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US Politics: Mark your calendars


The Undead Martyr

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The thing about right to work is it's sort of like voter ID laws, they sound great at first, but in practice things don't work out that great and it tends to disenfranchise people on the left.

Let's say my workplace of about 10 people is in a non RTW state. We vote to unionize, 9 in favor, 1 against. that is enough majority to force the one person to join our union. In event of a strike, we all strike, which is really the only way collective bargaining works.

Same scenario, in an RTW state- That one guy doesn't join our union, we strike. That one guy keeps going to work and allows the employer to limp along while looking for our replacements and possibly bargaining separately with that guy. The union is weaker and ineffectual in guarding our rights, or conversely, the one guy who didn't want to join the union unfairly benefits from the others' successful collective bargaining.

RTW also makes it harder to make large companies change their practices. Where unions are strong, there are higher wages and benefits in that industry and region for everyone. Look at what a construction crew is paid in Minnesota versus what they are paid in Alabama, union or otherwise. The presence of union work means higher wages for everyone doing that job, because employers then have to compete for the workers. Remember, the weekend only exists because of unions.

It's an economics issue, and if you buy into trickle down, yeah, RTW works like that where it's geared toward employers. If you go for a more bottom up strategy, then it sucks because it isn't as good for employees in most cases.

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In the other states, employees must be a member of the union and pay dues whether they think their grandfather was killed by Jimmy Hoffa, they were beaten senseless by a union steward, or whatever.

And yes, many employees are exploited by unions. For instance, there is a long history of problems with sexism in unions. I will also mention that when I went to my union for advice on a matter earlier this year, they were utterly uninterested and generally not helpful, and it was clear that this will always be the case unless I want to file a formal grievance, i.e. serve as a public poster child for their awesomeness. As the advice I was seeking was in furtherance of the goal of avoiding ever having to file a grievance, this was not very helpful, akin to "wait until you're truly and wholly fucked, and then we'll talk."

Well, since you asked to be told: Except for a few construction jobsites where contractor groups have signed agreements to only use union labor on that job, no one, anywhere in the US, can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. If you work as an hourly employee at GM, you do not have to join the UAW.

In non-rtw states, you will have to pay the agency fee, which is calculated based on the amount the union spends to represent you. You will not have to pay for the union's political activities, organizing or strike fund. You will not have the right to vote in union elections. In return, the union is required to give you full and equal representation including the grievance procedure, the same as their members receive And oddly, non-members probably get better representation because union reps are worried they'll wind up in court if they don't give equal representation.

Raidne, union reps exist only to police the contract, or in your case, the agreement They have no other legal function. If it ain't contract, it ain't shit is a common refrain at union worksites. If it is contract, it's addressed through the grievance procedure. Now a lot of folks don't like that because they don't want to be seen as troublemakers, and that's normal. And trust me, supervision does retaliate against frequent filers. That's a hard lesson some people have to learn. I frequently would advise people that didn't want to file a grievance, that their best bet was to just learn to live with it. Sometimes its better to be happy than be to be right.

As far as rtw goes, comparing your union to a private sector union is a stretch because federal workers do not have the right to strike. Strikes are really the only power a private sector union has over an employer. If a company refuses to comply with the grievance procedure, what else can you do? Now just imagine a unit that is 75% union going on strike, perhaps for months, with the members losing thousands of dollars in income. At the end of the strike, the non-members share in any gains that were made. How long before more and more union members quit the union and become free-riders themselves, until finally the union is just a couple of folks who meet down at the bar once a month to bitch?

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The thing about right to work is it's sort of like voter ID laws, they sound great at first, but in practice things don't work out that great and it tends to disenfranchise people on the left.

Let's say my workplace of about 10 people is in a non RTW state. We vote to unionize, 9 in favor, 1 against. that is enough majority to force the one person to join our union. In event of a strike, we all strike, which is really the only way collective bargaining works.

Same scenario, in an RTW state- That one guy doesn't join our union, we strike. That one guy keeps going to work and allows the employer to limp along while looking for our replacements and possibly bargaining separately with that guy. The union is weaker and ineffectual in guarding our rights, or conversely, the one guy who didn't want to join the union unfairly benefits from the others' successful collective bargaining.

