Do you work for the union? do you like it?

Blaming detroits issues on unions is a massive oversimplification. Did they play a role? Sure but blaming unions for Detroit turning into what it is now is a lot more complicated.

When you can build stuff in china paying the workers a dollar or two a day for 12 your shifts 7 days a week with 0 environmental or safety considerations your going to make stuff much much cheaper.

 

How is it wrong, undemocratic or evil for employees to organize to protect their interests? Businesses have groups to protect theirs - the Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, the list goes on and on. I never hear anyone express any objection to these groups, but a union to protect the employees? That's a travesty.

Be serious. If you honestly think you've done it all yourself and have received no benefits from unions, that's fine but history disagrees. Even if you work salary and don't get overtime there is a set of expectations now built into jobs regarding working conditions, etc., and you share in the benefits.

 

Decent, or good, officers don't need union protection. They'll earn their keep based on their own merits.

If you're competent, and confident in your ability, you don't need a union to represent your interests. Due to our comprehensive labour laws, the only people in Canada who NEED unions are those who don't earn their own keep.

 

This is where unions are a benefit IMO. Civil servants. Although it does protect the bad with the good. It also aids in pay/benefits when contract is up. It's not like a normal job where you have a boss and that's it. Police /Fire/Paramedics /Dispatchers Technically get a new boss every time there is an election. A new boss who probably wants to cut corners to make his/her numbers look good. So the union can step in before that new mayor, govenor, etc... takes money away from the department that could possibly effect the safety of the employee.


I was a Dispatcher for 15 years. In that 15 years I never had an issue. I did my job well. And the few times my actions where questioned, I didn't even use union representation. I didn't like my union. But I always just went in myself and talked /yelled my point a cross. Never lost a days pay due to discipline. When it came to contract time though. I can't argue that as one person. So that's where the union comes in.

 

The problem in the work force is not the illegals it's the employers that illegally hire them.

 

This is true.

 

399 Teamster and IBEW 40 here. And I agree, in our business if you don't work to a certain standard, you dont work often.

In our department, if it weren't for the union the producers and Production companies (especially independent companies) would take advantage of us.

Sure, there are lazy ones, but they dont last long.

 

That's usually what people say until they have a problem. Maybe someone accuses you of doing something you didn't, or someone has a personal problem with you that they take to work. It happens every day.

Funny thing an economics professor told me many years ago: In most of the world when a millionaire drives by in his black limousine and splashes people waiting to cross the street, they call him a greedy pig. In America we say it's a nice limousine but when we get ours it will be silver. The fact that we have a sense of being able to make it big on our own is both good and bad. When you reach the point that you know you're not getting the limo, sometimes you start to think it's okay for unions to ask that a few more scraps be thrown to the grunts.

 

In greedy corporate America companies are bought and sold on a daily basis.A competent union has a "successorship" clause in their contract. Any worker that doesn't "NEED" a union would have to be rehired by the new owners at a starting wage. The union members would keep their wages and benefits that they have worked for.

 

I wouldn't say owed. If you're working your ass off for a big company, and that company is bringing in millions. Then the worker deserves to be paid accordingly. But that's why there are unions. Because those companies didn't want to pay a fair wage. Boom. Birth of unions.

 

Lots of us on here are driving trucks worth more than most people in the world earn in their lifetimes. You're right, we aren't owed that. You're able to have it because we have an economy that supports it. You can use all of your ingenuity doing whatever job it is that you do and get a lot less for it if you go somewhere else in the world, and that's exactly what's slowly happening in this country as we see a greater and greater disparity between the top and bottom income brackets.

 

Exactly.

If you are truly worth more then someone, somewhere will pay it. If you are valuable to your current company and negotiate your own wages, they will work with you to keep you. If you set yourself apart from others doing your job, you're golden and you can reap the benefits. Unions do not allow you to do that.

 

Meh. They still have their place.

And you're right. I have fun all day with my 2yo. Stay at home dad FTMFW! So IDGAF about my old shitty union. Only union I like is my wife's teacher's union.

 

I was talking about as a whole.

 

Equal isn't necessarily fair.

Individual contracts allow more dedicated and hard working employees to be compensated better than those who come in and do the minimum.

 

If you think it's all you that is responsible for everything you have, go somewhere else and do the same thing. You have a lot of what you have because unions, among other factors, created a wealthy economy and a reasonable distribution of income. You can "negotiate your own salary" but you do so against a backdrop of a high-wage country.

 

I agree. That's the issue I have with unions. And with my old one. I did my best and the asshole next to me didn't.

 

I'm not talking about canada where the maple syrup runs free in the streets.

 

The 8 hour work day has it's origins in Europe during the Industrial Revolution

just sayin

 

Also , this whole maple syrup thing , seriously , get some new fucking material America