C/D: Labor Unions

I fail to see how a closed shop - one of the few ways a union has to keep the boss from undermining its power - is antithetical to the 'spirit.' The 'spirit' is getting the guy on the factory floor as much power as the guy writing the checks. If the boss can simply undercut the union at every step, there's not much in the way of bargaining power.

Since I'm quasi-self employed I have no union to join, but I keep thinking about sending in IWW dues.

That said, the union often sucks, not because of its existence, but because of the number of members who demand that they work solely to make their jobs more easy. I'd loved be the union rep at my workplace except I can really see myself going to bat for a lot of the "concerns" many of my co-workers have.

The two problems with Ed's position, as I see them. First, his assumption seems to be that opposition to closed shops comes from workers - they're upset about being forced to join. I've never seen that - right to work laws are passed at the behest of the bosses who don't want unions to have equal footing. Second, I question whether 'free association' is possible in contemporary capitalism. There's always going to be someone who needs the job to live and is willing to take less in order to do so.
In an ideal world, where the capitalists don't exploit, say, immigrant (illegal or legal) workers and use them to weaken labor, yes, closed shops would be a dud. In our world, given that the state continually works with business to erode union power, they're almost a necessity.

my justifications for closed-shops would be (a) as long as it's a fair and democratic vote among people to be covered under the collective bargaining agreement, then if the anti-union people lose in the election they are nonetheless covered as part of the covered workforce. after all, if the CBA is NOT approved then those who are pro-union won't be covered either and also have to abide by that decision. the same way those of us who didn't vote for dubya have to accept that he is president, whether we like it or not.

(b) as milo pointed out above, the "no closed-shop" argument goes hand-in-hand w/ "right to work." "right to work" laws were enacted by business-friendly state legislatures for the PRECISE purpose of limiting the effectiveness of labor unions. in states w/ right-to-work rules, those who are covered by the CBA but who "opt out" don't have to pay union dues even though they get the SAME BENEFITS as the dues-paying workers. ergo, they are (rightly) seen as freeloaders, b/c they're getting s/t (union-scale wages and benefits and CBA protections) for nothing (not paying union dues, ergo stiffing the union for negotiating the CBA in the 1st place).

Union law is different over here. It only takes a simple majority of workers to gain recognition for one or more unions over here. there are fairly strong laws protecting those who organise as well. Wal-Mart couldn't get away with their strong arm tactic over here. It's not perfect by any means. Secondary industrial action is still banned here, which does limit the effectiveness of industrial protest.

Unions are a very good way for workers to buy and hold stakes of the companies workers work for, the best way of workers gaining control and companies motivating workers.

Union law is different over here. It only takes a simple majority of workers to gain recognition for one or more unions over here. there are fairly strong laws protecting those who organise as well. Wal-Mart couldn't get away with their strong arm tactic over here. It's not perfect by any means. Secondary industrial action is still banned here, which does limit the effectiveness of industrial protest.

Unions are a very good way for workers to buy and hold stakes of the companies workers work for, the best way of workers gaining control and companies motivating workers.

because they are rarely classic anymore, because they operate closed shops, because they rarely see the forest for the trees, and because they stand firmly in the way of educational reform. I'm not against them (I've been a proud member) but if I have to pick between C and D they are D.

word. exactly what good was the closed-shop union i belonged to in high school doing me when i paid $35/month dues, was paid minimum wage, and had no benefits/did not get 40 hours a week?

In general though I dig unions, this is a big union town and it's exciting to see what they can do.

Yeah, and that's the problem. A lot of the people talking about "reform" are really pushing wholesale dismantlement, because they think taxpayer-supported education is socialist. (Which it is, obviously, in a good way.) But that allows the public teachers unions -- who can be total territorial dickheads, no doubt about it -- to treat all reform proposals (merit pay, charter schools, whatever) like they're just stalking horses for privatization. The whole debate, such as it is, is driven by unreasonable people on all sides, and the serious reformers can barely get a word in.