I guess this would be an issue if an employer can fire employees that are on strike, or even hire temp replacement. In Norway we have a whole set of safe guards which prevent this from happening. Non-union member, or other that is not on strike (often strikes are gradual, you don't take out everyone at once), are not allowed to do other work than what they usually does, or work more for as long as the strike is ongoing. There's also extended protection against getting fired if you're a union rep (unless you break the 'rules of engagement', the leader of the flight controller union was recently fired after a sentence in labour court after he organized illegal 'sick leave' among his members). Granted it helps that for the past 80 years or so, the labour unions, the employer's organisations, and the local and national authorities, have been able to work together in a positive cooperation aimed at getting as good a result as possible for all parties in the long run.
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Oh honestly? Because he said "uh no" in an answer to my question, which was both kinda rude and wrong, since it was a really crappy "study," (i.e. article critiquing another study and reporting their own findings with no data) that didn't include any valid multivariate analysis. I like to respond to condescending wrong people by being dissmissive but also right.

That works better for me that slapping everyone with the "you have a secret agenda" label, but YMMV. Whatever floats your boat, man.

Anyway, if I am not right, please, I will be interested in nothing else more than this data of my wrongness until it is made available to me, so let's see this data showing that union employees under collective bargaining agreements in non-right to work states are paid higher wages than both union and non-union employees under collective bargaining agreements in right to work states, with other factors like local cost of living, etc. factored out (as even the study Fez linked managed to address that last one).

I linked it. Right below Fez in fact. I pulled it right off Wikipedia cause it was the fastest and easiest thing to do. You or I can find more if you really want.

And Fez was neither wrong, nor condescending. Before you even posted, he stated the result of RTW legislation according to analysis that's been done on the issue, then linked you a study when you came out against his analysis in your first post on the subject. You meanwhile jumped in against the issue right off the bat based on some sort of vague allusions to your own workplace (ie - anecdata) and assumed Fez was wrong because you just assumed they didn't even do a competent study. Despite admitting to not really having looked at much on the subject, you certainly seemed to have an axe to grind from post one. I don't think you have a secret agenda. I think you have a rather overt bias based on your own experience at work and in Michigan.

But as far as I've ever seen when discussing this subject, the data is pretty one-sided. Wages and benefits are lower in RTW states. Even when you compensate for other factors.

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Jack - Indeed, we cannot strike, and yet my union just won a huge victory compelling my employer to expand the work at home program for a few dozen employees in arbitration. So I guess striking isn't the only way unions can be effective.

I personally wouldn't vote for a RTW law if one was proposed, I'm just saying my experience doesn't actually bear out the reasons Fez, Kay, and Jack have given.

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FYI, you can't fire employees on a lawful strike in the United States either.

Also, jack, just for the record, my question was about whether I had any additional rights regarding leave for the serious illness of a family member under the contract beyond my FMLA rights because FMLA does not cover in-laws, not on how my boss was being mean to me or something.

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Not sure, actually. There are laws addressing it though, I know that. I believe you can in some cases and others not.

Note that ALL teacher strikes are illegal and a school district could absolutely fire them and hire replacements but it never happens. Most of all these rules are to prevent the violence that collective worker action used to entail - by employers, by employees against strike-breakers, etc. Although the former mayor of Flint, before he was mayor, tried to break a strike by dumping tons of manure at the picket line. Creative guy. Before my time, but I don't think that action was upheld by the Court.

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If you look up the "National Labor Relations Act" on wiki, it'll probably tell you the answer to your question.

ETA: Reading a great article in the Atlantic on the return of manufacturing jobs to the US and just wanted to note that it reports that new, entry-level employees made $21/hour at GE's Appliance Park before 2005, when the union agreed to a two-tier wage structure. Of course, employment had dropped from 23,000 employees in the mid-1970s to less than 2,000, for that and another reasons (and caveat - only have 2011 employment data - I know it was less than 16,000 by 1984 and 1,861 in 2011 from the article).

That's the real question here - is a national economy where entry-level workers in Kentucky make $21/hr the economy we want in a global marketplace or not? An entry-level attorney with six figures of student loan debt starts at $50-60K at my office in DC.

