How do you feel about unions in regards to your personal career?

[TwixVoy]

How do you feel about unions in regards to your personal career?

[madmom]

1. Other...I've been in two different unions...one fantastic, the other sucked.

[stray cat]

4. An honest response! Unions are a good thing that can go horribly wrong and totalitarian

[orpupilofnature57]

5. Positively!

[orpupilofnature57]

2. If it were not for Unions , The New World Order would of had Chains on..

All of us ,now they are an instrument to them.

[stray cat]

3. Unions can be good or bad - currently the union is preventing members from getting health insurance

I wanted to pay for health care during the probationary period (4 months) for a new union employee but I couldn't because she was union and it wasn't a union policy to have their members get health care insurance from the employer during probation. She gets to go with out health care for four months - thats not the way its suppose to work.

[nosmokes]

8. That's the way it is with any employer. Don't blame the union.

If your union is ineffective you have a very simple solution available to you and that is to gather the other unhappy members and demand change in the leadership. How many meetings do you attend? how many executive board meetings do you attend? Do you serve on any committees? It's YOUR union, but if you simply sit on your ass and let others do the hard work of running it, all the glamorous stuff like filing and cleaning the bathrooms and such then keep your mouth shut when things don't go your way.

[county worker]

10. That seems to me to be a part of a negotiated contract.

I doubt the union would put something like that in a contract. It was most likely a demand by the employer that became part of the contract.

[laughingliberal]

13. My guess is the employer negotiated to keep their health care costs down

just a guess, though

[msongs]

6. without a union we would be totally and completely screwed over by our employer

in every way u could possibly imagine and then more.

Msongs

[Statistical]

7. I wish there was another choice.

Something between #1 and #2. I would like a good paying job I would go union or non union to get that.

In my field (software development) unions are essentially non-existent. However I wouldn't avoid a job just because it was Union on the other hand I wouldn't turn down better jobs just to stick with a theoretical union job.

[county worker]

9. I'm a happy SEIU member

The union is negotiating on our behalf with the county board of supervisors so that no one gets laid off this year. We hope to be taking unpaid furloughs in exchange for the promise of no layoffs of union members. The money lost because of the furloughs will be taken out of our checks over a 16 month period so we don't get hit with weeks of no paychecks.

We get to ratify any agreement. We did this last year also.

Without the union the layoffs would just come with no input from the employees. We have great medical and vacation programs plus other benefits.

[X_Digger]

11. Other..

I'm management in the regulated telecom industry, and can't join a union.

My grandfather and great-grandfather were umwa organizers at War Eagle & Maetwan, WVA though, so I would if I could.

[Greyhound]

12. #2. A few of us tried like hell to get other IT workers to unionize in the 90s.

We failed.

Then we were ruined.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. I couldn't imagine not being a member of the CPSU....

http://www.cpsu.org.au/

Mind you, I get the impression that while union membership is the norm over here, it's not the same in the US...

[OffWithTheirHeads]

15. If it wasn't for the Sheet Metal Workers Intl. Assc. I'd be

working for peanuts with no health care, no benefits, no pension and all of the fruits of my labor would be going into the pockets of the boss. How do I know? My fundy brother owns a non union shop in Visalia and he treats his people like shit. He thinks minimum wage is more than the people who work for him deserve. They don't deserve health care or retirement because if God loved them they would be rich.

I'm not sure where that passage is in the new testament but it seems to be very prominent in the King Limbaugh version.