Posted on 05/19/2014 12:58:07 PM PDT by matt04
Few workers would turn down a raise. Union members, however, can have raises turned down on their behalf.
Employees of a Pennsylvania grocery store learned this the hard way.
Managers at the Giant Eagle grocery in Edinboro, Pa., wanted to reward hard work. So they boosted the wages of two dozen high-performing employees above their union rates. But United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23 was not pleased. The union argued the pay increases violated their contract, took Giant Eagle to court and forced it to rescind the raises.
Why did Local 23 oppose higher pay for its members? Because it upended their seniority system, allowing junior employees to make more those with more seniority. Local 23 wanted uniform pay scales—even if that meant cutting some of their members’ wages.
Workers today want—and expect—recognition for their contributions and abilities, but uniform-pay scales forbid that. Such contracts could work in the assembly line economy of the 1930s, where workers performed essentially interchangeable jobs. Not in today’s knowledge economy. Why would a software designer or a search-marketing consultant want one?
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.heritage.org ...
I would love to see Giant Eagle refuse to include any raises in the next contract. Hey, we tried to raise your pay, but you union said no. Too bad, you wanted a Union, you got it.
Because the primary function of unions is NOT to represent workers.
I would love to see the union members vote to decert. But there are probably more that benefit from making more than they are worth than those that don’t.
The author says unions need to reinvent themselves. They are fossilized relics of a time long gone. They cannot reinvent themselves away from their communist origins. If they do they prove there is no need for them.
Virtually all of my experiences with unions have been bad. My father tried to reform the IBEW by running against the corrupt president of his local. They sent five goons to discuss it. That didn’t work as my dad had a gun when they confronted him. He lost due to a rigged election. (Thank God.)
My first job was union and the union literally drove the company into bankruptcy. I arrived at my second job, just out of college, just after they’d had a union vote and lost. Union members or pro-union sympathizers destroyed the cars of non-union sympathizers, forcing them to leave the company. (It backfired and they lost.)
When I worked at Honeywell I got set up by a few union employees. I carried a load across a yellow and black tape on the floor where only union employees could carry a load. They assaulted me and each got $250 for their trouble and I got written up.
At the next job the union people regularly sabotaged the equipment and also played tricks so they’d get bonuses and we’d get written up.
A union creates and us vs. them atmosphere that makes a company non-competitive against their non-union peers.
The workers ought to vote to disband the union in their workplace.
I thought everyone knew that.
Although you know what they say about payback; within 4 years everyone was out of a job when the company folded.
Unions are of lesser value than the crust in a Hobo’s underwear.
“Unions are of lesser value than the crust in a Hobo’s underwear.”
Oh, my gosh. That thar’s funny!
At my UFCW grocery store job I once had a issue with my direct boss, who was in another UFCW Local. I called the Union as the Shop Steward suggested.
They seemed really interested come down like a ton of bricks on the eeeevil boss, until they realized it was another Union member who cause the problem. Suddenly, their was no more problem, despite me not getting paid for the hours I worked. In the end it was the eeevil corporation who stepped up and fixed the issue.
“In the end it was the eeevil corporation who stepped up and fixed the issue.”
There were some tremendously evil corporations in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But federal and state laws fixed those problems, thus eliminating 99% of the need for unions. That 1% could be resolved any number of ways that do not involve unions. Unions are dinosaurs.
Sounds like when I worked at Caldor’s, which was a UFCW store. The store was in bankruptcy, but we couldn’t get anything to help Caldor’s (a big store chain in the northeast) that workers wanted. We knew the chain would close, but we wanted to cut our wages to help. Union said no.
And people give me crap for shopping at NON-UNION Walmart...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.