But that's a somewhat particular issue, and it really has to do with the inadequacy of public schools as a whole. And teachers definitely need union protection, as anyone who's been exposed to the vipers' nest of school administration politics could tell you. Unions protect the bad teachers along with the good, true, but what makes anyone think that without unions it would be the bad teachers getting fired?

somebody just hit 'go' at Fight for the Future headquarters

http://i.gyazo.com/9f259957572cef2e47d2988d04bc2ed1.gif

its been going like this for half an hour, never seen anything like it

this review of a couple of new books in The Atlantic is very long and very good and has a very stupid title

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/why-workers-wont-unite/386228/

here's a section that speaks to some of what flopson was talking about earlier:

Burnishing his credentials as a critic of an older unionism focused only on collective bargaining, Geoghegan invokes as models unions like National Nurses United and the Chicago Teachers Union. Both have sought to position themselves as leaders in social movements, not just as the representatives of their members’ immediate financial interests. Each aims for a broad political coalition and embraces a big agenda.

For National Nurses United, that means urging a greater say for nurses in how hospitals operate. The Chicago Teachers Union, which staged an unexpectedly popular strike in 2012, connected teachers’ concerns about health benefits and the ways in which their work would be evaluated to larger questions. The union broached the topics of funding for education, privatization of public schools, overly large class sizes, and the lack of support for art, music, and special education. At stake was the whole question of teachers’ role in determining educational policy. It’s no accident that such unions represent service-sector professionals, disproportionately women, whose labor serves a greater public good; trained in professions that have their own ethical codes, these workers are pushing for more socially engaged autonomy. Such unions weigh in with confidence against corporate interests, committed to the idea that participatory activism counts.

Nurses and teachers might seem to have little in common with low-wage, blue-collar, or temporary workers, whether farmhands or clericals. Still, Geoghegan sees these unions as important and relevant examples of a willingness to depart from the mid-century template for collective bargaining. Any real revival of organizing, in his view, is bound to require a jettisoning of older models. There is little alternative, given the right-to-work laws on the books in 24 states and the hostility toward union-election campaigns: winning a majority vote is an uphill battle even if many in the workplace want a union.

Where there are union stirrings, workers are indeed experimenting with new strategies. At companies such as Walmart, employees have struggled to join forces to advocate for better pay and more-stable schedules so that they aren’t forced to rely on food stamps and public assistance to supplement their low wages. Aware of how hard the company will fight formal union recognition, they aren’t seeking to hold an election anytime in the near future. Instead, they welcome whoever wants to join them in pressuring the company through demonstrations, strikes, and Black Friday protests. The “Fight for $15” campaign by fast-food workers, airport employees, and home health aides (supported by the Service Employees International Union) has adopted similar moves. Participants have simply taken to the streets to make a moral appeal to the public and demand change. For the moment, they’ve bypassed the lengthy, often futile process of filing for an election, winning union recognition, and bargaining over a contract.

WIKILEAKS RELEASES TPP INVESTMENT CHAPTER: 'WikiLeaks has released a purported draft of the investment chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that shows the United States is relying largely on its model bilateral investment treaty for controversial investor-state dispute provisions,' POLITICO Pro's Adam Behsudi reports. 'The document is dated Jan. 20, 2015, and updates an earlier version of the chapter that was leaked in 2012. Similar to the U.S. model BIT , the leaked document shows the U.S. is pushing for language that would protect "Buy American" laws from being challenged by foreign companies.

lmaoooo

sat in on a cool discussion with some teamsters folks today about how they're winning truck drivers back from the "independent contractor" model they've been operating under since Carter by adopting some gradual strike escalation tactics from Fight for 15 folks, like one-then-two-then-three-day strikes. also being strategic about where they picket a trucking company so that they simultaenously impact other trucking companies who use the same thoroughfares, extending the effect of the strike to all the companies who use certain entrances/exits.

"we've really only adopted this stuff in the last year and we're at 6% of the workers in these ports organized now and still accelerating. 6% is low, of course, but at least at the national average in the private sector--before these new tactics we were well below that."

also this

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/free-trade-democrats-face-campaign-pressure-20150331

several progressive groups are openly talking of lining up a primary challenger to Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Finance Committee Democrat and a key player in the ongoing TPA discussions. "Wyden is in a position where he can decide whether or not there is a bipartisan fig leaf on fast-track authorization," said Democracy for America's Neil Sroka. "It would be a lot harder to talk about a primary threat if there weren't such opposition to TPA. … We're making clear that there will be consequences."

