Why People Join Unions

[Buck]

From the AFL-CIO:

A union is a group of workers who come together to win respect on the job, better wages and benefits, more flexibility for work and family needs and a voice in improving the quality of their products and services. Workers in unions counter-balance the unchecked power of employers.


How do unions help working families today? Through unions, workers win better wages, benefits and a voice on the job—and good union jobs mean stronger communities. Union workers earn 25 percent more than nonunion workers and are more likely to receive health care and pension benefits than those without a union. In 2001, median weekly earnings for full-time union wage and salary workers were $718, compared with $575 for their nonunion counterparts. Unions lead the fight today for better lives for working people, such as through expanded family and medical leave, improved safety and health protections and fair-trade agreements that lift the standard of living for workers all over the world.

 

[KCFlyer]

----------------
On 5/20/2003 9:58:09 PM Buck wrote:


From the AFL-CIO:

A union is a group of workers who come together to win respect on the job, better wages and benefits, more flexibility for work and family needs and a voice in improving the quality of their products and services. Workers in unions counter-balance the unchecked power of employers.


How do unions help working families today? Through unions, workers win better wages, benefits and a voice on the job—and good union jobs mean stronger communities. Union workers earn 25 percent more than nonunion workers and are more likely to receive health care and pension benefits than those without a union. In 2001, median weekly earnings for full-time union wage and salary workers were $718, compared with $575 for their nonunion counterparts. Unions lead the fight today for better lives for working people, such as through expanded family and medical leave, improved safety and health protections and fair-trade agreements that lift the standard of living for workers all over the world.





----------------​

But will anyone who "joined" (as in many jobs, union membership is a requirement and not an option) feel that they benefited any when the union fights for the loss of many jobs to protect the wages of the rest? In that case, those union members will be making about $575 per week less than their nonunion counterparts.

 

[Oliver Stone''s Apprentice]

How many airline workers join the union because they have no choice under the RLA?

 

[AAquila]

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/chasingthesun/imag..._lorenzo_54.jpg

 

[FWAAA]

----------------
On 5/21/2003 1:42:36 PM Segue wrote:

As a non-union employee, if I don''t like my company, I''m free to go anywhere I want to - seniority means nothing. I''ve done it. I''m not tied to one company for the rest of my life. Its called freedom and its priceless.

----------------​

But if you belonged to a union wouldn''t you be so much better off? No, wait - the TWU members here are complaining that they have done nothing but give, give, give for the last 20+ years . . . so they aren''t better off.

Which is it?

Better off or not?

 

[Segue]

As a non-union employee, if I don't like my company, I'm free to go anywhere I want to - seniority means nothing. I've done it. I'm not tied to one company for the rest of my life. Its called freedom and its priceless.

 

[Bob Owens]

----------------
On 5/21/2003 926 AM eolesen wrote:

How many airline workers join the union because they have no choice under the RLA?

----------------​

None.
Workers do not have to become members. They just have to pay those dues that are used towards enforcement of the contract that they work under.

 

[Segue]

Such a study means nothing unless you control for the industries the comparitive employees work in. Union employees, for the most part, are in more skilled professions than non-union, so that bias may account for a good part of the difference. A better comparison would be wages of say, Nissan employees in the non-union plants in Tennessee with UAW workers.

 

[Buck]

----------------
On 5/21/2003 1:52:00 PM FWAAA wrote:

----------------
On 5/21/2003 1:42:36 PM Segue wrote:

As a non-union employee, if I don''t like my company, I''m free to go anywhere I want to - seniority means nothing. I''ve done it. I''m not tied to one company for the rest of my life. Its called freedom and its priceless.

----------------​

But if you belonged to a union wouldn''t you be so much better off? No, wait - the TWU members here are complaining that they have done nothing but give, give, give for the last 20+ years . . . so they aren''t better off.

Which is it?

Better off or not?

----------------​

exactly

 

[Segue]

----------------
On 5/21/2003 4:18:59 PM Buck wrote:

----------------
On 5/21/2003 1:52:00 PM FWAAA wrote:

----------------
On 5/21/2003 1:42:36 PM Segue wrote:

As a non-union employee, if I don''t like my company, I''m free to go anywhere I want to - seniority means nothing.  I''ve done it.  I''m not tied to one company for the rest of my life.  Its called freedom and its priceless.

----------------​

But if you belonged to a union wouldn''t you be so much better off?  No, wait - the TWU members here are complaining that they have done nothing but give, give, give for the last 20+ years . . . so they aren''t better off.

Which is it? 

Better off or not?

----------------​

exactly

----------------​

Just depends what you want in life. If you are comfortable putting your lifetime achievement (and fate) in one basket in the hands of others, then I guess unions are the best thing for you.