Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Hey, serious question here, I own a small business with 8 employees. All profits for the business go back to employee bonuses / incentives. I pay myself $1/year and $0 in profit distributions. We cover medical benefits.
It seems like the sentiment amongst Lemmy is to unionize the employees, which I'm fine with, but am I allowed to pay their union dues?
My only qualm is it means less profit sharing for them, but if it improves morale to have that representation, I'm all for it. Ultimately, it is what they want.
I'm union dumb. I want to do right by the employees. But I also don't want to get screwed to their detriment (e.g. Personnel Concepts, fuck that company).
In before anyone asks, I work contract gigs in a completely separate industry to pay my own bills. I own this business to create jobs and be part of the community.
I think it gets murky quickly if you pay their dues as the employer- if you're funding the union there's a pretty clear conflict of interest. To me the clearest way to address this would be to offer a stipend without earmarking it so they can fund the union (or not) at their own discretion.
Another option would be to just formalize it as an ESOP, thereby erasing the distinction between employee and employer and effectively obviating the need for a union in the first place.
Good idea on the ESOP! Will talk to my accountant about this.
There will always be an underlying adversarial relationship between employers and employees in a traditional capitalist framework.
Unions help even the playing field and are very important, but if you truly are interested in supporting the rights of your workers as much as possible, you must accept the fact that they cannot remain "your" workers.
What does that mean for you and your business? You should talk to your employees and the relevant orgs in your state/city about beginning the transition into a worker-owned co-op.
Depending on the business structure, state and local laws, and the industry you serve, the pathway to that is complicated. Look up worker cooperatives in your state and find organizations that specialize in helping businesses navigate that transition. There are legal, monetary, ethical, logistical, and emotional concerns that are all critical to address and understand, but it can be done. Businesses far larger than yours have successfully made the transition.
That would be my advice. But aside from that ultimate goal, unionize your workplace and place as much power in the hands of your employees as possible. Let them decide how they want to structure pay, dues, etc, that's the whole point of worker empowerment.
Hey, thanks! Hadn't heard of the worker coop idea, will look into it.
Will also continue to look at unionizing the workplace. I think we'd be the first in our industry in our area, so it could at the very least pave new ground.