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 OIIIIIIO wrote:

•Weekends

•8-Hour Work Day

•40 Hour Work Week

Not entirely true here.... Henry Ford started these things, or at least the ground work for them, on his own. He was one of the few "robber barons" of that age who did genuinely have a concern for his work force.

So while yeah, unions certainly fought for some of the working conditions that many people "enjoy" today, they didn't start or get some of them. I'm sure that with a little bit more digging, I could find examples of an individual company doing something for its workers before unions did. What that usually means is that, Henry Ford started giving his workers decent work times, a standard work week, etc. And the guys over at Chrysler or Chevrolet who DIDNT get that, wanted that same treatment as they did the same work. They ultimately had to unionize in order to get onto "equal terms" with workers from a competing car company.

Like everything else there are great unions, and there are unions that are a money sink. Do some investigation to see if your union is right for you.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Like everything else there are great unions, and there are unions that are a money sink. Do some investigation to see if your union is right for you.

Also look into the frequency of the union to strike and what your pay will be during said strike.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Henry Ford started these things, or at least the ground work for them, on his own. He was one of the few "robber barons" of that age who did genuinely have a concern for his work force.

Or, or more accurately, his concern was his utter inability to retain them until he was willing to give them concessions. There wasn't any altruism there.

Also, I came off as pretty pro union in this thread, but in my own experience, every union I belonged to kinda sucked hard. That being said, I know there are unions out there that don't: my Dad belonged to a painters union, and after he died they took care of us. My wife was a postal worker, and her union was generally OK. I mean, asking if unions are good is like asking if fast food tastes good - there's a pretty big umbrella there, it's just un-answerable until you get very specific.

OgreChubbs wrote:

Unions are for the most part a collective "b#@$" fest" about people complaining and threatening a business unless there demands are met. Basically legal unarmed terrorist's.

To be fair, the same could be said about businesses.

Corporations are for the most part a collective "b#@$" fest" about people complaining and threatening workers and government unless their demands are met. Basically legal unarmed terrorist's. If they don't get what they want they scream about taking their jobs to another country.

 kronk wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Like everything else there are great unions, and there are unions that are a money sink. Do some investigation to see if your union is right for you.

Also look into the frequency of the union to strike and what your pay will be during said strike.

Good point, thank you. The only union I ever joined (not exactly a great statistical sample) had some great members, but many of them - especially those in charge - were useless and more concerned about their own power. Things that we should have taken industrial action on were not acted on, too cozy a relationship with management, inability to communicate with the people who paid their dues, political infighting, temper tantrums, letting issues drag on for far too long, etc.

I have been doing Ironwork for over ten years and we have never had a strike. If we were to strike I would just 'boom out' to another local and go to work there until the strike was over. The main thing to remember about unions are, in my opinion, that they are not perfect and have flaws ... but you have more rights being in a union than you do without one.

I will grant that some companies operate union free, either because they actually do take care of the people in their employ, as General Electric does (they are primarily non-union but if they buy a company that is union, the union stays in place), or Walmart that is nonunion and uses bully tactics and coercion to stay nonunion.

 OIIIIIIO wrote:

I will grant that some companies operate union free, either because they actually do take care of the people in their employ, as General Electric does (they are primarily non-union but if they buy a company that is union, the union stays in place), or Walmart that is nonunion and uses bully tactics and coercion to stay nonunion.

I would imagine that a union, even a good one, can be a pain in the rear. And sometimes even the threat of a union can push a company to give union-type benefits to workers just to avoid having to deal with an actual union.

Grey Templar wrote:Thats exactly my point. Unions were to protect workers from dangerously unsafe environments and abusive salaries. Neither of which really exists any more.

Walmart, one of the most anti-union employers out there, pays their full-time employees so little that roughly half of them qualify for food stamps. Saying abusive salaries no longer exist is really ignorant.


