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How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union? Is there a limit to that, or can companies just say, "Anyone who joins a union will be paid minimum wage." Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it's pretty fucked up right?
I wouldn't be surprised if the union has other benefits that more then make up for the 50 cents, e.g. better medical, vacation, or whatever.
I get that, I'm just highlighting the potential for abuse. Or rather, that it's fucked up in the first place.
Oh of course. But this is America, the land of the exploited.
We still have 7.25 minimum wage.
I mean of course it's fucked up of course there's room for abuse. That's capitalism. The point of capitalism is abuse. The point of capitalism is the exploitation of the worker. In essence that's the problem here. You keep asking why are things aren't Fair, the answer is capitalism it's inherently unfair. There are no rules in a capitalist Society to keep things Fair. The point of capitalism is to make things unfair.
I'm well aware of that. As I said, "Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?"
There are so many replies that don't get it. 1 2 3. You're explaining to me how it's "obviously" fucked up (which I already acknowledged), but most of the replies are telling me that it isn't fucked up at all - maybe you should try responding to those people instead of to me.
They're not trying to tell you it's not fucked up. They're just surprised you're stuck on the most Elemental aspect and are moving on to the next aspects. Everyone knows it's fucked up and has moved on to the next topic. Fundamental truth to the world aren't something we spend a lot of time talking about.
Are reading the same replies?
sure, but whether or not they know it they have caved to the union’s demands by doing that
You think this demonstrates that "everyone knows it's fucked up?" Because it sounds a lot to me like they're saying it isn't fucked up at all, and is in fact, "caving to the union's demands."
I wish that when my critics attacked me from completely opposite angles, they spent half as much time criticizing each other for having 100% opposite positions on why I'm supposedly wrong.
No, like I just said in the comment you apparently didn't read, they've moved past the fact that it's fucked up onto the next topic. I don't get what you're not getting here. I'll say it one more time. We all know it's fucked up. That's what capitalism means. That's not a unique thing to say. It's not a new thing to say. You're not breaking ground here. Next topic.
sounds like their pay is based on union rates. that's probably just a company policy for everyone.
What I'm saying is that if they can set "$0.50 above union rates" as the company policy for everyone, they can also set "$5 above union rates" as the company policy for everyone and then cut union rates by $5. It's essentially just bribing people to not join a union or penalizing them if they do. It being company policy for everyone is irrelevant.
They can't cut union rates since they have a contract. So they can, within reason, pay non union workers more but not lower the pay of union workers. One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can't just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
There's a limit to how much they can pay the ununionized workers before it becomes clear they're trying to interfere with the workers rights to free organization. In the image, it's quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues, or could be explained as related to costs.
One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can’t just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
Not until everyone leaves the union to get extra pay and the union loses all its bargaining power.
In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues,
That doesn't make any sense. If it's about union dues, the union pay is what should be higher.
I love how people downvote my comments with absolutely zero explanation of why I'm wrong.
Replace leaving the union with going to college instead and you get why we have a 3 generation straight loss in union membership.
People told their kids to chase more money and then spent that money on cheaper foreign products and the whole house fell down within 20 years.
This was the plan by the way for capitalists.
Aren't people with college educations more likely to end up in a union? One of the reasons some places don't want to hire "overqualified" people is because they're afraid of unionization.
There's a variety of reasons for the decline of unions in the US, the main ones being:
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Anti-union laws and propaganda (Mike Rowe being a big one)
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Offshoring of manufacturing jobs
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Major unions defanging themselves by purging radicals/communists to prove they're "one of the good ones"
No most higher education jobs aren't union. Do you bother to lookup anything by yourself before you speak about things?
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Well, also, a lot of the union jobs simply don't exist anymore. Not very many boilermakers, steamfitters, carmens, or glazers around anymore. So obviously union membership is going to be down.
There are. They just don’t work in the western hemisphere. That was the idea. Let us starve and fight for the scraps as the most educated generation in human history.
The workplace is deducting the union dues from union workers checks automatically.
Unions loosing membership causing them to be weaker in negotiations is entirely irrelevant to why companies don't just lower union pay outside of negotiations.
There's no faster way to get downvoted than to complain about being downvoted, particularly if you're weirdly smug about it.
Unions loosing membership causing them to be weaker in negotiations is entirely irrelevant to why companies don’t just lower union pay outside of negotiations.
OK, here's the source of the confusion.
What the fuck did I say that made anyone think I was talking about cutting union pay outside of negotiations? Literally where is anyone getting this from??
There’s no faster way to get downvoted than to complain about being downvoted, particularly if you’re weirdly smug about it.
Most of the downvotes I got (so far) came before I added that part.
