My Dad’s Union IBEW is the reason we went from lower middle class to solid middle class in 10 years. Unions are one of the most important checks for capitalism.
Yep, unions are essentially freedom of speech. If investors have the freedom to pool their capital to extract profit, , workers also have right to pool their labor to increase their price to investors.
I think, in and around the 80-90s there was a smear campaign against unions. Management would create stories about union workers being lazy, not willing to go “the extra mile” (I.e. work unpaid overtime), low quality, inflexible. I have to admit as a freshly minted college grad at the time I got sucked into the mindset.
I’m pretty sure people used edge cases or straight up made up stories about people in government jobs or unions doing absolutely nothing and getting paid handsomely (think of that episode of Seinfeld where Newman who’s a postal worker gets told to go on his 3 hour long break), or mentally ill people who cause a scene yet are “unable to be fired because they’re in a union” It’s anti union fear ongoing but luckily most millennials have realized the lies they were told about unions from their boomer parents were all a crock of shit
@@26SundropsRonald Reagan broke the unions when the air traffic controllers went on strike. He fired over 11,000 that didn’t return to work and banned them from working in any government jobs in the future (which he later rescinded). It’s really sad when a president deals such a blow to the labor movement. He had no empathy for the poor (reference his comment about welfare queens), the mentally I’ll (took funding away from mental health programs), and the middle class (put a penalty tax on early retirement withdrawals no matter what the reason was for the withdrawal). The erosion of the middle class and those less fortunate started before him, but thrives under him.
I’m a liberal leftie, but I was brought up a Reagan kid, and I absolutely bought into that smear campaign. I remember siding with him when he broke the air traffic controllers union. Now I see it as another abhorrent policy, the damage of which can still be felt decades later.
I'm in Canada but as a millennial, I'd like to add that the gig economy makes unionizing really difficult. If you work uncertain part time hours, have high job turnover rates, and barely know your coworkers because the scheduling is so erratic, or you are only able to get short term contracts, then forming a union is almost impossible. Given that every entry level job I've ever had has these conditions, it's not just lack of knowledge that's preventing us from joining unions.
Yes and I think that the gig economy is in part because of the decline of unionization. I think that fewer quality union jobs means that people need more “gigs”, part time jobs, etc. Basically this seems to be a bit of a vicious cycle.
@@bibliophilecbI wonder if more gig workers started talking to each other on online groups like discord or telegram groups, based on the regions they serve (such as ride share) if they would be able to bargain for better rates.
Gig workers are considered contract employees, which means they are not entitled to the health insurance, sick days, overtime pay or other benefits full-time workers are entitled to. They have far fewer labor protections overall, including being unable to collectively bargain. The NLRB is trying to make it more difficult for employers to classify workers as contract employees, which would give more workers the right to unionize.
@@crystallewis5902wrong country. Canada doesn’t have “contract employees” and “full time employees.” You have part time and full time, which is entirely determined by the number of hours you work. The only way to get out of paying an employee their legally entitled rights is to hire a contractor or freelancer (they’re technically employed by another company or self employed, so someone else is taking care of those requirements). Most companies have a probation period, usually around 2 weeks to a month, during which the employee can walk or company can fire you without any obligations or repercussions, but after that you’re entitled to everything everyone else gets. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a one month contract or whatever. Granted, stuff like free healthcare and employment insurance mean there’s less need for things like medical insurance or company provided mat leave (not none, but much less). It doesn’t matter if you worked for one company or 20, if you worked x-hours in the last year, you get ei and mat leave. You qualify for stuff like overtime, stat holidays, vacation time as soon as you start. The thing with some seasonal or temp type jobs is that they often pay out your stat and vacation pay on each cheque. You still get the pay, it just doesn’t “feel” like it. This is actually for the employees benefit. If you bank your stat and vacation pay, Service Canada won’t start your ei payments for an extra week or two. The idea is that you get fired, live off your vacation pay, then do the EI two week wait, then collect EI cheques. But that can mean you don’t get a cheque for a month or more. If they pay out vacation pay on each cheque, you don’t have any banked and you get your first ei cheque a week or two earlier. It’s assumed that employees will put their vacation pay into a savings account and bank it on their own
As a PhD student, I'm not allowed to unionize because even though it's a full-time job for 4-6 years we're classified as students not workers. That also means we don't have any worker rights whatsoever like minimum wage, anti-discrimination laws, compensation for injury on the job... As a result we have very little bargaining power, so most of us at my university make less than minimum wage. The level of exploitation in academia is stunning
Hi! PhD student here who's part of a labour union - the way my institution did it (in Canada) was that we focused on teaching assistant, teaching fellow, and research assistant labor. It absolutely sucks that we're not classified as workers for our larger research work, but that's a way that labour unions have been founded in academia in the past. It's still imperfect, but we now get paid around $40/hour to do teaching assistant labour.
That's great to hear. I'm in the U.S. and I think overall PhD students can be treated really poorly. They are at the mercy of their advisor and faculty.@@ninamicanovic86
@@ninamicanovic86 yeah it's similar here at McGill: TAs make $34/hour which is much better than the $8/hour or so we make for doing research. At first I did TAships, but I stopped when I realized that it could cost me more in the long term. My scholarship lasts 4 years, but almost nobody graduates within that time, so any time I spend working as a TA means more time at the end of my program when I need to work for free
In 2010, I worked for a nursing home as a CNA, making $10hr. We had a large meeting with the owner talked about how unions destroyed our country, and anyone heard saying the word union was automatically terminated. Needless to say, I spoke the forbidden word at lunch and was immediately fired for insubordination. No joke. The most expensive nursing home in Franklin TN folks!
Not a nursing home but a warehouse, same thing happened to our manager, he was trying to push the idea to unionize to the staff, but someone snitched on him and he got fired couple days after, this happened in Atlanta Ga, looks like the south hates unions lol
Ah, TN. I hate that this happened to you. I lived in the middle TN area for 27 years & one time I was told I had to fast and pray for 3 days straight using a cassette tape my employer provided or be fired. I resigned. This was at a private electricians' company no longer there. Tennessee is a serious trip. I finally left. Best wishes to you for a much better situation!
My husband is a union pipefitter. Were both young and thankful for being a union house hold. Without his stability we wouldn't afford our home. It's amazing how little people know about workers rights and unions. All they know is negative politics against unions. Unions built America and ensured workers rights. They're not perfect but they gave us standard 40 hr weeks, maternity leave, health care rights and removed child labor in the US. They secured pay and ensured there was a process for firing and they also lobbied for unemployment benefits. Currently they're struggling to ensure that the fee unions left can keep their membership employed and they'll train people for skilled labor jobs. In some places it's one of the few ways young men or women find work and gain skills. Good unions can also provide a unique community that stands together when something happens to one of their members. I've seen that this last year as we lost a friend. His daughter has college and expenses paid for by the brotherhood of my husband's union. Definitely something Americans are missing today.
@@CurvyGirls very true! They also put funds in so many charities and medical centers. In my part of the US, they built several women's breast health centers. It's amazing how much they try to help their communities.
After socialists got stomped out in the Red Scare, there weren't too many people left to energize the unions. They started drifting rightward until they voted in their own demise by endorsing Reagan. We certainly need strong unions again but we can't be afraid to acknowledge who led the charge back when all those gains were made.
@@lynpotter6471 Socialism kills. Those Socialists only saw unions as a political tool to advance their agenda. Unions are good, unions that associate with socialism are universally bad.
Undoubtedly the decline of unions has played a huge role, but it's noteworthy that even jobs that were never unionized have gotten worse. I was shocked hearing a news story recently about working conditions for fast food workers--I worked at Hardee's in HS in the 80s, and while it wasn't my dream job, it was a safe & stress-free work environment for a teenager (and even fun at times!). I think corporate greed has gotten totally out of control.
This is an example of the rising tides lifting all ships. Unions and their benefits are normally set the standard that non-union employers follow. If the gap gets too big it becomes more and more difficult to attract workers so they need to follow the trends in the area.
@@SGastunions got their workers jobs shipped to China by being a pain in the ass. Now we have no unions (good) but shittier worker conditions because of globalization (bad). Americans now have to outwork every Bangladeshi child in a factory or every Indian doing engineering for 13 hours a day. This is why blue to white collar jobs all feel like garbage. And we can thank the unions and the Nixon-Carter-Regan-Clinton-Bush-Obama admins for promoting globalization 🙄. Trump thankfully started to reign it in which is why average wages under trump increased 8k in four years. (The fastest in 50 years) even as we had 1% inflation. Companies had to hire American since the U.S. didn’t give favorable deals to third and fourth world countries anymore. We need more American made and less union. More jobs here mean Americans can job hop and leave shitty jobs at the drop of a hat. Employers will have to adjust but once they realize their staff of 84 people can quit in one day and get better jobs in 2 weeks they’re going to have to stop being assholes
I remember during peak pandemic when everyone was literally panicking & dying, my manager at Trader Joe's got us all together and told us how unioners would reach out to us..... and we should let them know that Trader Joe's is taking care of us well.... wtf everytime I think about it I get pissed
My whole foods slashed our hours and let us go hungry during the pandemic. They gathered us up in groups of 5 at a time and told us that that giving us spoilage and extra food in the break room would encourage stealing. My store did NOT take care of me.
@@TrippyKitty08 Yeah - corporate would rather throw away food approaching its sell-by date than let you have it: it’s all about control at any cost (to the working classes) - the employees need to know who controls the means of production.
We used to have stable manufacturing jobs, but now instead of making cars/furniture/clothes, we manufacture content, but this time it's a gig. You work 3 months, you're out. Even in Canada, I have rarely touched insurance because it's only afforded to permanent staff (so just the management) I worked in animation for 7 years and there are no unions, very few raises, and the thought of residuals is non existent. Nobody wants to work anymore? Of course not, I loved my job and they used that against me to grind my soul into profit 😒
@@hummiebubs6967Most of Europe have more vacation days, more maternity leave, more sick pay and more employment rights in general because they have strong unions. Join a union!
@Draggonny But here's the question. What good are 21 days of vacation when you don't even have any money left to use it? I grew up and lived in Germany until I was 30, I worked as a graphic- designer and later even became a police officer. My graphic design salary was the average worker's salary in Germany, and because of the high taxes and high costs of living I couldn't take any vacation or afford anything big for 7 years! And I tried to save money as much as possible but when there's only 300 Euro left after taxes and rent have been taken out, you haven't eaten yet. I live in the US today with my American husband and there are a lot of problems here but in general we have way more money left to save than I had in Germany. Plus, Germany isn't actually supporting small business owners, self employment or jobs on the side.
Hell yeah, unions are great! My company has one and you're automatically enrolled when you join, just $30 a month in dues. We start out with 20 days of PTO and also have 10 days of sick leave, bereavement leave, wedding celebratory leave, parental leave, etc. Plus pays more than other similar companies in this industry.
Yes! But many companies will tell you they offer similar benefits. The difference is a union worker can actually use their benefits. A non union worker can use some of those benefits, but if someone is regularly taking parental leave, sick leave, and wedding celebratory leave then they will eventually be let go through a company reorg which is a legal way to fire employees. Companies create reorganizations all of the time for the purpose of laying off. In the past, workers were offered on the job training to learn new skills when their job was eliminated. Today, they just eliminate the employee and bring in someone younger for half the pay.
@@Chris-tg3qyYup. I worked for a company that had unlimited PTO but no one took it after someone got fired for not answering email over Christmas break. Not "committed enough" was the excuse.
