Are unions ethical?

[ThatRobGuy]

I was glad to see that with all of the auto industry bail out talk, someone in the mainstream media finally stirred up the topic of the unions and their impact on the situation.

I have no problem with helping the auto industry out to keep jobs in the US, but giving them all the money in the world isn't going to help if they keep letting the unions strong-arm them and dictate how their money is spent. They'll just burn through all of that money too.

Your thoughts???

 

[stan1980]

I don't think they're unethical. The problem normally is, when they start making unreasonable demands and holding their company/country to ransom. A form of blackmail. Although what is reasonable to one and unreasonable to another is pretty subjective.

 

[Greeble]

Unions are necessary. Our nation was founded on the philosophy that humans can't be trusted with too much power. Checks and Balances were built into government. Then we learned that checks and balances were needed in the private sector. Hence unions and regulations. China is learning that to its grief. It's milk has been poisoned.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Without unions, workers are at the complete mercy of their employers. A quick glimpse at the 19th century, prior to the establishment of unions, ought to suffice to show what that means.
Heck, we needn't even study history for that - just taking a look at nations like Bangladesh or China suffices for that. Have you ever seen a 30-year-old Bangladeshi woman who has spent half of her life working 16-hour-shifts in a sweat shop before being discarded like a part of used-up machinery?

Workers should have a say in how the company they're working for is run, and how its profits are divided among the staff.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Unions are necessary. Our nation was founded on the philosophy that humans can't be trusted with too much power. Checks and Balances were built into government. Then we learned that checks and balances were needed in the private sector. Hence unions and regulations. China is learning that to its grief. It's milk has been poisoned.

Who keeps the union bosses in line once they get too much power?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Without unions, workers are at the complete mercy of their employers. A quick glimpse at the 19th century, prior to the establishment of unions, ought to suffice to show what that means.
Heck, we needn't even study history for that - just taking a look at nations like Bangladesh or China suffices for that. Have you ever seen a 30-year-old Bangladeshi woman who has spent half of her life working 16-hour-shifts in a sweat shop before being discarded like a part of used-up machinery?

Workers should have a say in how the company they're working for is run, and how its profits are divided among the staff.

First of if you start your own business, the people who you hire to work for you (who signed an employment application agreeing to the terms of business) shouldn't have the right to tell you how to run your business.

I don't doubt that we need certain regulations, but when too much of the power gets into the hands of the unions and empoyees, the actual business minds behind the companies original success have no say or creative control and lose their ability to make the business flourish. On top of that, people try to say that their position shouldn't have a salary cap and then you're stuck paying $75k a year to a professional machine watcher

 

[cantata]

First of if you start your own business, the people who you hire to work for you (who signed an employment application agreeing to the terms of business) shouldn't have the right to tell you how to run your business.

I don't doubt that we need certain regulations, but when too much of the power gets into the hands of the unions and empoyees, the actual business minds behind the companies original success have no say or creative control and lose their ability to make the business flourish. On top of that, people try to say that their position shouldn't have a salary cap and then you're stuck paying $75k a year to a professional machine watcher

And who's going to lobby for those vital regulations?

Like, you know, the ones that prevent child slavery or dangerous working conditions or forced overtime or the sacking of pregnant women or the forcing of menstruating women to wear red armbands so they can be (grudgingly) permitted extra toilet breaks?

Oh, that's right - no one does, because sweatshop workers in developing countries are fired or "disposed of" if they try to form workers' unions. So they keep losing fingers in machines and getting forced to work 16 hour shifts, and no one does a thing about it. The fact that these conditions still exist, and conspicuously, they exist in places where unions are forcibly prevented from forming, is pretty indicative of the importance of workers' unions, wouldn't you say?

 

[Greeble]

Who keeps the union bosses in line once they get too much power?

Consumers! The companies! Other union bosses! (just ask Jimmy Hoffa)

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

First of if you start your own business, the people who you hire to work for you (who signed an employment application agreeing to the terms of business) shouldn't have the right to tell you how to run your business.

They don't work for you, they work with you. You are just as much dependent on them as they are on you - without them, you are just a rich kid with a bunch of money, some potentially good ideas and no one to put them into practice. Without you, they don't get paid for what they can do.
Back in the 1800s, factory owners followed the same rationale as the sweat shop companies of southeast asia nowadays: workers are a dime a dozen, and if someone doesn't agree to being shamelessly exploited for your own benefit, well, there are at least half a dozen other starving wretches waiting in front of the door. That's why unions came into existence to begin with: as a means of self-defense for those who were helpless at the time.

