NationStates Jolt Archive

Are you a labor/trade union member? Which one?
(and no that old stupid NS union does not count - I just know someone's going　to ask.)

Funnily enough for my politics, no. The union at my workplace is corrupt, and does such wonderful things as agreeing to abolish overtime pay.

I'd like to be, but unfortunately, I'm contract labor--a university instructor. I have good benefits though, thanks to the labor movement as a whole, and I appreciate what they've done. My Father-in-law is a long term member of the postal workers union.

I do not belong to a union, my employment is too marginal, both in the sense that I do not believe a union would improve my position, or that of others in my field, and also for me personally I am student so only work very limited hours.

I'm not, but I'm considering it. Here's the web site for the union: http://www.generalunion.org/ and the branch for my company: http://www.generalunion.org/ecc/

If you take a peek at the issues on the branch page, you might see why I'm considering it.

Funnily enough for my politics, no. The union at my workplace is corrupt, and does such wonderful things as agreeing to abolish overtime pay.

Yeah, I understand that. There are actually 2 unions at my workplace - one for the foreign teaching staff and one for the Japanese office staff. The first is quite weak and is (mostly) trying to get the company to simply comply with existing labor laws. The second is quite corrupt and engages in the same sorts of crooked stuff (which is why I'm on paid vacation now while the Japanese staff is not). The Japanese teaching staff are even worse off, mostly being part-time contract staff with no representation at all.

Self-employed. I don't think there will be any unions in this shop.

Yeah, I understand that. There are actually 2 unions at my workplace - one for the foreign teaching staff and one for the Japanese office staff. The first is quite weak and is (mostly) trying to get the company to simply comply with existing labor laws. The second is quite corrupt and engages in the same sorts of crooked stuff (which is why I'm on paid vacation now while the Japanese staff is not). The Japanese teaching staff are even worse off, mostly being part-time contract staff with no representation at all.

That's no good. :( I guess I could join an independent union, but then it comes down to whether or not the company would accept their intervention if I had a major problem- probably not.

Self-employed. I don't think there will be any unions in this shop.

I could just imagine engaging in collective bargaining negotiations causing some worry... ;)

That's no good. :( I guess I could join an independent union, but then it comes down to whether or not the company would accept their intervention if I had a major problem- probably not.

At least most of the large companies (including my workplace) are more in compliance than they were when I started in this buisiness. But the union stays weak due to a largely transitory work force.

Well, at my Uni there is a student union. Everyone has to be a member, and a relatively small fee is taken that finances things like Student Support Services and political action (mainly demonstrations) against increases in our Fees.

Now it looks like the Australian Government is making it voluntary to pay, thus taking all funding away from these pretty vital purposes. You know how students are, most of them either don't care or don't know what that money buys them.

Anyways, it looks like I won't be a union member for long. One man doesn't make a difference.

I used to be but cancelled my membership. They can have their retarded strikes and I can have my job and income.

Well, at my Uni there is a student union. Everyone has to be a member, and a relatively small fee is taken that finances things like Student Support Services and political action (mainly demonstrations) against increases in our Fees.

Now it looks like the Australian Government is making it voluntary to pay, thus taking all funding away from these pretty vital purposes. You know how students are, most of them either don't care or don't know what that money buys them.

Anyways, it looks like I won't be a union member for long. One man doesn't make a difference.

Too right...virtually overnight our student life will be destroyed. :(

I'm a labor organizer, which oddly enough is not an organized industry. I have good pay and benefits, but in theory my bosses (the AFL-CIO) could horribly mistreat me and lower my pay and I couldn't do anything about it. Weird.

I'm a member of two unions, do I get to vote twice?

I'm a student member of Läkarförbundet (http://www.slf.se/templates/ArticleSLF.aspx?id=2033), the Swedish Medical Association. You don't have to be a member to be able to work as a physician in the country, but 90% of physicians still are, mostly because it's a nice union that does tonnes of important things.

I'm also a member of a student union/body, but that's involuntary. You have to be a member of one to go to uni. I know the reasoning behind it being compulsory and why it's probably a good thing that it is, but it still sucks not to have a choice.

I'm a labor organizer, which oddly enough is not an organized industry. I have good pay and benefits, but in theory my bosses (the AFL-CIO) could horribly mistreat me and lower my pay and I couldn't do anything about it. Weird.

That is strange. I wonder what the union would be called?

And Leonstein and Kanabia: back home in the good old USA a student union is something very different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_union#United_States

I used to be but cancelled my membership. They can have their retarded strikes and I can have my job and income.
I wish my Uni lecturers would think like that. However the on lightning strike they did pull on me worked out ok as I could go to a test time, when usually I have a lecture then.
If the next job I get is unionised, I won't be joining the union. I actually want to work hard for my money, I don't believe in being a nuisance.

No longer currently active, but still on the inactive list at the I"AM (International Association of Machinists), and formerly a very active union-man. This did not, unfortunately, prevent the Union from supporting "Free trade" backing Politician Patty Murray, or "Free Trade" politician Gary "Dambuster for Greenpeace" Locke, or scads of other Democrat politicos who talked "Labour" yet backed policies that put 35,000 of my brothers (and myself) on the Unemployed roster.

It's a very simple thing: when you throw support behind someone not because they will, in fact, get your back, but because you have always supported them and it is percieved that you have no choice, you neuter yourself politically. Under AFL/CIO over the last 40 years, this is what has happened, with predictable results-the nation has gone from being strongly Unionized with a large working-middle-class, to a point where Union membership is strong only in "Civil Service" jobs-jobs that are unaffected by bad economic decisions and even benefit from massive layoffs, declining living standards in the working classes, and increased misery overall.

The same politicians who say they support the working man, then turn around and sponsor bills that put him out of a job, and sponsor trade policies that make it easier to outsource to the third world, than to keep the plants here at home running...while raising the taxes those working people who still have a Union pay (because, thanks to negotiations, they're in a higher tax bracket-barely-which means they actually keep less than an unorganized worker at a non-union shop doing the same job keeps.)
At $10 an hour, I'm taking home as much as I was at $12.52 an hour-for the same hours...and the difference is entirely the percent taken in taxes.
Union support should have been, for all those years, somethin both parties struggled to court, and gain-but relexive support for one party without the fact of that support walking, has resulted in both parties walking into power on the backs of the working people.

I still believe that Unions are necessary-but those unions MUST be held to a standard in who they support, and when. This was not done, and has not been done, since FDR was in office.

Nope. Dont agree with it. Never will.

I still believe that Unions are necessary-but those unions MUST be held to a standard in who they support, and when. This was not done, and has not been done, since FDR was in office.Or, you could join the IWW, a union that is by its own Constitution non-political (shill!) ;)

No, but I'm agitating. ;)

I just need to convince more people that the wobblies are good for them.

... They can have their retarded strikes and I can have my job and income.

I hope you're not assuming that strikes are the result of whim or petulance. I've been in only one longish strike, and it was bitter, especially for families. Even one-day protests hurt when you're skint. The bills don't go on strike. Kids' appetites don't, either. But because we went out then, the job is safer for new people now.

... in theory my bosses (the AFL-CIO) could horribly mistreat me and lower my pay and I couldn't do anything about it.

I once covered a strike by a typist and a secretary against their boss, a union organiser. The pair of them sat on the stairs leading up to the office. The union guy was too good a unionist to break a picket-line, especially with me watching. And the toilet was upstairs ...

That strike didn't even have to go to arbitration.

I work in a union in accounting in Quebec an yes I am a membre of labor union, us.

Member of the CEPU.

I just need to convince more people that the wobblies are good for them.
Me, too. But I'm trying.