How does the RW manage to dissuade people from joining unions ?

[steve2470]

Sincere question here. I've never been given the option to join a union, so I'm not really familiar with all the arguments against unions. I've seen a few of them, but won't repeat them.

I wish I HAD been given the opportunity to join a union, because I think my co-workers and I needed one.

edit: added two words for clarity

[blondeatlast]

1. The approach used on me (I'm in a Right to Be Screwed by my colleagues state):

They're COMMIES. Literally, that's about the best argument they could come up with.

[Taverner]

2. "Unions Lower your pay"

"unions are run by the mob"
"unions are socialism"
"The soviets in the USSR were unions"
"unions reward laziness, and punish success"
"unions are satanic (this one's real fun - basically that your boss is appointed by Gawd and to disobey your boss is to disobey Gawd)
"unions bring about inflation"
"unions are wrong: no one has a RIGHT to a job"

et cetera, et cetera

[Johonny]

18. I think there is racism too

Lazy, punish success feed into racial issues workers have. They tend to push the idea unions are for "lazy" minority workers from the north. We don't need them here. Basically like most conservative issues the idea is the use wedge issues to divide the workers so they see themselves as different than people that are really in their same economic situation. Separate the middle class and the poor so they don't target the rich. The same issues that work on taxes and deficits work against unions. It's the same game fought over and over in different arenas.

I think they also push benefits already won by union as reasons to lose them. Look you got good pay, health care, vacation etc... why do we still need the union.

[Taverner]

19. You're pretty much right

Racism does play into this, and nowhere did it ever play so well as during the Nixon campaigns. Reagan too.

"You don't want them giving YOUR promotion to a BLACK guy, do you?"

That kind of shit

[Ahpook]

22. Thats about right

When working as a pressman years ago we tried to get one started. The boss had mandatory meetings every fucking afternoon telling us how evil all of this is. And she told us that if we get it voted in, she is closing up shop and moving to another state anyway. Illegal? Oh yeah..

Didn't stop her

They tried all kinds of nasty shit before that vote. If she slightly suspected you of voting yes, she would go to great measures to fire you. One person was fired from a slightly skewed date on his original application. This guy had worked there for 20 some odd years.


The vote failed and that more or less cleared out all of us press workers.

I got some revenge, though

[Cleita]

3. Rent the movie Norma Rae and you will

get an idea of how it's done. The biggest problem is getting many of your co-workers to join though. So many don't understand how it works for them. All they see is that they have to pay dues and that they might lose their job if they join.

[CTyankee]

21. I think some people are waking up, tho. Esp. recently, when jobs with benefits

got scarcer and scarcer, folks woke up to the fact that their unionized friends and acquaintances were doing just fine with good health care benefits and a union to bargain wage increases and pension benefits.

I have an acquaintance who calls herself a conservative who is separated from a lousy husband but doesn't divorce him because she would lost his union won health care that covers her. I said to her "Yeah, unions get you goodhealth care." She agreed...

[ejpoeta]

4. well, my brother opposed his work joining IBEW because they take the union dues and

give it to dems. That is what he told me was his reason for voting against the union. He watches beck and limbaugh and faux and there is no convincing him of anything. he is stocking up on canned goods as we speak. It's sad to see. I once told him i thought he was smarter than this. I guess I was wrong.

[Cleita]

6. When I worked in an open union shop, when it

was time to downsize, it was the non-union workers who got laid off first because there was no one to speak for them. Ask your brother about that. Who would speak for him if he is about to lose his job?

[ejpoeta]

14. he doesn't care. he thinks the unions just let people stand around doing nothing

because they can't lose their jobs. he is totally brainwashed.

[sufrommich]

12. My ex-husband was IBEW. Ask your brother how he feels about

making $15.00 a hour with no benefits as a non union electrician.

[DenverDad]

20. On the other hand, my mother-in-law

is a janitor for the post-office (Government AND Union), makes $14/hr with DOUBLE TIME on holidays, three-weeks paid vacation AND health benefits. Ironically, she's a big ole racist teabagger who would begrudge anyone else with these benefits.

[Scruffy1]

26. Three errors in one sentence. Amazing.

The pay rate for custodial craft employees in the APWU is about $20.00 or more per hour depending on seniority and the only holiday that theUnited States Postal Service pays overtime on is Christmas day. If you are forced or volunteer and its over 40 hours then you would get overtime of course.
The US Postal Service has been seperate from the government since Nixon days and receives no taxpayer money.

[DenverDad]

27. Thanks for the education.

I should've known better than to take her word.

[stillwaiting]

5. Because they're named unions and not confederacies?

I really don't understand either.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that individuals have absolutely no power to substantially negotiate their (or others) working conditions. At least it shouldn't.

[Cleita]

7. I keep thinking we should start calling them

professional organizations or guilds instead of unions.

[SkyDaddy7]

8. I was in a Union...

They are very good but Unions do do things that make people not like them. However, we must have Unions or we the people will slowly become slaves.

[white_wolf]

25. Some do. Mostly in show business

but The Screen Actors Guild and Director's Guild are just Unions with cooler sounding names.

[Badfish]

9. They target the stupidest people.

Imagine your dog chasing a stick that you only 'fake threw' , those are republicans , the dog that stays and is still looking at the stick in your hand waiting for it to be thrown for real is a Democrat.

It only takes a few seconds to manipulate the dumbest in our nation, dog or man.

