[adamrezich]

I have a friend who worked at a grocery store for a few months while waiting for his teacher's certification to get processed and sent to the state he'd moved to. It was a minimum-wage job, yet mandatory union membership at this grocery store chain meant that a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks was taken from him without anything he could do about it.

The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are inherently, universally bad.

[joemi]

> The idea that unions are inherently, universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are inherently, universally bad.

This is something I think a lot of idealistically pro-union people don't understand, at least in the college/grad school circles I've discussed it with. The concept of a union is good, sure. But unions themselves are businesses, and it's their business to be needed and to convince people to join and pay dues.

[Rebelgecko]

Not sure about your area, but the grocery store strike circa 2003 in California is the only reason that the employees received health benefits from stores that were trying to compete with Walmart

[cgag]

we all just join hands and free money and time rain down upon us, how is that not universally good?

[anth_anm]

Your friend should have been working 80 hours a week for 20 cents an hour instead.

Ban unions!

[adamrezich]

I don't understand this hyperbolic sarcasm. Minimum wage exists, labor laws exist. Not paying mandatory union dues wouldn't result in your wages being reduced that low, or being forced to work that many hours a week. This doesn't make any sense or support the point you're presumably trying to make whatsoever.

[anth_anm]

> Minimum wage exists, labor laws exist.

Thanks to unions.

[adamrezich]

The union my friend was forced to be a member of, in particular? And if he didn't pay his union dues, these laws would go away somehow?

[enraged_camel]

>>The idea that unions are universally good is just as silly as the idea that unions are universally bad.

You are arguing against a strawman. No one is saying unions are "universally good". However, it is an irrefutable quality of capitalism that collective bargaining is superior to bargaining as an individual. If you truly understand how capitalism works, and the way it puts the interests of employers in conflict with those of employees (i.e. employers want to maximize profits, whereas employees want to maximize their pay and benefits, and this game is zero-sum), you will realize that, on average, having a union represent you will yield better results for you (and your fellow coworkers) than you representing just yourself.

[adamrezich]

Okay so how did the Kroger union help my friend at all? Once again, membership was mandatory for employment, and a cut of each of his minimum-wage paychecks went to it, with him seeing zero benefit in exchange. Is there some hidden benefit both he and I (being his roommate at the time) just weren't seeing? (Trust me, we looked.)

[gamblor956]

Just because your friend didn't see the benefits doesn't mean he didn't have them.

Kroger union members have health care benefits, dental and vision benefits, and other benefits that they wouldn't normally get with a minimum wage job. Protections against forced and unpaid overtime (while allowing for voluntary, paid overtime).

Hell, the fact he got paid minimum wage in the first place--since unions were, and still are, the big drivers behind minimum wage (and raises to minimum wage) in the US.

[adamrezich]

None of these things applied to him. He did not get medical or dental benefits because he was employed there for less time than their minimum to begin receiving benefits (or maybe he had just qualified when his teaching license finally got through? I can't remember now). Membership was mandatory for employment, so anyone who works there part-time for less than whatever the minimum amount of time to receive benefits is (six months or a year I think?) is literally paying money to a union that will do nothing for someone who shows up to work, does what he's paid to do, and goes home without incident. It's like a mandatory tax on temporary hires that benefits long-term hires that means temporary hires make less than minimum wage as a result! EDIT: Oh and I forgot, they also took a fat chunk of his first paycheck as an additional fee, too.

Previously my friend and I had both worked at various Walmart stores in our home state and not only were we paid above minimum wage starting salary, but there were no hidden mandatory fees of any kind. I know Walmart's famously anti-union to the point of absurdity (the propaganda in the training materials is outright laughable), but from the point of view of a couple of young guys looking to work part-time at a grocery store, Walmart treated us both far better than Kroger treated him, and without unions.

[nickpsecurity]

"Membership was mandatory for employment"

Union membership is optional for Kroger employees in Mid-South. All employees get the union-negotiated benefits but dues are optional. They won't work hard to defend non-union members, though.

What location was this Kroger where union membership was mandatory? I didnt even know that was legal.

[adamrezich]

Redmond, Washington. This may be relevant, we've both moved away from the area and haven't kept up with local news: https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/supreme-court-un...

[anth_anm]

Yeah, that legislation is a pretty good way to kill unions.

It's gonna be real interesting when the working class finally has enough of this shit.

[gamblor956]

Would be very interested in knowing what Walmart locations those were since Walmart's strictly-enforced corporate policy until about 2 years ago was that they would not pay above minimum wage. Shortly after the Trump tax bill, they announced fairly hefty pay wages nationwide, putting their front-line employees above minimum wage for the first time in company history. It was huge news since Trump tried to use it as an example of his tax bill working...

[adamrezich]

>since Walmart's strictly-enforced corporate policy until about 2 years ago was that they would not pay above minimum wage

We both worked for Walmart as cashiers on and off between about 2008 and 2013, in Rapid City, Pierre, and Aberdeen, South Dakota, and the starting wages were consistently above minimum wage. I've never heard of this policy before, especially since different positions always had different starting wages and all were minimum wage or slightly higher.

Again though, even if our Walmart employments were minimum wage jobs:

    min_wage * hrs_worked > -union_init_fee + (min_wage * hrs_worked) - (union_due * weeks_worked)

[lordnacho]

This is a bit like being forced to buy health insurance and complaining when you don't get ill.

I'm not saying the deal was reasonable for your friend, I don't know the details or his life situation. But like security guards or insurers, unions aren't always in "active" mode.

[joemi]

> This is a bit like being forced to buy health insurance and complaining when you don't get ill.