@@yuppers1 I believe it. The latest benefit I see is paternity leave. Trust me, these for profit non-union companies will frown on a guy taking 12 weeks to bond with their baby. My former company was advertising all over LinkedIn a year ago that they now offer this benefit. They laid off 2400 people last week in a re- org. I doubt very many dads at that company will take 12 weeks to bond with their baby after an announcement like that.
What you are describing is a closed shop where new employees must join, or at least pay a union fee, whether they want to or not. This became controversial when union politics and political contributions differed from the political views of the workers. I think closed shops have weakened unions to some extent because I don’t think they fared well in court challenges.
@yuppers1 American unions are weak. UK workers would have to have it in their contract that they can be contacted outside of work for non emergencies and get on call pay for that. When we're off work, we're off work. Whether it's a rota day off, a weekend or a holiday. Sure, they can call and beg you to come in on your day off but you don't have to answer and you can just say no. They can't sack you so long as you're meeting the basic terms of your employment contract.
I remember when I worked at Lowe's one of the training videos was about unions and I have not been unable to hear the phrase, "We're not anti union, we're pro people." I was rolling my eyes the entire time.
Honestly I’m 50/50 on joining my old Lowe’s just to unionize it. They treated workers like shit and paid us absolutely fuck all, and I don’t think that’s changed at all.
If you dig into why unions were created it gets really fascinating. We had to study the history of AEA in a Business of Theater class at the U of MN and oh man, it's crazy. When a show takes actors on tour around the country, they are required to provide general return train (now plane) tickets and give them to the actors before leaving New York City because in the past, tours would run out of money in some random small town in Iowa and just leave everyone there with no way to get home, no money and no job. They used to only heat the house, not the stage or backstage areas. They used to only have fire suppression in the house, again, not on the stage itself (behind the fire curtain) or in the backstage areas. Actors used to not get paid for rehearsals even though they were required and unlimited. I could go on and on.
So true. Many years ago, I was an Equity stage manager for a short time, and I think that actors can be among the easiest to take advantage of - many of them love acting so much, they’re willing to “sacrifice” or “pay their dues” when they deserve to be compensated for their work. Having said that, small theatres have such little money. I don’t know how they get off the ground and grow without cheap (or free) labor in all departments.
@@fenwicus part of the answer is foundations and getting rich people to donate. But it's such a vicious cycle, cuz the people who get rich enough to donate get the money by taking advantage.
I didn’t know any of that! Really cool of you to share. I remember reading about the Triangle Waist Coat fire but never got into Unions. Thanks! You’ve inspired me to read more
This is why although I’m not a fan of woke Hollywood I am supporting them during the writers strike. Replacing actors with AI could cause a trickle down effect to other industries!
The weird thing is; unions can increase profit. I live in Europe with at least OK unions (wish they were even stronger) and the plant I work at often outperform the filials in countries with less worker protection. It is almost as if you care for your workers more they care about the job... 🤔
It's so weird, isn't it? Who would have thought that being loyal to people inspires loyalty in return? Personally, I think the highest levels of sociopathy in upper management means some of them genuinely do not understand this.
Do you remeber a few years aog, when a big German car manufacturer wantet to unionize their workers in one of their plants in the south and the goverment made it impossible to do so for them. They prefer having their workers unionized as unions are great for attracting talent and keepign it. They are also hubs of knowledge and worker cooperation. It also saves a lot in HR cost as you don't hav to negotiate with every individual employee and instead have one set package that applies to everyone.
I know unions in Germany and Sweden. They see their job also as improving the company's work and revenue - while they want a larger share of that revenue, of course.
It's mainly because in europe the union typically has a board seat, so they have a stake in the company doing well, also. In the US it's almost a purely adversarial relationship.
It's not just that unions are not as strong as they used to be. Corporate greed has gone into an unprecedented new stratosphere and age discrimination is blatant. Companies don't want to hire people. My husband, an IT security manager, has been unemployed since April. He has applied for about 1,100 jobs (we keep track on a spreadsheet). They figure out his age by seeing what year he graduated from college. To make things worse, whatever safety net there is in the U.S. is hanging by a threat. I hate living here. I came here when I was four and I want to go back. My husband is all-American.
My dad is in his 60s and was just told by a headhunter to take his college graduation year off of his résumé. Might be something for your husband to consider. Edit: he’s also in IT.
I worked for a software company at the time that they decided to end their sick leave program. They said that people weren't taking sick leave, and just coming into work anyway forcing them to pay out unused sick leave benefits. "Well that's the key word there isn't it? Benefit. Part of my compensation plan is a certain amount of paid sick leave. Sooo...what am I getting in return for this?" -My response, just before I suddenly didn't work there anymore
@@csensale Two weeks of leave seems to be considered a benefit that workers "deserve" only after a year in the workplace. Miserly leave benefits are one of the more barbaric features of the US economy -- one of many!
Yesterday I was in a meeting with my bosses and I made my 5th year in august. I was told I make too much for my role (now $37/hour after a $1 increase) though my workload increased because the company has been growing without hiring more employees. I can’t find a comprable job and feel very stuck. I’m only 25 but it sucks I can’t move jobs without taking a serious pay cut. I hate it here.
I’m the optical manager/optician at a eye doctors office. I am paid more than the average optician but my workload has also increased every year so I would think I deserve a adequate raise
My dad is a union man of 30+ years, and his union took care of him throughout a long and arduous battle with leukemia. The aggressively comprehensive medical coverage they got him covered his entire medical expenses and even took care of me until I turned 25. He works a hard job but he's paid fairly for his labor and experience. So when I got a chance to unionize my work place I took it. I organized and led a successful union drive at a small Starbucks in a conservative town and three days after our public filing with the NLRB I was fired for a minor dress code infraction despite my spotless record. Within the week every member of my organizing committee was fired or forced out. We're fighting it but even if we win the protracted battle the short term message was sent and every one of my coworkers I've been in contact with since is terrified to support the upcoming union vote for fear of retribution. And I don't blame them. Union labor gets results, it's why corporations are so fucking scared of us
I was working at a nonprofit a few years ago. 3 years into the job my team and I tried to unionize. We were already overworked and exhausted from our normal jobs and trying to unionize became another job on top of it. I ended up leaving and pretty sure the unionization didn't work. The board just replaced the executive director and everyone that was there when I worked there ended up leaving during or after the ED transition. It's sad because NPO workers are all about social justice work but I don't know of any that actually have unions except for probably the ones that advocate for union rights lol
this! when I started at a NP I thought they would be in favor of unions, workers rights, etc because they are in favor of social justice. apparently that disappears when it impacts their bottom line…
What worries me is the trend of Unions founded by a company. Example, Safeway. The Safeway brand of stores and their sister stores have a union that in many states you have to join. When I was being asked to work off the clock the union stepped in to help. However, that help was them cutting me to zero hours during investigating without pay, to which I had to get another job. After 4 months of not working they said I owed dues so they wouldn't be helping. I had to work with a lawyer at L&I against both them and Safeway. The union was founded by the company for people in the company, it was founded to give faux security. So always look into how a union is founded. Edit: Unions founded by the people or for specific groups are okay and usually safe.
Ummmm..... The UFCW (that's the union representing Safeway workers in my area) is a "company union"? I'd really love to see at least one link to substantiate that.
We need to help small business more, the US isn’t a capitalist country but a corporatist country. The fact that congress views Corporations as having more rights that citizens is the major reason we have a huge wealth inequality gap and way too many monopolies. Small businesses allow for diverse offerings and help individual towns thrive.
Corporatist country? What?! Ask yourself, why do corporations have so much power, and money to influence politicians to do their bidding? That's all a by product of Capitalism; the extraction of our surplus labor value being concentrated at the top. That same money is used to buy politicians to change laws, so these corporation can make even more profits. The U.S. is 100% a Capitalist country and it does Capitalism well enough. In fact, the more it does Capitalism well the more regular people and small businesses suffer.
@@stephs8665that person didn't totally deny capitalism, they just said there are stages, and the US is way forward in support of big corporations and even monopolies that are e.x. not opposed with good functioning union power. We have obviously capitalsm in Germany and Europe too, yet we are not quite at the stage of the US as described by the poster, in part when it comes to workers rights, we have big unions here that support workers power more. Corporations, funds etc. still lobby to remove laws that contradict their exploitation tactics, they never sleep on that, so the average guy shouldn't sleep on their power grabs either. Unfortunately it's happening a lot behind closed doors and many people individually don't get it. That's why being organized is so important, you can never be as informed individually as a union is, as they have ressources and access you'd otherwise won't have.
My first job was in retail. When I was hired I had to watch a video about how unions were bad. I was 19 and didn’t know any different so I just shrugs and went along with it. Ended up working in retail all through my 20s and every place I worked did the same thing. There were also posters in the break room denouncing unions and at one place we were required to sign a paper agreeing that we wouldn’t join a union. This was all in the 2000s. Eventually it made me wonder what these retailers were so afraid of.
My husband has worked for FedEx express for 30 years. Their philosophy used to be “happy cows give good milk,” basically give the employees good benefits and decent pay and they will not need to unionize. Of course they always discouraged any movement toward unionization and they were successful. Fast forward to today, they are now moving toward a model of independent contractors. They recently merged the Express and Ground operations and many express employees were laid off. The Ground people are are not generally paid an hourly wage but a daily wage. They make much less than the Express couriers and they may or may not have benefits depending on the contractor they work for. The contractor owns the routes and employs the Ground couriers, they do not work for FedEx. This cuts their labor costs hugely and screws a lot of people out of middle class jobs. NOT happening at UPS, notice that?
Alot of jobs I have worked for have threatened to fire employees if they attempted to unionize. Meeting with a union rep and being found out would result in termination.
@@GirtonOramsay something being illegal doesn't matter much if enforcing it is nearly impossible. Employers are not writing down their threats. Without some form of evidence, or other coworkers willing to put their necks on the line and come forward fighting back is extremely difficult. Making matters worse is that employers have mastered the art of making up convenient reasons to fire people on a whim.
As a teacher, I see people bashing the teachers’ unions all the time as “the problem with education.” But, being someone actually in that union, I can tell you education would be SO MUCH SCARIER WITHOUT IT. Our union got our district to FINALLY remove a principal who rewarded kids (with iPads, candy, toys, coloring, etc.) for assaulting staff and other students. Our school was so UNSAFE (staff and kids hurt daily, kids running OUT OF THE BUILDING and down the streets into traffic, kids dangling off the balcony unattended, etc.) Our district refuses to remove bad principals and address inappropriate student behaviors. Takes time, but our union forces them to do so. Our union forced our district to make sure it was complying with LEGAL SpEd caseloads for teachers and that students were getting their LEGALLY required minutes (which means actually appropriately paying for staff). And on and on and on… People have no idea the things that school districts try to pull and that the unions actually are doing the jobs the districts should be doing.
I should add- I am 100% pro union. I currently live in Texas (from Washington State) and I find the treatment of teachers, nurses, and other workers abhorrent.
It's wild to me just how awful Reagan was to unions when he was literally the leader of the SAG union 🤦♀ But I got lucky that my father wound up in a union (IBEW) in MA because the healthcare he was able to access for us was so necessary. And even though he would never claim to be left wing, he always made it very clear how much contempt we were to have against any union-busting politician (he particularly hated Scott Walker in WI)
Him having been a union member of the SAG union means nothing. Look into the details and you'll find out when and why he turned his back to workers and unions.
He was--possibly only in his mind--socially unsuccessful in that union role. Despite his charisma from a distance, he was incompetent in close personal relationships and, to put it bluntly, an odd guy. Ronald Reagan is the original kid who becomes a conservative solely because none of the other kids, who also happen to be liberal, can stand him.
you should never be surprised if a republican only wants something to exist as long as he is benefitting from it, and when he isn't, it's a waste of money to be destroyed.
