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I was represented by the Communications Workers of America for a couple of years. Worst working experience of my life. Benefits were good and there was greater job security, but there was plenty of stupid poo poo. Like being told by my shop steward to not park my car at work because another department was striking and I'd be retaliated against for not sympathy striking (which would have gotten me fired). Unions absolutely server a purpose, but in my case they unionized IT employees, which doesn't work at all.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:02
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Krispy Kareem posted:Unions absolutely server a purpose, but in my case they unionized IT employees, which doesn't work at all. Why wouldn't unionizing IT employees work?
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Aug 2, 2017 21:03
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Andrast posted:Why wouldn't unionizing IT employees work? Because unions are good for industries where there are high barriers to entry (plumbers, electricians, pilots) or jobs where there are so few barriers that workers have no rights. IT workers are too mobile and job requirements change too quickly. In my case, those great job protections meant we couldn't get rid of bad employees and the high quality workers did most of the work. Since you couldn't give them additional compensation, they'd just leave for a job with less stress and higher pay. There was nothing keeping them in those spots because good IT skills are easy to take elsewhere. Which brings up the problem with skill-sets changing over time. Because it was an union shop, management had to give dibs on those now available slots formally held by good employees to old guys with seniority who were downsized from other departments. And none of them knew how to do our jobs. It was painfully difficult to get any fresh blood. There were plenty of young people who'd kill for a good telecommunications job, but they all went to old guys who were just counting time. Which brings up the most ironic part of this forum's hard-on about unions. They mostly benefit the 'got mine' crowd. You have to work at the job for a good long time before you have any real protection. My grandfather worked at Lockheed for 50 years. Which was great for him, but he bumped 8 different people who lost their jobs every time his department was downsized.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:39
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I don't know about about your country's poo poo unions but they work fine here for every profession. Including IT workers.
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Aug 3, 2017 04:47
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Andrast posted:I don't know about about your country's poo poo unions but they work fine here for every profession. Including IT workers. Unions have a terrible reputation here partially because our unions are indeed poo poo. 
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Aug 3, 2017 06:06
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Unions can be problematic in some cases in Belgium as well. Some people really do deserve to lose their jobs, but it's next to impossible when they have protected status, no matter their performance. Occasionally you will also see them striking or threatening to strike over the pettiest poo poo, like their payslips being late a day or two (as in, the physical objects). I work in an external payroll company and this is something that has actually happened a few times, and always at our Wallonia-based clients, clichéd or not. Thing is, when people say they like unions, it's mostly because of what they keep from happening, namely the abuse and dehumanization that is often prevalent in regions or sectors where unions are weak. There is a fundamentally unequal power relationship between employer and employee, and unions help to even the odds. I try to keep that in mind when I'm tempted to bitch about unions, which does happen from time to time.
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Aug 3, 2017 07:30
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Pretty sure lesson 1 of employing people is never, EVER gently caress around with anything to do with payroll?
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Aug 3, 2017 07:53
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If you're referring to the payslip scenario, no one was 'loving around' except Bpost. It was completely out of the employer's hands.
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Aug 3, 2017 08:10
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Yeah uh, if I got my paycheck a day late I'd be pretty fuckin' pissed as well.
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Aug 3, 2017 09:15
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Turtlicious posted:Yeah uh, if I got my paycheck a day late I'd be pretty fuckin' pissed as well. They money arrived on time. It's just the paperwork that was slow.
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Aug 3, 2017 09:17
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Turtlicious posted:Yeah uh, if I got my paycheck a day late I'd be pretty fuckin' pissed as well.
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Aug 3, 2017 11:24
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Andrast posted:I don't know about about your country's poo poo unions but they work fine here for every profession. Including IT workers. The implementation of unions in the US isn't very good and obviously hasn't aged well. At its worse it's too adversarial and defends really stupid poo poo that, while probably rare, gets a lot of attention. My first union meeting had a rep telling us a story about how he got caught gambling at work and getting into fights and still kept his job and isn't this union great guys. I hear unions in Germany are built more on providing workers a voice and a say in the actual management of a company. I thought that was what giving unions ownership stakes in bailed out automakers was supposed to do, but it looks like the UAW sold those shares off as quickly as possible.
