Are you in a union & is it a good union & are unions good?

I'm ridiculously pro-labor but also painfully aware of the infighting and short-sightedness that plague many unions. My grandfather was a union man at a GM plant his entire working life (now retired) and has some amazing benefits...good pension to live off of in his old age, benefits for him, his wife, his kids and grandkids! However, about a year ago, his plant was shut down and all employees laid off...the workers had priced themselves out of the labor market, and the jobs were going overseas and to other states. This is such a tough thing for me to figure out where I stand...I think it's good when companies or governments invest in other countries, but it often crosses the line into exploitating an impoverished population. I want to see the union and the local community benefit from their relationship with the company and vice versa, but sometimes both can be shortsighted about what makes long-term financial sense.

I personally am not in a union, think in theory they are a good thing, but in practice think they're a little too idealistic at times.

www.afl-cio.org is a great site. On the whole, if you belong to a union, you make more and have better benefits, so even if there *is* infighting* the bottom line is that you still benefit.

The teacher's union I'm in is AFL-CIO and I'm the rep at our campus. I don't do any of the things I'm supposed to though although I keep meaning to get more involved. I've just been busy handling my own classes. They did help me last year with some Safety in Schools laws and helped a colleague appeal a poor state evaulation. so yay.

I work at a local level because this is where I feel we can do the most. I have been on strike four times over the last year and will probably go on strike again this year over the London Weighting issue. As an employer of staff who are also in my union it is sometimes abit odd, but they are tied into the same pay deals and terms and conditions I am (though working for me I do as much on an informal basis to ameliorate any problems).

Or maybe I need to create a white collar union of financial employees and grow fat off other peoples paychecks.

Currently:
No, n/a, yes but American unions tend to be pretty fucked up

Unions: classic or dud, cobra and destro

My favourite ever union quote was from former NUR Chairman Jimmy Knapp: "They haven't just moved the goalposts, they've picked them up and carried them off the bloody park."

Anyone have experience w/ the freelancer's union?

^^ should be posted on rolling nyc subway ads discussion thread

yeah but i need real info. they have health insurance. i don't.

freelancer's "union" is a misleading name, so i'm not sure if the discussion is right for this thread. it's effectively just an insurance organizer, and not anything resembling a union. i've heard nightmare stories about it (regular rate changes, switches in providers randomly, and the latest news is something about them creating their own in-house insurance firm which "union members" will be forced to use?).

but it's still often the cheapest option for ppl in your situation.

i've never personally used them, obviously, but displeasure with them has been expressed by every single person i know who IS a member. if it's the only option you can afford, you should definitely consider it but i do recommend really examining what they're offering versus what you would need to use them for. if they are really creating their own in-house provider this would at least provide stability (a lot of complaints were to do with them switching their providers constantly so ppl's therapists or gynos or what have you would suddenly be out of network and they'd have to switch doctors all the time).

yeah the fact that their site provides very little information about the "union" itself is somewhat alarming to me. but, on the other hand it's free. it looks as though they are making some big changes to their plans for 2009, but still seems to be bc/bs ppo coverage.

health plans for all unions are administered by a trustee who determines how benefits are provided (within the terms of the collective bargaining agreement), so i don't think that centralizing members' coverage into 1 firm is that abnormal. i guess this is more like the union collectively bargaining with health care providers on behalf of it's 'members,' i.e. a 3rd party who sells you health benefits at the collectively bargained rate (of which they take a cut) - slightly different than how a union trustee would administer benefits.

i keep wanting to hang on to the hope that my job will suddenly decide to keep me long term and give me benefits (which is LOL bc they are cutting everything right now, including making big changes to the benefits for people that currently receive them). so not gonna happen. at least not for a while. i am scared that when things start getting icy, i will break my ankle and be screwed.

hmm yeah, that does not sound good. meanwhile, i make slightly too much for healthyny and the plan my school was offering (through a 3rd party) did not include any prescription benefits or out of network coverage (none. not even an increased fee, no coverage at ALL, even in emergencies where an in-network provider was not an option).

i have recently joined this, but have nothing yet worth reporting

how long till we see universal health care? is it going to be put on the bottom of the list while obama deals w the economy?