Socialism is democracy in OUR economy, we decide together ❤️. Why don't folks want this. We don't want monarchs, yet we want unelected minority elite to dictate our entire economy and workplaces
One of the BEST places I ever worked was a unionized office job in oil & gas. GREAT pay, diverse & fun co-workers, I remember getting AMAZING quarterly bonuses, Christmas parties were EXTRAVAGANT!!!! It was extremely HARD to get fired, the union always backed the person up, unless they completely violated company policy. Even then, if it wasn't criminal, the union would represent the person. I miss that job! The WORST job I've ever worked was non-proft. HORRIBLE
Shareholders are entitled predators who expect to be handsomely compensated for doing no work, usually at the expense of those who do work. This has got to stop. It harms all of society. Go, unions!
share holders are investors that give the company the capital it needs to expand. so the do deserve their money back at least if not more. as no one would ever invest if they were not making anything from it. If you have an issue with that then I guess take your beef to the stock market as they are the reason behind all of this.
@@777SilverPhoenix777 the question is how much more & for how long? If I put in some cash to help you with your lemonade stand, how long can I expect to be getting a cut from your lemonade sales? Forever? Once you have paid me back the amount that I put in (maybe with a bit extra depending on the area & lemonade), surely I can't just keep hanging around saying I put in money 20yrs ago & I deserve to get a cut of your sales for at least another 20yrs, if not more. Also, I can sell that 'part ownership' (which is a scam in itself) of your lemonade stand to anyone else for whatever price I can, regardless of how much I may have already recouped over time. It's definitely a strategy to make as much money as possible for those who generally don't actually need more.
This. Shareholders are bloated parasites that just extract value from people's labor to make their large piles of money even larger and they have no real value to society. The concept of shareholder ownership needs to go, or at least be heavily reformed so you can't own shares unless you actually do the damn work in making the products.
Union electrician here for over 20 years. I can tell you that while unions aren't perfect they are definitely better than not having one at all. When a company is forced to face the fact that if they don't negotiate that they may not have any labor at all it tends to make them stop and think. A slogan that I like to remind people is "When many move together, there is there is little that can hold them back".
Interesting thanks. Two thoughts. First, some of the decline of union participation was very likely due to mismanagement by union boards and committee members - People are people, and people in positions of power often let it go to their heads. When I was young and working as a security guard my personal experience was watching a chunk of my paycheque disappear but not getting any real representation for some very sketchy working conditions. My young friends and colleagues reported the same experience to me at the time. Second, my grandpa grew up in the great depression on a family farm, then worked as a miner after WWII. He experienced some very terrible working conditions that definitely shortened his life. He always told his grandchildren to go to school and get a union job because a private company isn't going to take care of you and your family when you're no longer productive and giving returns to shareholders. It took me a long time to accept the wisdom of my grandpa's experience, but I'm glad he gave us that message while we still had him.
Smilin' Ronnie only recited the scripts he was handed. "Tear down that wall.", was by a speechwriter. Mark Twain, "We have the best government money can buy."
Technology was the worst in white collar. As soon as the iPhone came along you were expected to work everywhere, in a taxi, on the plane, nonstop contact. Now they're watching keystrokes. They don't care about results anymore, they care about process and micromanaging which makes everyone miserable.
I often wonder where the US would be if we'd kept Carter. Positive vibes from New Hampshire, remember to be kind to each other and yourself during these trying times.
My job used to give us a paid lunch where we only worked 7 hours and 30 minutes and we had unlimited pto...my company was acquired and it's so bad now.
It’s totally mind blowing to me how many are AGAINST unions, especially those in “right to work” states, which of course is a misnomer. It’s more like right to fire (for no reason)
Your slide showing union membership rates in the US across decades? That says everything. Without collective action, workers are screwed. I don't get why ppl consistently vote against their own interests.
Because what politicians do it wave a little carrot of something else in front of them. "Oh, you're religious and think that all schools should be run by the church and that women who have abortions should be executed? Vote for me, Slick McRichman, and I will promise to do just what you want. Just ignore while I destroy your workers rights in favor of my own corporate interests."
Being an active member and representative of my states teachers union (in Australia) is honestly the best thing about working in my profession in my state, it provides me with knowledge and understanding of mine (and my colleagues) rights at work and a successful mechanism with which to achieve equitable salaries, safe and humane work conditions. Our union has around 60k members and have just secured a $10K/yr pay increase due to taking industrial action including in person protests, meetings with local parliamentary representatives and email/social media campaigns. I am so proud of our union and it’s members. We are a Public Education and social justice union who fights for our communities most vulnerable and to ensure our democracy survives the tyranny of neoliberal capitalism!! Union strong ✊🏻💪🏻
Worker mis-categorization is a huge problem that unions could help with. I’m exempt from overtime, but I don’t supervise anyone, and have minimal control over my workload and schedule.
I don't know what you do for work, but I've always been irritated that software developers and tech workers are immediately exempt. Not all of those people are raking it in somewhere in Silicon Valley, or working at some startup where they stand to benefit personally from the company's success. Most of them are just treated like they're on call. The exploitation of people on a work visa filling these roles is also atrocious.
When I was in HS in the 90's we learned about the union history of America but just a few years later in the 00's this information was being removed from HS level textbooks. They tried to erase the past so they could make us repeat it. The Gilded Age specifically.
I’m not in a labor union, but my departments collective bargaining smashed management’s return to office mandate this year. I’m considering joining a tenant’s union in my state-landlord situation is insane
My dad owned a small business hardware store from the 80s through the early 2000s. He originally worked in small business grocery himself when he was younger as well. The work culture was more layed back in the 60s, 70s & 80s. The bosses he had in the 70s were friendly or at least cordial with the employees as they were together 8 hrs 7 days a week. The way you treated employees traditionally was 1. hire for 8 hr shifts, 2. Employees got Medical AND Dental insurance as why wouldn’t you want your employees to have good teeth, 3. Employees were expected to take a certain number of sick days off per year though it wasn’t payed leave, 4. In the summer months everyone was expected to take a two week vacation and they worked out who would be gone & when while everyone else worked to cover for them. I watched my dad hand the vacationer some bonus money on the day before vacation. It was at least $100. Because why wouldn’t you give them spending money? You wouldn’t want the people you worked with & relied on every day to resent you. & This was even a small business doing this. 5. It was the same with Christmas. There was a store party 2 weeks before the 25th. Dad joined together with the boss of the small grocery store next door to share the cost of renting a hall & catering. At the store party they handed out $100 bonuses to all the full time employees & the part time box boys got $50. From 2 weeks before xmas + 1 week after, the employees had 3 day vacations in shifts. They had Easter off because that was important family time & Thanksgiving was a half day. By the 2000s they were fully competing with big box stores & had less business. The hardware store kept afloat by giving the local farmers and vineyards credit on their purchases till their crops came in. & carrying farm animal feed. The big box stores wouldn’t do that. The small grocery closed. There wasn’t a store party anymore since 2000. I was an adult off doing my own thing by then. But any job I had, they rarely gave full time, never vacation time or dental rarely medical & I never got a bonus in my life & most of the bosses were mean.
Hats off, this is an excellent video. I’m a proud Teamster and I was raised by two proud New York public school teachers. Our family’s financial security has always rested in the guarantees that NYSUT has gained and retained for its members and my own financial future has been turbocharged by my time working as a UPS driver (plus my success in using my money once I have it has so much to do with all of the content created by TFD, thank you!!!) Of course no organization is perfect, but hot labor summer is just the beginning of making these groups as powerful as they used to be and even better - a couple of missteps and a less than completely perfect history won’t stop us.
Furthermore, many thanks to all of you out there who had our backs during IBT contract negotiations with UPS - public support had a lot to do with that success and public support will make or break future negotiations, such as those happening currently between the United Auto Workers with the big three American car manufacturers.
My husband works in the glass manufacturing industry. This industry's unions are quite strong in North America, the problem is that these unions are managed by older members whose goal is to put their select favorites' interests above their work and productivity. They also abuse the mechanisms in place for personal emergencies that you have mentioned, they are late, absent and refuse to make improvements on the way they work, which impacts productivity. Nothing can be done because they are under the protective umbrella of the union, while regular staff has to work even harder to make up for what they don't do. There needs to be a proper balance so that the union works to protect the workers's rights but also commits to taking responsibility for abuse among its members and commits to helping the company make profits. Just my two cents, I think its also good to analyze what can be done, union laws should also be modified to avoid these loopholes that ultimately allow them to abuse the system.
The pharmacists in my region were looking at unionizing a few years ago. Corporate (predictably) freaked out. Then covid came along and kind of derailed the entire conversation. But hey, we did get lunch breaks out of it. (Yes, we did not have a guaranteed lunch break before, even if we were working a twelve hour shift.) We honestly probably need to revisit the idea, but so many simply quit over the last three years that there just aren't as many of us around to try to work as a collective.
While we are it, we should have rights for salaried workers as well. There should be a daily, weekly, monthly, etc cap on unpaid hours. Currently there is no set hours. Its all on the whims of the employers.
Everywhere, the employer can't fire you for not refusing to work for free, and they can't refuse to pay you for hours you worked. Doing unpaid overtime is 100% the choice of the worker. The fact that many workers feel like this choice is forced on them is a different story, but the law is on their side already.
@Puzomor you can try all you like but every case either the employer accepts you won't work more than 40h. Or they will fire you. Now yes its my choice to work more than 40h but for salaried work you won't get paid anymore.
Al I'm saying is that the employer already has no legal basis to reprimand you for not doing unpaid work - the courts WILL recognise that if you decide to sue for being wrongfully fired. Additionally, you already don't need unions to help you refuse to work without pay since it's already fully your choice to do so. There's no additional legislature needed that would assist in solving this problem. The only thing unions could help is in case the employer disregards your rights and wrongfully fires you or refuses to give you money for your overtime work, AND you decide to sue. But you have to make a decision to sue in the first place, instead of complaining how you're working for no compensation because your employer expects you to. Bottom line is there is a cap already and it's 0. Everything else is your choice entirely. Know your rights. But more importantly, knowing your rights isn't enough - you also have to fight for your rights. You yourself have to, because nobody else will do it for you.
About half of the states across the country are "right to work" states that have laws that purportedly prevent workers from being required to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment, but in reality, make it more difficult for workers to unionize. These states have labor laws that protect employers, not workers. And even when unions *do* manage to successfully form, many of the most high-profile unions that have recently formed have struggled to negotiate contracts, which is what's happening with the Starbucks and Amazon unions.
Im conservative and work for corporate at a brewery. Every time there’s rumblings from the union, I’m on their side. I’ve seen the way people at the top act and think and I want NOTHING to do with such crookery.
In the 60's working in a department store was a job that could support a family and these weren't union jobs. Having unions raised the bar across the economy.
I'm from Canada and I am so thankful for my union. I am on my union's executive council/bargaining team for our upcoming CA negotiations and while there are still some things that I find incredibly frustrating about our union, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Wonderful to see this info being shared with young people about unions on TFD.
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There doesn't seem to be much of an incentive to work with the exception being mere survival. Such a misanthropic social system. Life itself has become a burden.
I live in Iowa and stripping the rights from the Teachers Union was the first step towards privatizing education. I wonder when we will realize that as a species we are social creatures and need community to survive. If you can join a union, do it. And if you can't join a union, push for one to be created at your job. It's the only way to ensure the workers have rights.