Unions are a positive force in a weak job market, like we've had in the US for the last decade, and for unskilled and low-skill jobs. Pretty much anyone can put a box on a shelf, and with the high unemployment numbers we have, that means a place like Walmart can pay below-living wages to fill this role. Short of government intervention (in the form of a minimum wage), unionizing is the way that employees have of combating this. Rather than operate 'every man for himself', they tell the company that, as a group, they won't work without reasonable pay. As long as the majority of workers are in the union, this works. But as soon as you enough people willing to work for less than the union is asking, the union loses any power it had in the bargaining.

This leads to a number of contentious issues;

- Unions like to be able to have mandatory union jobs. Many grocery store workers in the Chicago area operate this way. When I was in high school, I had a summer job as a bagger. As a summer job, I was only there for a few months. The grocery workers union had a rule that said anyone who worked there for more than three months would have payroll deductions in the form of union dues, whether you wanted to join the union or not. This protected the workers in the union from facing the situation where too many workers weren't in the union, as everyone was de-facto in the union. But, as a high school student, and not making bagging my living, I was none-to-thrilled about this deduction, so I left after the three summer months were up.

- In "Right to Work" states, the concept is the opposite. Corporations have pressured the government into disallowing mandatory union fees, like mentioned above. The "Right to Work" means you're free to work for yourself, without union dues. This necessarily weakens unions, as some people will opt out of the union to save the monthly fees. When union membership drops below staffing needs, the union has no power. Salaries in "Right to Work" are an average of 6.5% lower than in states without these laws. (http://www.epi.org/publication/datazone_rtw_index/)

- "Right to Work" proponents say that this pro-business approach helps attract business to their state. The south's manufacturing base (many import cars are made in the south) is Right-to-Work. The workers make less than the American car manufacturers in Michigan, but have many fewer job protections and lower individual wages.

- Union rules can prevent businesses from adjusting with the times, and end up killing the industries that the workers work for, and can lead to stupid situations where the union has created positions that don't need to exist. Some examples of this:

-- A co-worker of mine previously wrote software for a company that operated a railroad. One of the tasks that needed to be done was data from one place had to be transferred to another place. The company was modernizing, so my friend was hired to create a software bridge between the two systems, where this data would just be transferred. But, the union rules stated that the job of copying the data was protected, so the software ended up generating a dialog, allowing the user to type the numbers from system1 into system2, and then discarding that input to eliminate human error and copying the info over internally anyway.

-- The building I work in, in Chicago, is a union building. I am not allowed to fix a hinge on a cabinet in our lunchroom, because building maintenance in a union job. Even though this would take me 10 seconds to tighten a screw.


It's not a black&white question. Unions clearly benefit workers - the wage comparisons prove this. And unions are responsible for a lot of workplace reforms that we take for granted. But, unions, with guaranteed dues, can also foster corruption. They can stagnate industries and prevent corporations from adjusting to market trends. And, when Right to Work states compete with pro-Union states to attract new jobs, unions can lead to higher unemployment.

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Hope this helps.

unions are great, they take 50$ off your check, but you get more job security and barganing power.

generally your benifits and working conditions will be better as well.

depends on the union though, where I am they are good... farther east, there is a lot of corruption, politicking, and organized crime that makes up a substantial part of unions.

same could be said of governments though, except they dont do as much as unions to help out workers

Unions serve a purpose for when the employers of labor hold an unfair advantage over the employees or the means of labor when acting individually. This is most evident in harsh economic times, where individual employees cannot make valid complaints or raise issues without threat of the loss of their means of sustaining themselves. When acting as one, as in a Union, labor is then able to match the employer on more "accurate" economic terms relative to their true strength.

That said, in Unions, just like Employers, can often exert more power than they should and can fall prey to the same problems the other has. We can and have ended up with Unions that essentially only serve the "first ins" and screw over many others, particularly the newest and youngest workers.

Unions serve a real and legitimate purpose in some areas, but like anything else can "fail".

Vaktathi has the way of it.

 Redbeard wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Thats exactly my point. Unions were to protect workers from dangerously unsafe environments and abusive salaries. Neither of which really exists any more.

Walmart, one of the most anti-union employers out there, pays their full-time employees so little that roughly half of them qualify for food stamps. Saying abusive salaries no longer exist is really ignorant.