I am not in a union. Any union is only as good as its members make it. A good one, with active members and sensible leaders, is a very good thing for its members. A bad one, with passive members and leaders who treat their jobs as meal tickets, are just a mechanism for harvesting money.

unions seem to get worse -- that is, less responsive to their members' interests -- the larger they get. i'm not sure there's a good solution to this.

unions that protect their members from unfair treatment/harassment from management - great

unions that protect inept/unprofessional/unethical members from legit complaints - the worst

how long till we see universal health care? is it going to be put on the bottom of the list while obama deals w the economy?

If anything it sounds like it's actually going to be near the top -- the Daschle nomination in combination with noises from the Obama camp about how it's the health care part of the pension plans which have helped push Detroit to the brink means I wouldn't be surprised to see something happen on it pretty swiftly. There's already expectations of this from grumpy people on the right too.

i am in the midst of a mock collective bargaining process (on the management side) for an agreement in which labor has historically taken advantage of management because management never really bothered to stand up to the union. while this is a simulation, the fact that they are presenting us with proposed vacation allowance increases because "the cost of luxury goods and services has gone up, the dollar is week, and we don't want to do new york staycations - we'd rather travel to europe!" in a time when every other industry is cutting EVERYTHING (jobs, benefits, etc.) is infuriating. they have also proposed phenomenally huge wage and benefit increases (over 21% total over a 3-year period), including to premium wages for activities that they don't DO (merely are present for because they require themselves to be so they can get the extra 4-hour minimum premium rate) and do not seem to grasp the concept that paying for someone to hang out and not actually work is inefficient, and that we can't give them wage increases without cutting something somewhere... anyway... it's funny, because i have a bleeding heart for another union in the same industry that i feel actually DOES protect its members' jobs, which management is constantly looking for ways to cut (actually resulting in a strike several years ago).

so yeah, kind of on the fence about unions, but velko pretty much OTM.

also, i currently work in an organization that employs people from several unions. we are also currently undergoing massive budget review and they are already starting to make cuts (such as the aforementioned cuts to administrative staff benefits) and it's really, really hard to go to work every day knowing that most of the people i work with are putting in ridiculous hours in overtime-exempt positions and will have to pay more for basic health care now, and that they will likely never find the money to bring me on in a benefit-providing position, while the locals sitting by the elevator shooting the shit (aka "running a show") when i come in every morning will not see any cuts at all because their benefits are protected under their cba (fwiw, they DO work VERY hard sometimes, but i also see a lot of loitering).

i'm in a union:

http://www.pseclassified.org/files/SEIUpy.jpg

they suck like most modern american unions. but whatever. i only took my job cuz of the benefits. i don't really have the time and energy to complain too much.

I am in DC 37. It's very confusing. I don't really understand how it works. They sent out a press release saying that we were all going to get an 8% raise, then they sent a ballot home that we had to vote yes or no on the rate increase and send it back in, and then Bloomberg and Patterson are cutting funding for all of NYC, so I don't understand how we are going to get it. They say we have a contract, but I don't even know if we do. We also have a health plan through DC 37 that is a supplement to the health plans we choose through our work, but that is confusing too--there is no card--when we want to use it we just have to say DC 37 and give our social.

SEIU? I really don't know what that is, but they were on strike in SF last yr and I wouldn't cross their line. I was raised in a union household and I can not even imagine crossing a line.

I'm in SEIU! If not for the union, I'd have been fired for gross ineptitude a long time ago. So yes, they're good for that.

Also, SEIU is the Service Employee's International Union. I believe it's bigger than even the Teamsters, as it's comprised of everybody from civil servants to the hospitality industry.

http://progressivefilms.org/catalog/images/Harlan%20County.jpg
Watching.

