Our Old Problem: What Will Convince Unorganized Workers to join a Union?

http://laboreducator.org/lt100216.htm

LaborTalk for February 16, 2010

By Harry Kelber

For decades, unions have spent millions of dollars and hired thousands of organizers to persuade workers to join unions, but have had limited success. Yet here we are in 2010, faced with colossal failures. With our supposed best efforts, unions now represent only 7.2 percent of the nation’s workforce in private industry. That is the lowest rate since 1901. And some more horrendous news: In only one year—2008—some 800,000 union members dropped out of the labor movement. What should we be doing about that?

Surely, unions are good for working people. They provide higher wages and better benefits than for those in non-union jobs. That’s especially true for working women and ethnic minorities, and it applies equally to virtually every region of the country..

If you’re a union member, you don’t have to face your boss for a raise and run the risk of being fired. The union uses its strength to represent you and your co-workers in collective bargaining with the boss. And it can usually get a better deal for you than when you act on your own.

With a union card, you can earn some measure of respect from the boss, because if he gets abusive or treats you unfairly, he knows the union can cause him trouble, sometimes by calling a strike.

Given such time-honored advantages of unions, why does only one out of eight of the nation’s workers join? What’s wrong with our organizing message? Why are we so unconvincing?

So what’s the answer? Spending more money and hiring more organizers? That won’t help much if we rely on the same old, predictable organizing methods.

FULL story at link.

Couple of places I worked at where pay was based on a "merit system" they both had an idiot son or two of someone in management standing around smoking and joking with their fingers up their noses making top money.

How do you avoid that?

Don

Since the takeover by the for profits in the late 80's raises have generally been a range of 2-4% (don't spend it all in one place, lol). I was supervising an oncology floor in Houston for 4 years. Annual evaluation of my staff was one of my responsibilities. In every case when I took the evals in for approval by the VP she sat with a calculator shaving points off the evaluations of my nurses until she got the points back down to where they would get only a 2% raise. My staff usually fell in the 'above average' category and I assure you anyone who was able to keep providing good care with the double patient loads was above average. But it was always about the money and not an honest evaluation of the quality of work.

Anyone who is performing well enough to keep their jobs should get a reasonable raise. There is nothing on earth stopping employers from instituting a reasonable raise for everyone with additional raises on top of it for 'merit.' But they don't. They use the 'merit' system to keep wages low and raises ridiculous. I did have one supervisor a 3 years ago who went to HR and requested a 5% raise for me as she felt my work deserved more that 4%. She did get it approved but it is the only time I know of that me or any other nurse I know in a right to work state got more than 4% since 1988 without changing jobs or being promoted.

talk about a morale booster...and this was in one of the premier hospital systems in Dallas.
When the CNA was trying to help organize the nurses in North Texas a few years ago,my hospital immediately sent out a memo stating"Please send all concerns to management.Don't discuss hospital issues with those outside the hospital system.We WANT our staff to be satisfied!"..of course,that all goes down the crapper when the union reps leave.There is a lot of unspoken intimidation.

And the union reps were in the hospital parking lot handing out cards. The administrators let it be known they would be standing at the windows on the upper floors and taking names of anyone they saw take a card. It's criminal but it happens all the time.

1%? And they keep whining about the shortage. Now, they look at programs to get more nurses trained. Perhaps a thought to keeping the nurses we already have would help. Perhaps a national nurses union would help.

Labor has for years failed miserably to formulate strategies to market and advertise the positives of union membership to the general public. The concept that unions are good should literally be sold like diapers, beer or cell phones in some comprehensive strategy to reposition/remake the Union brand. Guys like Rush and the right wing media megaphone have savaged the reputation of organized labor in the minds of the general public and many young people are ignorant of unions as they have zero exposure to unions or union members.

It is not too late however as the iron is very hot and ready for striking in these tough economic times. I would offer that examining the successful use of the Internet by others as a place to focus some ad/marketing dollars and effort.