I don't doubt that we need certain regulations, but when too much of the power gets into the hands of the unions and empoyees, the actual business minds behind the companies original success have no say or creative control and lose their ability to make the business flourish. On top of that, people try to say that their position shouldn't have a salary cap and then you're stuck paying $75k a year to a professional machine watcher

I'd feel more at ease with paying that much to a "professional machine watcher" than with a system where the top-ranking CEOs earn more than 300 times as much as their lowest-ranking employee (who needs to work several such jobs just to have a remote chance of sending his kids to college), and hand each other golden parachutes whenever they mess things up. For the common worker, botched business strategies mean unemployment, abject poverty and social degradation - for high-ranking managers, they mean bonus benefits of several million dollars.

 

[Gremlins]

Who keeps the union bosses in line once they get too much power?

Unions are democratically controlled and decentralised organisations.

The question you should be asking yourself is: who's more or less ethical - the unions who stand up the rights of working people who are institutionally repressed in a capitalist system, or the ones responsible for the repression (who make a pretty penny out of it in the process). In the early days of British industrialisation unions were illegal, and you had an average work day of 5am-9pm, people chocking to death on cotton because their employers wouldn't let them wear masks, sub-survivable wages, child labourers... who do you think fought against things like this? Employers?

 

[allhart]

I work as a Union Electrician. This shows how ignorant you are about unions. I have worked both sides and let me tell you this fact. As for none union. The work in non union environment was brutal. When the employee's weren't back stabbing you the employer was exploiting you and the continual education mandated by the state with licensing fees required is costly. Also here is another fact Work in new construction isn't attained all by one contractor, so lay offs are inevitable, therefore; as far as none union employment goes you can never build up any pension investments. Basically your a no mad, A free agent with no retirement, Also for your info there is a board called (NECA) National electrical contractors association. That works with the board of (IBEW) International brotherhood of electrical workers in which has local as well as national implications to both party's organizations. As when I was a non union worker I worked up and beyond the call of duty for in fear of reprisal and if I wasn't brown nosing making the man feel good about his power trips. I was sent down the road sooner than latter. In the union things tented to have people working more as equals. To education, to tools and money.Keeping things more on a even playing field.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I don't disagree with the premise of unions, I just feel that the it's been exploited by people trying to make money.

If you research several websites (Including UAW's home page), you'll find that the UAW executive team's salaries range from $140k-$220k a year...Not quite the Robin Hood everybody seems to think they are.

If the unions become too demanding, it gets to the point where the business executives can't even successfully run the business.

The cold hard truth is that every position should have a salary cap. You can be the best McDonalds burger flipper in history, the job will never be worth $100k a year...regardless of the years of experience.

If someone is unhappy with the pay or benefits package their company offers for a particular position, they either need to take the proper educational measures to allow them to advance to a higher position, or find a new job. When you get a job, you're there to work for your company not the other way around.

Trust me, I've tried to find a company called "Pay Rob a lot more than he's worth for a job that's not that hard"...unfortunately, the company doesn't exist

 

[cantata]

Yes, unions can be exploited.

That doesn't mean it's better not to have them, though. They're pretty darned important.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I work as a Union Electrician. This shows how ignorant you are about unions.

My grandfather was a truck driver for 45 years. He worked for a trucking company where the employees could either join the local Cleveland trucking union or not.

He got everything from threats of physical violence to having his car vandalized on a weekly basis until he was strong-armed into joining the union.

As far as a union's goal to make people equals...this links says otherwise...
http://uaw.org/resrch/rbart.cfm?rbid=11

It's coming straight from the auto worker union and their intent is pretty clear, they want their people to make more money than everyone else.

...probably so they can pay more in union dues

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Yes, unions can be exploited.

That doesn't mean it's better not to have them, though. They're pretty darned important.

They were important back in the day when there were no federal regulations in place.

Employers in this country (by law) cannot force someone to work 8 hours without a lunch break or pay a 13 boy 50 cents an hour to work in a steel mill anymore...which means we don't need to pay a large team of people 6 figures a pop to accomplish this.

