Unions/guilds pros and cons

Some unions have hurt themselves by agreeing to a two-tier schedule to protect older employees at the expense of younger ones, which I think is bush. You're either one union or you're not. That said, unions are there to protect employees. Managers are there to improve the paper's bottom line. You'll never hear "If you don't like it, leave" if you work in a union.

 

Oh sure you will. Unions have very few bullets left in their guns.

 

There's that, too. They really don't.

 

Something similar to this happened at a place I worked.

All reporters were expected to take photos. They were not assigned a photog to go with them at any time, even though there were two full-time photogs.

The catch?

New hires were never told by management that this was a clause grandfathered in. Reporters with X amount of years of service never had to take a photo — ever.

So, basically the full-time photogs took half as many pictures as ran in the paper and the newer reporters/writers did twice as much work than the elder ones.

And everyone made the same money because of the union's pay grid.

 

At a union paper, expect nasty negotiations with management every time the contract comes up for renewal. Guaranteed.

 

Not guaranteed. Our last contract was smooth sailing. No problems at all. Lots and give and take.

Honestly.

 

<i>If you have good management, you don't need a union.</i>


You'd also better get a legally-binding promise that the good management will remain in place for your duration at the workplace. The way mergers and sales are going, you may be 50 and the "good" management is gone, replaced by pricks who are doing their damndest to run you off and replace you with someone fresh out of college and much less expensive.

 

Unions aren't preventing layoffs and buyouts, and though they can protect you from being fired without cause, if you're a good employee and learn the skills to make you an invaluable employee, you'll be fine. I'd sacrifice a little extra pay for the peace of mind that I don't answer to anyone but myself and my boss. Plus, there's plenty of bad management at union shops, too, and is it worth staying around to work for them just because you're in a union?

 

I should have pointed out early, I'm neither pro- nor anti-union.

However, I'm starting to believe unions have outlived their usefulness.

They came about for safety issues (manually lifting car batteries and bumpers in auto factories, the God-knows-what that goes on in coal mines, etc.); early on they helped the worker who was financially being screwed by management in the biggest of ways (i.e. truckers who lost money from their own pocket when trucks broke down, were snowed in etc. - watch Hoffa to see what I mean).

Now, unions are big businesses collecting their dues (ever seen some of these union offices and headquarters?), pricing companies right out of North America.

I have a lot of friends whose fathers are/were auto workers and one father, with 30-plus years at the auto plant, said to the other just two weeks ago: "You know Steve, we and our union really fucked it up for our kids and the next generation, you know?"

What he meant was, paying some high school grad $30/hour (yes, that's what they make) to attach a few rivets, screw in some bolts or thread wiring, is forcing manufacturing out some states (i.e. Michigan) to others (i.e Alabama) where unions aren't as powerful and wages are lower. Hell, the unions are pricing some manufacturers right out of North America.

They aren't pricing papers out of the country and oversees, but they contribute to the cutbacks.

I'm all for the union making my working conditions better and safer. Sometimes, I wish they'd mandate computer updates rather than give me a raise, just so I can cleanly and easily get my work done now. But they're hell bent on raising everyone's wages.

I'm not really sure what the answer is to tell everyone the truth.

 

Well, hell, that's the first time I've heard of it going that easily. Congratulations.
It was brass knuckles and bad feelings at my old place.

 

Lots of strawmen here.

I think you need to learn more about the history of unions, from the genesis of unions they've always been about getting fair wages. And the illustration about moving jobs is as much a product of changing industry and the decline of manufacturing overall as it is unions.

And companies don't need union "help" to move out of North America if the money is right for them.

If you want to point a finger at how unions have evolved and how they operate, point a finger at how they protect themselves politically -- and I don't mean politcally in the sense of national politics -- I mean in an intra-office politics way. They will protect the weak/lazy at the expense of the strong so as to not jeopardize what they fought for in bargaining for everyone, it's an inherent weakness of unions.

 

I've worked at a union paper for years and twice needed them to stand up for me when dealing with rabid managers. (And just so you know, I'm not an office screw-up. Nothing but good-to-exemplary job reviews. Just isolated instances of friction, more than a decade apart). The first time, the union didn't help me and settled for a "promise" that the next person would not be treated like that. The second time, they didn't lift a finger because they didn't want to "upset" management with contract talks due in a few months.

Really made me feel like I had spent my thousands of dollars in union dues well. There's a lot of Stockholm syndrome going on with union officers these days, they've been held hostage so completely by market conditions.