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Aug 3, 2017 11:24
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Stuntman posted:Maybe you should manage your money properly so that a single day's delay on a paycheck doesn't gently caress you over. It's what spog said, the money was on time, the paperwork wasn't. Getting your pay later than normal, I could understand getting upset about, though I wouldn't be too bothered myself.
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Aug 3, 2017 11:27
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Krispy Kareem posted:The implementation of unions in the US isn't very good and obviously hasn't aged well. At its worse it's too adversarial and defends really stupid poo poo that, while probably rare, gets a lot of attention. My first union meeting had a rep telling us a story about how he got caught gambling at work and getting into fights and still kept his job and isn't this union great guys. I've never managed to work anywhere that was unionized, but it never failed that whenever someone had to go to one, they'd come back bitching about how they had to wait for the person they needed to get off of break, or something equally as petty.
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Aug 3, 2017 12:28
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I mean, if your pay was always one day late then what the gently caress does it matter? Payday is Friday instead of Thursday? *Kills self*
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Aug 4, 2017 05:35
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The Bloop posted:I mean, if your pay was always one day late then what the gently caress does it matter? Payday is Friday instead of Thursday? *Kills self* As long as I’m collecting interest. 
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Aug 4, 2017 05:38
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I lost faith in the two unions I was a member of because they'd both at one point entered into agreements with the corporations I worked for where the corporations didn't interfere with their recruiting and the unions didn't interfere with the daily operations of the places I was working. Closed shop, too, so you had to be a member to work there. So the union was obligated to do nothing to help you, and you were obligated to pay them money, and the corporation profited by the fact that no one could ever organize for better conditions because such an organization supposedly already existed.
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Aug 4, 2017 06:42
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At that point it's not even a union. As has been said before, the union is there to provide a voice for the collective workforce and ensure that the employer doesn't prey on its employees, not to make the employee unfireable. I'm happy with my union, been a member for a couple of years. Unions, even in Sweden, aren't perfect by any means. Change can sometimes take needlessly long due to unions needing to have their say and industries can be crippled for periods of time due to small disputes. But I'm certain that an absence of unions would make for a much shittier workplace in almost all markets. I'm glad that if it would come to that, I have an influental organization that have my interests in mind and my back if my employer decides to start loving with me.
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Aug 4, 2017 13:20
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So what makes worker protections and unions in France so much worse than Germany? It seems like they're too strong in France, to where employers are hesitant to hire full time employees and youth unemployment is really bad. But Germany doesn't seem to have that problem even though workers have comparable rights.
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Aug 4, 2017 13:34
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Krispy Kareem posted:So what makes worker protections and unions in France so much worse than Germany? It seems like they're too strong in France, to where employers are hesitant to hire full time employees and youth unemployment is really bad. But Germany doesn't seem to have that problem even though workers have comparable rights. I really doubt that the unemployment in France is the unions' fault
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Aug 4, 2017 13:36
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Andrast posted:I really doubt that the unemployment in France is the unions' fault It's part of it. Businesses are going to operate in their own best interests. Increase the associated costs of employment enough and they compensate elsewhere. In France's case it's tougher for younger people to break into industries. That's not all unions. France has more worker's rights mandated by law that help and I guess can hurt. Germany has a more robust economy, but I'm not sure if that accounts for the pretty big difference in youth unemployment. Just curious what Germany is doing right that France isn't. There are Eurogoons here so they may have an explanation.
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Aug 4, 2017 13:54
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Andrast posted:I really doubt that the unemployment in France is the unions' fault Like it's one of basic Keynesian tenets that unionization (or rather collective bargaining as a whole) increases unemployment because employees choose to raise the marginal cost of employment, for their own sake. That's not an argument against unions, though, it's an argument for welfare.
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Aug 4, 2017 14:03
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steinrokkan posted:Like it's one of basic Keynesian tenets that unionization (or rather collective bargaining as a whole) increases unemployment because employees choose to raise the marginal cost of employment, for their own sake. That's not an argument against unions, though, it's an argument for welfare. France has like 20% youth unemployment rate though
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Aug 4, 2017 14:08
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France has a backwards job creation policy that hinges on showering companies in tax breaks so they'll hire temp workers to unload the gravy train. It has nothing to do with unions. Germany has state sponsored training programs for in-demand skills, as far as I understand it. Who could have foreseen that training and forming workers to perform the tasks that the county needs done works better than giving the rich more money? Edit: poo poo, this isn't the thread I thought it was, sorry about adding to the derail.
