It is soo good. A tech company i just got offer from. In their onboarding app, they let me join the union on the first day.
This is what you see in the company with strong union.
This is most often an effect of collective bargaining between unions and the company, not their gesture of goodwill. Teleperformance, a massive global shared service was recently forced to do that by Uni Global Union.
So weird that a union is such a weird taboo and looked down upon by employers in the US.
No it’s not. Greed rules and corporate greed is king.
You don’t get it. I mean it is very weird from an outside perspective that this is normalized.
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When my job unionized (it was through an amalgamation), my union immediately fired a grievance against the managers that got amalgamated who did some shady shit, and I got a 2500 dollar payout, and they got told to quit/retire or be fired, so they did. Everyone needs a union.
Canada just had legislation go into aff3ect every 5 hours needs a 30 min break. A pro worker move!
But my shift is 10 hours and the company pettily tacked on the extra half hour unpaid. They get no extra work from me, just forced to sit at the end.
Unions fighting it, speaking even to the Labour Minister. I like unions.
So you’re working at E-corp and they want to sign you up for the F-society?
The only thing that would be less G-money than that would be if the job was in H-town.
Nah, I J/K.
Hopefully they don’t make OP’s next 3 years all about some powerful woman and her secret project only to kill her and not resolve any of the mystery
Only time this hasn’t happened to me in my “career” years was employment with US companies. But they still had enterprise agreements approved by the government ensuring we didn’t end up like…well…US citizens
I like to tell Libertarian types that even if European systems aren’t perfect they still have material results. If they want people to buy into their Austrian mindset they need to deliver more to get votes to further de regulate. Fortunately corporations short term thinking means that ideology will never have popular good will.
If the employer if promoting a union, its probably somewhat in their pocket. Its just an extension of HR. I used to use the printer in the same room as my workplace HR and the union rep would constantly be insulting employees behind their backs to them.
could also be in their contract with the union that they must promote it
I got a job once that required me to join the union. It was bagging groceries part time for minimum wage at a grocery store. Sorry I don’t mean to be a downer, I see union membership as a good thing. Unions are like democracy. They are only as good as the people they are made of.
Yeah, I got really screwed by Pepsi and their “union”. Overall though, unions are great and we need more of them to combat shit employers. Just don’t let your union reps be company men…
Yeah, my brothers first job in a grocery store, sane thing. He was required to join a union and the dues taken out of his pay, despite being part time minimum wage for the summer . All the union benefits were for full timers, so it was basically stealing money from people who could least afford it.
I’m generally pro- union but for sure there are some taking advantage
What good is the union if they can’t even get you more than minimum wage? Wow.
Yeah I didn’t work there very long. It was 1984 and unemployment was 10%. Being fresh out of high school I took whatever I could find
I’m sure the union rep made it sound like you must, but I wonder if you were actually required. The major US grocery chain I worked for, the union shoved themselves down your throat but it was NOT required. It felt to me that their negotiations amounted more to collusion than actually fighting for the workers. I hope they’re the weakest union in the history of the world and that they don’t all suck as badly.
Why tf would you ever join a union for a minimum wage? What are they even doing for you in that case beside making you actually make less than minimum wage now after you pay your dues.
Things like sick pay, time off, healthcare etc.
My buddy kept a shift a week at the grocery store from his teens to 30s just for the benefits.
Protecting you from management.
A lot of times it is another way to “pay your dues”. Once you’re “in” the union, you probably get preferential treatment for higher level full time jobs…
I e. The company has to hire union workers first.
It’s a grocery store…
It depends on the state. Some states don’t have right to work laws, meaning that you can be forced to join a union to work a certain job. Unions are great ideas but some of them really do suck. My ex was sexually harassed repeatedly by her manager at a grocery store and the union reps told her to take a compliment and quit complaining.
Unions are only as good as the workers are willing to work together to make them
The way I remember it (40 years ago) the manager told me joining was required but I could be wrong. It was an awful union. Former employees were suing the union and grocery store chain for how bad they were screwed over
You can’t be forced to join a union in right to work states. In all other states you can.
Yeah, that could be the difference - I definitely lived in a right to work state. But they certainly sold it even there as if you must join.
