Despite Union Percentage Decline, Union Workers Make More Money

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/5182

Despite Union Percentage Decline, Union Workers Make More Money

Despite Union Percentage Decline, Union Workers Make More Money - 01/31/07

Union membership continued to decline across the country, but union workers continue to earn substantially more than non-union workers. Jesse Russell has more:

By Jesse Russell

By the end of 2006 union membership had declined to 12 percent of the workforce. One state that saw numbers drop was Oregon where employed union workers went from 14.5 percent of the workforce in 2005 to 13.8 percent last year. Sheet metal worker
and union organizer Willy Meyers says that's bad news for all Oregon workers
because unions set higher standards for worker rights, benefits and wages.

: "Unions float all boats. If the majority of
the work in the area is done union, then the union wage prevails. If the
majority is done non-union, then it's an average between the union rate and
non union rate, which is almost always lower."

The national weekly median average income for a non-union service sector worker, which includes healthcare support, food prep, and janitorial services - was $404 in 2006 or $10 per hour. On the flipside, a union worker in that same sector averaged $629 per week - or more than $15 per hour. The trend of substantially higher wages for unionized workers continues through every sector. For example in the construction occupations a non-union worker averaged only $582 per week while unionized workers averaged $933 per week - nearly $10 per hour more.

AUDIO story here: http://www.laborradio.org/files/lo/winsheadlines.ram

[Little Wing]

1. As they should

Read any sort of labor history, and the bloodshed behind getting unions installed in the US's various exports and you'll instantly vote for more Unions.

[cut.your.crap]

2. Union Workers

Like the USPS make $18-20 per hour for being cashiers and material handlers. As a taxpayer, you should be outraged for these overpaid workers.
This boosts your numbers. Take all civil service out of the equation and the difference is minimal. As someone who has driven trucks for over a decade, and avoided the Teamsters like the plague, unions don't get you better working conditions or wages. They antagonize an employer who can replace you any time he wants.
I'm as liberal as they come. But I am practical. I want to work. I know too many Teamsters on unemployment. The system sucks with or without unions.
My brother is in newspaper production the union negotiated a raise of 1-3% at the firm for the last contract, so much for the "Liberal" media. Two years into the contract, my brother, like all his co-workers, has gotten 1%. Until a few months ago. Then he got over 4%. How? Quit CWA. Thank God he had a choice. Some shops you aren't that lucky.

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

3. Agree with you on teamsters

Their just after your union dues, when it comes time to have your back when an employer pulls BS on an employee, your on your own!

[Omaha Steve]

4. Welcome to DU

It sounds like you should go to work for the post office driving one of their trucks.

[cap]

5. I'm thoroughly outraged by the thought of anyone without a college degree

making $18-20/hr. People should know their place in life. The clerks at USPS should be paid wages comparable to Walmart and should be forced to use our ever decreasing public health services. They should not be showing up at our ERs and jacking up our health costs. If they are sick and cant pay for it, they should not get medical care. They should also not have any retirement and should be forced to depend on their children when they are old or they should sit quietly in a boarding room or live on the street and eat cat food until they keel over. It's not our fault they are in this position and we should not bail them out. Also, we should not give them any allowances for decreasing physical conditions as they age. Finally, we should turn much of these full time jobs into part-time work. Also, in the interests of saving tax payer dollars, we should do just-in-time scheduling so that we dont get charged when there is no work to be done. There is no reason why these folks are guaranteed break time. Since most clerks dont get these things in industry, we cant ask these clerks to pay taxes for people who do the same job that they do and get a much better living. This is what the public unions have wrought. The government is the last industry to be de-unionized.

/Sarcasm Off...

You are talking to the granddaughter of immigrant Polish textile workers who suffered to get working people the protections and the industry norms -- where industries aren't unionized -- that prohibit the exploitation of workers. My family starved to give you the benefits of a much better world. It was the unions who made it industry norm to have safety conditions so that you would not end up blinded like my grand-dad did or that you arent driving a crappy truck like the Mexican truckers do. My grandmother collapsed from hunger. The kids were taken away and grew up in Dickensian conditions in what passed for foster care. And dont you dare go telling me that you are sorry to hear about this. Everyone who saw this was sorry. But nobody did anything tangible to remedy the situation... and in my book, if you are truly sorry, you make restitution. Otherwise, you are just being polite.

