----- Original Message ----- From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2004 8:43 AM Subject: Open-Shop, Closed-ShopRe: What are the real rules? and a bit on unions
> At 11:29 PM 9/17/2004 -0500 Dan Minette wrote: > >If you were to argue that open shop laws hurts workers, then I'd agree with > >you. > > I woudl also argue that closed-shop rules hurt workers, by making them > bound to a Union which may or may not represent their interests and > violates their freedom of association. They can always work elsewhere, that's what people who oppose their work contributing to campaign contributions of the owners are told. > I work in an open shop, and under a legal prohibition against striking, and > our union has managed to negotiate some of the most favorable benefits in > the federal government. Federal employees are in a very unique situation. They can influence the people in charge of the entity they work for in a way that no other employees can. This has a lot to do with Federal employees being the only area for union growth now..., bucking the trend of unions dropping from about a third to about an eight of the workforce. If you look at the history of the labor unions, you will see that nothing was gained in private industry just by an open shop union asking pretty please. Rather, unions were able to negotiate good wages when they had the ability to adversely affect the profitability of their employers if they refused. Strikes have long been the tool used to do this. Lets look at an open shop with a strike. A union, which represents 60% of the employees goes on strike. The other 40%, who are not in the union, aren't part of the strike...pretty well by definition. If the strike is successful, they are in a win-win situation...they get the wages and benefits won by the strike and they kept on working. If the strike fails, they are no worse off than before, and are considered more reliable workers by the management than the troublesome union workers. Thus, the union workers will be the first to be laid off...in an open shop/right to work state, if the management understands enlightened self interest....and most do. In an open shop, there is nothing but social pressure on the union members to stay in the union. The best action for each individual union member is to quit the union and let the others "bell the cat." This is an extremely good example of the tragedy of the commons. Further, there are extensive data to support it. I've read for decades that businesses are attracted to the lower cost of labor in the South. Southern states are mostly "right to work/open shop" states. The labor unions, with some exceptions in skilled trade, are mostly toothless. I talked to a union grocery worker and she mentioned that Wal-Mart pays more than her union job. She had health insurance provided, but so did Wal-Mart employees. I didn't get in to comparison of co-pays and deductibles...but she definitely thought of Wal-Mart as providing above average wages...She wasn't a teenager, but a middle age, full time worker. That's just from personal experience. Looking at the Web, we can see multiple studies that support this: the first hit in the search was: http://web.missouri.edu/~labored/CBHistorical1.html where the following statement concerning the lower wages in right to work Southern states is made: "The same trend has occurred in industrial unions. Major corporations first began to move work out of the high wage, heavily unionized northeastern and Midwestern states and into the low wage southern regions of the country." If need be, I can give you an number of sites that support this. I've read this in multiple places over the years, and I haven't seen arguments that give data that counter this contention. Working for the Federal government is very different from working for private industry. I'll agree that you did find the exception to the weakness of open shops, but that doesn't help most workers. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