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If you look up the "National Labor Relations Act" on wiki, it'll probably tell you the answer to your question.

ETA: Reading a great article in the Atlantic on the return of manufacturing jobs to the US and just wanted to note that it reports that new, entry-level employees made $21/hour at GE's Appliance Park before 2005, when the union agreed to a two-tier wage structure. Of course, employment had dropped from 23,000 employees in the mid-1970s to less than 2,000, for that and another reasons (and caveat - only have 2011 employment data - I know it was less than 16,000 by 1984 and 1,861 in 2011 from the article).

That's the real question here - is a national economy where entry-level workers in Kentucky make $21/hr the economy we want in a global marketplace or not? An entry-level attorney with six figures of student loan debt starts at $50-60K at my office in DC.

Well, why wouldn't you want it if you could get it?

It's not a question of whether you want it, it's a question of whether it's supportable. When it comes to manufacturing, the jobs are getting eaten at by both globalization and automation. Neither of which is really a bad thing overall. (though the gains are not necessarily or usually distributed equally)

An interesting note to add to this is that by and large the death of manufacturing in Michigan began not with the Far East, but with the very near South. (as in, within the US)

At the same time, there can also be reasons to protect industries. Alot of stuff gets made in China not just because it's cheaper, but because all the infrastructure is there. Your entire supply chain for manufacturing is on that side of the ocean. That makes it difficult to move stuff back to, say, the US even if that individual step was economical. It's one of the big big reasons even Ford was pushing for the auto-bailout despite not needing the money.

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ETA: Reading a great article in the Atlantic on the return of manufacturing jobs to the US and just wanted to note that it reports that new, entry-level employees made $21/hour at GE's Appliance Park before 2005, when the union agreed to a two-tier wage structure. Of course, employment had dropped from 23,000 employees in the mid-1970s to less than 2,000, for that and another reasons (and caveat - only have 2011 employment data - I know it was less than 16,000 by 1984 and 1,861 in 2011 from the article).

That's the real question here - is a national economy where entry-level workers in Kentucky make $21/hr the economy we want in a global marketplace or not? An entry-level attorney with six figures of student loan debt starts at $50-60K at my office in DC.

Holy shit - I've been to Appliance Park, when there were at least 12,000 employees there.

There was a great article years ago, sometime in the 1980s, when Appliance Park started to slide downhill, in the Harvard Business Journal, on how the Koreans took over the manufacture of microwaves from Appliance Park. GE had started experimenting with building appliances in Korea by giving, IIRC, Samsung a contract to make microwaves. (At that time Samsung was a contract supplier, making no line of their own). [ETA could have been Hyundai] The product manager went out to Korea to see the first product. It was crap. He sat down with the engineering team and listed all the deficiencies. He told them he'd be back in a month to review their progress, and went back to his hotel. The next day he stopped at the plant on his way to the airport. They took him to a meeting room, and in staggered 10 members of the engineering team. They had spent every single moment after he had left to totally re-design the microwave to meet every single design change the product manager had asked for. They did work overnight that the product manager said would have taken several months in the USA to do. And he flew back to Appliance Park and recommended the work be moved to Korea.

Manufacturing jobs have started coming back to the USA because costs are rising in Asia, especially the cost of shipping. I read a couple of years ago that if a Barbie doll had a landed cost of $20, $1.00 was for the manufacturing and $19.00 was for the shipping, which was stunning. But the engineering has to come back to for manufacturing to return to glory.

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Jack - Indeed, we cannot strike, and yet my union just won a huge victory compelling my employer to expand the work at home program for a few dozen employees in arbitration. So I guess striking isn't the only way unions can be effective.

I personally wouldn't vote for a RTW law if one was proposed, I'm just saying my experience doesn't actually bear out the reasons Fez, Kay, and Jack have given.

Well, if you look at union numbers in RTW states versus non RTW states, you'll see fewer organized workplaces- drastically fewer. You will also not find organizations like the UFCW trying to organize anyone there. I have asked Lindsey's dad about this (who is national ufcw brass) and he's said they just can't make the impact for the workers in those states that a union is supposed to. So it's a pretty easy way to make the unions not even bother. If you look at wages in RTW states, they are lower. I guess I don't see how your personal experience has much to do with trending numbers like that. I don't think anyone would disagree that Michigan is a special case different than other states. It's pretty hard to discuss with someone who just throws up their hands and says "whelp, that's not my personal experience so it must not be true."