I grew up just before Reagan, and I remember there being a lot more respect for workers. When a store went on strike, the parking lots were empty. People understood that even if they weren't union, they benefited because all employers had to compete for labor. People doing a job were respected for having one, even if it wasn't a high-paying job. When 24-hour news channels and talk radio spiked in popularity after Reagan, the anti-union attacks were vicious, followed by encouraging disdain for anyone who was working but just getting by. Worshiping wealth instead of respecting everyone who contributes to a company's success has led to abusive situations for a lot of workers, with everything from demoralizing management to wage theft.
What's really confusing as a non American is the benefits people state from being in a union there are not the things we would think (higher wages) but stuff like maternity leave, sick days, vacations....you know...the things we get by law almost everywhere else, lol. I'm Chilean and work as a freelance lawyer (no union obvs) but I still have maternity leave and sick days paid, either by the State or by my health insurance, bc it's a universal right here. When I was a public servant, the union served to help workers with raises, complaints, and with minor benefits like gym memberships and the like. But everyone gets health coverage and pensions by law. Of course I realice we have those things because of the work of big unions of both private and public sectors. If I ever work in a place with a union again, I'd join it for sure! The US is such a backwater in so many aspects
I was literally told by my bosses that because i loved my job, i should not be paid for it because doing what i love was worth more than money and i should not complain. In order to abide by labor laws, we had to stamp our cards exactly the normal working hours despite working overtime for hours before and after the normal hours and pulling all nighters several times a week and coming in on weekends without stamping our card, ie without pay. Also in order to avoid being sued for not paying me, i had to sign papers for the auditors swearing up and down that i get the minimum legally required pay, and at the same time i had to sign papers saying that i will never ever demand such sums from my employers. Actually they even forced me to return all or big chunks of my below minimum pay to them, transferring it back into my employe s account or handing it over in person. They justified this with the above mentioned reasoning that because the content of my job actually interested me, i should not be paid at all but rather should pay them for the joy of being allowed to work something interesting instead of being forced to work in a field that did not interest me in the slightest. Wtf?!
I unsubscribed from this channel years ago because you were the only person I saw actually recognizing how difficult life is for the average worker. I felt like I was being gaslit by the other members because they were constantly talking about how easy it was to cut out a small expenditure (like coffee) and buy something large (like a house), not realizing that it wasn’t that simple. It was very distressing when I was on the verge of being homeless while working several jobs and not buying anything outside of the essentials while living in the cheapest apartment in my small town city. I’m hoping TFD is more class conscious now. Thank you for all of the work you do, Chelsea, and for being a kind and understanding voice when I needed it. It was very validating and your authenticity has inspired me.
Thank you please wake up everyone, you wouldn't let your spouse treat you like that, so please let's not enable these abusers anymore in our workplace or economy. Universal Basic Income #ubi
Ubng with a net worth cap for the uber-wealthy, any corporations they run, and they only get majority shares in one company a person. Otherwise, they'll want the ubi on top of the profits they're already taking, and it won't do us any good.
My last job was a union job and when I was obtaining union benefits my then boss said they were going to hold me to a "higher standard" which I interpreted it as a way of phrasing how they're going to make my job more difficult and try to push me out as they eventually did claiming they were letting me go amid the pandemic and to "cut expenses" even though a few months later I saw my job readvertised.
The carpenter's union in Dayton Ohio had 4 million dollars disappear from their pension plan. It was never found and no one was ever held responsible. The men who trained me swore they would never work union again. Corruption is not only an ownership problem.
my husband is part of a union (hey Teamsters!) and I work in the tech industry. It is AMAZING how many benefits he has and how secure he feels in his job. Meanwhile I'm the only woman on my coding team and am constantly worried about getting fired because even in "lefty" California we are still a right to work state. Unions for everyone!
The way the government stepped in and disallowed the railroad unions from striking has only emboldened the railroad barons to continue to errod the industry in the name of profits. The fact that there are only 4 main railroads monopolizing the industry doesn't help either. These same ceos claiming to have labor shortages during congressional hearings last year are still slashing jobs today. There will be more derailments due to cutting maintenance jobs, preventing government officials from inspecting equipment, and punishing whistleblowers for reporting unsafe working conditions.
My Dad was an immigrant and a Teamster. He always had a job and has been retired many years with a good pension. I even was able to get braces as kid because of the union benefits
Honestly, me either. I live here and it just seems the harder you work, the harder actually earning a living becomes. Every time wages are increased, cost of living seemingly must be raised as well.@@kaylawaters2691
First I'd like to say that I love the new set up in this video! And secondly, thank you for all the information you guys provide. I love what you guys provide each week. It's educational and pushes those of us who watch the channel to make changes, be more informed, and improve our decision-making.
i’m a QA chemist in a lab, and the line workers who make the products we test are union and they have so many more rights than we do. unions are so important.
I now have a unionized job, and I hope to never again have to go back to non-unionized. There are so many indignities that just disappeared, things like: since I've been part of a union, not a single colleague or boss has groped me, or made nasty vulgar jokes at me, or tried to force me into accepting the bf of their choice, because they know that when you've got a union, there are going to be consequences, workers have recourses other than trying to take on a whole corporate legal department by themselves with a pro bono lawyer. On the good news side: globalization is being undone, and workers are rightfully p***ed. Let's go for a union revival
This makes me interested in the global state of unionized labor. The role of cultural collectivism vs individualism in unionization efforts would be an interesting topic!
Lets also not forget the ever increasing efficiency. Young workers nowadays are expected to do 3-5 times the work from the prior generations thanks to the increase in work efficiency, and the ever increasing workload. A cellphone literally means you are at work even while off work. A computer, efficient programs, automation, usually mean more work for the people who haven't been replaced by it yet. Literally expected to do more for less. And thanks to skyrocketing inflation compared to wage increases over the years, the work to pay ratio in many jobs has decreased. Of course, I'm not including highly specialized jobs (but even then, I do also think its increasing, as more companies push for more efficiency, less cost, and smaller workforce). There are a whole host of anti-labor factors making it worse for many people.
Hey Chelsea - This was excellent, a great tool for people to understand the history of this mess. Yes, a deep dive into Reagan (Gen-X here) whom I remember well as an A$$hole. You may want to set up that video with Carter's deregulation and the Glass Seagall Act as getting everything started.
Jobs did use to be this terrible, then a labor movement happened that improved standards for workers and consumers. Then Reagan and his awful supply side economics model destroyed those gains, recreating the problems of the past.
Before my mother graduated Highschool her school (not a good school BTW, public school in the suburbs of Detroit) placed her into a job. That job was at US Army Tank and Automotive Command. TACOM. They build the Abraham's tanks. She started at 18 with a HS diploma. Retired making over 150k. Paid college and training. This took literally 0 effort on her part. She signed a piece if paper at her school as a 17 year old and was handed a good government job with a pension! To get a job as a janitot at the same place you need a 4 year degree now. Not even a bachelors. A masters. To push a broom. Or to slop food onto trays. 4 year degree required. Just a way to keep poor people from moving classes.
I’m the proud daughter of a teachers’ Union organizer. The teachers unions were so strong in the 60’s and 70’s - all the way until Ronald Reagan showed up. I am a veteran teacher and a union member, but I was disappointed by the toothless efforts of our union. Teachers have been overworked and underpaid for years, and we’ve complained bitterly, yet so many teachers’ unions are banned from striking. And now the US media is whining that there aren’t enough teachers. This has been a process that took nearly 50 years to achieve. Why haven’t you been listening?
In Wisconsin, our teacher unions were attacked by politicians who constantly criticized the importance of unions. Teacher pay has never been high (as compared to other college degree jobs), but the benefits that we used to receive better balanced out our time commitment. The unions aren't as strong as they were before. Collective bargaining and easy access to a union representative meant that schools and principals were forced to follow the rules. I worked at a school with no union representation. At that school, teachers had to attend trainings/ meetings (unpaid) whenever we were told to. We were expected to do 50 hours of unpaid curriculum development during the 2 months we were off-contract (Summer Vacation). When I questioned this, I was told that we don't have to complete the work before our next contract start date, however those 50 hours of work are due on September 1st. Of course, nobody wanted to do 25 hours of curriculum development during a 40-45 hour work week, so there was really no other choice than to complete the work off-contract/ unpaid. People forget that unions also ensure that employees get rightfully paid for what they have earned. If there is an error on your paychecks, a union will help get it fixed right away while protecting your job. It took months for my paycheck error to get fixed, then I was strung along for several more months waiting for my backpay. I was then told that it would just be added to my salary the next year, but it wasn't. After 1.5 years of pursuing my backpay, I gave up because I didn't want to run the risk of losing my job or having the school tell a prospective future employer that I'm difficult/ uncooperative. Teachers who have strong unions at their schools don't have to worry about going through a situation like this.
As an example I worked in a job in 1983 for a wage of $3.25 per hour. The company charged$12.50 per hour for their service. Today that company charges $125.00 per hour for that same service and pays employees $15.00 per hour for the same job I was doing. That should be pretty easy math for anybody. That is what happened to our work ethic. Why work when all of your effort goes to some rich man living in a gated community and you get to go hungry while your children are in rags.
My workplace is an example how jobs have gotten worse. I work at a.private school for the 1% of my city. In 1080, teaching assistants and subs would get scholarships for their kids. In 2000 they stopped giving those scholarships and now only teachers and administrators in higher positions get them. In 2017 they got cut. They only cover for 2 kids. And the rule was retroactive so teachers with 3 kids that had been working at the school for years and whose first child had already graduated were left with no coverage for their second and third kid at the school.
One thing to do research- benefits to the non union staff of heavily unionized industries. I worked as a salaried worker in an industry where the gross majority of line workers were part of a large union. And we (the ones not eligible to be in a union) got many of the same benefits as the unions negotiated during their contracts- good PTO, a large set of holidays (most notably- we got the week off between Christmas and New Year), good healthcare choices, and some job security items. So unions benefit all of the workers in an industry, not just themselves.
Union power is one reason why (in Canada) women can't lose thier job for becoming pregnant. CUPW! forever grateful for the folks who fought for parental protections.
There is no class above or below. It's a class war: Owners against workers. As long as workers are willing to take the few crumbs they get every once in a while, nothing will change.
There’s actually two below it (to the extent that “middle class” even means anything). It goes: Lumpenproletariat (criminal class), proletariat (labor class), Labor Aristocracy (Middle class), Petty Bourgeoisie (Small-scale employers), and the Bourgeoisie (owning/capital class).
I was in a union for 20 years and it locked us into 2% pay increases per year for years at a time and didn't prevent the loss of the pension benefit. The corporate execs are usually able to get their way despite the unions. And unions create mistrust and lack of cooperation between managers and workers. It's up to the government to provide policies and protections for the workers. But the government is controlled by the corporate leaders so it's really a no win situation for workers. Best is to work for yourself in your own business or go back to farm life and stop working for corporations, companies, other people who only seek to exploit you for their profit.
I worked in a factory in the 2000s. It was a Union plant, and paid very well. In 2007 the owner passed away, and his sons sold the company. The new owners promised us our jobs where secure. You know the usual BS a new owner tells you. In 2008 the we all where laid off, and the plant was closed down. A year later I saw them hiring for a new plant. I looked into it they reopened the same location with lower wages, and no Union.
One thing that I think contributes to the continuing decline of unions is the reputation many have gained for not ensuring decent quality workers. I can only speak from experience in the A/V industry, but I have heard this more generally from people in several industries. In A/V, a lot of non-union workers don't want to work alongside union members because they feel like they frequently take the brunt of "union laziness". I know several people who have had issues with union workers. From the lead union person deciding to milk the clock and telling the other union workers to go hide (literally. They deliberately hid so that the set up would take longer) or taking their break right then instead of helping everyone pack up so they could clock out and go home, or just plain not being qualified for the job they were sent to do, union workers frequently have terrible reputations with non-union employees. Whether this reputation is actually representative of the group doesn't matter. The perception I hear from almost every non-union worker is that they hate union-workers. And that mentality can make deprogramming yourself from decades of smear campaigning almost impossible.
