[TigerMandingo]

I just wanted to hear members' thoughts on this topic. Seems like most on this board would probably be against the idea of unions due to them being associated with communism or socialism.

Personally, I like unions as I feel they provide a buffer between worker and his employer and are sort of a check on corporate power. America used to have really strong unions until they were totally demolished (by Teddy Roosevelt? could be wrong on that), and now they are a shadow of what they once were.

Has there been a propaganda campaign to demonize unions?

[worldwidetraveler]

Labor Unions are a mixed bag.

Many of my friends and family members have been required to be in one. One friend was taken care of when he developed a disability and couldn't work any longer. A few family members were screwed when their retirements was changed after the recession because of bankruptcy threats. One member lost most of his health care in that change.

When any organization gets big, they tends to become less about the members and more about power.

[Richard Turpin]

That's a damn good question. My workplace still has a very strong union presence, yet is a shadow of its former self back when I started work. In fact, when I started, it was looked down upon not to join and most of us joined because we felt obliged to. Times have changed and nowadays very few people (including myself) are members. We all feel that we get very little back for the money we paid into them each month.

On the face of things, unions seem like a great idea and union reps rightly point to all the good things they've done for the workforce. The trouble is, they (at least in my experience) are undoubtedly allied, or infiltrated with socialism/communism.

There's no starker reminder of this than a previous good friend of mine who decided to become a union rep one day purely to be able to fight against his then manager. A decade later, my friend has gone from a Daily Express reading, fairly red-pilled 'one of the lads' to a fully fledged SJW Corbyn supporter complete with propaganda spreading facebook posts every couple of days. I can only put this down to the powerful influence of this new union 'gang'.

[RoastBeefCurtains4Me]

Labor unions tend to stifle productivity. They always push for restrictive work rules, like saying that you can't pick up a wrench and turn a loose bolt. Only members of the mechanic's union can do that. You think, "but they'll take hours to get here, and make a big stink about how they're too busy sitting on their asses to actually do anything, and anyway, it will only take me 30 seconds". So, you go ahead and adjust the bolt yourself.

Well now you've got a big grievance filed against you, mister! Expect to spend 80 hours doing paperwork and grievance meetings because you thought you'd save 30 seconds.

Companies with these kinds of strait jackets around them are not nimble in the market place, and tend to lose market share over time, until they go bankrupt. The reason why there aren't that many unions anymore is either the previous union factories became unprofitable and were closed, or the employees actually voted out the union.

[TigerMandingo]

(06-28-2018 10:34 AM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  

Labor unions tend to stifle productivity.

Allow me to play devil's advocate.

Quote:

There is a common myth that unions hurt productivity, supposedly because they impose work rules that make their employers less efficient. The evidence from industrial relations studies does not support this myth. A broad study of the economics literature found “a positive association [of unions on productivity] is established for the United States in general and for U.S. manufacturing” in particular (Doucouliagos and Laroche 2003, 1).1 And as the second chart below reveals, international comparisons suggest that high productivity and very high union density are entirely compatible.

[kaotic]

I have to cosign here with WWT, I've seen Labor Unions treat my friends great and always get them work, or help with disability.

A few that come to mind are sparkies (electricians) IBEW, and also Linemen.

However, as a double edged sword they definitely can hinder work (roast alluded to), deadlines, and self sabotage (unintentionally).

There are still some great unions out there, especially for the blue collar workers, but then you have union organizers with the FightFor15 movement which are hilariously misinformed.

[Rotten]

I think you have to make two important caveats before you can say anything nice about labor unions.

First, public sector labor unions shouldn't exist. Employees shouldn't be permitted to organize against the people. There's no exploitation or profit motive to organize against. In practice, Public sector unions are only a conduit for politicians to fund their campaigns with money that belongs to the Treasury.

Second, despite all of the Rhetoric, (((Marxist))) unions run by (((Marxist Union Organizers))) do not benefit either employees or businesses. Instead, these unions make it possible for a variety of third parties to strike it rich off the labor strife.

