The union will negotiate for raises in increments of nickels and dimes when they should be talking dollars and the company is all for that.
No more high productivity reward based incentives because this singles out the individual.
No more meritorious raises because this too singles out the
individual and negates the sameness that the union seeks
to promote harmonious working environment.
This all boiles down to lower wages for the employee and less that the company has to pay out. I agree, it is a racket. But both sides are involved in it and the poor employee ends up in an evil menage a trios as the recipient of a screwing from both company and union. In my experience here in the South, the most money paid out at contract time is to the union negotiatiors and union officials.
I’m in the northwest and in Oregon and Washington it wasn’t like that at all.
We envied the non-union competitors - their employees were loyal to their employer, not the union, and their men were happy. We, as a union employer, had to bribe our employees to do a decent job. The prize every year was a week long trip to Hawaii for 2. We also paid out a lot of bonuses based on performance. If we didn’t do that our hourly average (income per man per hour) sank because the employees had no incentive - as they saw it - other than their extremely comfortable living - to do a decent job.
From my perspective the unionization of employers will just raise prices but not quality. Just what we don’t need.