Plan B Forum

It appears that Indiana will presently have a "right to work" law that will allow unionized employees to opt out of paying union dues.

The law does nothing to change the Federal conditions for unionizing a private workplace, or the requirement that employers negotiate "in good faith" with the collective bargaining unit, once it is recognized. It does not negate or void any provision of any collective bargaining agreement.

Not surprisingly, the various unions in Indiana and elsewhere are absolutely livid with rage about this development. They are even threatening to DISRUPT THE (FUCKING) SUPER BOWL(!!!!!) over the head of this new law.

Approximately 11% of Indiana's workforce is unionized at present. Less than 1/8 if you prefer a fraction.

It is rumored that many union workers in Indiana and elsewhere are less than happy about the amount of money that the Unions collect, and also that they are less than happy with some of the things the unions do with THEIR (the workers') money, namely, using it to bankroll Democrat politicians (e.g., Barak Hussein O'Bama). Surely, some workers will stop paying dues, and others will only pay a fraction, based on disapproval of certain union spending practices. This cannot help but make the unions more responsive to the desires of the membership. Anyone who has belonged to a union can attest to the thugocracy that prevails in most of them.

But this law will require the unions to persuade the workers to pay dues, and to spend the dues money wisely.

Republicans claim that this law will make Indiana more attractive to employers. I'm not sure I follow the logic, other than to observe that (1) Indiana unions will generally be getting less money, and (2) that will make them less able to run organizing campaigns, thus (3) a new employer is less likely to have to deal with an "organized" labor force.

Ouch.

One wonders whether, if this becomes a trend, the United States Supreme Court will find a Right to Join A Union somewhere in the 9th Amendment, or amongst the emanations and penumbras of the etherial Right of Privacy, to put a stop to this nonsense. Certainly if Barry is re-elected (Oh perish the thought!) that becomes a real possibility.

Approximately 11% of Indiana's workforce is unionized at present. Less than 1/8 if you prefer a fraction.

Wouldn't that be closer to just over 1/10?

Arkansas is a right to work state and there are still unions.

Closed shops are marmite...

keld feldspar wrote: Closed shops are marmite...

That good huh?

Wouldn't that be closer to just over 1/10?

Arkansas is a right to work state and there are still unions.

Same with Texas, my sisters in a union there.

What have the Romans ever done for us eh?

Gob wrote:What have the Romans ever done for us eh?

dgs49 wrote:One wonders whether, if this becomes a trend, the United States Supreme Court will find a Right to Join A Union somewhere in the 9th Amendment, or amongst the emanations and penumbras of the etherial Right of Privacy, to put a stop to this nonsense. Certainly if Barry is re-elected (Oh perish the thought!) that becomes a real possibility.

Are you really that ignorant? The right to join a union and not be arrested, brutalized or shot to death by police or Pinkerton rent-a-cops was hard-won and an especially bloody chapter in American industrial history. Have you ever even heard of the National Labor Relations Act? But I'm sure you'd rather go back to the good ole days of company towns, the Pullman strike and the Molly Maguires.

I thought Molly Maguires were cave diggers...

Having a bad day, Sue?

Certainly we have a right to join (and sometimes not to join) a union, but it is not a Constitutional right, eh? It was created by statute.

But as I think about it, that's not exactly correct. The right to join a union was always present, but the NLRA provided for recognition of the union, and the obligation of the employer to bargain with it.

The unfortunate thing is that no organized economic force has arisen to take the place of labor unions. Labor unions created the rise of the middle class between 1940 and 1975 giving average US workers a rising std of living (on one income) and making it possible for the avg person to send their son or daughter to college. From 1975 on Unions have collapsed as has the middle class. Male wages have been flat for 36 years (corrected for inflation) and in recent years benefits have been slashed to a fraction of what they were.

There is no moderate 'left' in US politics to take the place of unions; our parties go from center-right (Democrats) to off-the-cliff-crazy right (Republicans). So the US std of living has slid to the bottom of the G-20 in many areas; health care, education (excluding university-level), social services.

yrs,
rubato

Strangely enough, I agree with you rube. Although I would not say that the middle class has collapsed. Just look around - people of modest prosperity comprise more than half the current population. They have nice houses, drive nice cars, and send their kids to college. How middle class can you get?