Look at any private sector Marxist run Union, who gets rich? A: the organizers who control the strike fund and the pensions, the bankers who fun both sides, the business competitors, the various SJW universities that train the organizers, the lawyers (on both sides) that drag out the proceedings, the minor government officials that ultimately get involved and take power away from both sides. All of these beneficiaries of the Marxist struggle send their kids to the same private religious schools and in many cases personally know each other.

Who loses: the ownership, who usually has to incur extra borrowing and usually gets forced into adopting various rules that make it hard to adopt to changing market conditions, and the employees also lose, being forced to send part of their paycheck to a second boss.

Nearly all unions in the USA are Marxist run unions. (This was not always true). Most USA private sector unions forced their business into expensive but strict contracts that made the businesses fail when market conditions changed.

I concede that labor unions apparently work well in Germany due to culture, and that unions (non Marxist) played an important historical role in the United States winning the workplace safety rights that everybody now enjoys (and make union membership redundant in 2018). I also understand that skilled employees with leverage (like the sports player unions) enjoy union benefits equivalent to what they would enjoy under the pre-union guild structures.

[Dodgy]

(06-28-2018 09:23 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

Has there been a propaganda campaign to demonize unions?

No, Unions have had this coming for a long time, specifically in America. In California, unions have turned into big time lobbyist groups who use the contributions of their members to fund political candidates and causes that serve the interests on the Union (or the Union's top brass) as opposed to the interests of their worker members.

Also, as one member pointed out they stifle productivity from an efficiency standpoint, which not only results in delays but in higher costs that ultimately get passed to the consumer. But they not only stifle work productivity, they also stifle hiring qualified people. Union hiring processes are ridiculous especially in public sector unions, like state and city unions who have created stupid rules for new employee hires. And of course they also have an uncanny ability to always hire the most incompetent, dumbest people to these positions. And when you try to fire these hacks, union rules mandate a long, drawn out process for termination; to the point where employers will literally offer some union idiot a $75k buyout to leave instead of going through the termination process. It's almost like extortion.

And in regards to extortion, another reason unions in America have declined is due to mob infiltration. Guys don't understand just how prevalent mob control of labor unions was in the 20th century. The Midwest mobs used the Teamsters Union Pension Fund (Jimmy Hoffa's union) as their personal bank to fund the building of Las Vegas casinos including the Stardust. For those familiar with Martin Scorsese's Casino, that's based on real life events. Kevin Pollack's character was based on a former Union lawyer turned mob controlled strawman owner of the Stardust, which was managed by the mob who skimmed from the earnings of the casino.

Also, in NYC the five families basically controlled all the unions in the City. You can google the "NYC concrete cartel case," or the "windows case" to see how the mob manipulated the unions to get construction contacts and then charged exorbitant amounts to contractors to get these projects done. It's a fact that mob controlled unions built and managed the Javits convention center and even poured the concrete for Trump Tower. And all the high prices the mob charged was passed onto residents, making some writers speculate that the high cost of living in NYC is directly related to the high construction costs imposed by mob controlled construction unions. And when the mob was taken down in the 80s and 90s, it was embarrassing to organized labor just how extensive mob control was. In fact, the Federal government had to literally take control of the Teamster's Union because it couldn't stop mob corruption.

So no, there's no propaganda campaign. Organized labor has needed to be deconstructed and reconfigured for a long time now.

[kaotic]

Rotten and Dodgy brought up some fantastic points.

Public sector unions are absolutely batshit insane and 100% politically motivated.

Here in California it's absolutely peak corruption with the public unions here.

What's hilarious is the unfunded pension liability about $1 Trillion that is.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/04/06/wi...ic-straws/

[Disco_Volante]

Public unions are why 92% of government employees vote democrat. They're always going to favor big government to keep the benefits and money going. In most school districts something like 70% of the 'education spending' actually goes to the teachers' pension funds. They're collectively bargaining to stick it to the taxpayer and they don't give a shit what the consequences are. Illinois and California owe hundreds of billions they don't have in payments to all the public 'servants' who retired at 52 and now get pension payments every month for life. This will obviously go bankrupt but they're too arrogant to care.