You're right, it is a bit like that. And similarly, many people don't want to be forced to buy health insurance. Especially if they don't think they'll get sick.

[vertex-four]

So what do they do when they do get sick? Die peacefully without costing the rest of us anything? I somehow doubt it - although I’d be happy to see any evidence to the contrary.

EDIT: to be clear, my argument isn’t “we shouldn’t have to pay for healthcare for others”, it’s “if people refuse to pay into the healthcare system when they are able to but still demand treatment when they need it, that’s a broken system”.

[joemi]

I don't know what they do. I'm not one of those people and I'm not arguing for or against health insurance. All I was trying to do was point out that the health insurance - union comparison has other parallels than what OP brought up.

[enraged_camel]

Do you feel the same way about car insurance? Should people not be required to have active insurance if they don't think they will get into an accident?

What about vaccination?

I'm just curious how far you can take your logic before you realize that it is erroneous.

[joemi]

Whoa. Calm down. I wasn't saying I felt that way. Please don't make such spurious assumptions about me just for making what seemed like a notable comparison.

But since you mentioned car insurance, did you know that two US states don't require car insurance? Have you ever wondered why that is? Are those entire states insane? How can anyone consider driving there ever? Surely the system can't work, can it? (Note: Once again I'm not arguing for or against it.)

[nickpsecurity]

"Okay so how did the Kroger union help my friend at all?"

Ive read their contract. The union negotiated great health/dental, paid vacations, time to sleep between shifts, no sit shifts for food workers, and most important: due process. At union companies like Kroger, they have to either prove you weren't doing what they said to fire you or laying you off cost something. The unions also act as private lawyer representing you during wrongful termination. Those two are all I need to hear to be pro-union in a capitalist system.

Now, lets consider Kroger. I boycotted the ones down here since their shelves stayed empty. Workers said they had no staff on purpose, cutting it aiming for bonuses. They also micro-manage a lot adding distractions further reducing profit. Did more cuts. Instead of increasing staff, they just blame workers threatening their jobs with some fired. Union and local workers told me all kinds of examples.

Currently, Kroger is trying to roll back some or all of health/dental and pension despite being more profitable than they were in tougher years. Union reps said they were fighting hard to keep them. On top of that, they intervened for a few management sacked as punishment for staffing-induced, performance problems. They still work there with some doing a lot better with newer set of managers they had no bad history with.

So, that's how unions help your friend at Kroger or other places if the union is good. If management did cuts and targeted them, the union would ensure they remained employed so long as they were doing whatever the company wanted them to do. They would also have benefits in a sector where many don't.

[adamrezich]

My friend was a temporary part time cheese monger at a QFC (Kroger). He had no prior cheese mongering experience and was trained over the course of a few months. He could have taken any part-time job but we lived close to a QFC and they had a cheese monger opening, which sounded interesting to him, as far as part time jobs go. If they spontaneously laid him off, he would have had little trouble finding another part-time job opening elsewhere, but within driving distance instead of walking distance. As I said elsewhere in the thread, he was not receiving benefits because he did not work there long enough to do so. When you put all of these things together, and factor in the costs of paycheckly union dues and the up front "union join" fee, the union did more for its own existence than it did for him by taking money from his minimum-wage paycheck.

I posted a link elsewhere in the thread but apparently the SCOTUS has ruled that mandatory union membership and/or fee paying is not constitutional, so perhaps the situation has improved for temporary, part-time employees of WA state QFCs, but at the time it was pretty shocking to see my friend lose hundreds of dollars to a union that did nothing for him at all.

[anth_anm]

Well for one thing he got a minimum wage.

[adamrezich]

That's a state law though.

[omegaworks]

So you'd rather your friend be worked harder for his minimum wage? You'd rather he be liable for the things people steal from the store? You'd rather him be fired and be without medical insurance if he slips and falls at work?

Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.

[adamrezich]

How does a part-time cheese monger get "worked to death," and what is Kroger's union doing to prevent this from happening?

I ask this 100% seriously.

[evan_]

Totally hypothetical but a union may push for safer equipment (cheese slicers/packing machines), thereby avoiding accidental injury.

[adamrezich]

OSHA exists though, it's not like they were using chainsaws to cut cheese until the union came along to save the day.

[eqdw]

Believe it or not, some people actually are willing to work harder for more money

[anth_anm]

A lot of the people who work hardest, horrible hours out int he cold doing hard labour before you wake up, only make a reasonable living because of unions.

People have literally fought and died for the right to unions, for unions to be taken seriously. A bunch privileged silicon valley tech workers (not me, I'm a privileged seattle based tech worker, totally different ;) ) write off unions as inefficient and useless.

[omegaworks]

The great lie is that the harder you work, the more money you make. Under a fully unregulated capitalism (no unions, no min wage) your wage is uncorrelated to the hardness of your work, it is correlated to your worth and scarcity on the market.

Sometimes harder workers are harder to find, so they get paid more. Sometimes they're not. If working harder simply led to more money, salary negotiation would not be a teachable skill.

[fastball]

Yeah, literally everyone was worked to death before the existence of unions.

/s

[matthewowen]

I mean... they kinda _were_

[fastball]

Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week.

Without Unions.

[bobwaycott]

Where did you get that idea? That is so very far from true about either Ford or the 40-hour-week.

Are you of the opinion that more than a century of labor fighting for reasonable working hours and conditions meant nothing, or are you just wanting to give Ford all the credit, despite him drawing on decades of increased movement toward an 8-hour workday before he ever decided to try it as a company policy?

[matthewowen]

No, he didn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen#Eight-hour_day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States