 

[Garyzenuf]

The auto-makers are going under because no one is buying their cars and trucks, if the whole industry was non-union they still wouldn't be selling anything.

I also believe you can thank the unions over time for bringing in the benefits ALL workers share now, Lunch and coffee breaks, paid holidays, health and safety rules, and a myriad of other benefits.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The auto-makers are going under because no one is buying their cars and trucks, if the whole industry was non-union they still wouldn't be selling anything.

False.

If they weren't shelling out elevated salaries and keeping around jobs that didn't need to be there anymore, the cost of production would drop dramatically and a piece of junk car would only cost $16k instead of $30k. There's no reason why we should still have to pay workers $30/hour to do jobs that a machine can do more accurately. Toyota has proved that by providing cars that will outlive any GM/Ford/Chrysler car by almost double with half the amount of human intervention on the floor.

If the unions would be at least reasonable about the idea of a salary cap on certain positions, I might look upon them more positively.

There's no reason why someone who puts bolts on should make the same as a doctor, even if they've been doing it for 30 years.

 

[revanneosl]

The end of child labor
Basic safety measures in the workplace
The five (rather than six) day work week
The eight (rather than ten) hour work day
Vacation time
Health Insurance
Retirement pensions
Sufficient bathroom and meal breaks
A wage sufficient to support a family on

These are things that Labor has had to fight tooth and nail against management & money to achieve for American workers. The workers have been clubbed, shot, locked out, fired and blackballed for asking for them. They have been called "socialist". They have been called "communist".

The management & money powers in this country have waged a 80-year long war against the rights of working people to collectively bargain for the "privilege" of being treated fairly at work. They have also waged a massive propaganda campaign, to make people who aren't blue-collar workers think that blue-collar workers are lazy and shiftless, and want to be paid huge amounts of money for doing nothing.

I see here that they've been quite successful.

 

[allhart]

I don't disagree with the premise of unions, I just feel that the it's been exploited by people trying to make money.

If you research several websites (Including UAW's home page), you'll find that the UAW executive team's salaries range from $140k-$220k a year...Not quite the Robin Hood everybody seems to think they are.

If the unions become too demanding, it gets to the point where the business executives can't even successfully run the business.

The cold hard truth is that every position should have a salary cap. You can be the best McDonalds burger flipper in history, the job will never be worth $100k a year...regardless of the years of experience.

If someone is unhappy with the pay or benefits package their company offers for a particular position, they either need to take the proper educational measures to allow them to advance to a higher position, or find a new job. When you get a job, you're there to work for your company not the other way around.

Trust me, I've tried to find a company called "Pay Rob a lot more than he's worth for a job that's not that hard"...unfortunately, the company doesn't exist

Those are arrogant statements. I have done 5 years of school and have put 14,years into the trade and not everyone can be a electrician for it is physical and mental. I have considered more or less what pays good . Well how is it that a union electrical contractor can pay Journeymen electrician hourly wages of 47.57. (In which I was foreman making 54.70) and general foreman makes 59.46also this is going up for inflation goes up. Next year Journeyman rate will be 53.57 and the other wage will rise accordingly Not including health and welfare and on the average the non union pays 22 with no benefits. What ever!!! duded I worked for 88k in 2007 and had to travel to Washington and work a Nuclear power plant , also worked this year 85k in which I commuted and worked at San Jose International Airport and now I am laid off. For the industry is out of work for the economy sucks. Electricians make your world go and if it wasn't for electricians you wouldn't live like you do. in any aspect of it,also electrician have one of the most deadest jobs in the world. Electricians have died for you to be comfortable and now you even want to pay us less.
Lets see 22 hour or 47.57 I.m not so dumb and blind that I can't see where my bread is buttered or to see the better choice of the two. Nor would you and also for your info. Thousands of people want to be a union electrician. The applications pour in and I wonder why????

 

[Garyzenuf]

If they weren't shelling out elevated salaries and keeping around jobs that didn't need to be there anymore, the cost of production would drop dramatically and a piece of junk car would only cost $16k instead of $30k.

Yes I agree, the CEO's of these companies do make an obscene amount of money for driving these auto-makers into the ground, but cutting their salaries would only make their companies a little more money, and would do nothing to help a person trying to get a loan to buy a vehicle.