With or without Wyden's support, most observers expect TPA to pass the Senate—but the outcome in the House is still an open question. "The most obvious place that there's a real opportunity to stop this is in the House," Drake said, but acknowledged: "We are in the uphill battle position."

well well

www.gawker.com/why-weve-decided-to-organize-1698246231

when somebody posts to the facebook page asking how they can join the union

http://images.complex.com/complex/image/upload/t_article_image/jjwtck4bzokmlrpk19e4.mp4

smh

is there a better rolling-labor-shit thread?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/victorias-secret-getting-rid-of-on-call-scheduling#.qtz7Qwej8

not afaict

http://www.culinaryunion226.org/news/press/teamsters-and-unite-here-announce-initiative-to-organize-ufc-fighters?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/business/labor-board-says-franchise-workers-can-bargain-with-parent-company.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

fuck yeah they did

nlrb killing the game lately

Wasn't sure exactly where to put this vid, but it's completely blowing my mind right now:
https://archive.org/details/AV_359-DEMOCRATS_DIRECTION-_GROVER_CLEVLAND_OR_FDR

“One major way the US sort of has lost out in international economic competition, is that the American defense budget and foreign aid policies go to regimes in the third world that essentially wipe out independent trade unions, and in effect they hold wages down and they use the resources of the United States to do it.
A huge amount of the American tax problem, the fiscal problem, is about how are you going to divide the costs of empire in the population, and the plain facts are that we spend a huge amount of our money and time supporting regimes in the third world that basically make it attractive for businesses from here to move.”

The reason this hit me so hard is that you always hear the argument "Well US manufacturing unions were bound to die, because of inevitable competition from cheap labor abroad." And I'd always think, "well you wouldn't have that problem if you could unionize labor abroad to level the playing field a little." But our own foreign policy has been aimed at stopping that from happening. We've literally supported dictators and funded wars to depress our own workers' wages and our own corporations' labor costs.

that sounds rather conspiratorial, i think you'll find this is all just the pendulum of history

(i watched this the other night too! co-sign yr recc.)

so Bill Clinton was the new Cleveland after all eh

Things you learn on a Friday night: US unions used to strongly oppose the Boy Scouts and wouldn't let members be involved with them because Boy Scouts were often used as strikebreakers pic.twitter.com/zuFdfrYRNl

— Micah Uetricht 🌹 (@micahuetricht) January 27, 2018

Somebody(Alex Press on twitter?) posted an excerpt from a book talking about the reason why they call them “police patrolmen’s associations” was because they were so trained to fight unions all the time they wouldn’t join anything with that name.

the anti-closed shop stuff at the start of this thread, from over a decade ago, is making me mad, haha.

i worked in the public sector in scotland. offices aren't closed shops - i believe this is against the law in the EU due to regulations (and certainly will remain so in brexit britain). the majority of permanent workers in my office were not in the union, neither were any of the temps. we had a strike one time (due to among other things pay freeze and hiring ban), the majority of staff went to work. it was completely toothless.

I'm now a shop steward in my closed shop university administrative job in canada. we're still getting shafted to an extent but the power of being able to effect a really disruptive strike is the biggest bargaining chip you can have as workers.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/01/democrats-let-unions-die

Erik Loomis/Blog discussion of Eric Levitz article in NY Mag

The ultimate problem with labor is a complex conglomeration of issues that include automation, free trade, globalization, capital mobility within the United States, the decline of some American industries to more efficient foreign competition, terrible union leadership in some unions, the fact that for many workers racial and gender and heterosexual identity matters more than class identity, harsh corporate opposition that has funneled many millions of dollars against them for decades, a Republican Party that hates them, and yes, Democrats who didn’t understand how badly they needed unions for a successful party.

Distilling this down to another article blaming Democrats is an oversimplification that really just doesn’t help us move forward to create an economy with justice for all. It’s a piece of the problem. But it’s the piece much of the left most wants to hear instead of dealing with the tricky problems of globalization or the fact that sizable portions of the white working class is easily led to vote for politicians who make them feel good about being white.

I think the economic freedom/mobility argument that most people in government believe in has backed the ability to enforce labor standards into a corner. The laws and politicians are completely toothless

I think it's a difficult balance because ideally, you have to recognize some level of job loss and mechanization is inevitable but also the fact that a company can come in, benefit from tax breaks and public good will, and then say "whoops, we're still profitable but we need to be more profitable so we're cutting employment from 1000 people to 100 people" breaks some sort of social contract

I only have some hand-waving thirdhand anecdote about how a German company wanted to downsize and law forced them, if they genuinely wanted to diminish their workforce, they were legally forced to pay for worker education and/or relocation. Where are things like that in place, and do they work?

