Comment on Unions seek gains in hostile territory: ‘If you change the South, you change America’
Chetzemoka@kbin.social 9 months ago
"Unions make people lazy" "Unions make people less creative, less likely to work to fix problems" "Unions make employees fight with each other" "Unions mean we'll earn less money"
The propaganda I've heard from older generations is really incredible. We're still actively unionizing lol
bluGill@kbin.social 9 months ago
There is some truth to that. Unions typically focus on seniority above all else so there is no advantage to being objectively better at the job, just don't be so bad you are fired and you are fine. They also insist that if you want to move to management you start at the bottom thus ensuring that someone who might want to change tracks is worse off and in turn there is no reason to try.
Unions are not all bad, but they deserve a lot of criticism as well.
Chetzemoka@kbin.social 9 months ago
Why is less productivity a horrible thing? Why is wanting a good wage for just showing up and doing your normal job a bad thing? Why is having no interest in moving into management so atrocious?
It's way past time to start questioning American work culture. I shouldn't be expected to be operating at the razor's edge of my ability to keep up with everything constantly and forever for the rest of my life. I just want to punch a clock, do my job, and also be able to afford my mortgage for having done that and nothing more.
bluGill@kbin.social 9 months ago
More productivity means that you produce more wealth. If you are less productive you are worth less. (Stop saying the rich take the wealth, that is what unions claim they are preventing).
It is a logical fallacy to read what I wrong as saying there is something wrong with not wanting to go onto management . I said there is something wrong with stopping someone who does want to go into management. Those are very different things.
If you want to stay where you are, I have no problem with that. However if you turn your wish to not improve into holding back someone else who does that is wrong ' (improve here as defined by the other person's values and what they think would improve them)
Chetzemoka@kbin.social 9 months ago
Here's a crazy radical idea: Wealth does not improve people beyond a certain point. Leisure time and lack of stress improve people. The American culture of work yourself to death to accumulate is killing us and it's killing the world. It's time to stop.
Work, make enough money to provide, have plenty of leisure time to relax and spend with your family. Those are the lives we should be striving for.
odium@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Unions are worker associations, aren’t they? So it’s up for the members of the union to decide what they want. My, non US, union has different tracks for management and experts (so no problem to move up or change tracks), has a solid base pay but the company is encouraged to pay more than that. For the real rockstar employees there is there option to get paid well above union, then their rules can be mostly ignored (because you’re earning a shitton of money as compensation)
Oh, and for a part of hard and dangerous work they’re currently fighting for 4 days at full pay.
Not getting unionized is like going to war alone because you don’t like the uniforms colour…
NotYourSocialWorker@feddit.nu 9 months ago
Fighting for seniority can have its downsides but without rules against it what tends to happen is companies firing skilled and experienced workers as a way to wage dump. Since so many in upper management only see wages as an expense without any meaning besides “low good, high bad” they’ll gladly lose out on productivity by firing people who actually know their stuff.
bluGill@kbin.social 9 months ago
This article is about US unions. Unions do work different in other countries.
This is not war. There are lots of options for someone who doesn't like how things are without joining a union. Unions are one answer, and not always bad, but they bring in all the negatives of belonging to a group as well. I'm not against unions as a concept, but the implementation as it is often has elements that I'm strongly against.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
It’s called class warfare.
SasquatchBanana@lemmy.world 9 months ago
You say it isn’t a war while the poor and working people get “gunned down” every turn and corner. We are getting fucked.
Your rhetoric isn’t helpful. All you are doing is seeding distrust and division. Unions have always been a net positive. Even if these unions did what you said (only care about senior members) it’s still better being in a union than not. A great way to refute your claims is to point to all the companies who union bust, oh, and also say the same things you do! What a coincidence.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m not seeing how this is a problem for anyone but the employer and people who get ahead based on the quality of their ass kissing.
bluGill@kbin.social 9 months ago
There are ways to objectivity measure productivity in some cases. Unions typically don't allow them to be taken .
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And then you get one self-exploiting nitwit who burns himself out because he doesn’t know how to pace his fool self, and his record becomes the standard everyone else is held to. Then everyone has to burn themselves out trying to get promoted or, in cases where unemployment is high, just trying to keep their jobs. And if they get promoted, every level has ambitious burnout nitwits.
That’s not what I said. I said that ass kissers have a problem with it, not that all promotions are due to ass kissing. That would mean that no promotion was ever awarded due to nepotism, or no promotion was ever denied due to bigotry.