Unions - Important questions

Research a company called Nucor. Once you see how its possible for a steel manufacturing company to be (very) profitable, the nations largest recycler, and run the safest plants in the world you'll never give unions a second thought. I consider them to be a necessary evil, if I want to be an airline pilot I've just got to put up with them.

I'm not sure about the current status but for most of the 1990's they were the nations only profitable steel company. Their line supervisors with only a high school education make between 75k-90k per year using the companies bonus system. Nucor pretty much kills every argument there is for the pro-union crowd.

The bottom line is in this day and age unions are bad for employees, bad for business, and bad for efficiency. Unions are allowed protections that management isn't. Two union members can discuss strategy for getting what they want but as soon as management does it then they're guilty of racketeering.
 
esa17 said:
Research a company called Nucor. Once you see how its possible for a steel manufacturing company to be (very) profitable, the nations largest recycler, and run the safest plants in the world you'll never give unions a second thought. I consider them to be a necessary evil, if I want to be an airline pilot I've just got to put up with them.

I'm not sure about the current status but for most of the 1990's they were the nations only profitable steel company. Their line supervisors with only a high school education make between 75k-90k per year using the companies bonus system. Nucor pretty much kills every argument there is for the pro-union crowd.

The bottom line is in this day and age unions are bad for employees, bad for business, and bad for efficiency. Unions are allowed protections that management isn't. Two union members can discuss strategy for getting what they want but as soon as management does it then they're guilty of racketeering.
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Arroo?? One company treats its employees well and shares the rewards of success, so unions are pointless at all companies??? That's a rather amazing leap of logic.
 
And taking ONE company and saying the entire working industry is like that company is insane. If all the airlines were like SWA, then maybe we wouldn't need unions. Reality is, they aren't. Without a union at the airline I'm currently at, I'd be working for a fraction of my pay, I'd be paying more for health insurance, no 401K and they could more or less fire people at will. They try to do that last one anyway. Oddly enough, we still seem to run a pretty efficient airline, even WITH a union. Then there's SWA, the most unionized carrier in the industry. Employees are happy, management is happy and the shareholders are happy. Yeah, unions causing issues there....

I'd argue that management is allowed protections union employees aren't. I can just point you to the stock options that border on insider trading at my carrier. Management kept toiling on and on about how we'd lose the NWA flying if we didn't sign this crappy new contract (which, ironically, had all the drawbacks I mentioned above in it). Then, miraculously, we sign a deal with NWA. Even more miraculously, management excercised their back dated stock options immediately prior to that and cashed them in not too much after that (right when the stock more or less was peaking). Sure, we could've taken advantage of that....if we were privy to the information management possess (ie the agreement was a done deal, they just hadn't announced it yet) and they actually LET us buy the stock. Our employee stock purchase window remained closed the entire time.

Management is free to discuss their strategies all they want. Heck, it's expected during contract negotiations. It's not racketeering. Now, if two airline managements want to get together and discuss ways to beat the unions down or take advantage of the flying public, that's not rackettering either. It COULD be extortion depending on the circumstances (ie sign this contract or we're gonna move your flying to another, non-union carrier that works for peanuts). But, if they're doing that, I think that throws out the whole "unions are bad" theory.
 
ScottG said:
3. Banning unions would be unconstitutional as I understand it and I am all for the right to unionize. BUT, why shouldn't management be allowed to fire union personnel to bust them? If management is abusive on the other hand employees quit, its kinda like a check and balance system.
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This is exactly the problem labor has at Wally World. There have been numerous attempts to start unions and an obvious will of the labor force to have one. A couple guys start talking about it and people get fired, floor managers made to harass them and so forth. I'm a bit confused how you think labor has the right to unionize then wonder why management cannot just go fire all of them.
 
Wow. I missed that one totally. So, it would be okay for management to fire people that are looking to collectively organize in order to make their lives better based solely on that fact. Now, if they do something that's against the rules, the I have no problem with them getting canned. But to fire them b/c their attempting to organize is just straight out wrong and only proves that a union is needed at that company.