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/01/democrats-let-unions-die

Erik Loomis/Blog discussion of Eric Levitz article in NY Mag

The ultimate problem with labor is a complex conglomeration of issues that include automation, free trade, globalization, capital mobility within the United States, the decline of some American industries to more efficient foreign competition, terrible union leadership in some unions, the fact that for many workers racial and gender and heterosexual identity matters more than class identity, harsh corporate opposition that has funneled many millions of dollars against them for decades, a Republican Party that hates them, and yes, Democrats who didn’t understand how badly they needed unions for a successful party.

Distilling this down to another article blaming Democrats is an oversimplification that really just doesn’t help us move forward to create an economy with justice for all. It’s a piece of the problem. But it’s the piece much of the left most wants to hear instead of dealing with the tricky problems of globalization or the fact that sizable portions of the white working class is easily led to vote for politicians who make them feel good about being white.

― curmudgeon, Monday, January 29, 2018 3:07 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Very few of these factors explain why there isn't more service sector unionization, why government unions are struggling, or why, for that matter, unionization hasn't been more successful in other countries that we "compete" with. The answer is that our government actively works against unions at home and abroad--to a far greater extent under republicans than under democrats, to be sure, but even under democrats. And where democrats haven't outright kneecapped unions, they've certainly been tepid in their defense of them.

Loomis' defense of tepid Dems, is that Dem majority is partially reliant on blue-dog, red-state Dems who hold unionization back

given the unpoplarity of unions in their own states for much of the 20th century, it’s hardly surprising. And it was still very much a thing in 2009. Let’s say Obama made the Employee Free Choice Act his #1 political priority. How would he have possibly gained 60 votes for it? What was going to make Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson and Mark Pryor vote for this? Where were the unions in Arkansas and Nebraska to pressure them from the left? They weren’t nearly powerful enough, especially in the wave of Republican backlash overwhelming the nation by that fall. Now, let’s say that Obama succeeded somehow in getting those 60 votes and he signs the bill. How is labor that much different now than it is anyway? Sure, organizing would be a little easier. But what stops all those states such as Wisconsin and Michigan and Iowa and Kentucky and West Virginia from becoming right-to-work? Who can tell, but I don’t see any clear path. All of a sudden Wisconsin unions organize thousands of workers and Scott Walker doesn’t get elected?

Well but ya know what if they had done a better job supporting unions all along? Then you'd have more union organizing for pro-union democrats and more fundraising for pro-union democrats and hence more pro-union democrats in office, see how that works?

trying to figure out how he came up with that list of states, some of which already were right-to-work pre-Obama and some tumbled into right-to-work during Obama's term

He goes into slightly older US history to explain things too:

The failure of Operation Dixie in 1946 was followed up upon by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, outlawing much of what the CIO had done to organize the big northern industries, allowing for right-to-work states, and forcing the communist leadership out of the unions. Remember, this was passed over Truman’s veto. In 1948, Lyndon Johnson won the Senate in no small part by lying about his opponent’s love of unions

The comments, as usual on LGM, add terrific points too.

here's where I again recommend Ira Katznelson's Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

From a comment:

Just got around to reading this and agree with much of your analysis. But you never even mentioned an additional albatross that labor saddled itself with as far as my generation was concerned: George Meany's unwavering support for the Vietnam war. This war meant an entire generation of working class males were drafted to die for something that by the end none of them believed in. Many came home with heroin habits and never reconstructed their lives. It was always right to get behind labor, but darn hard seeing where big labor had positioned itself when it meant life or death.

DIIIIICKSSS

Columbia U issues letter saying they will not recognize their grad students' union and will fight it in court. They also seem to grasp the reputational damage this decision could inflict. pic.twitter.com/wy9f1r16FT

— Dave Jamieson, LLC (@jamieson) January 30, 2018

I only have some hand-waving thirdhand anecdote about how a German company wanted to downsize and law forced them, if they genuinely wanted to diminish their workforce, they were legally forced to pay for worker education and/or relocation. Where are things like that in place, and do they work?

thanks Wes! I learned something new

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/6/27/17510046/public-unions-janus-reforms-fees-decline-reform-supreme-court-hope

Kind of a wonky question, maybe too technical for this forum, but would the "accounting change" proposed by this article (charging the agency fees directly to the employer instead of making each employee pay them) be something achieved by legislation or through contract negotiation? Because it seems like a simple great idea.