But the economy has collapsed for the typical high-school grad who has no interest in college and no specialized skills. A generation ago, that guy could get a good job at the Factory or the Mill, or in the Mines, and by age 30 have the world by the ass.

Now the world has him by the ass.

My take is that Unions have mis-managed their leadership roles. Unions do not HAVE TO be the adversaries of management. They do not have to "go to the mat" for every employee who fucks up, or work most diligently to protect the interests of the laziest, most incompetent worker. For whatever reason, American Unions have adopted a strident, adversarial role, trying to get as much as possible from the Company for as little work as they can get away with. Counterproductive and nonsensical "work rules" have bankrupted countless companies, and are still alive at the insistence of the remaining unions - particularly in Government. They historically have tried to squeeze everything they can out of management, regardless of what it might do to the long-term viability of the company.

Witness how the NEA fights to avoid any sort of realistic teacher evaluations, and whines about the irrelevance of standardized testing (rather than participating in the writing of the tests, to make them better). And yet the public does not demand that they "get real," because - what the hell, they are a UNION, after all, and can't be expected to actually do anything to improve education.

From what I have been told, the unions in Germany and the BENELUX countries work hand in hand with management, for everyone's benefit (except those who not deserve it). They are not bankrupting the companies with counterproductive work rules, or preventing slackers from being disciplined (no one is ever fired).

There's plenty of blame to go around, but today's unions - especially labor unions - are their own worst enemies. It is no wonder that their main strongholds are in areas where there is no real competition (or Government has bailed their employers out of bankruptcy).

dgs49 wrote:Having a bad day, Sue?

Certainly we have a right to join (and sometimes not to join) a union, but it is not a Constitutional right, eh? It was created by statute.

Again you are just flat-out wrong. The right to organize was not a right "created by statute." In NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. 301 US 1 (1937), which tested the constitutionality of the NLRA, the Supreme Court made a point of noting that the right to join a union is a "fundamental right," which was not created by the NLRA but was merely protected by it:

[T]he statute goes no further than to safeguard the right of employees to self-organization and to select representatives of their own choosing for collective bargaining or other mutual protection without restraint or coercion by their employer.

That is a fundamental right. Employees have as clear a right to organize and select their representatives for lawful purposes as the respondent has to organize its business and select its own officers and agents. Discrimination and coercion to prevent the free exercise of the right of employees to self-organization and representation is a proper subject for condemnation by competent legislative authority. Long ago we stated the reason for labor organizations. We said that they were organized out of the necessities of the situation; that a single employee was helpless in dealing with an employer; that he was dependent ordinarily on his daily wage for the maintenance of himself and family; that, if the employer refused to pay him the wages that he thought fair, he was nevertheless unable to leave the employ and resist arbitrary and unfair treatment; that union was essential to give laborers opportunity to deal on an equality with their employer.American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U. S. 184, 257 U. S. 209. We reiterated these views when we had under consideration the Railway Labor Act of 1926. Fully recognizing the legality of collective action on the part of employees in order to safeguard their proper interests, we said that Congress was not required to ignore this right, but could safeguard it. Congress could seek to make appropriate collective action of employees an instrument of peace, rather than of strife. We said that such collective action would be a mockery if representation were made futile by interference with freedom of choice. Hence, the prohibition by Congress of interference with the selection of representatives for the purpose of negotiation and conference between employers and employees, "instead of being an invasion of the constitutional right of either, was based on the recognition of the rights of both." Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, supra. We have reasserted the same principle in sustaining the application of the Railway Labor Act as amended in 1934. Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation, No. 40, supra.

Simply because you wish things were different does not make it so.

Doesn't dgs claim to be a lawyer?

Sue, how is it that you had time to look up and post what you did, and apparently did not have time to read the sentence immediately following the sentence of mine that you quoted?

"But as I think about it, that's not exactly correct. The right to join a union was always present, but the NLRA provided for recognition of the union, and the obligation of the employer to bargain with it."

Unions existed long before the NLRA, but there was no obligation for the employer to bargain with them.

IN light of which, my light-hearted remark at the end of my original posting was inappropriate.