I agree with your point re; unions but I think that's only one of many factors. The "winner take all" nature of digital advancements and the breaking of the "hard work=advancement" dynamic are two that I can think of off the top of my head but there are more. Yes, unions would help with those but they should be called out.
It is very interesting to hear about unions in the US. In Spain, unions are basically useless in the private sector (no one unionizes anymore because of that and so they don't put effort there despite being where they're most needed) and they only work properly in the public sector. It's a mess, honestly.
I hope in your video about Regan, you can explain how he went from a literal strike-leading union president to a president who busted striking unions??
The biggest problem when talking about politics in the US is the framing. When the US media talks about the political centre, they aren’t actually talking about the political centre as defined by broad policy positions (where - for example- those left of centre are pro-worker and pro-union while those right of centre are pro-corporation and anti-union). US political framing talks about the “political centre” as being the gap between the policy positions of the two major parties. This is confusing because that shifts constantly, and has drifted steadily to the right (or to the right and up - more authoritarian - if you want to talk in vote compass terms) over the past 4 decades. Currently, almost the entire Democratic Party is to the right of the political centre (anti-union, anti-worker, pro-corporate power) as is all of the Republican Party. You get the government you vote for - both in the general election, but also in the primaries. … and for anyone saying “I don’t care about politics”: political decisions affect every aspect of your life, from the food you eat (how much it costs and how safe it is for you to eat) to the education you get to the job that education enables you to do to the car you drive to the home you can or can’t afford. You can choose to be uninterested in politics but you can’t choose to be unaffected by it.
The map of where unions are and how successful they are is misleading. The numbers are skewed by population density not success of the union. Unions fell in decline in the USA because they became crippled by a one party rule and stopped representing the true middle class. They are not glorified institutions anymore. it’s not just capitalism that made them unpopular it’s their own culture and ideology that did it.
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My Dad’s Union IBEW is the reason we went from lower middle class to solid middle class in 10 years. Unions are one of the most important checks for capitalism.
Yes!! My father was in the NYC carpenters union and we were raised as a #unionstrong family.
Same. Go IBEW!!!
Yep, unions are essentially freedom of speech. If investors have the freedom to pool their capital to extract profit, , workers also have right to pool their labor to increase their price to investors.
@@mrparts Yes, If Corporation have the power to lobby and pour there money in for superpacs, then we should have the power for collective bargaining.
False. Unions did nothing to raise anyone into the middle class. A war in which the US was the only nation left unscathed did that. Read much?
I think, in and around the 80-90s there was a smear campaign against unions. Management would create stories about union workers being lazy, not willing to go “the extra mile” (I.e. work unpaid overtime), low quality, inflexible. I have to admit as a freshly minted college grad at the time I got sucked into the mindset.
I’m pretty sure people used edge cases or straight up made up stories about people in government jobs or unions doing absolutely nothing and getting paid handsomely (think of that episode of Seinfeld where Newman who’s a postal worker gets told to go on his 3 hour long break), or mentally ill people who cause a scene yet are “unable to be fired because they’re in a union”
It’s anti union fear ongoing but luckily most millennials have realized the lies they were told about unions from their boomer parents were all a crock of shit
*Drake and Josh voice:* "Regan..." 😒
@@26SundropsRonald Reagan broke the unions when the air traffic controllers went on strike. He fired over 11,000 that didn’t return to work and banned them from working in any government jobs in the future (which he later rescinded). It’s really sad when a president deals such a blow to the labor movement. He had no empathy for the poor (reference his comment about welfare queens), the mentally I’ll (took funding away from mental health programs), and the middle class (put a penalty tax on early retirement withdrawals no matter what the reason was for the withdrawal). The erosion of the middle class and those less fortunate started before him, but thrives under him.
I’m a liberal leftie, but I was brought up a Reagan kid, and I absolutely bought into that smear campaign. I remember siding with him when he broke the air traffic controllers union. Now I see it as another abhorrent policy, the damage of which can still be felt decades later.
Definitely. It's much older than that though: today's anti-union tactics have been used since the 1800s
I'm in Canada but as a millennial, I'd like to add that the gig economy makes unionizing really difficult. If you work uncertain part time hours, have high job turnover rates, and barely know your coworkers because the scheduling is so erratic, or you are only able to get short term contracts, then forming a union is almost impossible. Given that every entry level job I've ever had has these conditions, it's not just lack of knowledge that's preventing us from joining unions.
Yes and I think that the gig economy is in part because of the decline of unionization. I think that fewer quality union jobs means that people need more “gigs”, part time jobs, etc. Basically this seems to be a bit of a vicious cycle.
@@bibliophilecbI wonder if more gig workers started talking to each other on online groups like discord or telegram groups, based on the regions they serve (such as ride share) if they would be able to bargain for better rates.
Gig workers are considered contract employees, which means they are not entitled to the health insurance, sick days, overtime pay or other benefits full-time workers are entitled to. They have far fewer labor protections overall, including being unable to collectively bargain. The NLRB is trying to make it more difficult for employers to classify workers as contract employees, which would give more workers the right to unionize.
Its like there's an organized plan to keep most of us from thriving........ hm. 🤔🤔🤔🤔
@@crystallewis5902wrong country. Canada doesn’t have “contract employees” and “full time employees.” You have part time and full time, which is entirely determined by the number of hours you work. The only way to get out of paying an employee their legally entitled rights is to hire a contractor or freelancer (they’re technically employed by another company or self employed, so someone else is taking care of those requirements). Most companies have a probation period, usually around 2 weeks to a month, during which the employee can walk or company can fire you without any obligations or repercussions, but after that you’re entitled to everything everyone else gets. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a one month contract or whatever.
Granted, stuff like free healthcare and employment insurance mean there’s less need for things like medical insurance or company provided mat leave (not none, but much less). It doesn’t matter if you worked for one company or 20, if you worked x-hours in the last year, you get ei and mat leave. You qualify for stuff like overtime, stat holidays, vacation time as soon as you start.
The thing with some seasonal or temp type jobs is that they often pay out your stat and vacation pay on each cheque. You still get the pay, it just doesn’t “feel” like it. This is actually for the employees benefit. If you bank your stat and vacation pay, Service Canada won’t start your ei payments for an extra week or two. The idea is that you get fired, live off your vacation pay, then do the EI two week wait, then collect EI cheques. But that can mean you don’t get a cheque for a month or more. If they pay out vacation pay on each cheque, you don’t have any banked and you get your first ei cheque a week or two earlier. It’s assumed that employees will put their vacation pay into a savings account and bank it on their own
As a PhD student, I'm not allowed to unionize because even though it's a full-time job for 4-6 years we're classified as students not workers. That also means we don't have any worker rights whatsoever like minimum wage, anti-discrimination laws, compensation for injury on the job... As a result we have very little bargaining power, so most of us at my university make less than minimum wage. The level of exploitation in academia is stunning
PhD students have it the worst.
Hi! PhD student here who's part of a labour union - the way my institution did it (in Canada) was that we focused on teaching assistant, teaching fellow, and research assistant labor. It absolutely sucks that we're not classified as workers for our larger research work, but that's a way that labour unions have been founded in academia in the past. It's still imperfect, but we now get paid around $40/hour to do teaching assistant labour.
That's great to hear. I'm in the U.S. and I think overall PhD students can be treated really poorly. They are at the mercy of their advisor and faculty.@@ninamicanovic86
I’m in the US and the university where I got my masters degree has a grad student union very similar to what @ninamicanovic86 describes
@@ninamicanovic86 yeah it's similar here at McGill: TAs make $34/hour which is much better than the $8/hour or so we make for doing research. At first I did TAships, but I stopped when I realized that it could cost me more in the long term. My scholarship lasts 4 years, but almost nobody graduates within that time, so any time I spend working as a TA means more time at the end of my program when I need to work for free
In 2010, I worked for a nursing home as a CNA, making $10hr. We had a large meeting with the owner talked about how unions destroyed our country, and anyone heard saying the word union was automatically terminated. Needless to say, I spoke the forbidden word at lunch and was immediately fired for insubordination. No joke. The most expensive nursing home in Franklin TN folks!
They want to keep ripping of workers and the Elderly.
Completely illegal
Wow what? Did one of your coworkers snitch on you?
Not a nursing home but a warehouse, same thing happened to our manager, he was trying to push the idea to unionize to the staff, but someone snitched on him and he got fired couple days after, this happened in Atlanta Ga, looks like the south hates unions lol
Ah, TN. I hate that this happened to you. I lived in the middle TN area for 27 years & one time I was told I had to fast and pray for 3 days straight using a cassette tape my employer provided or be fired. I resigned. This was at a private electricians' company no longer there. Tennessee is a serious trip. I finally left. Best wishes to you for a much better situation!
My husband is a union pipefitter. Were both young and thankful for being a union house hold. Without his stability we wouldn't afford our home. It's amazing how little people know about workers rights and unions. All they know is negative politics against unions. Unions built America and ensured workers rights. They're not perfect but they gave us standard 40 hr weeks, maternity leave, health care rights and removed child labor in the US. They secured pay and ensured there was a process for firing and they also lobbied for unemployment benefits. Currently they're struggling to ensure that the fee unions left can keep their membership employed and they'll train people for skilled labor jobs. In some places it's one of the few ways young men or women find work and gain skills. Good unions can also provide a unique community that stands together when something happens to one of their members. I've seen that this last year as we lost a friend. His daughter has college and expenses paid for by the brotherhood of my husband's union. Definitely something Americans are missing today.
They also made sure that when children were in hospital, they would receive a toy, which was comforting.
@@CurvyGirls very true! They also put funds in so many charities and medical centers. In my part of the US, they built several women's breast health centers. It's amazing how much they try to help their communities.
After socialists got stomped out in the Red Scare, there weren't too many people left to energize the unions. They started drifting rightward until they voted in their own demise by endorsing Reagan. We certainly need strong unions again but we can't be afraid to acknowledge who led the charge back when all those gains were made.
@@lynpotter6471 Socialism kills. Those Socialists only saw unions as a political tool to advance their agenda. Unions are good, unions that associate with socialism are universally bad.
We don’t have maternity leave in the US.
Undoubtedly the decline of unions has played a huge role, but it's noteworthy that even jobs that were never unionized have gotten worse. I was shocked hearing a news story recently about working conditions for fast food workers--I worked at Hardee's in HS in the 80s, and while it wasn't my dream job, it was a safe & stress-free work environment for a teenager (and even fun at times!). I think corporate greed has gotten totally out of control.
This is an example of the rising tides lifting all ships. Unions and their benefits are normally set the standard that non-union employers follow. If the gap gets too big it becomes more and more difficult to attract workers so they need to follow the trends in the area.
Stress free lol 😆 not anymore. 50 second out the window times at my store.
@@SGastunions got their workers jobs shipped to China by being a pain in the ass. Now we have no unions (good) but shittier worker conditions because of globalization (bad). Americans now have to outwork every Bangladeshi child in a factory or every Indian doing engineering for 13 hours a day. This is why blue to white collar jobs all feel like garbage. And we can thank the unions and the Nixon-Carter-Regan-Clinton-Bush-Obama admins for promoting globalization 🙄. Trump thankfully started to reign it in which is why average wages under trump increased 8k in four years. (The fastest in 50 years) even as we had 1% inflation. Companies had to hire American since the U.S. didn’t give favorable deals to third and fourth world countries anymore. We need more American made and less union. More jobs here mean Americans can job hop and leave shitty jobs at the drop of a hat. Employers will have to adjust but once they realize their staff of 84 people can quit in one day and get better jobs in 2 weeks they’re going to have to stop being assholes
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se Sure buddy, unions are The Great Evil and only Our Glorious Leader can help us. Whatever you say.