It will be the unions that will keep you safe on the road because they will be fighting the legalization of Mexican trucks on the Trans-Texas Corridor. Maybe an individual union does not live up to what it should... but then, a union is only as strong as its members make it. If your local isnt doing what it should for you, well then, show up with a bunch of your like-minded buddies and force the changes that you want made. You have got to mobilize. The union is YOU and it depends on YOUR vigilance and YOUR participation and YOUR demands that it perform for YOU. The unions are strong because my family showed up and would not tolerate fools or criminals. It is a matter of participation. We refused to believe in a patriarchal employer. We know this from past experience. Rhode Island got so bad during the Great Depression they brought back the Victorian workhouse (it was such a disaster, that neighbors threw bread over the walls to the hapless inmates).

You miss the point... Unions are meant to antagonize the employer. If they arent pushing back, they arent doing their job. My people were part of the 500,000 workers who walked out and shut down the country down during the Great Textile strike of the Great Depression. It was their mobilization that gave you OSHA, workmen's comp, and Social Security.

Your brother is only getting his 4% because the employer wants to bust the union. When the union is gone, his wage increase will be gone too.

As an independent trucker, your wages are upheld by the Teamsters. You benefit from them. Sorry, my people have lived through union busting tactics and have seen people benefit from their struggles to make everyone's life better, whether or not they contributed to a union or not. Unions set the minimum wage and working condition level for working people. If you want to try a little experiment, go down to Texas and drive trucks when they start letting Mexican drivers on Third World pay scales drive their junkers further on into the US. Watch your salary go down. You will be living in non-union hell. If unions are so bad, move to a good right-to-work state and see how you fare. Texas is great state to try this one out. There are a very few well-to do folks, very few middle class salaried workers, a lot of poor folk. Mississippi and Alabama are one big plantation. They dont have unions getting in the way....and they sure have a lot of poor folk.... Funny how right-to-work is correlated with low salary and bad working conditions.

It's very funny how right wing Republicans can come around this way of thinking when their livelihood is threatened. A right-wing manager I know began to understand this as his industry became de-unionized. When a janitor has to be paid $12/hour, a clerk must be paid, at least, $13/hour, a supervisor/team leader must be paid $14/hour, and a manager must be paid $15/hour. When a janitor is paid $5/hour, a clerk gets $6/hour, a supervisor gets $7/hour and a manager gets $8/hour. He understands the value of unions now because his salary has been decreased accordingly. Now, that's one way to get a man singing "Solidarity Forever".

[Occulus]

6. As a postal employee for ten years I can't help but to respond

Even with automation, postal work- at least, in the plants- is backbreakingly hard labor. People who have never handled mail have simply no true idea of just how much a 2'+ tray of mail can weigh. Here's a hint, though: I lift several tons by hand per day (I'm 31 and already have had physical therapy for back problems caused on the job). Carriers get paid more than I do, and for good reason: they have to go out in public, get to know their customers, learn their routes, etc. The postal carrier has also often been known to be able to tell when something is wrong at the residence of one of the people on their routes, sometimes saving a life. Window workers also have to deal with the public, and they have to know all the rates, the length of time a delivery might take, what regulations there are in place regarding what may or may not be mailed, etc.

A trained postal window clerk can even be the barrier between a bomber and a plane. It is for that exact reason we have what is called "target mail". My point is, postal workers are highly trained people who guarantee that your mail will get from point A to point B in a secure fashion. Until * and his ilk, this was never a problem for us.

I will give you my very own personal guarantee that, in spite of the fact that you think I'm overpaid for my job, I will make certain your mail gets where it needs to go- orders to open it be damned. It very well may cost me my job, but I will refuse any such orders, because your letters and bills and driving logs and whatnot are too damn important to tamper with.

[cap]

7. 3 cheers for you

:)

[NashVegas]

8. Just Because I'm Not Making $20 Per Hour and Can't Afford a Mortgage

Doesn't mean I'd resent someone else who does and can.

FYI - that adds up to an annual salary of just $41,600. These days, that's lower middle class. What's appalling is not their salary, what's appalling is that on that salary, one can barely support a family in pretty much any city that's desirable to live in.

[CANDO]

9. Cut the crap yourself!

I'm an 18 year Teamster freight hauler. I proudly provide for my family by utilizing collective bargaining. Wouldn't dream of doing it any other way, especially in the trucking industry. My brother came to work for my outfit just last year because he was sick of the working conditions at his non-union company. He had worked there for 9 years and simply came to the realization that he would never make it to retirement going at the pace they are pushed at there. Sounds to me you are falling for the divide and conquer tactics being spewed by those aligned with business interests. They deliberately foster a sense of jealousy by getting you to believe those wages are not really earned. Why is it that your own wages aren't considered to be excessive? Why, it's only union wages which are excessive! BALONEY!