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No comments on Supreme Court agreeing to take on the gay marriage and DOMA cases? The timing feels right for a big step forward in gay rights with this one.

Well, it'd be a great step forward if the ruling goes certain ways. Others, not so much. So it's a "could be great, but also could be worse" situation right now. The current court definitely has its for-sure detractors, like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Scalia wrote the dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, which lifted the laws against homosexual sodomy. So you can bet him, and by extension Thomas, will be against anything resembling equal rights for gay people. Alito will probably vote in line, too. I'm less certain about Roberts' take on social issues like this. Their decision on the Affirmative Action case from University of Texas may shed some light on this.

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Well, if you look at union numbers in RTW states versus non RTW states, you'll see fewer organized workplaces- drastically fewer.

Right - here's what I've been trying to say about this: getting meaningful data is tricky, because those states probably had far fewer unions before RTW was passed also and (and this is what Shryke and Fez keep missing) a trend of decreasing union membership. If there is data that shows that union membership decreased at a greater rate after RTW laws were passed that would be evidence in favor of your point. What you've said here is exactly what you'd expect to see in a state where the voting public voted for something they thought would weaken unions - unions that are already weaker because they don't have popular support.

For instance, the very same day that Michigan becomes right to work, average wages in all RTW states will drop. Because Michigan has horrifically low wages and rates of unemployment. My friend just bought a great city condo for less than $30K. It's hard to explain the extent of the economic ravaging the state has gone through over the last decade - and that is because of factors that have nothing to do with the effects of RTW, because it was just enacted, but has quite a bit to do with why Michigan passed the RTW law, because, in Michigan, unions are popularly seen as having chased all of jobs out of the state. There is a correlation there, I bet, I just also bet it goes the other way.

I guess I don't see how your personal experience has much to do with trending numbers like that. I don't think anyone would disagree that Michigan is a special case different than other states. It's pretty hard to discuss with someone who just throws up their hands and says "whelp, that's not my personal experience so it must not be true."

What I've really been trying to say here, and haven't said very clearly thus far, is that while it is undoubtedly true that people pass RTW laws because they think they're bad for unions, right to work laws just aren't that bad for unions.

They are bad for how much money the union brings in, and it costs money to represent people, etc. But all the people who don't pay dues don't need representation anymore either. So it balances. But the union just sees its loss of revenue. They can do more or less and change their expenses anytime. They can also raise dues on existing members. My union just did this. So of course the union is against RTW - that doesn't prove that RTW is bad for unions or labor. Leaving the union is - IMO - bad for the people who choose to do so, but that's their choice, and it should be. I shouldn't get to force my coworker to pay money for something they don't support because I think I know how to make their decisions for them better than they could. And that is what compulsory union membership is. If you want people to join the union and give you money for representation, you should represent them well.

In my office, the union rep decided to pick a fight with the Acting Chairman during a department-wide meeting, in front of all 250-300 employees. He lost. I know people quit the union that day because they were so disgusted with how the rep acted, and that he wasted everyone's time on an irrelevant issue in that fashion. But then, a couple of months later, they won their arbitration on that issue. And some new people joined. I bet some other people joined back up to - because it was on the same issue he looked stupid on before, but I doubt they'd say so. Anyway, isn't that how it should work - people should join or leave the union depending on how good of a job its doing? The union should be responsive to its members and their concerns all the time? Not just annually? If not, how else???

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Also, Shryke, the Economic Policy Institute's briefing paper IS a lot more legit than the crappy policy piece from Notre Dame or whoever's "Labor Studies Department" that Fez linked, so thanks for that if that's the particular footnote out the 31 on that page you were talking about.

Is STILL doesn't show the results for unionized employees though - just all employees (-3.2%) and nonunionized employees (-3%). Clearly it's higher for unionized employees, but I'm curious what the extent of the difference is?

I also wonder why? I bet it's what Kay said - unions just stop making any effort in open shop states - probably because it's not where the money is.

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