Unions, are they as worthless as they seem?

[midnight Target]

Any company with a Union probably deserves it.

[Wanker]

Originally posted by mietla
What exactly is tenure and what is the rationale for it?

From Merriam-Webster:

Tenure- a status granted after a trial period to a teacher that gives protection from summary dismissal.

In Minnesota, a beginning teacher in the public schools is called a probationary teacher. After successfully completing two years of service with the same school district, a third year teacher, when offered a contract by that district, shall be considered to be tenured. Tenure is designed to prevent teachers getting fired without due process. In other words, a school district can fire a probationary teacher without a good reason. Indeed, no reason need be given at all.

In order to fire a tenured teacher, however, a school district must follow a certain procedure, allowing the teacher to face his/her accusers, having a hearing before the school board, etc.

Contrary to what anti-unionists think or say, it is possible to fire a tenured teacher. But it is much more difficult than firing a probationary teacher.

Teachers need the protection of tenure, IMO, to keep them safe from the knee-jerk revenge tactics of disgruntled parents whose child earned a failing grade in class. As a beginning teacher, I taught in a small town where one of my teacher friends had a parent say to him "I'll have your job for this grade", after that parent's son recieved an "F" in a subject. Nothing ever became of the threat, but it is a realistic example of how a teacher could be coerced into passing a student who should fail  a course.

On the other hand, tenure can be a double-edged sword. Since it is more difficult to fire a tenured teacher, it allows some bad teachers more time to wreck their students' lives. In the five years that I taught in the public schools, I worked with two teachers who I felt were dead weight and doing nobody any good. Tenure may have saved their jobs, which in this case was a bad thing.

Unions also provide legal defense for teachers who get accused of and/or sued for negligence or sexual abuse. When I was a teacher, my union provided up to a million dollars insurance for damages, if I recall correctly.

I've always had mixed feelings about tenure. Even when I was a teacher, I thought that nobody should be above being held accountable for their actions as a teacher. At the same time, however, I was glad to have tenure to protect me from the occasional irate parent of a failing student.

Tenure does not protect teachers from layoffs. In the case of layoffs for financial reasons, it goes by seniority. Newest teachers get axed first, etc.

[Toad]

LePaul, you seem to think that if UAW workers still made 1968 wages you'd still be able to get a GTO for $4000.

Yah, right. Management isn't greedy. Look at the humble paychecks and bonuses they award themselves. Enron

Like I said... it's Yin and Yang. At the extremes, both suck.

Two truisms in this thread:

Any company that has a Union probably deserves it. (Also written as "Happy workers don't unionize"

and

The only thing worse than a Union is NO Union.

[capt. apathy]

Back when they could force workers to work in unsafe places for, unfair money. Basicaly abuse people.

and exactly when did that end?  abuse still happens.  

as far as wages go the main reason you can get a decent wage working non-union is that if they didn't pay it you would organize.

'right to work states'-  what a load of crap they are.  labor is the only bussiness where the state has outlawed exclusive contracts.  in most states it's fairly simple,  union workers work under a contract,  unless there are provisions that are required by law someone at the company agreed to every one of those conditions in the contract.  bargaining is give and take and if there is a clause in the contract that is bad for the company odds are they traded something for it that was bad for the employees.
every bussiness has exclusive contracts.  most resteraunts have either a coke/pepsi contract, where they agree to only get beverages from that suplyer, why should labor be singled out, and contracts interfeered with.

dues as a tax-  I supose you could look at it that way.  but much like the dem/republican ecconomy, you choose would you pay a higher percentage of higher wages or have less tax on much less income.  non-union guys in the same work I do work for $10-15 less(non union wage is $14-18 on average)  for your average employee.  those who have a wider range of skills make more money, I could make around $30 working non-union (roughly the same as I make union)
 but it wouldn't include health insurance (about $4 per hour), most non-union construction companys require 90 days of employment for health ins, the common methode for non-supervison employees is to lay them off after 75-85 days then re-hir them after a couple weeks.
 or pension payments ($5.50 per hour),  non-union can count on the so-so security system
 or anuity fund (another couple bucks per hour),  if you are very lucky and work for a 'good non-union company' and get to asupervision  position, (so you are employed more than 90 days), they will let you pay into a 401k, sometimes even matching part of your payment.
 or money paid into aprenticeship training and journeyman upgrade (about 25-35 cents).  this insures that new employees are adiquitly trained, before coming to the job.  also anytime a guy feels he needs to upgrade his skills use of a training facility, all expenses and an instructor are provided at no charge.  non-union works with whatever guy they found to do the job,  often working in very dangerouse situations where maybe only 1 in 4 have ever done the work before.  you can go to a colledge vo-tech and learn to weld , then go out on a non-union job as a journeyman welder.  with no idea about safe work practices or the type os situational awareness required on a construction job.

that puts my total pay a bit over $42.00.  thats about $10 more than non-unions top pay.  out of that I pay about $1.50 in dues, well worth it in my mind.

those who say their union never did anything for them, when asked, invariabley admit they rarely if ever go to meetings or take any active part in the union.  the union (as it's name implies) is workers united, bargaining together so that we have a more equal footing when negotiating our contracts.  if you don't participate how is the union rep to know what is important to you.  if your union seems out of control odds are your members aren't doing their job.

