We all know you hate labor unions but do you hate collective bargaining itself?

[OKTexas]

Employers are about profit, NOT the interest of workers. Workers have to advocate for better working conditions, fair wages and benefits.

Collective bargaining allows workers to have strength to match corporate power. Unions represent the only organized check on business in the US.

Answer this. If an employer is offering something less than acceptable for a worker, why would they go to work there? Also what gives an employee the right to demand a change to the employment contract after accepting the terms in the first place?

 

[occupied]

the government sets minimum wage.... meeting that or anything above that is a "fair" wage.

working conditions should be up to government standards as well.

They can fight for anything they want.... actions have consequences though.

So you think the government offers sufficient worker protections to make unions unnecessary and strikes punishable by management? This is a pretty loaded question, I would think before answering it.

getting replaced for quitting ie.. walking off your job.. is not punishment. They left, quit.... The employer should have the right to fill the positions........without..said... bloody affairs.

I think you are under the impression that labor disputes are somehow unprovoked, if management decides to cut wages, stop paying into the pension plan, demand unpaid overtime, cut breaks, any number of things, are the workers just supposed to take it? If not what other recourse do they have?

 

[occupied]

Employers are about profit, NOT the interest of workers. Workers have to advocate for better working conditions, fair wages and benefits.

Collective bargaining allows workers to have strength to match corporate power. Unions represent the only organized check on business in the US.

Answer this. If an employer is offering something less than acceptable for a worker, why would they go to work there? Also what gives an employee the right to demand a change to the employment contract after accepting the terms in the first place?

What gives an employer the right to chisel their workers for unpaid overtime or loot their pension plan or just go years at a time without a payraise? It's how these things get started, not selfish lazy people just being unreasonably mean to the godly and always correct management.

 

[Darkwind]

Should workers have the right to fight for fair wages, benefits and working conditions or not?

You do understand that the right to fight for wages, benefits and working conditions does not translate into the right to win that fight, right?

 

[Arthur]

A century ago, less than 10 percent of American workers were unionized. America's wealthiest 10 percent was earning 40 percent of all national income, a figure that widened to nearly 50 percent in the 1920s. But in 1935, the New Deal era granted workers basic collective bargaining rights. Union membership grew to more than 35 percent of the workforce while the upper 10 percent's share of salaried income fell to less than 35 percent. The result after World War II was a 30-year period of unparalleled prosperity in the United States.

The last 30 years has seen a reversal. Wages stagnated and earned income imbalance returned to near 50 percent. Government figures show the median full-time salary in 1980 was $46,889, when adjusted for inflation. In 2010, it was $47,715. During that same period, income for the top 1 percent of earning households grew 275 percent.

Meanwhile, private sector union membership fell from 27 percent to below 7 percent, roughly where it was in 1928. Every scholar I spoke with blames dwindling union membership for a shrinking middle class.

"For generations, unions were the core institution advocating for more equitable wage distribution," University of Washington sociology professor Jake Rosenfeld says.

Studies repeatedly show that in fields where union rates were high, nonunion members enjoyed better wages and benefits. Treating workers well helped management avert the threat of union organizing. In a way, unions created their own form of trickle-down economics.

Read more here: We need unions – so why are they fading? - California Forum - The Sacramento Bee

 

[Darkwind]

Employers are about profit, NOT the interest of workers. Workers have to advocate for better working conditions, fair wages and benefits.

Collective bargaining allows workers to have strength to match corporate power. Unions represent the only organized check on business in the US.

Answer this. If an employer is offering something less than acceptable for a worker, why would they go to work there? Also what gives an employee the right to demand a change to the employment contract after accepting the terms in the first place?

What gives an employer the right to chisel their workers for unpaid overtime or loot their pension plan or just go years at a time without a payraise? It's how these things get started, not selfish lazy people just being unreasonably mean to the godly and always correct management.

Again with this?

Proof of this. Anecdotal proof will not suffice.

 

[occupied]

Answer this. If an employer is offering something less than acceptable for a worker, why would they go to work there? Also what gives an employee the right to demand a change to the employment contract after accepting the terms in the first place?

What gives an employer the right to chisel their workers for unpaid overtime or loot their pension plan or just go years at a time without a payraise? It's how these things get started, not selfish lazy people just being unreasonably mean to the godly and always correct management.

Again with this?

Proof of this. Anecdotal proof will not suffice.

