Labour Unions

[General Mung Beans]

What is your perspective on labour unions?

I am uncertain as to John MacArthur's views (who seems to be the only one I can find who's spoken out on this) as they seem to contradict each other but maybe that's just me.

Submission in the Workplace, Part 1, preached on April 23, 1989

Is it unbiblical to belong to a Labor Union?  -- John MacArthur

My personal opinion is the following

1. We should obey our employers as much as possible but at the same time this does not mean blind submission-for instance if the boss is violating the law, he should be reported to the authorities.

2. Striking is unnecessary in many present-day situations as labour laws have become more equitable. In addition strikes in most cases are problematic.

3. However if other workers are maltreated, we have a duty to speak out by all legal means which includes striking.

 

[sealacamp]

My 2¢ is that unions are counterproductive and further communist goals while reducing the value of the individual and exalting the power of any governing body that supports said union over any individual, including employers. This breeds an adversarial environment between the company and the workers or a worker and the union itself, if said worker should have any initiative or drive to rise above the average. All in all unions have a negative impact and cost the nations that support them time, money, creativity, energy, freedom, liberty, individualism, and common sense solutions to common everyday problems.

Sealacamp

 

[MrJim]

Unions have been on the decline for a while~only union people I meet are truckers & some mechanical contractors.

I suspect that as the rich become richer (and the poor contemplate armed revolution) and the middle class dissolves that unions will make a comeback in some form, probably not the current AFL/CIO/Teamsters template though.

 

[General Mung Beans]

Unions have been on the decline for a while~only union people I meet are truckers & some mechanical contractors.

I suspect that as the rich become richer (and the poor contemplate armed revolution) and the middle class dissolves that unions will make a comeback in some form, probably not the current AFL/CIO/Teamsters template though.

I haven't seen any news of the poor plotting revolution. Only some fanatical anti-Obamaists.

 

[desmalia]

My 2¢ is that unions are counterproductive and further communist goals while reducing the value of the individual and exalting the power of any governing body that supports said union over any individual, including employers. This breeds an adversarial environment between the company and the workers or a worker and the union itself, if said worker should have any initiative or drive to rise above the average. All in all unions have a negative impact and cost the nations that support them time, money, creativity, energy, freedom, liberty, individualism, and common sense solutions to common everyday problems.

Sealacamp

I agree with this evaluation overall. Unions may at times be established to help provide rights to the workers, but most often in the end, they take them away.

I'm looking at this from a perspective outside America. Unions have varying degrees of problems in different countries (especially when it comes to politics). I can share some things from Canada.

I know of one company, quite prominent in the province, that started out with no union. Then some of the shop workers started talking union, and the owner got wind of it. So he shopped around to find a union that would best serve his desires, and brought it in. Now the union workers have the worst pay, benefits and hours of anyone in the industry in the province. Even the non-union workers in the company (of which I used to be one) have it better.

I have a relative who is a mechanic. The company he worked at was union. It wasn't that bad until the guy with top seniority started taking advantage of the system, alienating customers and making life extremely difficult for everyone else. But because of his seniority he was untouchable. The employees ended up banning together and ousting the union in order to get the change they needed. It was really their only option.

I have a relative who works in an industry where you absolutely have to join the union if you want to work. It's a fairly passive union that hasn't launched any strikes in a long time, if ever. Mostly it's not too bad overall. I think that's really the exception to the rule.

My father ran an American division of a Canadian company and had to deal with union and non-union trades on a regular basis. The union ones were always a huge problem.

I've seen some unions take horrible advantage of the public (essentially holding them hostage) by striking to get what they want. Sometimes what they're fighting for is legit, but the means they use to get them are just ridiculous. I've also see a lot of strikes force their people to lose huge amounts of salary until everything is sorted out. Everyone loses in the end.

Overall I tend to think they're far more trouble than they're worth.

 

[sealacamp]

I have a relative who is a mechanic. The company he worked at was union. It wasn't that bad until the guy with top seniority started taking advantage of the system, alienating customers and making life extremely difficult for everyone else. But because of his seniority he was untouchable. The employees ended up banning together and ousting the union in order to get the change they needed. It was really their only option.

