Right to Work is Wrong For Union Workers

originally posted by: PorkChop96
a reply to: dandandat2

Unions are somewhat of a business. They are the middle man between a worker and a company to negotiate stuff like pay, benefits, pto, etc.

The company "gives" you your benefits, but without the union who knows what those benefits would actually be.

With the statements made , I wish you could one day sit in on an arbitration .
It's not what you think .

Ive always worked non-union companies with merit-based compensation in the construction and maintenance trades and was treated very well over a 40 plus year span. All of those years were spent in "right to work" States and not once did any company lay off workers.

Many firms were unionized and far as I know everyone at those companies were proud union members and paid dues. Never heard anyone complain about non dues paying workers either.

My only beef with unionized workers (directly observed) was a few that excelled at their jobs were carrying the deadweight of those who were unable or unwilling to put forth good effort, both the good and terrible worker received same pay and benefits regardless of effort. It seemed that the loudest complainers/worst workers were the most vocal about how swell their union was - funny that I thought. Nonetheless no incentive existed to reward hard workers - so why bother right?

I think to be truly successful and respected unions need to internalize some kind of merit system separate from the companies' systems to weed out the non-performing bad apples that stain their name. That step along with existing apprenticeship training would seem to justify a higher premium wage.

The membership should be able at any time to vote out corrupt officials representing them.

Anecdotally grew up northeast in early to late seventies and experienced a time where better than 200,000 were laid off in a decade's time in a metropolitan area of approximately 350,000. Nearly all were union jobs.

Two high school friends come to mind, first one went became a union forklift driver at $18/hr. Second one a machine operator whose union job consisted of pushing a "stop" button and calling maintenance on a phone if the machine malfunctioned, yep that was his entire job duty and he started at $19/hr. - that was in 1978!

Both were unemployed before their 21st birthday with no prospects for any employment with a skill. They didn't see it coming because their grandfather, dad, uncle or brother did fine while it lasted.

Yes, there were many reasons manufacturing jobs went overseas but I am reasonably sure that artificially high wages were a factor in decision making to virtually close down an entire city's multi-sector manufacturing in less than a decade.

I moved to Texas at 18 and never missed a day since.

a reply to: Gothmog

Care to elaborate?

a reply to: dandandat2

You're right, right to work is not impacting me because my state was smart enough to vote against it.

a reply to: PorkChop96

Totally agree with you there
I was in the RMT for 20 years and it always annoyed me that we would go on strike and the benefits we won would be given to the scabs who never went on strike or paid union dues as well as us union members.