Where the fuck have you been? What a stupid challenge to issue. Google "walmart lawsuit" and STFU.

 

[dblack]

Organized labor is needed to empower workers to assure their wages, benefits and working conditions are fair.

Organized labor isn't the problem. Granting them special privileges is. It's a violation of equal protection and an affront to egalitarian government.

I don't know what you're referring to that you consider "special privileges". What "special privileges" do you think organized labor has?

Well, there are thousands of pages of byzantine laws that detail it all. In general they gain special treatment and protections that individual workers do not. The issue syrenn raises is plenty good as an example. If I get fed up with my boss and walk off the job, I'll most likely be fired. Union members can do the same thing, call it a strike, and they can't be fired. That's not equal protection of the law.

 

[rdean]

It's bizarre. Republicans say it's not true when you point out they seem to want everyone working for less than the minimum wage with no benefits. But when you look at their destructive policies, that is exactly what they are promoting. Don't these people think? Ever?

 

[zakdavis]

Employers are about profit, NOT the interest of workers. Workers have to advocate for better working conditions, fair wages and benefits.

Collective bargaining allows workers to have strength to match corporate power. Unions represent the only organized check on business in the US.

Answer this. If an employer is offering something less than acceptable for a worker, why would they go to work there? Also what gives an employee the right to demand a change to the employment contract after accepting the terms in the first place?

What gives an employer the right to chisel their workers for unpaid overtime or loot their pension plan or just go years at a time without a payraise? It's how these things get started, not selfish lazy people just being unreasonably mean to the godly and always correct management.

Somehow, the Japanese auto worker has managed to survive.
GM plants hit by UAW strike - Sep. 24, 2007
That was the last strike at GM, and it wasn't because the company had cut benefits, it was because the UAW wanted more at a time when the company was sucking wind. What you mentioned hasn't happened a whole lot in the past ten or twenty years. I know that the UAW isn't the only Union in the US, but it is one of the biggest.

 

[Darkwind]

What gives an employer the right to chisel their workers for unpaid overtime or loot their pension plan or just go years at a time without a payraise? It's how these things get started, not selfish lazy people just being unreasonably mean to the godly and always correct management.

Again with this?

Proof of this. Anecdotal proof will not suffice.

Where the fuck have you been? What a stupid challenge to issue. Google "walmart lawsuit" and STFU.

Google walmart lawsuit?

Are you serious?

You do have a study, right? Not some opinion piece?

I have never been forced to work a single minute without being paid.

So, where is your study?

 

[occupied]

A century ago, less than 10 percent of American workers were unionized. America's wealthiest 10 percent was earning 40 percent of all national income, a figure that widened to nearly 50 percent in the 1920s. But in 1935, the New Deal era granted workers basic collective bargaining rights. Union membership grew to more than 35 percent of the workforce while the upper 10 percent's share of salaried income fell to less than 35 percent. The result after World War II was a 30-year period of unparalleled prosperity in the United States.

The last 30 years has seen a reversal. Wages stagnated and earned income imbalance returned to near 50 percent. Government figures show the median full-time salary in 1980 was $46,889, when adjusted for inflation. In 2010, it was $47,715. During that same period, income for the top 1 percent of earning households grew 275 percent.

Meanwhile, private sector union membership fell from 27 percent to below 7 percent, roughly where it was in 1928. Every scholar I spoke with blames dwindling union membership for a shrinking middle class.

"For generations, unions were the core institution advocating for more equitable wage distribution," University of Washington sociology professor Jake Rosenfeld says.

Studies repeatedly show that in fields where union rates were high, nonunion members enjoyed better wages and benefits. Treating workers well helped management avert the threat of union organizing. In a way, unions created their own form of trickle-down economics.

Read more here: We need unions – so why are they fading? - California Forum - The Sacramento Bee

We've had plenty of threads about unions pro and con, I was after something more basic, what rights the union haters think workers themselves have in labor disputes and if the government should back up these rights with the law.

 

[AmyNation]

I do understand, and sympathize with workers. I've worked shitty jobs where I was on a pay freeze for years, where they refused me breaks, forced me to work overtime without overtime pay, etc etc.

However, that doesn't give unions the right to hold businesses or cities hostage, which is what happens *cough* teachers unions *cough* more often than not.

 

[Darkwind]

It's bizarre. Republicans say it's not true when you point out they seem to want everyone working for less than the minimum wage with no benefits. But when you look at their destructive policies, that is exactly what they are promoting. Don't these people think? Ever?

