Shopsmith Forums

Perhaps you've been reading lately about right to work laws, most recently in Michigan. These laws forbid labor unions from requiring workers to join the union as a condition of employment. Are unions so desperate that they need to force people to join? Looking forward to getting an ear full from both sides on this issue.

Arizona is a right to work state. Nevertheless, as educators the wife and I were often pressured to join the teacher's union. We never did and always negotiated our own contracts. We always came out ahead.
In education at least, unions are champions of mediocrity.

I'm not up to speed on this issue since I have always worked in Texas. But as I understand it, Union workers tend to make more per hour for the same job as non-union workers. From the standpoint of the employer, I can understand why they would rather hire non-union workers, their labor cost would be less. From the standpoint of the worker, I assume they are happy because they are making more money. So, I guess the issue is which side are you on, the side of the employer who wants to make a larger profit or the side of the worker who wants to make more money. Is that what it really boils down to or am I missing the bigger picture

Fred, for me it was a matter of principle. Any person with a reasonable amount of common sense and intellectual acuity is capable of discussing his/her working conditions and salary with his employer or employer's representative. The coercive tactics of unions are abhorrent and an affront to any rational thinker.

Union membership does not always (if ever) equal more money in the employee's pocket, over time. Especially when dues and strikes are figured in. A safe assumption would be that a non-union worker in a right to work state would realize a good bit more in his pocket over his working life.

I applaud MI for giving employees the right to make choices that reflect their values and self interests.

Gene, you and I are on the same page here. But going beyond comparing paychecks, is the fundamental issue of liberty. If people want to join a union, they should be able to. If they don't want to join a union, they should be free to not do so. Nobody should be forced to pay dues to a private organization they don't want to join just so they can have a job.

What if Texas had a law saying you had to join the NRA before you could work in Texas?

What if California said you had to join the ACLU before you could get a job in California?

What if Florida law said you had to be a member of the AARP before you could live there?

It's not about whether unions are good or bad. It's about liberty. We have the freedom of association, but we also have the freedom NOT to associate. It's good to see Michigan affirm that.

Heath, I do believe we're brothers of different mothers!

I might be completely wrong on this issue but doesn't the union in Michigan want the right to collect union dues from non-union workers. If that is correct, this would be the issue that made me join the protests.

FWIW, my experiences with unions in Texas was not all rosey. I was a salaried employee working for a defense contractor. As such, I was not allowed to join a union even if I wanted to.

But, if there was work to be done that could be done by a union employee, I better not get caught doing it myself. Example: I broke an electric outlet on a work bench in the engineering lab. I was in the midst of tests for which I needed that outlet strip. Schedules were tight. I could not tolerate a work stoppage that could be avoided. I drew a receptacle from engineering supply and proceeded to install it.

For that, I ended up before the grievance review board explaining why I did not issue a work request to have the outlet installed by an electrician. I avoided a work stoppage and for that got my hands slapped.

I became rogue. I looked for ways that I could get crosswise with the union shops. I was fairly successful at doing so.

dusty wrote:I became rogue.

That might be my all time favorite sentence on this board!

Kansas is a right to work state. I belonged to the union at Boeing for 37 of the 38 years I was there and believe Boeing would not have shared the profits with the people that built the planes if it were not for the union. The non union people had the same benefits as the people who belonged.

Most northern states were union states, if you wanted to work in an industry that had a union you were expected to join it. I worked a summer in the Steel Mill I wasn't even asked they just subtracted my union dues from my pay check.

In the early stages of industry Unions were necessary because workers were being taken advantage of and abused. However that changed, soon under union protection a man found sleeping could not be fired, or the union insisted that 6 men did what one man should easily been able to do.

I had a buddy in Cleveland that was union concrete finisher. He was required to finish 4 yards of concrete and then he could go home. He said he could finish 4 yards depending on how they poured it in little under 3 hours. So on every job the union was involved in they have about 3 guys doing the job of one. That gets expensive.

Also in Cleveland at the Motor plant the union contract said if the line went down after a certain period of time the guys had to be allowed to go home with full pay. They couldn't be given other jobs like cleaning around the plant instead.

I watched workers in a plastic plant go on strike and the company said they would have to close because they couldn't afford to meet the demands. They didn't care and after the plant closed their comment was "we showed them."

Again it wasn't all unions, many companies had situations they refused to address, safety considerations and such, until the union forced them to.

In the steel industry the stripper cranes would have to go over the soaking pits and reach in and grab an ingot of steel. Before air conditioning and all, the crane men were forced to breath all those hot gases as they raised up surrounding the crane operating pulpit. It was a killer, so the union forced the company to agree to 2 hours on 2 hours off. So in the an 8 hour day you needed at least 2 crane men. There were three cranes in this one plant. However after the perfection of air conditioning there cranes had conditioned air, filtered and cooled. In fact most were around 65 inside. The company went to the union and said we made all these improvements so we can have one craneman per crane per shift. The union said no and threatened to strike if the company forced the issue. What you don't know is the cranemen were making big big money. The got a fabulous hourly wage plus they were paid tonage. In 1965 many were making over $50,000. Ask anyone that was a super wage in 1965.

I worked in the unions and out and all I can say is when I was working without unions I didn't have to pay union dues. But i believe had there been no unions or the threat of unionization my salary and benefits would have been a lot lower. When I was working in the union I never worried about being fired, it almost could not happen.