The Irony of unions

I'm part of a union, but as a part time student employee. They don't give a damn about me. They voted to lower my (student's) wage to increase their own.

I've been a union worker before, and am non-union now. Basically unions suck, but a world without unions would suck even more. Unions are a great idea, but are run by people, with all the problems that implies. Corruption, buck-passing, selfisness, etc.

My biggest problem with the unions I've been in is the inflexibility. There are regulations and procedures for everything. And don't even try and inject a little common sense or real world experience into things. "The suits in their air-conditioned offices who can't even remember what a callus looks like know what's best for you!"

I'm well aware however that I wouldn't have nearlythe kind of benefits and suck that I have at my job if weren't for the existence of unions. The owner of my company gets chest pains if he even hears the word union, so he trys to make sure we have no reason to consider unionizing.

In a perfect world unions would be reasonable things that always worked the way they're supposed to, or emplyers wold be generous just because it's the right thing to do. In this imperfect world, I'll take my non-union job with an owner who tries to be good to us because he's terrified of the unions. Best of both worlds, i think.

When I was doing my MA at Western, I was "TA-ing" and had to be part of the Graduate Students' Union. They threatened stikes, but I never saw one.

There are so many fallacies above that I scarsely know where to begin.

Do you really think unionized workers can come and go as they please and not lose pay? You don't believe that, do you? There are disciplinary procedures in any collective agreement. Unions don't want to protect bad employees any more than management does. There concern is that the collective agreement is followed in all areas, including discipline.

The LAST thing unionized workers want is a strike. It's never a money-making prospect and the money lost on strike is NEVER regained. They use strikes only as a last resort. In practise, most strikes are initiated by management, not union.

I don't think you have ANY clue about what sick time is. If a collective agreement has, say, 20 sick days per year, that doesn't mean everyone gets to phone in sick 20 times and if they don't, they get paid for those they don't use. It's more complicated than that. Maybe you should read a collective agreement.

Honda and Toyota have been able to keep unions out, but it's not because any workers told the CAW to "fuck off". That's an outright lie.

I can't teach you an introductory course in Labour Economics here, but you'd do yourself a great favour to enroll in one before you shoot your mouth off about something you clearly have no working knowledge of.[/quote][quote][/quote]

You are totally right. I have a bitter taste in my mouth about unions because all they have ever done to me is make my work life suck. I am not part a of a union, but you can bet your ass if I can get into one, I will. Work half as hard as non union workers and get paid way more. That is how I see it from a non union worker dealing with unionized employees. My father was a steel worker for 32 yrs and as soon as the CAW showed up (United Steel workers union before the CAW), the workers losted about 13 percent of their previous pension plan. Also, I have dealt with Unions from a management side. I had an employee that knew all the ins and outs of the Collective Bargaining agreement and when I told her that, she couldn't do her home work at work, she said, fire me. Well after 3 months of bullshit and a phone call to the union supervisor at 9pm to come and take a look. He told me if I couldn't prove that she was doing her home work at work, I was shit out of luck. So at 8:30 when I noticed it again, I called him at home to come in and see. We walked in and for about 5 minutes, she didn't even notice us. I looked at him and said, after 3 months, is this enough to fire her. I pretty much couldn't do my job as long as I was dealing with the union and the shitty staff member. Also, in another Collective bargain agreement in which I was involved, the Union told the Employees that they had to use their paid sick time. If they accummulated to much paid sick time, they would lose them. I sat in the meeting that the employees were told, if they didn't use them, then in the next CBA, the union wouldn't ask for more days, but reduce the amount of paid sick time available to the union members.
So as you can see, I have read a couple CBA and also been involved with them. I know I don't have the experience you must have with Collective agreements, but I do have some. I also know that Honda workers didn't tell the CAW to fuck off, but they did tell them to go away as they didn't want to screw up a great thing.

Yeah the best mill in town is non union.
However they pay 50c an hour more than the union mill (plus no union dues) and have a 'plant committee' for grievances so who needs it?
Everyone with enough fucking brains to realize if the union mill wasn't there they'd get 50c an hour more than the gyppo mill down the road. About HALF what they get with a union place to free-ride upon!
Just like WalMart not being all that bad because they look over their shoulder at Safeway down the road an not some minimum wage scabbo shop. Get thism WalMart even signed onto raising the minimum wages in the US because like Henry Ford, they know the more money the lowest paid workers have, the more's going to end up spent in their stores!
Begrudging what someone else makes or their better work conditions is the lowest, most un-Christian human attitude there is. Taking what someone else has away instead of improving your own situation might be easier, just like it's easier to be an asshole than a decent person.
The fact this seems to be a founding plank in Conservative platform is the #1 reason I loathe their philosophy.