A smart, effective marketing campaign to demonstrate how union representation can benefit workers.

well, more pro-union legislation is needed.....

and enforcement....

what happened when Nissan illegally bussed in workers from other plants to vote against organizing Smyrna? nothing, i believe

Get back to me on that after the recession is over. Until that time, unions will make no gains in the number of people covered.

unemployment helps capitalists; keeps workers' fear levels high, hence little organizing impetus

once more, workers shoot them selves in the foot

Corporations have engaged in illegal activities to prevent workers from unionizing with impunity. In right to work states a worker is scared to mention the word union within earshot of anyone at work.

but they still do it and get away with it.

I was in a Union when I worked for a retail store back while I was going to university. The store was in VA which is a very anti-union state, but the company was based in New Jersey. For a retail store we really did have pretty good benefits, better than most retail employees had I think. We had a pretty decent health plan that every employee working an average over 32 hours a week got. The health plan was one almost no one had heard of, but enough doctors offices took our insurance to make it pretty useful. We had much better sick leave and vacation than most other retail outlets offered too. So overall, especially looking back now, the union benefits were pretty good. I didn't probably appreciate them at the time, but I'd say they were probably much better than what most retail employees in VA get.

There were some downsides though. Our union reps that stopped by every few months to visit didn't seem to really have any clue what was happening in the stores. Not sure how the union is organized, but they didn't really seem very in touch with how the company operated or what the workers had to deal with day to day. The reps were very nice, though they really did have the stereotypical NJ union air about them. Kinda bullish guys who would come by the store to talk up the union, but really didn't seem to know much about the work in the store.

The biggest problem, and I guess this is my primary point, was that more than any other retail outlet I worked for back in those days, this union shop seemed so rigid and structured with the way they hired, fired, promoted, reprimanded, etc, people that nothing moved very fast. It felt like there were so many roadblocks to just taking the best employees and moving them ahead of the bad ones - paying the newer but better employees more seemed very difficult for the company to do. I felt like the union rules for how the company moved staff around and promoted and demoted was not flexible enough. I am not even positive those were the union's rules that caused this, but I am pretty sure based on the literature we got that much of the logjam in HR/Personnel was due to the collective bargaining agreement.

We have some grocery stores here that are union and I think they seem to do really well for both employee and employer, but I am not sure they face much competition. The union store I worked at faced stiff competition and it folded, and the non union shops are still around today.

So I guess the point I am trying to convey is, I think unions need to be more dynamic and flexible and be 2010 unions instead of 1955 unions. More flexibility, more allowing for quick merit increases and promotions, easier to demote or fire obviously poor employees, etc, etc. Modern unions I guess is what I am getting at. Times have changed and it just felt like the union was structured and run as if it were 50 years ago.

I look back at the benefits we got for being in a union at that store, and appreciate it much more now than I probably did back then. The union dues were very small and reasonable, and I doubt most retail workers had as good a deal as we did. I just feel like when people think "union", they think of the old time union boss, big mafia looking enforcers, bureaucracy and inefficiency, etc. When people think "union" I think we want them to picture a fleet footed organization, one that can roll with changes when necessary, really understands the employee's they represent, etc, etc.

Anyway, I support the unions. I wish union made products were more easily identifiable too so we could support American workers easier.

How many of those union dropouts are due to job losses?

to try to unionize the company I was a project manager for they spent more time 'salting' the projects that they ended up pissing everyone off.
Kind of hard to get someone to sign up when you just destroyed their work or put their life in danger.

Also,it did not help when that local supported bush.
And I never have figured out why they gave up their right to strike in their collective bargaining agreement with the contractors.

But the idea of unionism is sound as a means to counter-balance the power of corporatism. Please, I hope you don't toss the baby out with the bathwater. We can get that little bugger clean together!

Union folks are just as susceptible to propaganda as the general population. Still, no excuse for supporting Bush.

Now the media misinforms and propagandizes. And chickens end up voting for Colonel Sanders.

Unions are the answer. Who else fights the corporatists?

and other pre-union conditions such as child labor, zero safety, skyrocketing death rates, sweatshop wages.

See how Americans take everything for granted? Americans deserve what's coming. I can't wait.