The next phase of the conservative campaign against unions is a series
of class action lawsuits that would bankrupt them. And they're
being masterminded by a man trump has nominated to run a federal
agency. https://t.co/gpNN5tJMW8 pic.twitter.com/9aXcp2VmLF

— Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) July 19, 2018

The viral story of the Mexican worker walkout at the Indiana UPS hub and the guy that filmed it is pretty inspiring:

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/wildcat-strike-indianapolis-shut-down

In the last two weeks, we've seen unions in NY griping about the Amazon deal blowup, and now...

this is some retrograde crap https://t.co/pWUlUHtuFL

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) February 22, 2019

lol fuck off @Delta pic.twitter.com/fMNOeW9uFG

— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) May 9, 2019

hey, working person: why not block out intrusive thoughts about improving your material conditions through collective action by spending your leisure hours playing halo

love delta xox

Not sure where else to post, but this thread, in which some idiot brags about her pinkerton aunt, is making my day
https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/c1g6bv/my_aunt_betty_was_a_pinkerton_detective_in_1960/

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/kickstarter-to-workers-and-project-creators-drop-dead

Former ILXor Yanc3y is a union buster.

he's ex CEO fwiw

my bad, when I Googled Kickstarter CEO to double check Google returned his name

extremely shameful behavior in any case, nobody should use kickstarter

Whole Foods is keeping an eye on stores at risk of unionizing through an interactive heat map, according to five people with knowledge of the matter and internal documents viewed by Business Insider.

The heat map is powered by an elaborate scoring system, which assigns a rating to each of Whole Foods' 510 stores based on the likelihood that their employees might form or join a union.

The stores' individual risk scores are calculated from more than two dozen metrics, including employee "loyalty," turnover, and racial diversity; "tipline" calls to human resources; proximity to a union office; and violations recorded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The map also tracks local economic and demographic factors such as the unemployment rate in a store's location and the percentage of families in the area living below the poverty line.

The stores' scores on each metric are fed into the heat map, which is a geographic illustration of the United States peppered with red spots to indicate high-risk Whole Foods stores.

The heat map reveals how Whole Foods is using technology and data to help manage its vast workforce of more than 95,000 employees.

It also provides a rare look into corporate labor-tracking activities, a common practice among large companies but one rarely discussed publicly.

A statement on the map describes its purpose as specific to monitoring unionization among its employees, which the company calls team members.

"The [Team Member] Relations Heatmap is designed to identify stores at risk of unionization," the statement reads. "This early identification enables resources to be funneled to the highest need locations, with the goal of mitigating risk by addressing challenges early before they become problematic."

this is the first good business insider article i've read in at least a year

https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-tracks-unionization-risk-with-heat-map-2020-1

One interesting side effect of the coronavirus here in Tennessee is some movement toward organizing by local restaurant and service workers. Not necessarily unionizing at this point, but what started as Facebook groups to commiserate and support each other has turned into growing anger as places are reopening without adequate protection for workers. I don't know what if anything it will lead to, but it's interesting to see.

There was no teacher gender pay gap in Wisconsin until it ended collective bargaining in 2011

Research by @BarbaraBiasi @saskatchewin shows women lost ground in male-run schools

Female teachers were less likely to negotiate salaries & even when they did, less likely to succeed pic.twitter.com/Li9dJ1cGge

— Ben Zipperer (@benzipperer) October 5, 2020

Very nice news from this month on my end -- our union had to do a little pressure after the old contact expired earlier in the year but the new one is very welcome:

https://teamsters2010.org/2022/10/21/teamsters-ratify-powerful-new-cx-contract/

(And I've been at this long enough now that I qualify for the further signing bonus on top of the initial one. So yes, join 'em, form 'em, use their power.)

This story seems to be taking off:

A new Iowa bill would roll back child labor laws, allowing 14 to 17-year-olds to work in mining, meatpacking, demolition, operating guillotine shears, and other dangerous jobs. Under the business-backed bill, employers wouldn't be civilly liable if kids are injured or killed.

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) February 7, 2023