As someone who recently graduated high school, I literally cannot imagine a food service job being safe or stress free.
I’m in a union 💪 They saved me from being wrongfully fired ten years ago❤️
I remember during peak pandemic when everyone was literally panicking & dying, my manager at Trader Joe's got us all together and told us how unioners would reach out to us..... and we should let them know that Trader Joe's is taking care of us well.... wtf everytime I think about it I get pissed
My whole foods slashed our hours and let us go hungry during the pandemic. They gathered us up in groups of 5 at a time and told us that that giving us spoilage and extra food in the break room would encourage stealing. My store did NOT take care of me.
@@TrippyKitty08 "healthy" retail chains are full of shit. Im sorry that happened to you :(
@@TrippyKitty08 Yeah - corporate would rather throw away food approaching its sell-by date than let you have it: it’s all about control at any cost (to the working classes) - the employees need to know who controls the means of production.
Please tell us you joined the union. Or at the very least didn't impede them.
@@TrippyKitty08that's Amazon for you. Everything they touch is shit
We used to have stable manufacturing jobs, but now instead of making cars/furniture/clothes, we manufacture content, but this time it's a gig. You work 3 months, you're out. Even in Canada, I have rarely touched insurance because it's only afforded to permanent staff (so just the management)
I worked in animation for 7 years and there are no unions, very few raises, and the thought of residuals is non existent.
Nobody wants to work anymore? Of course not, I loved my job and they used that against me to grind my soul into profit 😒
Did you change fields? Yes, I agree, they think we're going to stay stupid and we somehow don't have any expenses or bills to pay.
The US and Canada are both awful countries to be an average worker in. Unlike the EU, Australia, New Zealand, etc. where workers have rights.
@@hummiebubs6967Most of Europe have more vacation days, more maternity leave, more sick pay and more employment rights in general because they have strong unions. Join a union!
@Draggonny But here's the question. What good are 21 days of vacation when you don't even have any money left to use it? I grew up and lived in Germany until I was 30, I worked as a graphic- designer and later even became a police officer. My graphic design salary was the average worker's salary in Germany, and because of the high taxes and high costs of living I couldn't take any vacation or afford anything big for 7 years! And I tried to save money as much as possible but when there's only 300 Euro left after taxes and rent have been taken out, you haven't eaten yet. I live in the US today with my American husband and there are a lot of problems here but in general we have way more money left to save than I had in Germany. Plus, Germany isn't actually supporting small business owners, self employment or jobs on the side.
@@SkiraReed Those statutory vacations usually are paid. At least this days.
Hell yeah, unions are great! My company has one and you're automatically enrolled when you join, just $30 a month in dues. We start out with 20 days of PTO and also have 10 days of sick leave, bereavement leave, wedding celebratory leave, parental leave, etc. Plus pays more than other similar companies in this industry.
Yes! But many companies will tell you they offer similar benefits. The difference is a union worker can actually use their benefits. A non union worker can use some of those benefits, but if someone is regularly taking parental leave, sick leave, and wedding celebratory leave then they will eventually be let go through a company reorg which is a legal way to fire employees. Companies create reorganizations all of the time for the purpose of laying off. In the past, workers were offered on the job training to learn new skills when their job was eliminated. Today, they just eliminate the employee and bring in someone younger for half the pay.
@@Chris-tg3qyYup. I worked for a company that had unlimited PTO but no one took it after someone got fired for not answering email over Christmas break. Not "committed enough" was the excuse.
@@yuppers1 I believe it. The latest benefit I see is paternity leave. Trust me, these for profit non-union companies will frown on a guy taking 12 weeks to bond with their baby. My former company was advertising all over LinkedIn a year ago that they now offer this benefit. They laid off 2400 people last week in a re- org. I doubt very many dads at that company will take 12 weeks to bond with their baby after an announcement like that.
What you are describing is a closed shop where new employees must join, or at least pay a union fee, whether they want to or not. This became controversial when union politics and political contributions differed from the political views of the workers. I think closed shops have weakened unions to some extent because I don’t think they fared well in court challenges.
@yuppers1 American unions are weak. UK workers would have to have it in their contract that they can be contacted outside of work for non emergencies and get on call pay for that. When we're off work, we're off work. Whether it's a rota day off, a weekend or a holiday. Sure, they can call and beg you to come in on your day off but you don't have to answer and you can just say no. They can't sack you so long as you're meeting the basic terms of your employment contract.
I remember when I worked at Lowe's one of the training videos was about unions and I have not been unable to hear the phrase, "We're not anti union, we're pro people." I was rolling my eyes the entire time.
If you're pro people you're pro union.
Honestly I’m 50/50 on joining my old Lowe’s just to unionize it. They treated workers like shit and paid us absolutely fuck all, and I don’t think that’s changed at all.
Horrible place to work
If you dig into why unions were created it gets really fascinating. We had to study the history of AEA in a Business of Theater class at the U of MN and oh man, it's crazy. When a show takes actors on tour around the country, they are required to provide general return train (now plane) tickets and give them to the actors before leaving New York City because in the past, tours would run out of money in some random small town in Iowa and just leave everyone there with no way to get home, no money and no job. They used to only heat the house, not the stage or backstage areas. They used to only have fire suppression in the house, again, not on the stage itself (behind the fire curtain) or in the backstage areas. Actors used to not get paid for rehearsals even though they were required and unlimited. I could go on and on.
So true. Many years ago, I was an Equity stage manager for a short time, and I think that actors can be among the easiest to take advantage of - many of them love acting so much, they’re willing to “sacrifice” or “pay their dues” when they deserve to be compensated for their work.
Having said that, small theatres have such little money. I don’t know how they get off the ground and grow without cheap (or free) labor in all departments.
@@fenwicus part of the answer is foundations and getting rich people to donate. But it's such a vicious cycle, cuz the people who get rich enough to donate get the money by taking advantage.
I didn’t know any of that! Really cool of you to share. I remember reading about the Triangle Waist Coat fire but never got into Unions. Thanks! You’ve inspired me to read more
And John Campea would be ok with those things coming back
This is why although I’m not a fan of woke Hollywood I am supporting them during the writers strike. Replacing actors with AI could cause a trickle down effect to other industries!
The weird thing is; unions can increase profit. I live in Europe with at least OK unions (wish they were even stronger) and the plant I work at often outperform the filials in countries with less worker protection. It is almost as if you care for your workers more they care about the job... 🤔
It's so weird, isn't it? Who would have thought that being loyal to people inspires loyalty in return? Personally, I think the highest levels of sociopathy in upper management means some of them genuinely do not understand this.
Do you remeber a few years aog, when a big German car manufacturer wantet to unionize their workers in one of their plants in the south and the goverment made it impossible to do so for them. They prefer having their workers unionized as unions are great for attracting talent and keepign it. They are also hubs of knowledge and worker cooperation. It also saves a lot in HR cost as you don't hav to negotiate with every individual employee and instead have one set package that applies to everyone.
I know unions in Germany and Sweden. They see their job also as improving the company's work and revenue - while they want a larger share of that revenue, of course.
It depends where in Europe. Unions differ from country to country.
It's mainly because in europe the union typically has a board seat, so they have a stake in the company doing well, also. In the US it's almost a purely adversarial relationship.
It's not just that unions are not as strong as they used to be. Corporate greed has gone into an unprecedented new stratosphere and age discrimination is blatant. Companies don't want to hire people. My husband, an IT security manager, has been unemployed since April. He has applied for about 1,100 jobs (we keep track on a spreadsheet). They figure out his age by seeing what year he graduated from college. To make things worse, whatever safety net there is in the U.S. is hanging by a threat. I hate living here. I came here when I was four and I want to go back. My husband is all-American.
Omg, I never thought about that!
Fuck it - remove the graduation date from his resume.
Yep. The worst words ever uttered in movies was “Greed, for lack of a better term, is good”.
Why does he put the year he graduated college on his Resume if he doesn't want people to know? I never list mine
@@CandleAshes It's required on the online job applications. Some actually ask for your birth date or your generation.
My dad is in his 60s and was just told by a headhunter to take his college graduation year off of his résumé. Might be something for your husband to consider. Edit: he’s also in IT.
I worked for a software company at the time that they decided to end their sick leave program. They said that people weren't taking sick leave, and just coming into work anyway forcing them to pay out unused sick leave benefits.
"Well that's the key word there isn't it? Benefit. Part of my compensation plan is a certain amount of paid sick leave. Sooo...what am I getting in return for this?" -My response, just before I suddenly didn't work there anymore
I worked for a business that only offered three sick days and two weeks vacay forever
@@csensale Two weeks of leave seems to be considered a benefit that workers "deserve" only after a year in the workplace. Miserly leave benefits are one of the more barbaric features of the US economy -- one of many!
I grew up in a union household (my dad was a welder) so I saw over and over how my dad and his collegues were saved by their unions.
Yesterday I was in a meeting with my bosses and I made my 5th year in august. I was told I make too much for my role (now $37/hour after a $1 increase) though my workload increased because the company has been growing without hiring more employees. I can’t find a comprable job and feel very stuck. I’m only 25 but it sucks I can’t move jobs without taking a serious pay cut. I hate it here.
What field are you in?
I’m the optical manager/optician at a eye doctors office. I am paid more than the average optician but my workload has also increased every year so I would think I deserve a adequate raise
Technology didn't make work simpler. It just gave us more to do.
Until they figure out how to completely replace you with a robot, then it will give you nothing to do other than dig food out of garbage cans.......
💯
Technology absolutely made work simpler in many ways
People are the ones who came up with more to do
Absolutely and it’s not portioned out to let individual talent shine. Everyone doing the exact same thing…. No.
@@DrGandWgive examples.
My dad is a union man of 30+ years, and his union took care of him throughout a long and arduous battle with leukemia. The aggressively comprehensive medical coverage they got him covered his entire medical expenses and even took care of me until I turned 25. He works a hard job but he's paid fairly for his labor and experience. So when I got a chance to unionize my work place I took it. I organized and led a successful union drive at a small Starbucks in a conservative town and three days after our public filing with the NLRB I was fired for a minor dress code infraction despite my spotless record. Within the week every member of my organizing committee was fired or forced out. We're fighting it but even if we win the protracted battle the short term message was sent and every one of my coworkers I've been in contact with since is terrified to support the upcoming union vote for fear of retribution. And I don't blame them. Union labor gets results, it's why corporations are so fucking scared of us
I was working at a nonprofit a few years ago. 3 years into the job my team and I tried to unionize. We were already overworked and exhausted from our normal jobs and trying to unionize became another job on top of it. I ended up leaving and pretty sure the unionization didn't work. The board just replaced the executive director and everyone that was there when I worked there ended up leaving during or after the ED transition.
It's sad because NPO workers are all about social justice work but I don't know of any that actually have unions except for probably the ones that advocate for union rights lol
my friend works for a union and they have struggled to unionize (they were foiled by management at their last attempt)
this! when I started at a NP I thought they would be in favor of unions, workers rights, etc because they are in favor of social justice. apparently that disappears when it impacts their bottom line…
@stephanieblakley3549 - many NPs serve as sources of high income for the leaders.
What worries me is the trend of Unions founded by a company. Example, Safeway. The Safeway brand of stores and their sister stores have a union that in many states you have to join. When I was being asked to work off the clock the union stepped in to help. However, that help was them cutting me to zero hours during investigating without pay, to which I had to get another job. After 4 months of not working they said I owed dues so they wouldn't be helping. I had to work with a lawyer at L&I against both them and Safeway. The union was founded by the company for people in the company, it was founded to give faux security. So always look into how a union is founded.