For a real life example, let's look at National airlines. They had just survived a prolonged strike, and at the time the scabs (used correctly in this instance) the began flying at the airline during the strike out numbered the returning pilots. Since the strike lasted so long, all the union guys had to re-qual. Well, first the company made them all take a physical from a company picked doctor. Curiously, all the union guys failed the physical, even though most had taken a physical from another doctor 12 hours previously and passed. ALPA fought that, and the exams were thrown out. Next came the re-qual flights with company check airmen, etc. It got to a point no one wanted to go on a check flight without union representation. Given that a good chunk of the FOs along for the ride were scabs that stood to move up in seniority if the other guys were canned, there wasn't much help (and in many cases hinderance) from the right seat. ALPA eventually got all that straightened out, too.
 
kellwolf said:
So, it would be okay for management to fire people that are looking to collectively organize in order to make their lives better based solely on that fact.
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My point here(or question rather) is that if the freedom reigns to unionize then the freedom should reign to bust them, right? I know Wal-Mart has had a couple unionizing attempts and I was gonna look into how that was put down, I don't think they fired people though. On any point I kinda lean on the side of "It's not your right to work". If a company doesn't want you there then they shouldn't have to pay you, I think it should be their right to choose. Also, SWA is a freak of nature, but that doesn't mean that they are operating at there most efficient rate......
 
ScottG said:
My point here(or question rather) is that if the freedom reigns to unionize then the freedom should reign to bust them, right? I know Wal-Mart has had a couple unionizing attempts and I was gonna look into how that was put down, I don't think they fired people though. On any point I kinda lean on the side of "It's not your right to work". If a company doesn't want you there then they shouldn't have to pay you, I think it should be their right to choose. Also, SWA is a freak of nature, but that doesn't mean that they are operating at there most efficient rate......
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If a company doesn't want you, they shouldn't have hired you. Basically, your theory says the company can do whatever they want whenever they want. "We don't like you b/c you where a yellow shirt. You're fired." Employees would be walking on eggshells wonder when the next axe was gonna fall. Like I said, if someone gets fired b/c they did something they weren't supposed to, then that's cool. Which is why people that are involved in union organization processes need to be EXTRA careful about sticking to the law. There IS a thing called "wrongful termination," and firing someone just b/c you don't like their tone of voice can be considered that, even in a "right to work" state.
 
I think that there could be some discussion on the wrongful termination issue but in the interest of this thread let me make a statement and see if there are any objections.

An economy without unions will prosper in terms of growth, technological advancement and other things that are generally
considered strong economic indicators, at a rate higher than that of a unionized economy. On the other hand, there may be a social need for unions to balance the system a little at the cost of shaving a little performance off the top of the economy......

That is what I have taken from all of the posts so far. Is there general consensus to this?
 
ScottG said:
That is what I have taken from all of the posts so far. Is there general consensus to this?
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Not just no, but hell no.

The most unionized airline out there is the most profitable and has been profitable for what, 30 years running?

Delta was one of the least unionized airlines and they filed for chapter 11.

The world's largest company by market cap has unions on site. If unions were so bad, then they wouldn't be the world's largest company by market cap.
 
No, can't really do that. Two instances are way too small of a sample. I didn't say there wasn't a need for unions all I said was that as a whole, meaning all industry's domestic and international, unionized economies under preform vs. those that are not unionized. I didn't say that unions are the reason that companies go bankrupt either, simply that they compromise a little bit of performance for social benefit. I know as does everyone else that any company can find bankruptcy unionized or not.
 
ScottG said:
No, can't really do that. Two instances are way too small of a sample.
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You really don't want to go there.

What about FEDEX, UPS, American (the only major not to file for bankruptcy) as well? Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, and Braniff back in the day. Trust me ALPA didn't bring them down.

Scott, if you want to be a pilot, you will join a union. Stop over analyzing it, fighting it, trying to make excuses. If your union isn't working for you, volunteer and make it better!
 
Seggy said:
If your union isn't working for you, volunteer and make it better!
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There it is right there, folks. Now the down side to this, is I made the mistake of volunteering for one committee. Now it looks like I might wind up on two or three.....

We had someone complain that the union boards weren't updated in the past three years in the crew room. When it was suggested that he would be a perfect candidate for the communications committee to help out, suddenly it wasn't such a big deal to him anymore.

Unions are only as good as the leadership and the members that elect them. If you let your leadership run rampant doing whatever, you've only got as far as the mirror to go to find the problem.
 
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