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7/3/2014 11:41:03 PM
23
Are Unions still good for anything anymore?
Started a new job a month or so ago, got in the mail today my letter from what would be called Local 7. It's relating to my employment and the Union I will now be a part of, and how deductions are going to be started weekly and monthly it seems from my paychecks to pay "membership" for something that I don't believe is all that necessary anymore.
The reason why I don't think it's necessary is simply for the fact that this isn't the 1900s anymore. We don't have that many factories and large industrial areas with thousands of workers all working on machinery and such. We have machines to do that work and we supervise the production ourselves. Unions were there to protect the workers, make sure working conditions and rights were treated fairly, and to insure that we were not wrongfully terminated and otherwise.
But now, in my honest opinion I don't see a point to being in a mandatory Union that can take money out of my wages for something I will likely not need, it's seen as a less useful form of insurance to me. Perhaps I'm largely ignorant on this as a whole, which is why I'm asking this question. Are Unions still worth it in most working areas? Or do they only really help a small percentage these days and just sap money from us like taxes do since our debt, in the US, is not being reciprocated properly.
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Edited by M37h3w3: 7/4/2014 6:49:27 AM[quote]Unions were there to protect the workers, make sure working conditions and rights were treated fairly, and to insure that we were not wrongfully terminated and otherwise.[/quote] And that need for protection from exploitative or manipulative businesses hasn't gone away. Sure it's gone down drastically in the skilled labor fields but arguably it's needed drastically in the unskilled labor fields. And just because businesses don't exploit or manipulate their workers right now doesn't mean it's time to do away with unions. You don't throw away the umbrella just because it stopped raining. What is needed however is something to crack down on unions that have become too big, bloated, power hungry, negative adjective, negative adjective, etc and etc. Case in point: The BART union. Paid some of the highest wages in CA. Their wages are so high that they were stifling BART's ability to update and renovate without increasing ticket fares every time they needed to. On top of that high pay they had some godly benefits that nobody in the private sector gets. And they wanted more pay. BART management caved in and gave them a "compromise" that's barely that. It's a more modest pay raise than what they were asking for with a requirement that they finally start chipping in for their retirement funds. BART management had public support on their side after two strikes by the union led to everyone, including Democrats turning on BART. And on the flipside we have businesses cutting every corner they can to boost profits and we end up paying for it when their corner cutting inevitably fails and causes huge and horrible problems. I would list examples but they are far too numerous to cite all of them. Popular ones being Walmart working employees just under the requirements for full time to cock block them and labeling government benefits as their own benefit programs; Chevron not upgrading or replacing old and failing equipment that led to dozens of workers either injured or dead and thousands more exposed to harmful gases. I don't think for a second that they'll leave their low level employees alone or treat them as sacrosanct.
