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Amen, alphamale. My employer took risk and invested MONEY. Just as we expect to set the rules for our house, an employer should set the rules for his-the corporation.
How would you feel if your boss had you working under exposed friable asbestos but told you it was just plaster?
That's not a strawman since I'm asking you how you judge this operation.
Anyway, this is an example where you think a union should exist right?
I'm not against all unions. I believe unions are there to trade salary increases with other benefits such as job security and job enviroment. Not to push their wage above market rates, or force employees to join and pay them.
Yes, this is a case where an union would be useful. And if this was the only thing an union did, to make sure that the company follow the laws and create a good job environment, then I would love to join an union.
When they start donating to labour parties, and requiring all workers to earn the same, make it impossible to fire bad workers, and increase the wage way above market level so the company gets outsourced, then I would like to stay away.
One of the major problems I have with unions is how hard of a line they can take that later may have very negative consequences for future workers or entire industries, e.g., steel, auto, public service, etc. Ownership/management can do the same thing though. Too much imprudence and greed all around is not good for the future of everyone.
I live in Pittsburgh and drive by a marker everyday that commemorates a Railroad strike held in 1877. Sometimes I get stopped at the light right next to it and read it, marveling at how conditions then - as well as the strikes - would be so foreign to contemporary workers, unions, ownership, general public, etc. We're not talking retirees asked to contribute another 1% to health insurance costs or anything like that here...this is like all out war that went on back in the day. I should take a picture and post. As for now, here is the description from Wikipedia:
Quote:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became the site of the worst violence. Thomas Alexander Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, often considered one of the first robber barons, suggested that the strikers should be given "a rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread." However, local law enforcement officers refused to fire on the strikers.
Nonetheless, his request came to pass on July 21, when militiamen bayoneted and fired on rock-throwing strikers, killing twenty people and wounding twenty-nine others. Rather than quell the uprising however, this action merely infuriated the strikers who then forced the militiamen to take refuge in a railroad roundhouse, and then set fires that razed 39 buildings and destroyed 104 locomotives and 1,245 freight and passenger cars. On July 22, the militiamen mounted an assault on the strikers, shooting their way out of the roundhouse and killing 20 more people on their way out of the city. After over a month of constant rioting and bloodshed, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops to end the strikes.
I'm not against all unions. I believe unions are there to trade salary increases with other benefits such as job security and job enviroment. Not to push their wage above market rates, or force employees to join and pay them.
Yes, this is a case where an union would be useful. And if this was the only thing an union did, to make sure that the company follow the laws and create a good job environment, then I would love to join an union.
When they start donating to labour parties, and requiring all workers to earn the same, make it impossible to fire bad workers, and increase the wage way above market level so the company gets outsourced, then I would like to stay away.
They protect workers. That's all that matters.
Practically every time I've read a story about unions causing bankruptcies or making it impossible to fire a bad employee, it turns out those claims are grossly exaggerated. And even the odd times it does happen, they are so few & far between, that it's obvious that those aren't significant problems.
At best, it's a philosophical argument about what employers should be able to do that technically a union could stop you from doing.
Practically every time I've read a story about unions causing bankruptcies or making it impossible to fire a bad employee, it turns out those claims are grossly exaggerated. And even the odd times it does happen, they are so few & far between, that it's obvious that those aren't significant problems.
At best, it's a philosophical argument about what employers should be able to do that technically a union could stop you from doing.
I don't think so. It is unions who have destroyed much of the manufacture industry in the US. And right now, unions and health care are bankrupting the public sector.
Also, my biggest problem with unions is that they want to force me to join and pay, even though I don't want them. I want performance pay, I don't want to view the employer as the enemy, I don't want to donate to the labour party, I want bad employees to get fired and I don't want the company to go bankrupt. Unions are working against my interests, so why should I be forced to pay, if 51% of my workplace supports unions.
"How would you feel if your boss had you working under exposed friable asbestos but told you it was just plaster?"
After quitting, I'd report it to TOSHA. Unions are noy needed for safety in 2012. The reality is, coal mining inherently is dangerous, and a huge chunk of its high pay is to pay for the risk taken. No different than firefighters. On 9/11, 344 died, all were union members. Did their union fail them? If I follow your logic, yes, but in reality, like coal mining and being in the military, firefighters will occassionally die on duty. With or without unions.
Now I'm no fan of Massey, but I doubt anyone with higher safety standards was looking to buy that mine, and that part of WV has a ton of people who do not have enough education to mae a living in safer industries, unless they work multiple jobs. So I'd prefer to go to the rootcause of why these folks went into those mines. It was evident in the survivors stories they had safety concerns, but they did not quit. Why? Goes back to the few opportunities they had, given their lack of 2012 skill sets.
camlon"It is unions who have destroyed much of the manufacture industry in the US. "
Correct, and its no coincidence one finds much more non defense related mfg in RTW states. Manufacturing can make reasonable profits in RTW states, and almost never in closed shop states. Defense is billed cost plus which allows for exorbitant labor costs, as Joe Taxpayer foots the bill.
30 miles from my house, 2,800 are employed making appliances. Making solid, middle class wages. In the state I grew up in, I know of no manufacturer 1/2 that size whose primary customer is not the government. Its a closed shop state, that drove manufacturing away. And those jobs ain't a-comin back.
If it does anything, organized labor promotes and enhances personal freedom, and it helped to foster the nation's middle class. The underpinning of our economic middle class which is under attack by extremists and disloyal Americans.
5. Closed shop unions prevent you from CHOOSING to join, they FORCE you to join. If they were so great, why force people?
6. Unions force you to PAY them, and you have to say as to how your union dues are used to support political candidates you don't want supported.
7. Unions used to serve a purpose, now they are nothing but bullies.
No one is forced. If the place where someone works democratically decides to unionize, and someone doesn't like it, they are perfectly free to go somewhere else that doesn't have a union. Just as people who work for places where the union is broken are free to go find another union shop, should they non like the non-union shop.
"bullies"? I'll show you bullies, of the non-union variety, and it happened in the 90s, not in your la-la land where unions "once served a purpose":
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