Edit: Unions founded by the people or for specific groups are okay and usually safe.
Thank you for sharing this
Ummmm..... The UFCW (that's the union representing Safeway workers in my area) is a "company union"? I'd really love to see at least one link to substantiate that.
Employer 'union' is illegal & they blew smoke up your ass with that lie.
Many decades ago unions were a thing. This is the reason they were axed. I guess some things never change
We need to help small business more, the US isn’t a capitalist country but a corporatist country. The fact that congress views Corporations as having more rights that citizens is the major reason we have a huge wealth inequality gap and way too many monopolies. Small businesses allow for diverse offerings and help individual towns thrive.
Corporatist country? What?!
Ask yourself, why do corporations have so much power, and money to influence politicians to do their bidding?
That's all a by product of Capitalism; the extraction of our surplus labor value being concentrated at the top.
That same money is used to buy politicians to change laws, so these corporation can make even more profits. The U.S. is 100% a Capitalist country and it does Capitalism well enough. In fact, the more it does Capitalism well the more regular people and small businesses suffer.
@@stephs8665that person didn't totally deny capitalism, they just said there are stages, and the US is way forward in support of big corporations and even monopolies that are e.x. not opposed with good functioning union power. We have obviously capitalsm in Germany and Europe too, yet we are not quite at the stage of the US as described by the poster, in part when it comes to workers rights, we have big unions here that support workers power more. Corporations, funds etc. still lobby to remove laws that contradict their exploitation tactics, they never sleep on that, so the average guy shouldn't sleep on their power grabs either. Unfortunately it's happening a lot behind closed doors and many people individually don't get it. That's why being organized is so important, you can never be as informed individually as a union is, as they have ressources and access you'd otherwise won't have.
I refer to it as an oligarchy
Small businesses tend to be The Worst re worker-rights. Getting more of them would be a terrible idea.
@@sd-ch2cq that hasn’t been my experience
My first job was in retail. When I was hired I had to watch a video about how unions were bad. I was 19 and didn’t know any different so I just shrugs and went along with it. Ended up working in retail all through my 20s and every place I worked did the same thing. There were also posters in the break room denouncing unions and at one place we were required to sign a paper agreeing that we wouldn’t join a union. This was all in the 2000s. Eventually it made me wonder what these retailers were so afraid of.
My husband has worked for FedEx express for 30 years. Their philosophy used to be “happy cows give good milk,” basically give the employees good benefits and decent pay and they will not need to unionize. Of course they always discouraged any movement toward unionization and they were successful. Fast forward to today, they are now moving toward a model of independent contractors. They recently merged the Express and Ground operations and many express employees were laid off. The Ground people are are not generally paid an hourly wage but a daily wage. They make much less than the Express couriers and they may or may not have benefits depending on the contractor they work for. The contractor owns the routes and employs the Ground couriers, they do not work for FedEx. This cuts their labor costs hugely and screws a lot of people out of middle class jobs. NOT happening at UPS, notice that?
Alot of jobs I have worked for have threatened to fire employees if they attempted to unionize. Meeting with a union rep and being found out would result in termination.
Isn't that illegal in the US? In my country it is. And union leaders have immunity
@@franugplenty of employers break the law so damn much that most workers wouldn't even realize that it's illegal
@@GirtonOramsay something being illegal doesn't matter much if enforcing it is nearly impossible. Employers are not writing down their threats. Without some form of evidence, or other coworkers willing to put their necks on the line and come forward fighting back is extremely difficult. Making matters worse is that employers have mastered the art of making up convenient reasons to fire people on a whim.
Some Filipinos were killed for unionizing. Marxism Today has a video on it about the Philippines.
@@franug Search up union busting. It can be hard for workers to prove they were fired for trying to unionize.
As a teacher, I see people bashing the teachers’ unions all the time as “the problem with education.” But, being someone actually in that union, I can tell you education would be SO MUCH SCARIER WITHOUT IT.
Our union got our district to FINALLY remove a principal who rewarded kids (with iPads, candy, toys, coloring, etc.) for assaulting staff and other students. Our school was so UNSAFE (staff and kids hurt daily, kids running OUT OF THE BUILDING and down the streets into traffic, kids dangling off the balcony unattended, etc.) Our district refuses to remove bad principals and address inappropriate student behaviors. Takes time, but our union forces them to do so.
Our union forced our district to make sure it was complying with LEGAL SpEd caseloads for teachers and that students were getting their LEGALLY required minutes (which means actually appropriately paying for staff).
And on and on and on… People have no idea the things that school districts try to pull and that the unions actually are doing the jobs the districts should be doing.
If I was a kid at school I’d be whooping people left and right 🤣 🥊
I invite any teachers who complain about unions to move to Texas, or other states where collective bargaining and striking is illegal.
I should add- I am 100% pro union. I currently live in Texas (from Washington State) and I find the treatment of teachers, nurses, and other workers abhorrent.
Which is why private schools are better than public schools with less budget... Oh wait
It's wild to me just how awful Reagan was to unions when he was literally the leader of the SAG union 🤦♀
But I got lucky that my father wound up in a union (IBEW) in MA because the healthcare he was able to access for us was so necessary. And even though he would never claim to be left wing, he always made it very clear how much contempt we were to have against any union-busting politician (he particularly hated Scott Walker in WI)
Him having been a union member of the SAG union means nothing. Look into the details and you'll find out when and why he turned his back to workers and unions.
He was--possibly only in his mind--socially unsuccessful in that union role. Despite his charisma from a distance, he was incompetent in close personal relationships and, to put it bluntly, an odd guy. Ronald Reagan is the original kid who becomes a conservative solely because none of the other kids, who also happen to be liberal, can stand him.
@@07Flash11MRCviu
you should never be surprised if a republican only wants something to exist as long as he is benefitting from it, and when he isn't, it's a waste of money to be destroyed.
Socialism is democracy in OUR economy, we decide together ❤️. Why don't folks want this. We don't want monarchs, yet we want unelected minority elite to dictate our entire economy and workplaces
One of the BEST places I ever worked was a unionized office job in oil & gas. GREAT pay, diverse & fun co-workers, I remember getting AMAZING quarterly bonuses, Christmas parties were EXTRAVAGANT!!!! It was extremely HARD to get fired, the union always backed the person up, unless they completely violated company policy. Even then, if it wasn't criminal, the union would represent the person. I miss that job! The WORST job I've ever worked was non-proft. HORRIBLE
Shareholders are entitled predators who expect to be handsomely compensated for doing no work, usually at the expense of those who do work. This has got to stop. It harms all of society. Go, unions!
share holders are investors that give the company the capital it needs to expand. so the do deserve their money back at least if not more. as no one would ever invest if they were not making anything from it.
If you have an issue with that then I guess take your beef to the stock market as they are the reason behind all of this.
@@777SilverPhoenix777 the question is how much more & for how long? If I put in some cash to help you with your lemonade stand, how long can I expect to be getting a cut from your lemonade sales? Forever? Once you have paid me back the amount that I put in (maybe with a bit extra depending on the area & lemonade), surely I can't just keep hanging around saying I put in money 20yrs ago & I deserve to get a cut of your sales for at least another 20yrs, if not more. Also, I can sell that 'part ownership' (which is a scam in itself) of your lemonade stand to anyone else for whatever price I can, regardless of how much I may have already recouped over time.
It's definitely a strategy to make as much money as possible for those who generally don't actually need more.
What's wrong? No response? @@777SilverPhoenix777
This. Shareholders are bloated parasites that just extract value from people's labor to make their large piles of money even larger and they have no real value to society. The concept of shareholder ownership needs to go, or at least be heavily reformed so you can't own shares unless you actually do the damn work in making the products.
@@MZB80exactly
Union electrician here for over 20 years. I can tell you that while unions aren't perfect they are definitely better than not having one at all. When a company is forced to face the fact that if they don't negotiate that they may not have any labor at all it tends to make them stop and think. A slogan that I like to remind people is "When many move together, there is there is little that can hold them back".
Interesting thanks. Two thoughts. First, some of the decline of union participation was very likely due to mismanagement by union boards and committee members - People are people, and people in positions of power often let it go to their heads. When I was young and working as a security guard my personal experience was watching a chunk of my paycheque disappear but not getting any real representation for some very sketchy working conditions. My young friends and colleagues reported the same experience to me at the time. Second, my grandpa grew up in the great depression on a family farm, then worked as a miner after WWII. He experienced some very terrible working conditions that definitely shortened his life. He always told his grandchildren to go to school and get a union job because a private company isn't going to take care of you and your family when you're no longer productive and giving returns to shareholders. It took me a long time to accept the wisdom of my grandpa's experience, but I'm glad he gave us that message while we still had him.
Reminds me of HoA stories, and how terrible those can be.
That Reagan video better be 2 hours long, I wanna know every little thing that man fucked up.
That would take weeks
Smilin' Ronnie only recited the scripts he was handed.
"Tear down that wall.", was by a speechwriter.
Mark Twain, "We have the best government money can buy."
You’re going to need more than 2 hours.
The amount of harm his regime caused was generational. He is not going to be remembered favorably by history,.
Easier to list ways he didn't fuck us over.
We don't understand how much we are getting screwed.
Technology was the worst in white collar. As soon as the iPhone came along you were expected to work everywhere, in a taxi, on the plane, nonstop contact. Now they're watching keystrokes. They don't care about results anymore, they care about process and micromanaging which makes everyone miserable.
The iPhone and it’s consequences have been a disaster for the human race. -Me
In 1980 PATCO, TEAMSTERS, and other unions supported Reagan over Carter. Big mistake
I often wonder where the US would be if we'd kept Carter. Positive vibes from New Hampshire, remember to be kind to each other and yourself during these trying times.
At least one thing I know.President Jimmy Carter Did Not Lie To The People of The United States. Much Respect For Him.
My job used to give us a paid lunch where we only worked 7 hours and 30 minutes and we had unlimited pto...my company was acquired and it's so bad now.
It’s totally mind blowing to me how many are AGAINST unions, especially those in “right to work” states, which of course is a misnomer. It’s more like right to fire (for no reason)
I find it nuts too how many people think and vote so much against not only the common good but even their own interests
Right to fire the incompetent...
@@wheeltrouble , you can get fired for ANY reason or no reason at all. Incompetency has nothing to do with it.
@@wheeltroubletell your job yorue autisistic, see how long until you get fired for "incompetence"
Just changed jobs with a slight pay cut to be eligible for a union. I know it will pay off in the long run! Union Strong!
Awesome!!!
Congratulations! So happy for you and I hope it fully works out for you!
When I got a union job, my pay increased by nearly 25% - the wages offered at my old job were a complete joke!
Your slide showing union membership rates in the US across decades? That says everything. Without collective action, workers are screwed. I don't get why ppl consistently vote against their own interests.
Because what politicians do it wave a little carrot of something else in front of them. "Oh, you're religious and think that all schools should be run by the church and that women who have abortions should be executed? Vote for me, Slick McRichman, and I will promise to do just what you want. Just ignore while I destroy your workers rights in favor of my own corporate interests."
Have you seen the news cycles? Its all random garbage that is designed distract everyone from the issues that really do harm your everyday life.
