proud republican wrote:
Should Americans be forced to join Labor Unions???
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As a former union rep, my feeling is that one should NEVER be forced to join a union. However, if they don’t, then they shouldn’t received the pay scale(s), the PAID holidays off, the medical benefits, the sick leave, the personal leave, paid days off, strike pay, union representation at any grievance meeting/hearing between the unionized worker and the company, retirement benefits, or any other benefit negotiated between and ACCEPTED by BOTH the company and the union.
Should they still receive union negotiated benefits, as an employee of a unionized company, the non-union employee should pay the going rate for union dues. If they’re not required to pay union dues, the union shouldn’t be required to represent the worker in any work-related dispute. Nor should the union offer any strike-monies to the non-unionized worker should a strike occur.
Outside of all that, let the non-union worker negotiate their own salary and benefits. Especially, if the non-union worker is equally qualified for the same work they’d perform if they were a unionized worker. The only exception - per federal regulations - being should the worker be on an “exempt pay scale,” usually set aside for management level personnel.
If you don’t feel that unions are good for the workers of this country, or that unions have outlived their usefulness, I ask you to read the history of unions in this country and what all they accomplished on behalf of workers all across the USA. Almost ALL of what benefits you enjoy as a worker in this country was earned by the efforts of organized labor; 8 hour work days, 40 hour work weeks, retirement benefits, medical benefits, paid vacations and holidays, worker safety laws (laws Trump's trying to weaken), and especially, a federal minimum wage (which Trump says is too high and favors its elimination, entirely).
The negative propaganda about unions is mostly based on Hollywood’s projection of crooked union officers (admittedly, yes, there have been some) and the negative propaganda put out by big business. OR, by people who are simply jealous of what a unionized worker gets paid, plus their benefits. Just this week, GM announced that the average “profit sharing” check going to their UNIONIZED employees will be around $8,000.000. This monetary sharing of the company’s profits resulted from the union and GM NEGOTIATING this benefit for GM’s workers.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to work in an automotive plant, I can vouch that in most cases, it’s hard, dirty, tedious, and at times, monotonous work. Oftentimes, it’s even deadly, given the operation of hundreds of robots and the use of extremely toxic materials.
Now, there’s something for you to complain about. Robots are taking jobs away from hard-working people who need to feed their families. Blame the unions for automation. You Republicans like to blame unions. I just gave you some ammo with “automation” taking away jobs. Oh wait! It’s the COMPANIES who want automation. Of course, you’ll never blame the companies. After all, it’s a proven fact that companies will go bankrupt before they ever do harm to their faithful workers. That the big-wigs at a company will resign and leave in shame, (with their mega-million dollar “golden parachutes”), should they harm the workers is a given!
If you h**e unions so much, move to Tennessee. Here, our politicians are so anti-union that they almost caused VW to shut down a brand new plant in Chattanooga because VW wanted their workers unionized. It’s a company practice at ALL other VW plants, worldwide. VW likes to have unionized workers sit on their many manufacturing committees. We even had outside politicians and GOPTP minions pour into Chattanooga to try to prevent even a v**e from occurring.
A v**e did occur and only one section of the plant took unionization. Throughout the rest plant, the v**e NOT to unionize was was passed by thin majorities. VW wanted all of its TN plant unionized but opted to accept the state-sponsored and state-enforced decision. The fact that the state offered VW more incentive monies had nothing to do with it.
Corporate welfare is alive and well in Tennessee.Just ask any of the many companies who have located here in the past 30-40 years. It’s okay that there are over 200,000 Tennesseans without medical insurance while our part-time state legislators enjoy a lifetime of low cost state medical care, even after they’ve left office. That our state-funded education system has a lot of its money diverted to private and religion-based schools. Tjst as a result of that diversion, our education system ranks 3rd from the bottom nationally in terms of quality education and teacher pay.