They want no such thing. That is your warped ass twisting things to fit your nonsense.

That is why you are ranked right up there with Truthmatters.....batshit crazy.

 

[AmyNation]

Again with this?

Proof of this. Anecdotal proof will not suffice.

Where the fuck have you been? What a stupid challenge to issue. Google "walmart lawsuit" and STFU.

Google walmart lawsuit?

Are you serious?

You do have a study, right? Not some opinion piece?

I have never been forced to work a single minute without being paid.

So, where is your study?

Um, good for you?

 

[Darkwind]

A century ago, less than 10 percent of American workers were unionized. America's wealthiest 10 percent was earning 40 percent of all national income, a figure that widened to nearly 50 percent in the 1920s. But in 1935, the New Deal era granted workers basic collective bargaining rights. Union membership grew to more than 35 percent of the workforce while the upper 10 percent's share of salaried income fell to less than 35 percent. The result after World War II was a 30-year period of unparalleled prosperity in the United States.

The last 30 years has seen a reversal. Wages stagnated and earned income imbalance returned to near 50 percent. Government figures show the median full-time salary in 1980 was $46,889, when adjusted for inflation. In 2010, it was $47,715. During that same period, income for the top 1 percent of earning households grew 275 percent.

Meanwhile, private sector union membership fell from 27 percent to below 7 percent, roughly where it was in 1928. Every scholar I spoke with blames dwindling union membership for a shrinking middle class.

"For generations, unions were the core institution advocating for more equitable wage distribution," University of Washington sociology professor Jake Rosenfeld says.

Studies repeatedly show that in fields where union rates were high, nonunion members enjoyed better wages and benefits. Treating workers well helped management avert the threat of union organizing. In a way, unions created their own form of trickle-down economics.

Read more here: We need unions – so why are they fading? - California Forum - The Sacramento Bee

We've had plenty of threads about unions pro and con, I was after something more basic, what rights the union haters think workers themselves have in labor disputes and if the government should back up these rights with the law.

Do employers have any rights in your eyes?

 

[OKTexas]

Employers are about profit, NOT the interest of workers. Workers have to advocate for better working conditions, fair wages and benefits.

Collective bargaining allows workers to have strength to match corporate power. Unions represent the only organized check on business in the US.

Answer this. If an employer is offering something less than acceptable for a worker, why would they go to work there? Also what gives an employee the right to demand a change to the employment contract after accepting the terms in the first place?

What gives an employer the right to chisel their workers for unpaid overtime or loot their pension plan or just go years at a time without a payraise? It's how these things get started, not selfish lazy people just being unreasonably mean to the godly and always correct management.

Not paying overtime is a violation of LAW, pensions are protected by LAW, there is no such thing as a guaranteed pay raise but most employers will make sure the people that are true assets to the company are happy. It's very obvious you have never owned a business or been in upper management and have no real idea what it takes to run one.

 

[dblack]

I think you are under the impression that labor disputes are somehow unprovoked, if management decides to cut wages, stop paying into the pension plan, demand unpaid overtime, cut breaks, any number of things, are the workers just supposed to take it? If not what other recourse do they have?

They have the same recourse as their employer. Whenever either side of a employment arrangement is dissatisfied, they should have the right to end it. That's what voluntary association is all about.

 

[occupied]

Again with this?

Proof of this. Anecdotal proof will not suffice.

Where the fuck have you been? What a stupid challenge to issue. Google "walmart lawsuit" and STFU.

Google walmart lawsuit?

Are you serious?

You do have a study, right? Not some opinion piece?

I have never been forced to work a single minute without being paid.

So, where is your study?

What are you after? If it makes you feel better consider it a hypothetical question rather than a question based in everyday life as it is, If management starts trying to beat workers out of compensation are they justified in fighting it collectively?

 

[Darkwind]

Where the fuck have you been? What a stupid challenge to issue. Google "walmart lawsuit" and STFU.

Google walmart lawsuit?

Are you serious?

You do have a study, right? Not some opinion piece?

I have never been forced to work a single minute without being paid.

So, where is your study?

What are you after? If it makes you feel better consider it a hypothetical question rather than a question based in everyday life as it is, If management starts trying to beat workers out of compensation are they justified in fighting it collectively?

Of course.

Do you translate fighting it collectively as the right to win?