Comments | iclysdale: Unions? Who needs them?

iclysdale

Unions? Who needs them?

Apr 19, 2009 13:53

We hear altogether too much in the media about greedy unions bringing companies down, or about unions protecting lazy workers, or defeating individual initiative and bringing everything down to the lowest common denominator ( Read more... )

Comments 8

sraun April 19 2009, 21:10:51 UTC

I am, to a large degree, pro-union. I wish a better job had been done of keeping organized crime out of the unions in the US, lo, these many years ago - that's the one thing I'm unhappy about. And I know that many (most?) unions did not have that problem - it's a public perception problem.

I still think that the terrible gap between executive pay and typical employee pay is going to cause some kind of backlash. Unions for white-collar workers could easily be one of them.

ironphoenix April 20 2009, 02:57:21 UTC

I can easily see white-collar workers unionizing... they already are, in the government, and as you say, the executive-employee gap is pretty egregious. It doesn't take a lot of owners saying how rough things are while buying and showing off fancy new imported sports cars the same week to really irk people.

sraun April 20 2009, 10:43:09 UTC

I have one that's worse, at least to me. Company A acquires Company B. The (salaried) in-house development staff spends two months of 60-80 hour days setting up / converting Company B's accounting system to Company A's Oracle-based accounting system. (They do it so fast that Oracle doesn't want it publicized - it was too fast.)

The IT people get a nice little plaque on the wall. No monetary compensation at all - well, they may have gotten some dinners brought in. The CEO gets a bonus of 80% of his annual salary for 'successfully integrating the acquired company'.

ironphoenix April 20 2009, 11:28:01 UTC

*nod* Dilbert-world stuff, yeah. "Thanks, suckers!"

Hey, at least they weren't downsized immediately afterwards, right?

ironphoenix April 20 2009, 03:02:14 UTC

I'm, as you doubtless know, quite pro-union as well. The ideal of cooperation that you talk about is valuable, and isn't well-supported by individualistic capitalism.

One major concern I have with unions is the adversarial relationship they so often develop with their employers, who are typically painted as the outside adversary (The Man) against whom the decent working people must rally. Wouldn't it be more in keeping with the ideal to strive honestly for trust and cooperation not only among workers, but also between management and workers? Of course, that can't be one-sided, but I've seen companies do this with other companies, so it presumably can happen.

matthew_g April 20 2009, 03:27:29 UTC

Hey, I need to bend your ear for a moment. Could you drop me a email/phone call?

(See my Stalker page http://matthew-g.livejournal.com/172332.html) if you need to get a new email address or number.

Thanks!

Completely off topic ... beable April 21 2009, 19:05:04 UTC

FNORD!

This is my new favouritest use of the font color tag, but I can't do it on your dreamwidth account without MOAR effort because you have them thar weird olive colours and I'd have to match them.

But since you are still on LJ

FNORD FNORD FNORD FNORD

mycroftw June 1 2009, 22:51:41 UTC

I am not, and have never been, in a union. I am lucky - I haven't been in a position where one was necessary. But please note - that's because of sheer luck in my abilities and my chosen profession. I am certainly not anti-union ( ... )