can't supply…

I'm saying suppose some employees decide to form a union. And the company doesn't consent to sign an exclusive contract. As I understand it there are unions advocating that workers that didn't agree to a union still have to be bound to it anyway. It's my understanding in some states in the US it's possible a worker will be forced to join a union if a certain number of other workers want a union, even if neither the w…

I agree that would be bad. Is that what happens or is it that the employer agrees only to hire workers from the union and that's why you have to join? "Right to work" laws are about that situation; they prohibit agreements between the union and the employer that would require all employees to join the union. When you had to join the UFCW, was it merely because the UFCW existed at your store, or was it because the store agreed to only hire UFCW members?

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#166

Post by indoordin0saur »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #11
indoordin0saur wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally pro-union and certainly fair wage, but it's important to keep in mind that unions will grow into their own power centers and have leadership with its own internal goals which are not aligned with either their working members nor the employers.

What's the alternative (no unions) like?

Certain markets are highly competitive for labor. A good example is software engineering. In those cases, because neither the corporation has a monopoly on their tech products nor does a union have a monopoly on labor the sector can be highly productive and everyone can get rich. In such a situation it seems pointless to have a union. Why would an employee want to be beholden to both his employer and his union? Unions, as well as giving their members some negotiating power, can also limit and burden their members in many ways.

Re: US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

#170

Post by WarmWash »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #138
WarmWash wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It seems to me a case that echoes “better to let 9 guilty men go free than to execute an innocent man”. Of course, in this case, the ratios are actually reversed. Should we execute 9 innocent men to make sure that 1 guilty guy gets punished? We don't have to do an echo. We can just do it as it is. 9 men hunt and 1 man eats free, so the 9 men are carrying the weight of the 1. This system is inherently unstable and un…

> 9 men hunt and 1 man eats free, so the 9 men are carrying the weight of the 1. Updated the quote to the historically accurate 99 vs 1. > This system is inherently unstable and unsustainable. The countries cited are extremely stable. Arguably far more stable than the US. That said, we can bring in the rest of Western Europe if 5 countries aren't enough of an example. They have union participation rates between 10% a…

Europe is in a borderline catastrophic economic situation. I wouldn't use them as an example, because it ultimately just illustrates my point more. Lots of people are aware of Europes excellent quaility of life, far far fewer (but thankfully including Euro leaders) are aware of the existential financial situation and forecasts.

Europe was supposed to have a vibrant tech scene and a globally competitive technology stack (go back 40 years). But it doesn't. It also doesn't really have a growing economy. Or much ability to defend itself. Or much ability to power itself. Or much ability to finance itself.

Europe has a very impressive social systems, absolutely, but it's important to recognize the incongruity between what these countries promise, what they will need, and what money they actually make.

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