That might be true, if the jobs actually were worth more than those so called "abusive" salaries.

Its not an abusive salary if you are being paid exactly what the job is worth. Abusive would be getting paid far less than you should for the job in question. Walmart is not in that position. You aren't working around dangerous machinery or working 18 hours a day in 7 day work weeks. You're stocking T-shirts and junk food.

Its a completely unskilled position that commands an unskilled wage.

Stocking the shelves at Walmart isn't worth more than minimum wage.

Its not your employers job to ensure that you are making enough money to survive. That's your problem. All the employer has to do is comply with employment laws(many of which were put in place because of unions, which is good), he shouldn't have to tailor the wage to make sure each employee is above the poverty line.


I'm not saying unions shouldn't exist, or that they didn't do good in the past. But modern unions have really gotten way out of hand, yes enough to where you can generalize about them. But check out the union in question, it might be a good one. Then again it might not.

Unions are, ideally, something that appears for when some abuses actually occur. And then collective bargaining happens in response to a strike. And then once an agreement is reached the union is dissolved, with the understanding that if anything happens in the future it will reform. Its not a permanent organization, or if it is it lies basically dormant.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Its not an abusive salary if you are being paid exactly what the job is worth. Abusive would be getting paid far less than you should for the job in question. Walmart is not in that position. You aren't working around dangerous machinery or working 18 hours a day in 7 day work weeks. You're stocking T-shirts and junk food.

Its a completely unskilled position that commands an unskilled wage.

Stocking the shelves at Walmart isn't worth more than minimum wage.

Its not your employers job to ensure that you are making enough money to survive. That's your problem. All the employer has to do is comply with employment laws(many of which were put in place because of unions, which is good), he shouldn't have to tailor the wage to make sure each employee is above the poverty line.

That's really a different debate altogether. Minimum wage should be above the poverty line, otherwise we, the taxpayers, end up subsidizing private workforces. As a society, we appear unwilling to allow people to starve to death. Why should my taxes pay for the food that walmart's workers need, while walmart gets the labour they need at a fraction of that labour's real cost (the cost of keeping the labourers alive).

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Thats exactly my point. Unions were to protect workers from dangerously unsafe environments and abusive salaries. Neither of which really exists any more.

Walmart, one of the most anti-union employers out there, pays their full-time employees so little that roughly half of them qualify for food stamps. Saying abusive salaries no longer exist is really ignorant.

That might be true, if the jobs actually were worth more than those so called "abusive" salaries.

Its not an abusive salary if you are being paid exactly what the job is worth. Abusive would be getting paid far less than you should for the job in question. Walmart is not in that position. You aren't working around dangerous machinery or working 18 hours a day in 7 day work weeks. You're stocking T-shirts and junk food.

Its a completely unskilled position that commands an unskilled wage.

Stocking the shelves at Walmart isn't worth more than minimum wage.

Its not your employers job to ensure that you are making enough money to survive. That's your problem. All the employer has to do is comply with employment laws(many of which were put in place because of unions, which is good), he shouldn't have to tailor the wage to make sure each employee is above the poverty line.


I'm not saying unions shouldn't exist, or that they didn't do good in the past. But modern unions have really gotten way out of hand, yes enough to where you can generalize about them. But check out the union in question, it might be a good one. Then again it might not.

Unions are, ideally, something that appears for when some abuses actually occur. And then collective bargaining happens in response to a strike. And then once an agreement is reached the union is dissolved, with the understanding that if anything happens in the future it will reform. Its not a permanent organization, or if it is it lies basically dormant.

Walmart pays a good deal more than minimum wage, at least for most jobs when I was involved.

 Redbeard wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Its not an abusive salary if you are being paid exactly what the job is worth. Abusive would be getting paid far less than you should for the job in question. Walmart is not in that position. You aren't working around dangerous machinery or working 18 hours a day in 7 day work weeks. You're stocking T-shirts and junk food.

Its a completely unskilled position that commands an unskilled wage.

Stocking the shelves at Walmart isn't worth more than minimum wage.

