Labor Unions

As a conservative, it is expected that I would hate labor unions, and certainly that I would be in favor of right-to-work states, in which workers are not required to join a union.

Actually, I am in favor of labor unions, although not in public sector jobs. Prior to labor unions, companies held all the cards and any individual employee could be more easily replaced than negotiated with. I don't believe that labor unions are as necessary today as they were a century ago, but perhaps if we no longer had them, we'd soon arrive at a place where we needed them again.

I was a Chief Shop Steward and Vice President of a UPIU local union, although I didn't initially vote for the union.

My first experience with a labor union was at a company called Vernco, and that wasn't a good experience. I was there when they voted the union in, without my vote. In our first union contract, I got a five-cent per hour raise, which was less than I was paying in union dues, plus they cut out all of our overtime, so I was making far less money a week.

Later, when I started working for Hoerner-Waldorf, making paper bags, there were five other paper bag plants nearby yet ours was the only non-union plant. They treated us well though, so a union was voted down every time it came up.

Then, when Champion Paper took over the operations of the plant, the United Paperworkers Union was voted in. Although I voted against it, I ran for office the second year that the union was in place and was reelected thereafter, becoming VP of our local. Both the President and the Vice President of our local were Republicans, and there was very little pressure from the international union to influence our vote. We'd get some propaganda in the mail, but that was about it.

The attitude of our union differed from the idea that many Republicans have about unions. One thing that I can remember our international union representative saying is that our strongest negotiating tool is to know that the company is making a profit.

When a new employee was hired, there was a ninety-day probationary period, where he was not a member of the union and could be let go without cause. It was not at all uncommon for us, as a union, to recommend against passing someone who wasn't carrying their weight. Unfortunately, all too often the company would pass him against our recommendation, at which time he'd become a member of the union, and then they'd try to fire him. At that point, we had to represent him.

Although I didn't vote for the union, it was a good thing. With the union, we had something in the way of job security. The union gave us the ability to compete fairly for promotions, whereas otherwise people were sometimes brought in who were friends with one of the supervisors or someone else in management, and promoted up the line regardless of experience and ability.

You've probably heard something about right-to-work states but, unless you have worked in manufacturing, you may not have known what that meant. What is means is that in some states, mostly Southern states like Texas, workers in a particular company are not required to join a union even after the majority of employees have voted to bring a union in to represent them. That sounds fair, of course, but there are downsides.

In a right-to-work state, eighty people in a plant might be paying union dues, attending meetings, working at various union tasks (for which they are not generally paid), and going out on strike if a strike is called for.

There might be ten people in that plant who have decided not to join the union. They pay no union dues. They have no duties to perform for the union and while others are out on strike, and not earning an income, they continue to work each day, often getting overtime hours to make up for those who are out on strike.

Once the strike is over, both the union members and the non-union members are on the same pay-scale. In other words, the union is negotiating for non-union members as well as union members because the company is not going to maintain a lesser pay scale for its non-union employees. Plus, the company often hires some of the scabs who were brought in to replaced the striking workers full-time. They too, are unlikely to become union members.

Why would anyone join a union if you can benefit from the union without having to be a member of one?

This is why, in right-to-work states, there is often violence involved in labor strikes. Given that union members will understandably resent those who are benefiting from their efforts without doing their. part, these fellow employees are hated. if a strike is prolonged, it's not uncommon for some of them to find that their cars are vandalized overnight, or worse. Once the company settles with the union, there are hostilities among employees that carries over onto the job.

California, and most of the states that were part of the Industrial Age of America, do not have right-to-work laws. In California, if the majority of employees vote a union in, all hourly employees automatically become members of the union once they pass their probationary period.

They may not have to serve on committees but if a strike is called, they are expected to strike. Anyone who chooses to continue working during a strike becomes a member not in good standing with the union and, almost surely, a non-negotiable part of any settlement of the strike will be that those who are not in good standing with the union are terminated. So if they choose to work during a strike, they are out of a job once the strike is over, and will probably have trouble finding work in any other union plant.

Temporary employees (scabs) brought in to replace striking workers are not eligible for union membership, and may not be retained once the strike is over.

We never went out on strike but Champion's box plant, who were members of the same union local, went out on strike often, and we would spend some of our off-work time walking the picket line with them, which was at a different location than our plant.

When the scabs reported for work at the box plant, the striking employees would be polite to them, even offering them coffee, as they weren't much of a threat to the union employees. No cars were vandalized, and people felt sorry for those union members who opted to cross the picket line because they would soon be out of work. The company needed their experienced personnel, so they would soon settle the strike, and these people would no longer be employed there. So there was no hostility in the work place once the strike was settled.

 

Prior to a contract renewal, a negotiating committee is elected by the union membership. This committee meets with the company's people several times prior to a previous contract lapse in an attempt to arrive at an agreement that is likely to be acceptable to both the company and the membership.

Once an agreement is reached that the negotiating committee is willing to sign off on, they might make that recommendation to the membership, and then the membership votes on whether to accept it. In some cases, the membership will authorize the committee to make the agreement without going back to the membership.

To a point, it's a game that has to be played. When it comes to wages, the company knows what it is able to afford to give, and the union has an idea as to what its membership is likely to insist on, but neither can let the other know what these numbers are. So the company goes into the negotiations asking for a pay cut, while the union goes into it asking for far more than they expect to get.

By the time it comes down to midnight on the day that the previous contract runs out, the company is offering a little bit less than what they are willing to pay, and the union is still hoping to get a little more than what they expect to get.

If we were to accept an offer before the last minutes, we'd get less than what we would have gotten if we had carried it on further. By accepting the last offer before a contract runs out, the union is escaping having to strike but, at the same time, they are not getting as much as the company is willing to pay.

However, during a strike, the company is losing money and union members are not being paid, so it's a matter of whether or not you believe that the difference is going to be worth the loss of work and the loss of pay.