Labor unions are turning into roach motels for generations of workers

American Thinker ^ | Sep 15, 2024 | Monica Showalter

[T Ruth]

***

Here's another one that can fit right into the Make America Great restoration: Requiring unions to recertify with the workers they purport to represent.

Sean Higgins, a former colleague at Investor's Business Daily, now at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has a great new piece on just how badly this cleanup is needed.

He begins it this way:

Imagine if you lived in a country where a vote held decades previous determined which party held control of the government and people had little to no say over who ran the party. That’s the situation many workers must deal with if they’re unionized.

There are 7.4 million unionized private sector workers according to the Labor Department. Just under 5 percent of those workers voted in favor of the union that represents them according to an analysis of department data by the nonprofit Institute for the American Worker, a free market think tank. The vast majority of those workers joined workplaces that were already organized and have had to accept the union to keep their job.

The workers almost never get a chance to weigh in themselves. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal law covering union activity, does not require that a union ever have to reaffirm that it has the workers’ support once it is recognized. This is true even if none of the workers who originally voted for the union are still around.

***

***

[U]nion dues, handed over involuntarily by workers, are one of the biggest sources of campaign cash for Democrats. ...

***

The fact that so many workers have so little say is wrong. Congress should pass the Employee Rights Act, which would mandate periodic recertification votes, to give those workers a say in who represents them. ...

***

Hat tip: Issues & Insights

[wjcsux]

My dad was a member of the Machinists Union prior to WW2 in NYC. He told me that they really didn’t give a shit about their members even back then. He worked for Walter Kidde Company making parts for military trucks. He was able to go into the Navy after Pearl Harbor because he told them that he was a janitor.

[Glad2bnuts]

That is a very good idea, I don’t think that it has ever been voiced before.

Imagine Boeing workers rejecting a 25% raise, because they are shooting for 40%. I am thinking that is going to be the death knell of Boeing. Do these people care? Do the executives in the Union care? NO

[ansel12]

No matter how much I have needed work, I always refused to join a union.

[Alberta's Child]

It’s even worse than what this article says.

In many unions, retirees are given the same voting rights as active workers when it comes to electing union leadership. In old industrial unions like the U.S. Steel Workers, the retirees end up outnumbering the active workers by a wide margin. Once this happens, the union no longer serves any purpose in business because the leaders will always sell out the active workers in exchange for the retirees.

[Tell It Right]

The worst job I ever worked was the only union job I worked in.

[shanover]

The idea of the union has very good attributes and historical relevance. What the unions turned into is rotten to the core on the backs of workers and beholden to politicians/organized crime. (one in the same).

[Terry L Smith]

i can attest to that....1980 to 1985,
:”INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS (and aerospace workers), General Dynamics, Pomona Division...
1986 tto 1994.

American Federation of Government Employees, 1st line representative , NAVPRO/DPRO Grumman Aerospace, Bethpage, NY.

[montag813]

NO chance of altering the NRLA to fix this, while we only have a 1-3 seat majority in the House, if we even do in January

[PortugeeJoe]

I never worked for a union, but for 4-5 years worked full time as a waiter. I started out at a small family owned restaurant and made decent tips, but knew I could make more at bigger, more popular restaurants.

So I applied at what I thought were the 2 best restaurants in town. The first one called and brought me in for an interview. 20 minutes into the interview they offered me a job.

I asked how much I could expect to make if I worked 35-40 hours a week. The interviewer responded that I would make minimum wage for waiters plus tips AND that all tips were pooled. I asked for clarification on the tips and he said all the tips for the week were put into one pool and then divided up amongst all the waiters based on how many hours they worked so every waiter made the same amount of money per hour.

I asked if I could opt out of the tip pooling as I was confident I would be losing money that I earned if I had to share tips.

He said no. I walked out the door.

A few days later the other restaurant called me up and I was hired right away. No tip pooling. I worked there for a couple years and was one of the top earning waiters there within a couple months of being hired. I always worked my a%$ off and treated all my customers great. I frequently got regulars who usually tipped 10% when they had other waiters tipping me 15-20%. One time I waited on a big party (25) that came in once a month and spent $5,000+ each time. This party was usually rotated between the 4-5 top waiters in the restaurant but after the first time I waited on them they asked for me specifically. (I still have the scars on my back from the daggers the other top waiters sent my way every time this party came in.)

No way I would work union or tip pooling -— not quite the same thing, but close in it’s effects on the workers -— the better workers subsidize the lazier ones.