They're all self-righteous that their 'union brothers' are in some sort of struggle to protect their families from the evils of business or whatever. Its a big cult basically that justifies automatic dues deducted from their paychecks. Unions are also why, in all those police shootings its virtually impossible to fire the cop. Paid vacation every time.

Private sector unions aren't relevant anymore since globalism came along, a business can easily move to another country and their pwecious wittle 'collective bargaining' doesn't mean shit.

[Mekorig]

Never saw a union really defending a worker´s right on my life. It always that discourse, but really they dont fucking care about you, they want more power. Also, infested with commies.

[Baphomet]

(06-28-2018 11:08 AM)Rotten Wrote:  

I think you have to make two important caveats before you can say anything nice about labor unions.

First, public sector labor unions shouldn't exist. Employees shouldn't be permitted to organize against the people. There's no exploitation or profit motive to organize against. In practice, Public sector unions are only a conduit for politicians to fund their campaigns with money that belongs to the Treasury.

100% Correct. I'm pretty sure that FDR himself was against public sector unions.

[Hypno]

It’s really been a long time since unions served much of a valid purpose. Most governments passes wage and hour and discrimination laws 50+ years ago. Since then they have been more parasite than a force to accomplish something

[LeBeau]

One of the biggest issues with unions that few people talk about is accountability.

I can understand the debates around collective bargaining, safety, pensions, etc. but many unions use their power to make it extremely difficult to fire someone. We see this especially with public sector unions.

I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't have an issue with higher wages for union members if they knew they were getting more value. This is in stark contrast to the example set by teachers' unions, where virtually no one loses their job for poor performance. Even inappropriate behavior is more likely to result in a teacher being quietly shuffled to a different school or assigned area of the school district, rather than dismissal.

There also has to be a way for union and public sector employees to be held accountable for customer service in a similar manner to how private sector employees can be punished for complaints, or poor reviews and survey responses.

[AneroidOcean]

(06-28-2018 09:23 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

I just wanted to hear members' thoughts on this topic. Seems like most on this board would probably be against the idea of unions due to them being associated with communism or socialism.

Personally, I like unions as I feel they provide a buffer between worker and his employer and are sort of a check on corporate power. America used to have really strong unions until they were totally demolished (by Teddy Roosevelt? could be wrong on that), and now they are a shadow of what they once were.

Has there been a propaganda campaign to demonize unions?

Why does an employee need a buffer between them and their employer?

What purpose does a Union serve that isn't served by the myriad number of laws in the US that protects worker's rights?

What exactly is corporate power that should be checked that is not already checked with existing laws?

[TigerMandingo]

(06-28-2018 02:56 PM)AneroidOcean Wrote:  

Why does an employee need a buffer between them and their employer?

What purpose does a Union serve that isn't served by the myriad number of laws in the US that protects worker's rights?

What exactly is corporate power that should be checked that is not already checked with existing laws?

On paper, I agree. The laws do provide some sort of protection to the average employee. But realistically, corporations by their very nature are predatory and authoritarian. Their powers have gone unchecked in the last hundred years, if anything they have been granted unlimited authority.

Real wages have been stagnant since the 1970s, meanwhile the ruling class has consolidated its wealth. Perhaps unions aren't the answer, but there should be some sort of "buffer" (for lack of a better term).

[N°6]

For context:

Ancient world - artificers
Medieval world - guilds and freemasons
Enlightenment - speculative freemasonic infiltration of operative freemasonry, end of guild system

Industrial Revolution (i) - non-Conformist Christian unions

Industrial Revolution (ii) - Marxist

Crisis of Marxism - Pope XIII devises the corporate state - guilds for industrial era, adopted by Italian and British Fascists


Post WW2 - Swedish corporate state, statist unions in the West, resisted women and immigrants in the labour force - undermines wages (Marx Engels reserve labour pool theory). CEOs and banks push for women and immigrants, states in debt push for more tax payers. Married man's premium on salary abolished.


