VW Union Vote

[Mykl]

Originally Posted By: LAGA
The workers must not have read this. Be sure to follow the link to the full story. http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickall...twice-as-much/. BTW, politics played a huge role in the vote. One local political party stuck its nose into the issue and lobbied hard against the union.


Except it was the "other political party" on a national level that vetoed legislation that aimed to modernize organized labor in the US.

Blame Clinton.

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/14/vw-chattanooga-uaw-vote/?section=money_autos

Organization among workers in any environment to ensure good communication between laborers and management would be good. Why do we need national level organizations to oversee all of this?

 

[LAGA]

Because having 50 different sets of rules is inefficient and contributes to the race to the bottom. How can you hope to have a fair vote when the leaders of the state government threaten to withhold subsidies if the plant unionizes and the state senator lies about the vote being a condition of VW bring the SUV manufacturing to that plant, when in fact it was not?

 

[Mykl]

Originally Posted By: LAGA
Because having 50 different sets of rules is inefficient and contributes to the race to the bottom. How can you hope to have a fair vote when the leaders of the state government threaten to withhold subsidies if the plant unionizes and the state senator lies about the vote being a condition of VW bring the SUV manufacturing to that plant, when in fact it was not?


How can you hope to have a fair vote when you have the UAW lobbying at every level to ensure that they maintain an unfair advantage over any other form of worker organization?

Withholding subsidies in this way is a [censored], underhanded move. But when every attempt is made to adjust the rules to allow more flexible worker organization it's really hard to fault politicians for doing everything they can do to block the toxic juggernaut that is the UAW (and other over-powered union organizations).

 

[Silverado12]

Originally Posted By: wkcars
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Originally Posted By: wkcars
And when dealing with public employee unions, the costs are paid by taxpayers.


I'm curious what you mean by that. Would you explain?


Union dues come from the employee's paycheck in the form of a deduction. The benefits that the unions negotiated to get employees, when they are government/public employees, those costs are paid by tax money/taxpayers. I'm not saying there aren't cases where the costs might be proportioned or paid through other sources, but for the most part taxpayers are on the hook for government/public employees.


Not true. In Virginia, as a state worker and a member of AFSCME, we couldn't negotiate pay and we couldn't strike. The union was there more for abuses of employees by management, which if ever went to court in a lawsuit, could cost the state big bucks in compensation to the employee(s). The union usually made the state do right long before that ever happened. Therefore, the unions saved the taxpayers money.

 

[Trav]

I know little about Unions except they are too political. They seem more concerned with their own agenda and filling their coffers than the workers they claim to represent.
I am against Unions as long as they are political donors and activist regardless of party, activities that IMHO should be totally illegal.

 

[d00df00d]

How would you propose to keep unions out of politics without keeping corporations out of politics as well?

All of that would be music to my ears, honestly. I just can't see it happening without compromising some very important Constitutional values.

 

[Silverado12]

^^^Agree. I would be happy to keep unions out of politics as long as corporations did too.

 

[zzyzzx]

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
only Nissan and VW are not part of a union, so they can get fired at any time without Union involvement!

LOL! That's how it works in all other industries. Why should the auto industry workers be treated differently?

 

[wkcars]

Originally Posted By: Silverado12
Originally Posted By: wkcars
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Originally Posted By: wkcars
And when dealing with public employee unions, the costs are paid by taxpayers.


I'm curious what you mean by that. Would you explain?


Union dues come from the employee's paycheck in the form of a deduction. The benefits that the unions negotiated to get employees, when they are government/public employees, those costs are paid by tax money/taxpayers. I'm not saying there aren't cases where the costs might be proportioned or paid through other sources, but for the most part taxpayers are on the hook for government/public employees.


Not true. In Virginia, as a state worker and a member of AFSCME, we couldn't negotiate pay and we couldn't strike. The union was there more for abuses of employees by management, which if ever went to court in a lawsuit, could cost the state big bucks in compensation to the employee(s). The union usually made the state do right long before that ever happened. Therefore, the unions saved the taxpayers money.


That's a bit of a stretch, when any employee does something wrong everyone loses. And if it was truly against the law then there are plenty of lawyers out there willing to take the case.

 

[wkcars]

Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Originally Posted By: wkcars
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Originally Posted By: wkcars
And when dealing with public employee unions, the costs are paid by taxpayers.


I'm curious what you mean by that. Would you explain?


The benefits that the unions negotiated to get employees, when they are government/public employees, those costs are paid by tax money/taxpayers. I'm not saying there aren't cases where the costs might be proportioned or paid through other sources, but for the most part taxpayers are on the hook for government/public employees.


I can't speak for all public unions, but the costs associated with union dues here come from the employees pocket. Yes, they are payed from taxpayer dollars, but they had to earn them first. Any additional monetary, sick/vacation, health gains garnered by union negotiations of course would be footed by the state- their employer. It's really no different than any other business.

Would you have them not receive raises, vacation increases or other incentives, where none were going to given? My wife is a custodian for a state university. She had said that before they had the union, the custodians (and certain other employees) didn't get anywhere near the vacation, pay and other benefits that other employees had. In this case, the union negotiated for a better employment package. Consequently they are now payed fairly and receive more benefits. Granted, they aren't compensated like tenured professor, but they don't do the work of a tenured prof either.

Unions have both good bad aspects of them. In general, I believe they have run their course and are in many cases digging their own graves by negotiating themselves out work.