Have never been in union. Wife is in one though.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/TNG-CWA_logo.png

(and yes, and yes, to the questions. i'm sure i could find things to complain about if i wanted, but working at newspapers these days is hazardous no matter what, and at least the union gives a patina of protection.)

i was in the union when i was a public servant... it was ok and i appreciated their work in collective bargaining, but i eventually resigned my membership because the subscription fees were too expensive and unjustified by the services i received

the folks who gave you the weekend

Unions: classic or dud, cobra and destro

C/D: Labor Unions

So. To summarize many other threads (discuss at length)...it's 2005 - do you think America is seriously in decline?

I've been seeing TV commercials for the Employee Free Choice Act but haven't really had time to digest it yet. It appears to be attempting to counter the Right-To-Work scourge that's pervaded the South? Maybe someone who knows more can elaborate.

I was in a union at a university I worked at. We had to sympathy strike with some other union at the university's hospital, so I skipped work and went down to the picket lines.

It was really corny. We were all marching around in a circle, banging on cans, and yelling "Hey Hey! Ho Ho! (whatever it was we were striking against) has got to go! Hey Hey! Ho Ho!, etc." I felt like a 'tard, but I wanted to be there for the union, because I was raised that way, you know?

Then I started to think about all the people up in the hospital. Odds are, some of them were dying. I really thought about those poor old dying people who had to listen to our stupid 1960s protest hippie ass chanting bullshit. Then I left and went to Baja Fresh.

Maybe I'd join another one though if they promised I wouldn't have to inconvenience the infirm.

I pretended to be in the union at my old work so that I could menace my mangers, who never knew what the state of play was in the team anyway, with taking things to the union if I felt they were making unreasonable demands. It worked on occasion.

Unions classis, naff picket lines dull.

After being on strike for two days and having a great turnout at the picket lines, all I can say is that we need to preserve the rights of employees to collectively bargain. We will vote in a new governor next year, and all three Dem candidates showed up to our strike to voice their support. In addition, the support we got from the other unions and the other locals was a real morale-booster. My union is doing a lot to fight against and to educate the public of the harm of right-to-work legislation in our state, which is a real threat. Lately I've found myself becoming more active in the union and at my worksite trying to get others on board.

I am gonna take a crack at unionizing my workplace. I predict a sharply uphill battle (if indeed said battle ever gets off the ground) but I feel it behooves me to at least thoroughly investigate our options.

Hope it goes well, that's good work to do.

Jeez, my original answer is seventeen years old! The major change that happened since was that after a very sluggish late 2000s in terms of putting pressure on, combined with weak membership numbers, the union affiliated with the Teamsters and started getting serious about actively recruiting members instead of letting everything coast via the automatic deduction. (Which, post-Janus, was a wise move; membership has been in the 80% levels systemwide for years now.) Given the post-2008 years they mostly focused on a variety of policy matters and some basic raises but back in early 2017 after plenty of stalling from the higher-ups the union put on a combination of a one-day strike with plenty of legislative pressure; while we didn't get all we asked for we got most of the way there, and the contract continues to play out with one further raise to go next year before concluding mid-2022. I am duly thankful for that! I have ideas of what I'd like to see them do in that next round of negotiations though I'm sure the current state of things will have an impact.

Otherwise the leadership's done a solid job; my one complaint is that they have been making noises lately about the mandatory flu vaccine requirement that's come down. Last I checked exceptions were already in place but the fact that they had to make more noise about it leads me to think a few too many of my fellow members are, how you say, following other leads when it comes to infectious disease control.

i am a rep at my workplace where my fellow union members started actively campaigning for recognition in jan 2020.

we finally managed to hold a recognition ballot last month which we won overwhelmingly.

i am expecting quite a tough drawn out process given the attitude of management throughout this process, so am curious to hear what experiences people here have had negotiating a recognition agreement.

likewise if people have questions about the process of actually getting the vote and organising, happy to share my experiences

I don't have any insight about recognition to share but wanted to say congratulations on getting there!

thanks rob! has been pretty demoralising and frustrating at times, but, thankfully, my colleagues and fellow reps are amazing. feels good now that we have a strong official mandate.