[DearAbby]

10. Many years ago

we tried to organize a union for Nursing Assistants in a Nursing facility. The management bent over backwards to dissuade you. First they used the guilt trip. "What would happen to these people you love, if you are called to strike?" then they got more heavy handed, those who were leaders were singled out, eventually fired. Oh they had valid reasons I suppose to fire them. Something they had been written up for in the recent past, But it was enough to put the breaks on the whole idea.

Threatening people with termination is of course illegal. But they have ways of getting that message across loud and clear.

[FreakinDJ]

11. You'll never be Management

[ejpoeta]

13. oh, and when my brother and my husband's job was trying to be unionized

the employer held a lot of mandatory meetings where they spread a bunch of bs about how unions are bad and hurt the workers. it's funny because one area organized and got a union in NYC and you can see exactly how they benefit via pay raises etc. bob hasn't gotten a raise in 4 years. and they weren't going to give bonuses but changed their minds considering the vute was coming up. i would have thought that when they cut the higher levels down to level 2 and cut their pay and then gave my hubby and other newer guys raises that would open eyes.... but nope. i want to say they get what they deserve, but unfortunately we ALL will get what they deserve.

[LeftinOH]

15. Unions = Communism = Atheism = "Baby-Killing".. etc. Just throw it in the stew

and it'll all look the same.

[NoGOPZone]

16. With lies. Same tactic they use for everything. nt

[ljm2002]

17. It's not just the right wing anymore...

...you will hear people bad-mouthing unions right here at DU, for example. Although clearly most here do support unions.

As someone whose career has been in technology, I can tell you that the very idea of unions is scoffed at in that industry, by pretty much everyone except for a few holdouts (like myself, as my family roots are very blue-collar). They see themselves as well educated and smart, and if they could work hard and get a good-paying job without a union then others could too. Also, they believe that unions protect the incompetent and stifle creativity. They think unions represent the lower classes and unskilled workers (because people who work with their hands are unskilled by their standards -- never mind that most of them wouldn't know what to do with a blueprint for a house or even a simple plumbing repair job, but I digress).

Now that these white collar jobs are being outsourced, they still have not come around to unions because it would feel like a step down to them. Over the years there really was the possibility of advancement, at least up to a point, and joining a union would be a signal of defeat and an acknowledgment of their real status as lowly workers, which they do not see themselves as.

All around us are messages talking about how entrepreneurial we Americans are. Belong to a union is pretty much antithetical to this view. So there's that too.

And of course there is the fact that the Democratic party long ago gave up fighting for working men and women, or giving strong support to unions. There is an article in Mother Jones that gives a fascinating history of how that came to be, but it is undeniably true at this stage.

How to change it? Well as we all know, there is change in the air. You never know what form it is going to take ahead of time. I think we are seeing the first stirrings. Whether unions will grow again, who knows. But people around the world are becoming fed up with the inequality and suffering visited on the great majority while watching the fat cats wallow in their ill-gotten loot and make wars for sport.

[EC]

23. They make it hard to join

and threatening...and repub types are chicken-shits. And then in the south are right-to-work states that can get rid of you with absolutely no reason.

If you are in a state that is not a right-to-work state go for it, contact the local or national union for your trade and get started. I'm sure you make the contacts on line. And through the process, you'll likely find out why there are fewer unions now.

[CTyankee]

24. Years ago, I had a co-worker who didn't want to join the union. She said she

"preferred" to negotiate her salary with her direct boss. I found out later that her idea of "negotiating" with the boss involved regular sexual trysts with him. Both she and the boss were married.

Oh well, c'est la vie...

[readmoreoften]

28. Here are some techniques I've learned multiple techniques in various campaigns:

Usually in this order:

1)Carrot and stick: workers who don't strike are given temporary pay offs in attempt to muddy the message "See, workers, we hear you. We're not going to give you all the the union demands, but we will bargain with you directly and it'll work out to your benefit. That union just wants your dues! You don't need them." Phase two: "If you don't take our charitable pay off, you will be punished." After the union campaign is over, the pay offs are ended and soon thereafter (once the union is busted) austerity-type measures are put in place.

2)Infiltration: Every campaign usually has one or more paid-off spy in the ranks who funnels messages about actions back to management. In the spirit of solidarity, strikers tend to be quite open to one another.

3)Fake Company Union: In its attempts to present itself as "moderate" and "reasonable", management says "We hear your need for a union, we just don't trust this union that you've picked to represent you. Let's build our own union in-house where you will have a committee to air your grievances with us." (of course without binding arbitration, recourse to union lawyers, etc.)

4)Bogus Lawsuits against Strikers: individually bring suit against 1000 people. Can the union afford to represent 1000 separate cases? (This doesn't happen all the time. Only saw it happen once. To me, actually.)

[SoCalDem]

29. They love to harp on the "paying dues every month" thing

I never paid more than $26 a month, and of course my pension every month has no dues deducted, and after working 10 years (just barely vested when I quit), even if I had paid the $26 a month, I would have contributed $3,120.00 in dues..

I did not, though, since the early years were a lot less each month... I have already collected almost $7K in pension payments

Other people who probably made less than I did ($16+ an hr when I left in 1996), and also worked for 10 yrs at one place, are probably not getting a check every month..but then they did not pay $26 a month in dues at their non-union job...

[KamaAina]

30. Walmart, for one, makes its new "associates" watch anti-union videos during orientation

Always.