1980s+ triumph of liberal economics and social mores, unions emasculated, revived as defenders of victim groups. Union parades now like mardi gras and gay pride. Muscular socialism destroyed.

[Wreckingball]

Unions are like communism.

In theory they are great, but in reality they suck.

Productivity: As mentioned before, Unions stifle productivity. They enforce rules that make honest workers go trough troubles to fix easy problems. Do we have a graphic of productivity of countries where there are no(t many) unions?
Accountability: Goes hand in hand with productivity. Bad and toxic workers become unfireable, thus making recruiting more difficult, lenghty, complex and costly.
They are not apolitical and don't care about workers: 95% of the unions I know, are all leftist puppets(and in Portugal by leftist i mean actual Communist Party) and they care only for granted rights but not extra duties.
Useless: They serve no other purposes than to strike whenever the Communist party wishes to do so.

They are partially to blame for lower wages and for work precariousness.

[worldwidetraveler]

I can see it from both sides when it comes to unions.

Corporations will screw you in a heart beat. I learned that right out of college. They can't be counted on to do what is right. This is why I feel Republicans fall short when it comes to relying overly heavy on the free market mantra. There is a fine line when it comes to regulations and not making it overly difficult for companies to do business.

Unions will needlessly impose restrictions just so they can say they did something for those dues. They have been great in raising work conditions and pay. They still have to produce because people have a short memory and will want to stop paying dues if they don't feel like they are getting more and more and more.

I keep reading more and more about how people are not saving for retirement. I actually think this will be a epidemic in the next 10 or so years. My dad has a sweet ass retirement package that would cost me roughly 2 million to reproduce. He wouldn't have gotten anything close to that without the union.

Then we look at a lot of public pensions that are bankrupting states. I don't doubt unions are playing a role in that as well.

[TravelerKai]

Haven't read the entire thread, but I had a somewhat bad experience with one. When I worked for Kroger (a grocery store chain) as a very young man as one of my first jobs, I was relegated to bagging groceries when I wanted to be a cashier. Alot of that had to do with the union. Seemed race driven at the time, but I quickly figured out that it was more gender and union driven. Made me salty as fuck even though I was a diehard Democrat at the time. It made me privately cheer on Republicans anytime they tried to bust up unions. I was part time too because I was going to school at the time, but the member dues were too much money for me to pay. At that time, that was gas money EASY.

As I got older that experience never let me support anything union. Relatives that were in Teachers Union seemed to get more out of their dues than when I was a store worker, but even then I could see where they were losing out and their messages drowned out.

If you study Italian mob/mafia crime history, especially in Chicago and New York, you can see how easy it was for unions to get subverted with bad people. Money does not always ruin them, but it usually ends that way.

When you think about it on a ideological viewpoint, unions are very anti-capitalistic, and make no sense in private industries. Unions to me personally made sense in a world with lesser technology, safety regulations, and pay discrimination. Like many liberal causes today, it has an outdated feel now. We have the EEOC, OSHA, SOX, and too many other regulatory bodies now that used to be the role of a union.

I think unions are for a developing nation, not so much a nation with a whole host of laws and regulations on the books.

[godzilla]

Public unions should be abolished. You cant have an entity that gets paid by the taxpayer to lobby against the taxpayer. Most absurd thing I've seen. A lot of the pensions that were lobbyed for in years past are bankrupting cities and states are across the country.

I worked for a union as well once. They too often shield shit employees and create too many work rules that make it difficult to just do your fucking job. I know one guy who kept his job after trying to put his boss in the trash compactor. I shit you not.

Some skilled unions have also cities by charging abnormally high wages. Philly unions are famous this. Try to use non unions workers and they'll beat your ass. Since the politicians are bought and paid for, and the police are also union. They can get away it.