If only people would wake up and realize that they need to stand for themselves, like these people did, it would be a better world for us all. Just look at the chaos that is occurring in France these days merely because they want to raise the retirement age to 62. And that has come about because people realize that they can't afford the big bills incurred from the unions that run that nation. Hopefully one day people in the USA will wake up and realize that the independence sought by those that founded this nation comes with a price, that price is individual responsibility and initiative, something that is absent from unions in general.

Sealacamp

 

[AirForceTeacher]

Sigh. Exactly what would happen to a single worker who "stood for herself"? Unemployment.

Like almost every human organization, unions are good until they gain too much power.

 

[MrJim]

I haven't seen any news of the poor plotting revolution. Only some fanatical anti-Obamaists.

It's a secret~~14 y/o Presbyterians aren't allow in regardless of rank

 

[MrJim]

Sigh. Exactly what would happen to a single worker who "stood for herself"? Unemployment.

Like almost every human organization, unions are good until they gain too much power.

Yup, and be replaced by cheap immigrant labor...

 

[desmalia]

If only people would wake up and realize that they need to stand for themselves, like these people did, it would be a better world for us all. Just look at the chaos that is occurring in France these days merely because they want to raise the retirement age to 62. And that has come about because people realize that they can't afford the big bills incurred from the unions that run that nation. Hopefully one day people in the USA will wake up and realize that the independence sought by those that founded this nation comes with a price, that price is individual responsibility and initiative, something that is absent from unions in general.

Sealacamp

Exactly. And you know, once the union was gone, my relative was finally able to establish a career for himself. He suddenly had the power to get ahead with hard work and dedication, after years of being held back by the union.

 

[Adoniram]

I think unions served a useful purpose back in the early years of the 1900's...poor working conditions and unscrupulous owners were indeed a problem. But today, laws and regulations enacted by the government have for the most part taken such things out of the purview of the unions. Unions have outlived their usefulness.

In the mean time, unions have priced themselves out of many markets, leading to outsourcing. Frankly, I can't blame a company for shopping for cheaper labor. After all, when I go to the store, I look for the best deal I can get on a product. Just makes sense. Sadly though, some unions seem to believe that any given company exists simply to serve them.

I am always reminded of the ridiculousness of union power when I drive through a highway construction zone and see the person standing there holding a stop sign, and know that he probably gets $25 an hour to stand there and hold that sign. Same thing when I think about the factory worker that gets $30 an hour to push a start button on a machine and then stand there and watch it operate.

And people wonder why the economy is in such bad shape.

 

[sealacamp]

Sigh. Exactly what would happen to a single worker who "stood for herself"? Unemployment.

Not really but if you choose to believe such a thing that is your loss. There are laws that are put there to prevent any such thing. However a balance is always struck between employer and employee, unless you are in a union then the employer gets the short end of the stick. This is easily evidenced by government employees who are clearly inept and don't give a hoot about those that they supposedly serve yet they can not even be reprimanded much less have any other action taken against them. Frankly people like that don't deserve what they have, they surely have not earned it. There is so much that is one sided against those who employ these days and the fault lies at the feet of the unions, all of them.

Sealacamp

 

[KatherineS]

From a Catholic standpoint, it is an offical teaching of the Church that workers have the right and are encouraged to form unions. In many European countries, some of the unions were founded by priests. Pope John Paul II said unions are indispensible to a just society.

The teachings of other Popes include:

In the first place, employers and workmen may themselves effect much in the matter which we treat-(saving the workers from being ground down with excessive labor). The most important of all are workmen's associations...but it is greatly desired that they should multiply and become more effective. -LEO XIII

What is to be thought of the action of those Catholic industrialists who even to this day have shown themselves hostile to a labor movement that we ourselves recommended. -PIUS XI

Protestant churches have also made statements on labor:


We recognize the right of labor to organize and to engage in collective bargaining to the end that labor may have a fair and living wage, such as will provide and culture. -Southern Baptist Convention

The Disciples of Christ

Be It Resolved by the International Convention of the Disciples of Christ:
That It is our conviction that workers should have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist in forming labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in such activities as are within the limits of Constitutional rights for the purpose of bargaining with employers and other mutual aid protection.