I don't have any problems with employees negotiating with employers to get what they think they deserve, and if they think a union can help then by all means organize, but as I mentioned in an earlier post there's not much that a union can do or provide that isn't provided by laws or can't be done by the employees themselves. And unions do seem to be pricing themselves out and that's costing jobs because it seems they would rather have one high paying job than two lower paying jobs, and they strike to slow down or shut down the employers. 2 recent examples look up hostess and hawker beechcraft to see how strikes turned out, and the employees are the ones that end up on the losing end because management and the union moves on while the employees lose their jobs.

 

[dishdude]

Labor unions are frequently the scapegoat when a company is mismanaged and run into the ground.

Hostess is a perfect example of that, the company has been sold numerous times over the last few years of it's life, with each owner using it as a cash cow and sucking all the cash out, not to mention they only make total junk food that everyone knows are just empty calories and people are wising up and making smarter nutritional choices.

But it sounds great to blame the unions.

 

[wkcars]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Labor unions are frequently the scapegoat when a company is mismanaged and run into the ground.

Hostess is a perfect example of that, the company has been sold numerous times over the last few years of it's life, with each owner using it as a cash cow and sucking all the cash out, not to mention they only make total junk food that everyone knows are just empty calories and people are wising up and making smarter nutritional choices.

But it sounds great to blame the unions.


The same can be said when labor unions run the company into the ground and management is the scapegoat. And I would say it's bad management to continue to agree to union demands to the point where they become unprofitable.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Labor unions are frequently the scapegoat when a company is mismanaged and run into the ground.


I used to run a recording studio and some of my recording buddies and I have a saying: "When a record is successful that speaks to the brilliance of the artist; and when a record bombs, the engineer sucks."

I am very, very grateful for unions; not just when they are directly involved in collective negotiation but when the very threat of their involvement forces capitalists a little closer to decency. I have no problem at all with workers voting down unionization at a given workplace: it indicates that the employer is doing their requisite part to avoid unionization.

 

[Kruse]

A lot of for/against union statements depend on if you are just an employee or an owner.
My wife and I frequent a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that is owned by a lady. Years ago, she worked at a textile factory and she tried hard to organize a union at this factory. (The union failed to organize) She claims she was fired from this factory because of her pro-union involvement. (Dunno if that is true or not) Anyway, since she is now an OWNER of a business, not just an EMPLOYEE, I asked her if she would like her restaurant employees to start a union at her restaurant. She looked at me and was horrified. I soon got a big speech on how the union would have worked at her old factory, but there is no way it could ever work at her restaurant. Okay, fair enough.
So I guess my question to the pro-union people is this: If you owned a business, would you demand that it be unionized and would you do everything possible to help your employees unionize? I've never gotten a "yes" answer to this.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: Kruse
So I guess my question to the pro-union people is this: If you owned a business, would you demand that it be unionized and would you do everything possible to help your employees unionize? I've never gotten a "yes" answer to this.


Unions provide individual workers - who have no capital of their own and therefore trade the commodity of their labour for money - with the leverage of the entire collective of workers at a given workplace. This leverage's purpose is to counter the leverage of the owners of capital, the employer. I cannot ever see an employer being delighted to have their adversary (wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) negotiate their employment with more leverage!

 

[Mykl]

Originally Posted By: Kruse
A lot of for/against union statements depend on if you are just an employee or an owner.
My wife and I frequent a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that is owned by a lady. Years ago, she worked at a textile factory and she tried hard to organize a union at this factory. (The union failed to organize) She claims she was fired from this factory because of her pro-union involvement. (Dunno if that is true or not) Anyway, since she is now an OWNER of a business, not just an EMPLOYEE, I asked her if she would like her restaurant employees to start a union at her restaurant. She looked at me and was horrified. I soon got a big speech on how the union would have worked at her old factory, but there is no way it could ever work at her restaurant. Okay, fair enough.
So I guess my question to the pro-union people is this: If you owned a business, would you demand that it be unionized and would you do everything possible to help your employees unionize? I've never gotten a "yes" answer to this.


But from a business owner's point of view, being able to maintain a dialogue with an individual who represents the interests of your employees could be extremely valuable. This could be particularly useful if your business spans across multiple work sites and you are unable to get out and talk with individuals. Given the nature of communication through the typical management structure many basic requests that can be quickly delivered upon with owner or upper management approval may never even make it to that point, having been filtered out by lower or middle level management.

Unfortunately, these type of "company unions" are illegal for reasons I simply cannot wrap my head around.

 

[artificialist]

My dad used to live in New York in the 60s and 70s and work as an electrician. The bigshots at the labor union would often take the dues and spend them playing golf and going to concerts and spend very little actually improving the lives of the laborers. If you made those bigshots angry, they would see to it that you were stuck with the worst jobs. Also, it seemed like every job took more man hours than it should because one guy couldn't move furniture, and also screw in a light bulb.

Eventually businesses got sick of the rules, and moved elsewhere when possible. The local job market declined, and dad had to move to Texas to get a job. From that point on, he worked as a non-union employee.

Anyway, my father and I am just fine with VW employees rejecting the UAW.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Does anyone remember Detroit? Can all of us really believe the unions had NOTHING to do with its decline?

Unions are at 1916 numbers for enrollment. If they can't organize a shop where mgmt is actually cooperative like VW then the people have spoken. I heard comments from the workers that they were worried about the union driving them out of work eventually...

 

[R80RS]

Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
....(wage labour is inherently exploitative by nature, else it would not represent profitability to the owner/ employer) ...


This is absolute and total nonsense.