Because referring to changing pay rates for union workers as a policy change pretty heavily implies it's not a negotiation, and "why wouldn't the company just get the union to agree to a significant pay cut" is an even more asinine point. They obviously would have if the could have. The assumption that you didn't know unions negotiated contracts seemed more charitable than thinking you didn't know how bargaining worked.
Most of the downvotes I got (so far) came before I added that part.
Okay.
Because referring to changing pay rates for union workers as a policy change pretty heavily implies it’s not a negotiation, and “why wouldn’t the company just get the union to agree to a significant pay cut” is an even more asinine point. They obviously would have if the could have. The assumption that you didn’t know unions negotiated contracts seemed more charitable than thinking you didn’t know how bargaining worked.
But that's not how bargaining works. What unions are able to negotiate is a function of how large, powerful, and organized they are. Rejecting what the company offers can mean going on strike, and if they aren't powerful enough for that to be a credible threat (because people left the union for higher pay rates), then that means they have very little power to negotiate or say no to what's offered.
So it's more like, you don't understand how bargaining works, so you jumped to the completely absurd conclusion that I didn't know unions negotiated contracts? What?
They can't cut union rates.
That's just union contract negotiations.
Not providing cost of living increase is effectively a pay cut FYI, and we're speaking colloquially here.
Not until everyone leaves the union to get extra pay and the union loses all its bargaining power.
sure, but whether or not they know it they have caved to the union's demands by doing that
What kind of 5th dimensional chess are you trying to play where penalizing someone for joining a union is "caving to the union's demands?"
if salaries depend on union decisions then surely they are following the union's demands.
i think the thing that makes it confusing is the missing context of whether unionised workers at that site are being paid less than non-union workers. i assumed the answer was no because it sounded like they had a CBA that the person was not aware of, since the alternative would have been immediately struck down by any union worth its salt.
My guess would be that this person is part of the collective bargaining block, but does not pay dues (possibly public sector). So the contract she describes was negotiated by the Union, and is the same contract that everyone in her position gets, union or otherwise. She probably just doesn't realize it.
Could be wrong, but the above situation is unfortunately pretty common.
One of the main goals of unions is to increase worker pay. Mission accomplished.
The issue here is that if more people choose not to join a union for the pay raise in the short term, unions become weaker in the longer term. The capitalist in this case is paying a premium now to divide up labor for the chance down the line to save more money on labor overall in the long term.
Thank you, this is exactly what I said, but since you don't have a .ml next to your name people might not just randomly attack you over it.
Great, they increased pay for non-union workers, the workers leave the union for increased pay, now the company cuts union pay, and now there's no organization for the workers to do anything about it. "Mission accomplished" indeed.
Yes that's capitalism, how exactly you're baffled by that this late in life is in itself quite the quandary.
Literally what have I said anywhere that suggests I'm in any way, "baffled?" I'm just pointing out how fucked up it is to others who don't understand, such as the person I replied to.
You keep asking basic civics questions as one would of they are baffled.
extremely confused or puzzled
What's fucked up is you're appearantly just learning about it but are old enough to use the Internet unsupervised.
I don't think it's preferential pay. It's just that they pay more, somebody in the union also can get more money than the union minimum. Somebody not part of the union can get less or more than somebody in the union, just not below the union minimum.
It's not that if they join the union that they get less money. The union + 0.5 just means that they earn better than the minimum and the employer gives them more than the minimum, because people like that.
At least that's how it works where I live and union contracts are common.
Not everyone part of the union has to get exactly the union minimum, it's just that you cannot legally get less. People might not be part of the union but they still fall under the union contract negotiated by the union, because it applies to the entire company.
So even then, the union people might be making more than the union minimum, so the non union person might still be making less than an average union person while not getting any union benefits.
That's just personal negotiation then. And nothing that this top level comment was talking about.
My contract states that we make $0.50/hr above union wages
You may be right, but it certainly sounds like she's claiming it's contractual, explicit, and general policy.
I don't read it like that. The sentence just says that their pay rate has that amount, not that it is connected to them not being a union member.
Who's "we" then, if not non-union members?
The people the contract is with, maybe all employees of the company have the agreement.
You are thinking way too much into that statement, the way I described is the way it works here, and that seems much more likely tbh.
The people the contract is with, maybe all employees of the company have the agreement.
That's literally what I'm saying.
You are saying it's union members vs non union members being separated.
And it's not.
The union members are included in the "we" that contractually makes $0.50/hr more than... union members?
How do they even know you're in a union? I that they just knew whether there was anyone in the union.
How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union?
Other than the minimum wage and protected classes, there's not really any laws around how much employers must pay. They can have two employees, Bob and Tina, and pay Bob half of Tina's salary because they just hate the name "Bob". If Bob doesn't like it he can quit.