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Aug 4, 2017 14:51
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HerStuddMuffin posted:France has a backwards job creation policy that hinges on showering companies in tax breaks so they'll hire temp workers to unload the gravy train. It has nothing to do with unions. Germany has state sponsored training programs for in-demand skills, as far as I understand it. Who could have foreseen that training and forming workers to perform the tasks that the county needs done works better than giving the rich more money? But if the rich can't have money, how can we tell who's better than who?
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Aug 4, 2017 14:53
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Krispy Kareem posted:So what makes worker protections and unions in France so much worse than Germany? It seems like they're too strong in France, to where employers are hesitant to hire full time employees and youth unemployment is really bad. But Germany doesn't seem to have that problem even though workers have comparable rights. France has a much lower unionization rate than Germany, and if its worker protections were really that 'strong' it wouldn't be so easy to gently caress people over with temp and part-time contracts to begin with. On the other hand, the French labor movement does have a more combative tradition, to the point that the communists did really well during elections up until fairly recently. Another distinctive characteristic is that most labor legislation is government-imposed. Germany and the Benelux countries, by contrast, are heavily inscribed into the corporatist tradition, where labor and capital negotiate between themselves with the goal of maintaining 'social peace'. The government's role is largely restricted to mediating and enforcing what the sectors have decided. Unions tend to be more willing to compromise in this system. All that said, the economical differences between France and Germany are due to various structural factors and they probably don't have all that much to do with labor law.
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Aug 4, 2017 15:03
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In Canada our unions and employers keep apologizing to each other for things they've done wrong since the last negotiation period while they take turns giving in to each other's demands one at a time until no demands are left.
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Aug 4, 2017 15:13
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I mean, yeah. That's just your national pastime.
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Aug 4, 2017 15:49
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Is this thread where there was a recent derail about companies in the US and healthcare? Because I just got an email from HR that the company as a whole is 120-some% over expected insurance claims and we need to knock that poo poo off and use the Teladoc more because it's like seeing a doctor only it's free and over your phone.
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Aug 4, 2017 18:29
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stop hiring the weak and the sick
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Aug 4, 2017 18:32
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oldpainless posted:stop hiring the weak and the sick More like old... ... ...painless
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Aug 4, 2017 18:39
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I once worked a union job where once the mandatory union dues were factored in, I was making less than minimum wage. The only union "benefits" I got were the same amount of paid breaks that I've recieved at every other non-union job I've ever worked at, and the managers even got around that by piling on so much work that employees were pressured to skip breaks to avoid working until 2 in the morning or going into overtime (which would get you in big trouble). My job was garbage and all the union higher-ups knew none of us in my department were going to stay at our awful, low-paying jobs for long enough to have any say in union decision-making, we were just there as a free revenue source. I think unions in general are a good thing, but some are so lovely that it's not hard to see why large numbers of people hate them.
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Aug 4, 2017 18:46
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It's like government. Not having one is bad, but that doesn't mean the one you have is always good.
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Aug 4, 2017 18:49
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I definitely prefer union-made beer.
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Aug 4, 2017 19:13
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Sorry, I only drink confederate brews 
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Aug 4, 2017 19:52
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Do dumb advertisements go in this thread? Cuz i saw this and it's friggin magical.
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Aug 4, 2017 21:49
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Six-Of-Hearts posted:Do dumb advertisements go in this thread? Cuz i saw this and it's friggin magical. It's not working! Wind harder!
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Aug 4, 2017 21:57
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On dumb adverts how about this blast from the past? UK ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t2hRo4pAdI
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Aug 4, 2017 21:59
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Six-Of-Hearts posted:Do dumb advertisements go in this thread? Cuz i saw this and it's friggin magical. That's not even wrong though. I have one of those and it has a handy hole right there for getting the bridge pins out, just like demonstrated in the photo.
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Aug 4, 2017 22:06
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Sprenk posted:That's not even wrong though. I have one of those and it has a handy hole right there for getting the bridge pins out, just like demonstrated in the photo.
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Aug 4, 2017 22:08
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