I tend to think unions are good in specific situations where monopolies occur and there is no competition for wages. Other then that, They do nothing but take money out of your paycheck unless you're a piece of shit

Other then that good riddence.

[Super_Fire]

(06-28-2018 04:34 PM)TravelerKai Wrote:  

Haven't read the entire thread, but I had a somewhat bad experience with one. When I worked for Kroger (a grocery store chain) as a very young man as one of my first jobs, I was relegated to bagging groceries when I wanted to be a cashier. Alot of that had to do with the union. Seemed race driven at the time, but I quickly figured out that it was more gender and union driven. Made me salty as fuck even though I was a diehard Democrat at the time. It made me privately cheer on Republicans anytime they tried to bust up unions. I was part time too because I was going to school at the time, but the member dues were too much money for me to pay. At that time, that was gas money EASY.

TK, are you me?

High school Kroger baggers unite!

[frozen-ace]

(06-28-2018 12:44 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

In most school districts something like 70% of the 'education spending' actually goes to the teachers' pension funds.

It’s not that high.

In most districts wages and benefits make up about 80% of the education spending. The remaining 20% is for everything else.

That 80% is roughly split evenly between wages and benefits-> so depending on the place 40% of education spending is on wages and 40% is on benefits.

On the benefits piece health insurance is usually more than the pension. Health insurance costs have risen dramatically in the last decade while pension costs have for the most part remained constant.

So to recap-
Wages 40%
Health insurance 25%
Pension and other benefits 15%
Everything else 20%

Many of the states used to have great defined benefit plans. These are the plans that promise / guarantee a fixed payment for life. There is also a spousal survivor benefit (depends on the plan but can be something around 50% or 75% or 80%- for life). To do the spousal survivor benefit your pension gets reduced by a certain amount but it guarantees your spouse that your pension payments will transfer to them upon your death for the rest of their life. These old plans are bankrupting the states that had them and still have them as members in these old plans are starting to retire.

The states that have moved to defined contribution plans will not have this issue 100 years from now (its similar to a 401k), but they still have to deal with the old people who got in on the old plans.

The people on the defined benefit plans have about 30-40 more years until they are all deceased. Then you have to calculate the spouse survivor benefit- so let’s say you have the guy in the defined benefit plan who retires today at 50, goes 30 years and when he turns 80 decides to marry a 20 year old bar girl from the Philippines and then pass away. She will now get the spouse survivor benefit for the rest of her life (another 80 years). That’s 110 years for this pension to pay out, and maybe the teacher only worked for 20 years. Think about that- you were lucky enough to get in to the old plan while it existed, you did your time and worked 20 years and retired, and now there is a potential for 110 years of GUARANTEED monthly payments. The true cost of these plans will not be complete until both the participant and the spouse are deceased.

Some of these old plans also offer full health insurance. Once someone gets into their 70s and 80s the health care costs far exceed the pension payments. Major heart surgeries and hip surgeries can cost more than all of the actual lifetime pension payments combined.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Unions are an absolute necessity in a free market economic model. You have to have worker's rights represented, but best not on state level, but on national level.

One of the reason why in the robber baron times some industrialists or mine owners paid shit was because all the others paid shit too - 80 hour weeks and barely subsistence wages, shoe-less workers in shoe factories etc.

It turned out later, that when good wages are paid, then even more industries and greater wealth can be created for everyone. But of course strong unions, high living wages have to coincide with strong borders, common sense tariffs and you have to explain to unions why a certain company simply cannot afford this or that perk or wage. In Germany unions used to have a seat at the board working together with the employer.

Unions however can be inflitrated - in the US this was specifically the case with pure communists or sometimes the mob taking control of things. There are books written on the subject. The negatives however especially in the US are overblown. Government unions are a special thing and while necessary, you have to have massive checks and balances due to the nature of government jobs. Even companies like GM or Chrysler - those big ones were not ruined by high wages - German and Japanese manufacturers also pay their workers plenty. The reason for the failures was simple crappy management decisions - planned obsolescence gone too far, probably even planned de-industrialization of the US.