Its not your employers job to ensure that you are making enough money to survive. That's your problem. All the employer has to do is comply with employment laws(many of which were put in place because of unions, which is good), he shouldn't have to tailor the wage to make sure each employee is above the poverty line.

That's really a different debate altogether. Minimum wage should be above the poverty line, otherwise we, the taxpayers, end up subsidizing private workforces. As a society, we appear unwilling to allow people to starve to death. Why should my taxes pay for the food that walmart's workers need, while walmart gets the labour they need at a fraction of that labour's real cost (the cost of keeping the labourers alive).

Blame consumers too... people want super cheap products.

 Redbeard wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Its not an abusive salary if you are being paid exactly what the job is worth. Abusive would be getting paid far less than you should for the job in question. Walmart is not in that position. You aren't working around dangerous machinery or working 18 hours a day in 7 day work weeks. You're stocking T-shirts and junk food.

Its a completely unskilled position that commands an unskilled wage.

Stocking the shelves at Walmart isn't worth more than minimum wage.

Its not your employers job to ensure that you are making enough money to survive. That's your problem. All the employer has to do is comply with employment laws(many of which were put in place because of unions, which is good), he shouldn't have to tailor the wage to make sure each employee is above the poverty line.

That's really a different debate altogether. Minimum wage should be above the poverty line, otherwise we, the taxpayers, end up subsidizing private workforces. As a society, we appear unwilling to allow people to starve to death. Why should my taxes pay for the food that walmart's workers need, while walmart gets the labour they need at a fraction of that labour's real cost (the cost of keeping the labourers alive).

Above the poverty line based on what? Unmarried singles with no dependents? Married? Married with kids? How many kids?

Setting a blanket minimum wage based on the poverty is only going to shift the poverty line up, and its not going to get everyone who is under the poverty line.

2 individuals may make the exact same wage and only have one of them be under the poverty line, because he has greater expenses.

You won't get rid of poverty by raising the minimum wage, all you do is shift where the poverty line is(because poverty is relative)

 Grey Templar wrote:
Above the poverty line based on what?

Well since we have an actual poverty line based on number of people I suppose we base it on that. We could base the minimum wage on being enough to not have use food stamps and afford basic health insurance.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Above the poverty line based on what?

Well since we have an actual poverty line based on number of people I suppose we base it on that. We could base the minimum wage on being enough to not have use food stamps and afford basic health insurance.

But again, its still based on the number of people in the household.

Which level do you use for minimum wage?

Do we have a different minimum wage based on the number of people in the household now? So if 2 identical people are hired for the same job, but one has 2 kids, they will have 2 different levels of pay because one has family?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Above the poverty line based on what?

Well since we have an actual poverty line based on number of people I suppose we base it on that. We could base the minimum wage on being enough to not have use food stamps and afford basic health insurance.

But again, its still based on the number of people in the household.

Which level do you use for minimum wage?

Do we have a different minimum wage based on the number of people in the household now? So if 2 identical people are hired for the same job, but one has 2 kids, they will have 2 different levels of pay because one has family?

Wait, I got lost. So conceptually, you agree that we should pay people a living wage, and your only concern is that we correctly identify what that living wage is? Or conceptually, you think that people don't deserve a living wage for jobs that you consider beneath you - in which case, why do you need to know what that number is?

I'm saying that making the minimum wage be based on the poverty level doesn't work, because the poverty level is 100% dependent on each individual's situation. There isn't a single Poverty level, there are a whole bunch of them.

Any level you choose is going to leave some people out of the benefit loop, or drive businesses out of business because you are making them pay far more than the labor being generated is worth.


If we set the minimum wage based on a single person with no dependents, everyone who has dependents is still going to be below the poverty line.

If we set the minimum wage based on having 3 dependents, everyone with more than 3 is still below the poverty line and everyone with less than 3 dependents is now being paid excessively.

If you have differing minimum wages based on the individual worker's # of dependents, you are allowing discrimination based on that criteria(businesses will simply not hire people with more than a certain number of dependents)

And yet, the minimum wage was established specifically to ensure that people who worked a full day made a living wage. Read the literature from the time it was passed, and what it's intention was.

