It has warmed my heart to see the wave of labor organizing in the United States, and the apparent blind panic it has caused among executives and their ilk. It’s long been pointed out that when a country has strong unions, it improves conditions even for those workers who aren’t organized, because bosses have a choice between offering jobs that look as good as what unions can get, or having their workers unionize.
I have to say, I didn’t expect to see this happening so quickly.
Corrected headline: Union poised to win a raise for all unorganized workers at Starbucks https://t.co/sKD161zzYP
— Chris Brooks (@chactivist) April 14, 2022
In this case, it’s a desperate attempt to prevent more Starbucks franchises from unionizing, but the basic pressure seems to be the same. The bosses know that they can’t do without workers, and that they can afford to pay a lot more, and treat people a lot better.
When the U.S. had no real organized labor movement, our rulers could get away with the pretense of benevolent leadership, but now there’s zero ambiguity. People who are worth thousands of millions of dollars only get to that point by viewing their right to every cent they can hoard as more important than anyone else’s right to anything.
Organize. Organize with your fellow tenants. Organize with your fellow workers. Throw out constructed social norms like not talking about your wages. The more power we get, the more they will fight back, but there’s no other path to a better world.
[Ahem!] People who are worth thousands of … [/Ahem!]
A WaPo story (excerpted at DigbysBlog), while not focused on unions as such, may explain a lot about their sudden recent resurgence.
Between Trump™ and Biden’s following of Trump™ (anti-)immigration policies, the US now has ~1.8 million fewer mostly-lower-wage workers than it would have if pre-pandemic conditions had persisted. The Post sees this as a major cause of inflation; it seems to me that this also – at least in some ways – inadvertently empowers labor (and produces a fascinating conflict of interests for progressives).
My very first experience with unions was in 1978, in Adelaide, Australia.
I was a clerical officer for a meat packaging company (desk job) and one time I went with a colleague to do some paperwork and inventory at a warehousing site; while waiting around, I saw some unloading going on and I went to help out (after all, I was being paid but not doing anything else at the time; I was but a naive 17-year-old). I got blasted for that, called a scab (!), and precipitated a labour uproar. Turns out my (inadvertent) crime was basically causing a demarcation dispute, because as an office worker I should not be “stealing” labour from the warehouse workers. Even though I was only trying to help!
(Did I mention this workplace was a closed shop? I had zero choice; either pay the union fee or not work there at all)
No organization is perfect. Unions have their own problems, they’re just better than what happens without them.
As long as wages depend on hours worked or work done, and survival depends on wages, there’s always going to be tension like that.
Under the circumstances, I have no problem with the “closed shop” setup. The “right to work” crap has done a LOT of damage.
I can’t really see a difference between being required to join a union in order to work and being required to not join a union in order to work other than that joining a union costs membership fees. In my case, it was around 1.5% of my wages.
Just ran across this:
https://imgur.com/gallery/wF6fsHT
and thought it was pretty relevant, and not wrong…
John- the difference is that when you’re forced to NOT join a union, you have ZERO say in what happens in your workplace. You can’t negotiate for better pay because as an individual you have no leverage.
In general, that 1.5% is going to be far less than the increased wages, treatment, and safety are worth.
I hate the fact that unions are generally a good thing, and then you look over and: police unions.
John Morales@#4:
In my case, it was around 1.5% of my wages.
Did you have a pension plan, equivalent of 401K or medical plan? Was there any kind of paid leave or injury pay? Basically, that 1.5% is what helps fund that.
I can’t really see a difference between being required to join a union in order to work and being required to not join a union in order to work other than that joining a union costs membership fees
Why trumpet how obtuse you are? It’s like you’re practically bragging you’re an imbecile.
@Marcus – on police unions, it’s not hard to point out the difference – cops are the enforcement arm of the ruling class. They don’t produce anything beneficial to society – their sole purpose is keeping the population in line, by stamping down on the disorder caused by capitalism.
Police unions don’t protect cops against the ruling class – they already had that protection. Police unions protect cops against the working class in an “democratic” society, because that’s the only group that actually cares about things like brutality.
“Right to work?” You mean I have a right not to get fired? Damn, who knew?
“Right to work” is Newspeak for right to fire your ass whenever and whyever we want.
One more thing on the labor dispute issue – check out what happened when John Deere workers went on strike – they literally brought in office workers to try to do the job, and those workers couldn’t. They fucked it up.
Given the history of bosses trying to break unions and labor actions, it wouldn’t surprise me if the folks in the warehouse were suspicious – with good reason – of efforts to replace them with non-union labor.
Marcus:
I refer to Australia, not the USA. Different working milieu.
(Though we’re now moving towards a gig economy, which is more like your mob)
Oh yes, very perceptive of you. Imbecilic, that’s me. 🙂
BTW, Marcus, if joining a union is such a good thing for employees, why the closed shop?
Why force people to join if they want to work?
(Typically, coercion is used to make people do things they don’t want to do)
Because non-union workers get wages and benefits that only exist because of the union. Allowing non-union workers in a union shop is deliberately designed to destroy unions, because those who DON’T pay the dues, still get the benefits, right up until there’s nobody left paying dues, so the union dies, and the benefits go away.
It’s little different from a CEO offering better wages and treatment to un-organized workers.
Which is what’s been happening in the United States for decades, now.
It’s basically a tax to allow some level of economic democracy despite a system that exists in service to capital. If you want the good wages and benefits of a union job, then you contribute to the work that goes into GETTING those wages and benefits that you wanted so much you were willing to sign on at a union shop.
They don’t even require you to actually do the work of organizing or negotiation – though you can if you want to – just a small fraction of the higher wages they got for you.
How is that unreasonable?
Abe, very reasonable, from a certain perspective.
Adumbrating: It’s for their own good when workers are forced to join a union and support it financially if they want to get a job, because otherwise they might not join and if enough people did not join then unions would die from lack of membership and then all workers would lose the extant benefits which are dependent on the very existence of unions. And therefore getting a job somewhere offering better wages and treatment to un-organized workers would be a bad thing for a worker, in the long term.
John, this isn’t hypothetical. It’s what’s been happening in the United States, basically since the Great Depression. The labor movement won some real victories, and domestic history since then has been all about destroying that movement, and destroying unions, by any means possible.
Your specific complaint has been a major weapon in their anti-union arsenal, and I’m telling you what the results have been.
I’ll also point out that the question was NOT getting a job somewhere offering better wages and treatment to un-organized workers.
The question was signing on at a union shop, with all the benefits that entails, but being upset at having to contribute a little to the process of GETTING that good deal.
My specific “complaint” — I’d call it an observation — is a personal one; I have worked in open, closed and non-union workplaces. So it’s not hypothetical to me, it’s lived experience.
Anyway. I’m very happy that, as you put it, “Unions even help workers who aren’t unionized.” We can both agree that’s a good thing, no?
Sure, I’m just not going to let anti-union rhetoric stand unchallenged, given what it’s done to my home country.