Methodist Church
We stand for the right of employees and employers alike to organize for collective bargaining and social action; protection of both in the exercise of their right; the obligation of both to work for the public good. -The General Conference of the Methodist Church

Collective bargaining, in its mature phase, is democracy applied to industrial relations. It is representative government and reasoned compromise taking the place of authoritarian rule by force in the economic sphere. In its highest form it is the Christian ideal of brotherhood translated into the machinery of daily life. -General Board of Christian Education of the Methodist Church

Presbyterian Church​

Labor unions have been instrumental in achieving a higher standard of living and in improving working conditions. They have helped to obtain safety and health measures against occupational risk; to achieve a larger degree of protection against child labor; to relieve the disabled, the sick, the unemployed; and to gain a more equitable share in the value of what they produce. -Board of Christian Education, Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
The right of labor to organize and to bargain collectively with employers is clearly an inalienable right in a democracy, and has so been recognized by our government. -Synod of Tennessee, Presbyterian Church of U.S.A.

 

[Sketcher]

The idea of unions sounds a lot better than the reality.

 

[KatherineS]

The idea of unions sounds a lot better than the reality.

LOL!!!! That is what a lot of people say about Christianity!!!

 

[Sketcher]

LOL!!!! That is what a lot of people say about Christianity!!!

It doesn't mean that they are right, or that the two can be rightly compared. Unions are a relatively short-lived humanistic experiment which have brought both good (in the form of better working conditions and labor laws) and bad (in the form of corruption, oppression of non-union workers, and organized violence). Unions, as human institutions are corruptible and have been corrupted. Christianity on the other hand, was instituted by God, and it will always be what God instituted it as.

 

[KatherineS]

It doesn't mean that they are right, or that the two can be rightly compared. Unions are a relatively short-lived humanistic experiment which have brought both good (in the form of better working conditions and labor laws) and bad (in the form of corruption, oppression of non-union workers, and organized violence). Unions, as human institutions are corruptible and have been corrupted. Christianity on the other hand, was instituted by God, and it will always be what God instituted it as.

Of course. Labor unions are a human effort. Like the business enterprise, also a human creation that has brought both good and bad such as corruption, oppression and organized violence.

From a traditional Catholic standpoint, labor organization and business organization compliment each other and are essential parts of a just society. The fact that some leaders of each have failed to live up to perfection is not the basis for eliminating either or both from modern industrial society.

 

[General Mung Beans]

It doesn't mean that they are right, or that the two can be rightly compared. Unions are a relatively short-lived humanistic experiment which have brought both good (in the form of better working conditions and labor laws) and bad (in the form of corruption, oppression of non-union workers, and organized violence). Unions, as human institutions are corruptible and have been corrupted. Christianity on the other hand, was instituted by God, and it will always be what God instituted it as.

The earthly institution of the Church has been corrupted many times in history however.

 

[Sketcher]

Of course. Labor unions are a human effort. Like the business enterprise, also a human creation that has brought both good and bad such as corruption, oppression and organized violence.

From a traditional Catholic standpoint, labor organization and business organization compliment each other and are essential parts of a just society. The fact that some leaders of each have failed to live up to perfection is not the basis for eliminating either or both from modern industrial society.

I'm not for eliminating unions, for the record. I do want to see them checked, though. At least in the business world, market forces check abuses much of the time. You don't have that with unions, especially in my state where you're forced to join one if you're going to have a given position.

The earthly institution of the Church has been corrupted many times in history however.

Do not mistake that for Christianity itself, which is what KatherineS described some people as referring to.

 

[KatherineS]

I'm not for eliminating unions, for the record. I do want to see them checked, though. At least in the business world, market forces check abuses much of the time. You don't have that with unions

There have been grave and immoral abuses under the private market. In fact, most acts of economic injustice have been done under operation of the private market.

But unions are also tempered by market forces just as their employer is.

How would you like to see unions checked? The Taft-Hartley Act and the Landrum-Griffen Act already place a lot of checks on unions.

Do not mistake that for Christianity itself, which is what KatherineS described some people as referring to.

Actually, I didn't.