You're suggesting that we have a math problem so complex that it cannot be figured out. I'm saying that's hogwash. I may not have the answer here in a thread on dakka, but the idea that it can't be done is ludicrous.

Maybe the definition of "living wage" is what is causing the issue here.

I would say living wage would be enough for a single person with no dependents to have an apartment, food, and clothing, a basic prepaid cell phone, and internet access. You can definitely get that on our current minimum wage.

Anything else is extra, and will necessitate getting paid more by finding a better job or getting promoted.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Maybe the definition of "living wage" is what is causing the issue here.

I would say living wage would be enough for a single person with no dependents to have an apartment, food, and clothing, a basic prepaid cell phone, and internet access. You can definitely get that on our current minimum wage.

Anything else is extra, and will necessitate getting paid more by finding a better job or getting promoted.

On the topic of liveable wages vs. minimum wages let's look at California.

Here the min is $8/hr. IF you are lucky enough to find a job that gives you 40 hours/wk that grosses you $1280/mo. Assuming you are single(which has the lowest overhead total) you can take out 20% for taxes, so net $1024.

That's 1k to pay ALL of your bills and eat. Now keep that number in mind.

Where I live currently, a 1 bedroom apartment runs $1100-1500/mo. Most people say "then commute". Ok, let's look at what a 60 minute drive that costs you currently about $10 each way is like. Riverside will get you a $700/mo 1 bedroom apartment.

So now every day you work you take $15(we'll be generous) for gas, that's 2 hours work right there. Just between rent and gas to commute to your min wage job you've eaten your entire budget.

It is impossible to live in CA by yourself with what the state deems is an acceptable amount of money.

I'm aware that other places aren't as extreme, but then other places aren't also the largest economic forces in the country.

I couldn't tell you what the fix is. Raising min wage means companies will raise prices to offset that increase, and poor people will still not be able to afford what they can't already. Sure, it's unskilled labor, but someone has to do it.

I don't see a McDonalds union being able to make much happen in the way of income. And especially in the current economy, it's VERY easy to replace people as there are plenty who will gladly take your job, often for less than you get paid.

Teachers unions I get, as those people have committed their lives to that trade, same with skilled labor like construction. How is UPS delivery guy a skilled trade? It's one step above pizza delivery(granted with far more physical exertion). And those guys get paid all manner of good money for what they do.

 Aerethan wrote:

It is impossible to live in CA by yourself with what the state deems is an acceptable amount of money.
.

Since when do people have the right to live by themselves? People I know have roommates, or even rent a room. A 1 bedroom apartment in my area is easily 1750$ a month but you can rent a room for as low as 400$ a month.

I think people's definition of a living wage is what is at odds right now.

I'm currently renting a room for $300 a month plus utilities.

Get some roommates to cut expenses if you have an apartment.

Its very doable. college students have been doing it since going away to college has been a thing.

 d-usa wrote:

And sometimes even the threat of a union can push a company to give union-type benefits to workers just to avoid having to deal with an actual union.

Or they can be Walmart and be horrible douches when it comes to unionizing.I think recent media showings of Walmart have shown that they think they're big enough to keep fighting off unions the "violent" way (not really violent, just not the most amenable way... such as giving people a decent paycheck, or actual benefits)

On the flip side of that, they can be like VW America, where the plant workers out in TN were given multiple opportunities to vote to become unionized, and each time, by pretty decent margins, they stayed independent.

Used to be labor and capital were opposed and went back and forth. Capital wanted unlimited immigration to drive down salaries, for instance. Seeing as unions are firmly in the pocket of the highly anti labor, open borders, no tariff party, I'm not sure what value they are supposed to contribute.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Maybe the definition of "living wage" is what is causing the issue here.

I would say living wage would be enough for a single person with no dependents to have an apartment, food, and clothing, a basic prepaid cell phone, and internet access. You can definitely get that on our current minimum wage.

Anything else is extra, and will necessitate getting paid more by finding a better job or getting promoted.

So what happens if you have dependents?