[LePaul]

Hey Toad

Sorry, I respectfully disagree.

I work for a good company that takes great interest in how we are doing and such.  There are many large companys out there that do just fine without a Union.

As for those companies that are screwed management wise...you're right...some deserve Unions.  LIke the AA disasters and such.  Countless examples are out there of management making things awful.

And many of Unions growing to big for themselves and killing their income

As Mini said, there should be a middle ground somewhere.  I've been on both sides.

[midnight Target]

Another truism.... Unions can't get anything that management doesn't want to give. I've seen companies in my area unionize and wind up with workers making less than they were before. Workers are protected from the abuses of the past without union representation. Unions have become nothing more than a hedge against a bad economy.

[Wanker]

I think Toad and Mini-D have given very reasonable assessments on unions, and why they are still needed. Well said, guys.

BTW, don't be surprised to see some white collar unions pop up in the next few years. The big blue technical company that I work for have been steadily reducing benefits for it's employees over the years, and now there is an organized effort to form a white collar union of technology employees. I get mailings from them every month or so(I am not a member).

[LePaul]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Another truism.... Unions can't get anything that management doesn't want to give. I've seen companies in my area unionize and wind up with workers making less than they were before. Workers are protected from the abuses of the past without union representation. Unions have become nothing more than a hedge against a bad economy.

Well said

One of the rare times we had a Union Representative at our plant, he was trying to convince us who to vote for in the election.  This not long after UPS settled on the details for a new contract.  We befuddled the representative completely when he suggested we should vote for a liberal democrat on the state ballot.

I simply asked "Why would we want to give up our newly won hard wages on a party that has a history of taxing us to death?"  I made a lot of friends, and enemies, that day  

[Mini D]

Originally posted by  midnight Target  
Any company that has a Union probably deserves it.

I don't believe that for a minute.

Every job I've had, no matter how cushy has had people form a union... or at least try.  It wouldn't bother me so much if there were issues with safety/long hours/low pay... but the unions offer other things that people like to see.

Unions offer pay by "experience" requirements... only defining experience as years worked.  Most companies I've worked for offer performance based raises.  This always pissed off the people that were at the bottom end of the performance curve.  They'd constantly try to insist that promotions and raises should not be based on how well you do your job, but how long you've been doing it.  Once you standardize this, you loose the ability to quantify performance on anything other than amount of time worked.

Anyways... I still think they are necessary to an extent... just to keep companies honest.  But I also believe they are a refuge for people adept at hiding within the system that were long overdue for termination.

MiniD

[LePaul]

Originally posted by Mini D
But I also believe they are a refuge for people adept at hiding within the system that were long overdue for termination.

MiniD

AGREED!

[strk]

not all unions are created equally either, some are stronger than others.  At its core, Unions are very american - power to the people - not that there havent beenexcesses in either direction

be happy that your grandfathers formed unions.  they brought us

40 hour work week (although this is disappearing fast) (wekends off!)
minimum wage - which used to be a living wage too
safety in the workplace/OSHA
end of child labor
overtime pay

and lets face it, by and large a product made by a happy union worker is going to be superior to that made by a disgruntled employee or some malaysian working for pennies a day.

but how often do you see "made in the usa" anymore?  Alot of former union jobs are moving to south america because of nafta and gatt (REAL reasons for impeachment lol), so I would say that the need for collective bargaining is not over yet.  

UNION meant an american worker making an american product, and IMHO we need alot more of that

strk

[Gadfly]

Actually, the Unions are the CAUSE of a lot of jobs lost.  They require companies to waste money and manpower on stupid issues and outrageous rules.

Unions made this nation what it is today, but Nanny government has assumed their role, so they are useless.

[mietla]

Originally posted by banana
Teachers need the protection of tenure, IMO, to keep them safe from the knee-jerk revenge tactics of disgruntled parents whose child earned a failing grade in class.  

How is it different from a customer service tech needing a protection to keep them safe from the knee-jerk revenge tactics of disgruntled customers whose purchase has been damaged by their misuse of it?

[rpm]

One thing I find interesting in this thread is the number of "Right Wingers" that are in favor of Unions. When you break down the purpose of a Union it clearly is a Leftist group. Looks like the Left is just fine, so long as it serves their purpose and lines their own pockets. Is that hypocrisy I smell??

[Toad]

Or maybe your "right wing" pigeon-hole is restricting your vision.