Every force in nature needs a counter-force to stay in balance. You cannot have the power of the corporations be wielded on a mass scale. In some companies lack of control works well, but in many industries the workers need to be represented or the companies do what they did now - fire locals, hire illegals or some cheaper VISA foreigners or they move the factory offshore and produce at 10% wage cost while telling you to "compete".

So to recap - unions yes, need control, but also need common sense labor regulations (for example giving massive fines for hiring illegals etc), has to come with sound borders and common sense tariffs - and if someone is found to be a commie, then he needs to be fired instantly, should be a ban against communists on union boards.

I don't think that it can work without unions in our system - a company would want to increase profits no matter what - if they can get away with it, then they don't give a shit if they hire shoe-less factory workers or cleaning crew again.

[debeguiled]

More divide and conquer.

We have way more in common with people running unions than we do with their corporate masters.

This is also an example of what we used to call the second foul rule in basketball, a concept where one player keeps fouling another player, the refs never call it, so the second player gets frustrated, fouls the player back, and the ref calls that foul.

I would wager there is practically nothing a union does that gets criticized that isn't in response to something fucked up that management did beforehand that was much worse.

Everyone wants to talk about how pointless and wasteful it is that only one union member is allowed to flip a light switch, or pick up a hammer in a specific situation, but the reason this things happens is that management is constantly trying to get people to do things that don't fit their job description.

I have experienced this first hand in a non union shop. I was waiting tables at a place, and after a shift waiters always have side work, like filling salt and pepper shakers and changing table cloths, basically getting his section ready for the next shift.

Managers at my restaurant, a corporate place owned by Pepsi, had the bright idea of extending side work so instead of 15 minutes at the end of the shift, it was an hour of cleaning the restaurant, the floors, washing the walls. Why? Because they have to pay janitors more than they pay waiters, so if the can get the waiters to do janitorial work, call it 'side work,' they save money.

They are always doing this cost cutting shit at the expense of employees. That being the case, can you see why unions have to come up with these hyper picky rules that that only the carpenter can nail the picture back up on the wall? It is because these become loopholes that the bosses exploit endlessly.

Even at union places I worked, they were always trying to cut corners to fuck with employees, and you felt lucky to have a union having your back. At a hotel I once worked at, the hotel had to provide a meal for employees, not off the menu, but something. So they got the bright idea to just give us leftovers from banquets, and then they didn't have to prepare anything, not even sandwiches.

I went back to get my meal and some of the cold cuts actually had mold on them. It was like the biggest fuck you you could get after working your ass off for a company. I took them food to my manager's office, showed him the food in good faith, not confrontationally, thinking he didn't know what we were getting, and he got a hard look on his face I had never seen before and said, you got a problem, go to your union.

It's like that.

We spend a fair amount of time talking about the psychopaths who run things, that tiny percentage, and you don't think that filters down and normal workers don't get shafted by corporations? You actually think the unions are the problems?

This is some second foul shit.

In the old days they didn't negotiate with strikers, they just hired thugs to come in and kill them. You won't read that in history books.

Seeing this was a public relations problem, they came up with the Mohawk Valley Strategy, which is worth Googling if you are interested. This was in the early 1930's.

The basic idea was that instead of killing unions, you destroy their reputations. This strategy was so successful that it has been adopted by businesses everywhere, to the point that much of the talking points of the Mohawk Valley situation persist to this day, and have been internalized by the public at large.

Repeated even in this thread.

We have been programmed since a young age to be hyper-critical of unions and to identify with owners.

That is the real American way, people at the bottom, identifying with the people at the top, because when their ship comes in they don't want to have to deal with a bunch of regulations.

If you have the inclination, do some research on the Mohawk Valley strategy, or The Ludlow Massacre.

We have been programmed to dismiss and laugh at unions. It is part of the intellectual air we breathe.

But if you shake a scorpion and a salamander up in a bottle, they will attack each other, because neither sees the hand shaking the jar.