What are worker unions, and why is there opposition?
In: Economics
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If your boss treats you poorly or underpays you and you threaten to quit, he’ll just fire you. A single worker is easy to replace. If everyone threatens to quit, no work can be done, boss can’t make any money. Now he has to negotiate. That’s what a union is for.
Opposition comes from the bosses, propaganda from the bosses, people that believe the propoganda, and people that don’t understand that the little they pay in union dues is more than made up for by the higher wages and better benefits being in a union typically gives you.
I’ll take the downvotes and explain some realistic opposition.
This is HIGHLY dependent on the field of work… but some unions hold you back. They advocate for the lowest common-denominators over their more outstanding peers.
Again, I’ll say it twice because I know some of y’all will be too blind with rage to read… this depends on the field of work. But if you are able to perform better AND advocate for yourself instead of paying someone else too, you MIGHT be held back in a union.
Workers unions are organizations formed by mainly lower-level employees within a company, under the idea that by uniting all employees together, it will be easier to negotiate better wages, benefits, and working conditions.
The opposition usually comes from higher-ups who do not want to raise wages or boost benefits, because it will mean less money for them. Unions are also not free. To be officially recognized, there are union dues that come out of employee paychecks. Some employees are against unions for this reason. Others oppose them because trying and failing to unionize can result in retaliation from higher-ups who try to replace employees who try to unionize. While not entirely legal, it is often done and easy to cover up
Worker’s unions are basically an organization comprised of workers in order to negotiate with employers. An advantage that employers enjoy when their workers aren’t unionized is that their employees need jobs more than the employer needs an individual employee, but employees are what make the company run. The employer can lose employees because they can be replaced, but the employer can’t lose all their employees at once without significant consequences. If an employer is treating its employees harshly, the employees can quit, but disorganized quitting doesn’t hurt the employer because they can find replacements before the next one quits. A union says, “we’re going to look out for each other, and you need to treat your labor well as a unit.” The union can sign a contract with the employer that outlines the relationship between the employer and their labor. The contract can outline a structure for things like hours, pay, safety protocol, Paid Time Off, etc. Unions will elect representatives and have lawyers on retainer to help with negotiations and resolve legal disputes. If workers are unhappy with a contract proposals, they can vote to go on strike. During a strike, they will support each other financially through a strike fund and try and prevent non-union workers from working or people from buying goods or services from the company by using picket lines. This puts pressure on the employer to treat workers more fairly.
People can be against unions for a few reasons.
* If you’re an employer, a unionized workforce makes it more difficult for you to exploit their labor
* Some people perceive unions as protecting bad workers. This usually isn’t the case though. Unions just make it hard to fire people for reasons that don’t have to do with their work, but in order to fire a bad employee they usually just have to document bad performance. Bad workers staying on is usually the result of bad management.
* Some people don’t like that they have to pay union dues to get a certain job. However, unions provide much more benefit to the worker than they cost and it’s not fair for a new worker to reap the benefits of a union’s negotiations without paying their fair share.
* Some people may just be of a minority opinion within their union and doesn’t like how the union operates, but 99% of the time any union is going to provide better outcomes than individual negotiation with the employer.
* A strike can hurt consumers of that business and the economy, and many people put the sole responsibility of a strike on the union regardless of the employer’s position in negotiations. Many people don’t care how an employer treats its workers, and don’t think employees deserve more than what they can get by negotiating as an individual.
When two groups are in opposition, yet need each other for a common goal, power imbalances occur.
Unions are a way to increase the power of labor when negotiating with owners. Opposition to unions comes when unions demand to much and the balance swings to far in the way of labor.
Corporations exist to create profit. They usually sell a good or service to do so, but they are not in business just to create that good or service, they exist for the sole purpose of creating profit for its owners. A “publicly traded company” is one that is owned by its shareholders. These companies exist for the sole purpose of creating profit for its shareholders. A private corporation has owners that actually work for the corporation. These companies exist to create profit for the owners that are working for the company.
Since the corporation exists solely to create profit, they will do so in any way they can. Some/most corporations have exploited their workers in search for more profit. For example, they will cut benefits like healthcare, or cut their contribution to the workers retirement funds, they may even attempt to break the law by making you work more hours than you are getting paid for. This is all in search of profit.
The workers are in a bad position. If one worker stands up to their boss and says “we need more money per hour to continue working”, the boss can easily fire just one worker and replace them.
There is power in numbers. The workers realized “he might be able to fire one of us, but it would hurt the companies profit if he fired ALL of us!”. So the workers joined together and became a UNION. This means they stood up to the boss and said “if you fire one of us, ALL of us are leaving”. This gave power back to the workers. This also gave the workers the ability to say “hey boss, if you don’t pay us more for our jobs, we will all stop working and strike”.
Unions are the reason that we have laws to protect the workers in the USA. They are the reason we have child labor laws, overtime, safety regulations and so on. Any law on the books that protects workers rights was likely from a union pushing it to become a reality.
So why is there opposition?
Simply because it takes away from the purpose of the business, to make profit. If the workers need protective glasses to work in metal factories, this would cut into the profit of the company. If the workers received higher pay, this would cut into the profit of the business. So everyone who is set to benefit from the business profiting (mostly the owners) will push back against unions.
We can see this happening right now with Starbucks. Some locations have unionized and gotten better working conditions/hours/pay for its employees. While the corporation itself pushes VERY, VERY hard against the unions forming. If the corporation hears that its workers are talking about a union, they are likely to fire that employee. This scares workers into not forming the union for better working conditions.
There is also opposition from some undereducated workers. Unions have expenses, sometimes they have to hire lawyers, sometimes they have to go to court, these things cost money. Some workers see this expense, without seeing the benefits provided, and are against the union before it forms because they don’t see how it benefits them.
A Labor Union is an organization of workers who bargain collectively about the terms and conditions of their employment. Labor unions take dues from the members in order to fund the union’s activities. Some unions engage in political activities ostensibly on behalf of their workers.
There’s opposition for a number of reasons:
(1) Workers frequently don’t want to see their dues being used for political purposes that they don’t agree with.
(2) Large labor unions in the US have a history of corruption and violence
(3) Negotiated contracts typically impose regimented promotion and pay obligations that require individuals to be treated in accordance with their longevity with the company instead of their ability to contribute, which creates disincentives to performance.
(4) Large labor unions typically run their own “multiemployer” retirement plans, but those plans are frequently mismanaged (see #2 above) such that money goes to older union members at the expense of younger members.
Generally the problem is with public sector unions. They negotiate with the very legislators they elect which results in a quid pro quo situation.
Aside from protecting shitty workers who deserve to be fired, unions have ALL of the corruption and shittiness of political parties, but without the media to hold them accountable.
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