The F*** family
That smells like a trap. Like I know my ability to trust anything but white oak and black iron has burned down and leaked out my right ear as a fine white dust but I would avoid that button then go to the union rep in person.
No joke, I see this becoming more common. They’re even doing it the way I imagined: straight up integrated with onboarding.
Maybe it’s an outspoken prediction, that in the future many more businesses will prefer a unionized workforce, but I think a number of current societal and market vectors would suggest that trend. In particular, consider the variety of HR-related logistics, liabilities, and relational concerns of a modern business that amount to operational overhead. You can likely imagine ways that unions might simplify, stabilize, or fully externalize that friction, such that the increased productivity outweighs higher labor expenses, similar to the way efficiency wages in labor economics can ultimately reduce turnover related expenses. That’s just one way unions could become an attractive solution to employers and employees alike.
At any rate, it’s what I would prefer if I needed to hire W2s, to the extent that I’d be willing to help spin up local chapters if necessary, and it only takes a handful of successful examples to accelerate labor trends.
Unions have long made businesses run better. They don’t fight unionization efforts because of profit. They do it because of control.
Unions help to fight inflation and price gouging as well. Unions are good for the entirety of any economy in which they exist. There are decades upon decades of independent and government funded research that supports this.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy
It’s important to remember that “they” is specific people with varying goals. Similarly, merely saying “profit” doesn’t tell us anything about where the money is going.
At the expense of profit? If control is preferable to operational stability, why do so many businesses use IT vendors?
They still have a leaver on outside vendors. And yes, power is ultimately their goal. If there’s a conflict between power and profit, they choose power.
OK just so we’re crystal, I’m only interested in fixing what’s broken. I have no time for doomerism, tedious conspiracies, or despair.
What I’m saying is that you can’t go to businesses and say “a union will make this whole place run better for everyone” and expect them to take that for an answer. Unions have to fight. Some of those fights have been bloody.
That’s not doomerism, tedious conspiracies, or despair. It’s what has happened already in the history of unions.
Edit: You’re angry, hurt, jaded, and need others to feel your misery. I understand the feeling. What comes next, however, is the work. Angsty rage-baiting is a dead end.
Of course, union battles are a matter of history. And yes, today the rational agents of global economies often see unionization as a threat, clearly.
I argue that it’s only a threat insofar as it’s a disruptive paradigm. On the whole it’s a more fiscally advantageous schema for all but the monolithic “vertically integrated” international corporations that profit largely from self-dealing (and probably need to be broken up anyway).
You said businesses prioritize “Control” and “Power” over profit — i.e. they are not rational economic agents but despots. It’s a bleak perspective since despots can’t be reasoned with, only overthrown, and moreover it dismisses economic theory entirely.
I’m just weary of the defeatism. I know we’ve been through a lot and many of us are terribly jaded, but giving up is not an option. I want to win.
moreover it dismisses economic theory entirely.
Yes.
I’m just weary of the defeatism
I don’t see it as a defeat. I’m not saying give up. I’m saying know what we’re up against.
Seriously in Europe many investment funds activly go to the unions and ask which problems the company have. They are often better informed and honest then the normal management. They also have an obvious intresst in keeping the company around.
That is fascinating. It makes a lot of sense. They’re safe to point out when the emperor has no clothes.
based
I’m coming at this from the bottom. But it’s incredibly sus to me.
I’d contact the union direct and speak to them about this before I signed.
If I may ask, what company?
Is this not the norm? The only two jobs I ever had that had unions, did the same thing. Though, they also had the union rep come and explain shit before you filled out any paperwork.
Huh, hadn’t seen that before. But does that necessarily mean it is a strong union? Couldn’t it also mean it’s an employer-controlled union that is not really going to do anything for you?
It’s more likely there not because the employer wanted it, but because the union demanded it.
You’ve got a point. This can be a sign of something sinister. It’s not necessarily a bad a sign but the situation that the previous user pointed out happens frequently enough that it could be.
Employer controlled union. That’s oxymoron.
No not really, if you read more about unions you will see that they aren’t always working in their members’ best interests and sometimes union leadership will ally with employers to secure their futures above those of union members. Not all unions are created equal. From what little I know and have read in the past about unions. Not that I have first hand experience.
It’s called a yellow union
