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Unions seek gains in hostile territory: ‘If you change the South, you change America’
(www.politico.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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"Unions make people lazy" "Unions make people less creative, less likely to work to fix problems" "Unions make employees fight with each other" "Unions mean we'll earn less money"
The propaganda I've heard from older generations is really incredible. We're still actively unionizing lol
There is some truth to that. Unions typically focus on seniority above all else so there is no advantage to being objectively better at the job, just don't be so bad you are fired and you are fine. They also insist that if you want to move to management you start at the bottom thus ensuring that someone who might want to change tracks is worse off and in turn there is no reason to try.
Unions are not all bad, but they deserve a lot of criticism as well.
Unions are worker associations, aren't they? So it's up for the members of the union to decide what they want. My, non US, union has different tracks for management and experts (so no problem to move up or change tracks), has a solid base pay but the company is encouraged to pay more than that. For the real rockstar employees there is there option to get paid well above union, then their rules can be mostly ignored (because you're earning a shitton of money as compensation)
Oh, and for a part of hard and dangerous work they're currently fighting for 4 days at full pay.
Not getting unionized is like going to war alone because you don't like the uniforms colour...
Fighting for seniority can have its downsides but without rules against it what tends to happen is companies firing skilled and experienced workers as a way to wage dump. Since so many in upper management only see wages as an expense without any meaning besides "low good, high bad" they'll gladly lose out on productivity by firing people who actually know their stuff.