Being an active member and representative of my states teachers union (in Australia) is honestly the best thing about working in my profession in my state, it provides me with knowledge and understanding of mine (and my colleagues) rights at work and a successful mechanism with which to achieve equitable salaries, safe and humane work conditions. Our union has around 60k members and have just secured a $10K/yr pay increase due to taking industrial action including in person protests, meetings with local parliamentary representatives and email/social media campaigns. I am so proud of our union and it’s members. We are a Public Education and social justice union who fights for our communities most vulnerable and to ensure our democracy survives the tyranny of neoliberal capitalism!! Union strong ✊🏻💪🏻
Worker mis-categorization is a huge problem that unions could help with. I’m exempt from overtime, but I don’t supervise anyone, and have minimal control over my workload and schedule.
I don't know what you do for work, but I've always been irritated that software developers and tech workers are immediately exempt. Not all of those people are raking it in somewhere in Silicon Valley, or working at some startup where they stand to benefit personally from the company's success. Most of them are just treated like they're on call. The exploitation of people on a work visa filling these roles is also atrocious.
When I was in HS in the 90's we learned about the union history of America but just a few years later in the 00's this information was being removed from HS level textbooks.
They tried to erase the past so they could make us repeat it. The Gilded Age specifically.
I’m not in a labor union, but my departments collective bargaining smashed management’s return to office mandate this year. I’m considering joining a tenant’s union in my state-landlord situation is insane
My dad owned a small business hardware store from the 80s through the early 2000s. He originally worked in small business grocery himself when he was younger as well. The work culture was more layed back in the 60s, 70s & 80s. The bosses he had in the 70s were friendly or at least cordial with the employees as they were together 8 hrs 7 days a week. The way you treated employees traditionally was 1. hire for 8 hr shifts, 2. Employees got Medical AND Dental insurance as why wouldn’t you want your employees to have good teeth, 3. Employees were expected to take a certain number of sick days off per year though it wasn’t payed leave, 4. In the summer months everyone was expected to take a two week vacation and they worked out who would be gone & when while everyone else worked to cover for them. I watched my dad hand the vacationer some bonus money on the day before vacation. It was at least $100. Because why wouldn’t you give them spending money? You wouldn’t want the people you worked with & relied on every day to resent you. & This was even a small business doing this. 5. It was the same with Christmas. There was a store party 2 weeks before the 25th. Dad joined together with the boss of the small grocery store next door to share the cost of renting a hall & catering. At the store party they handed out $100 bonuses to all the full time employees & the part time box boys got $50. From 2 weeks before xmas + 1 week after, the employees had 3 day vacations in shifts. They had Easter off because that was important family time & Thanksgiving was a half day.
By the 2000s they were fully competing with big box stores & had less business. The hardware store kept afloat by giving the local farmers and vineyards credit on their purchases till their crops came in. & carrying farm animal feed. The big box stores wouldn’t do that. The small grocery closed. There wasn’t a store party anymore since 2000. I was an adult off doing my own thing by then. But any job I had, they rarely gave full time, never vacation time or dental rarely medical & I never got a bonus in my life & most of the bosses were mean.
Hats off, this is an excellent video. I’m a proud Teamster and I was raised by two proud New York public school teachers. Our family’s financial security has always rested in the guarantees that NYSUT has gained and retained for its members and my own financial future has been turbocharged by my time working as a UPS driver (plus my success in using my money once I have it has so much to do with all of the content created by TFD, thank you!!!) Of course no organization is perfect, but hot labor summer is just the beginning of making these groups as powerful as they used to be and even better - a couple of missteps and a less than completely perfect history won’t stop us.
Furthermore, many thanks to all of you out there who had our backs during IBT contract negotiations with UPS - public support had a lot to do with that success and public support will make or break future negotiations, such as those happening currently between the United Auto Workers with the big three American car manufacturers.
Hot labor summer lol
@@haleymist09truly a slay
My husband works in the glass manufacturing industry. This industry's unions are quite strong in North America, the problem is that these unions are managed by older members whose goal is to put their select favorites' interests above their work and productivity. They also abuse the mechanisms in place for personal emergencies that you have mentioned, they are late, absent and refuse to make improvements on the way they work, which impacts productivity. Nothing can be done because they are under the protective umbrella of the union, while regular staff has to work even harder to make up for what they don't do. There needs to be a proper balance so that the union works to protect the workers's rights but also commits to taking responsibility for abuse among its members and commits to helping the company make profits. Just my two cents, I think its also good to analyze what can be done, union laws should also be modified to avoid these loopholes that ultimately allow them to abuse the system.
The problem in a nutshell.
The pharmacists in my region were looking at unionizing a few years ago. Corporate (predictably) freaked out. Then covid came along and kind of derailed the entire conversation. But hey, we did get lunch breaks out of it. (Yes, we did not have a guaranteed lunch break before, even if we were working a twelve hour shift.) We honestly probably need to revisit the idea, but so many simply quit over the last three years that there just aren't as many of us around to try to work as a collective.
While we are it, we should have rights for salaried workers as well. There should be a daily, weekly, monthly, etc cap on unpaid hours. Currently there is no set hours. Its all on the whims of the employers.
Cap on unpaid hours is already 0
@Puzomor where? And by 0 meaning we shouldn't be working a single unpaid hour.
Everywhere, the employer can't fire you for not refusing to work for free, and they can't refuse to pay you for hours you worked.
Doing unpaid overtime is 100% the choice of the worker. The fact that many workers feel like this choice is forced on them is a different story, but the law is on their side already.
@Puzomor you can try all you like but every case either the employer accepts you won't work more than 40h. Or they will fire you. Now yes its my choice to work more than 40h but for salaried work you won't get paid anymore.
Al I'm saying is that the employer already has no legal basis to reprimand you for not doing unpaid work - the courts WILL recognise that if you decide to sue for being wrongfully fired.
Additionally, you already don't need unions to help you refuse to work without pay since it's already fully your choice to do so.
There's no additional legislature needed that would assist in solving this problem.
The only thing unions could help is in case the employer disregards your rights and wrongfully fires you or refuses to give you money for your overtime work, AND you decide to sue. But you have to make a decision to sue in the first place, instead of complaining how you're working for no compensation because your employer expects you to.
Bottom line is there is a cap already and it's 0. Everything else is your choice entirely. Know your rights. But more importantly, knowing your rights isn't enough - you also have to fight for your rights. You yourself have to, because nobody else will do it for you.
About half of the states across the country are "right to work" states that have laws that purportedly prevent workers from being required to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment, but in reality, make it more difficult for workers to unionize. These states have labor laws that protect employers, not workers.
And even when unions *do* manage to successfully form, many of the most high-profile unions that have recently formed have struggled to negotiate contracts, which is what's happening with the Starbucks and Amazon unions.
Im conservative and work for corporate at a brewery. Every time there’s rumblings from the union, I’m on their side. I’ve seen the way people at the top act and think and I want NOTHING to do with such crookery.
I LOVE this new setup and lighting! This colors/light also flatter you more, Chelsea ❤
The hair industry needs a union. There is so much abuse in that industry.
Wow!!
In the 60's working in a department store was a job that could support a family and these weren't union jobs. Having unions raised the bar across the economy.
I'm from Canada and I am so thankful for my union. I am on my union's executive council/bargaining team for our upcoming CA negotiations and while there are still some things that I find incredibly frustrating about our union, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Wonderful to see this info being shared with young people about unions on TFD.
There doesn't seem to be much of an incentive to work with the exception being mere survival. Such a misanthropic social system. Life itself has become a burden.
I know that’s why a lot people stay in their crappy state jobs (I just retired from one). It’s the job security, benefits, pensions.
I live in Iowa and stripping the rights from the Teachers Union was the first step towards privatizing education. I wonder when we will realize that as a species we are social creatures and need community to survive. If you can join a union, do it. And if you can't join a union, push for one to be created at your job. It's the only way to ensure the workers have rights.
I grew up just before Reagan, and I remember there being a lot more respect for workers. When a store went on strike, the parking lots were empty. People understood that even if they weren't union, they benefited because all employers had to compete for labor. People doing a job were respected for having one, even if it wasn't a high-paying job. When 24-hour news channels and talk radio spiked in popularity after Reagan, the anti-union attacks were vicious, followed by encouraging disdain for anyone who was working but just getting by. Worshiping wealth instead of respecting everyone who contributes to a company's success has led to abusive situations for a lot of workers, with everything from demoralizing management to wage theft.
What's really confusing as a non American is the benefits people state from being in a union there are not the things we would think (higher wages) but stuff like maternity leave, sick days, vacations....you know...the things we get by law almost everywhere else, lol.
I'm Chilean and work as a freelance lawyer (no union obvs) but I still have maternity leave and sick days paid, either by the State or by my health insurance, bc it's a universal right here. When I was a public servant, the union served to help workers with raises, complaints, and with minor benefits like gym memberships and the like. But everyone gets health coverage and pensions by law.
Of course I realice we have those things because of the work of big unions of both private and public sectors. If I ever work in a place with a union again, I'd join it for sure!
The US is such a backwater in so many aspects
I was literally told by my bosses that because i loved my job, i should not be paid for it because doing what i love was worth more than money and i should not complain. In order to abide by labor laws, we had to stamp our cards exactly the normal working hours despite working overtime for hours before and after the normal hours and pulling all nighters several times a week and coming in on weekends without stamping our card, ie without pay. Also in order to avoid being sued for not paying me, i had to sign papers for the auditors swearing up and down that i get the minimum legally required pay, and at the same time i had to sign papers saying that i will never ever demand such sums from my employers. Actually they even forced me to return all or big chunks of my below minimum pay to them, transferring it back into my employe s account or handing it over in person. They justified this with the above mentioned reasoning that because the content of my job actually interested me, i should not be paid at all but rather should pay them for the joy of being allowed to work something interesting instead of being forced to work in a field that did not interest me in the slightest. Wtf?!
I unsubscribed from this channel years ago because you were the only person I saw actually recognizing how difficult life is for the average worker. I felt like I was being gaslit by the other members because they were constantly talking about how easy it was to cut out a small expenditure (like coffee) and buy something large (like a house), not realizing that it wasn’t that simple. It was very distressing when I was on the verge of being homeless while working several jobs and not buying anything outside of the essentials while living in the cheapest apartment in my small town city. I’m hoping TFD is more class conscious now.
Thank you for all of the work you do, Chelsea, and for being a kind and understanding voice when I needed it. It was very validating and your authenticity has inspired me.
Thank you please wake up everyone, you wouldn't let your spouse treat you like that, so please let's not enable these abusers anymore in our workplace or economy. Universal Basic Income #ubi
Ubng with a net worth cap for the uber-wealthy, any corporations they run, and they only get majority shares in one company a person. Otherwise, they'll want the ubi on top of the profits they're already taking, and it won't do us any good.
My last job was a union job and when I was obtaining union benefits my then boss said they were going to hold me to a "higher standard" which I interpreted it as a way of phrasing how they're going to make my job more difficult and try to push me out as they eventually did claiming they were letting me go amid the pandemic and to "cut expenses" even though a few months later I saw my job readvertised.
The carpenter's union in Dayton Ohio had 4 million dollars disappear from their pension plan. It was never found and no one was ever held responsible. The men who trained me swore they would never work union again. Corruption is not only an ownership problem.
my husband is part of a union (hey Teamsters!) and I work in the tech industry. It is AMAZING how many benefits he has and how secure he feels in his job. Meanwhile I'm the only woman on my coding team and am constantly worried about getting fired because even in "lefty" California we are still a right to work state. Unions for everyone!
Colorado is also a RIGHT TO WORK STATE, which does not protect us from predatory employer's. Only a collective will and does protect the employed.
I was a teamster for 18 years, for YRC, AKA Yellow Freight. We had great benefits, and pay, but we were never secure.
The way the government stepped in and disallowed the railroad unions from striking has only emboldened the railroad barons to continue to errod the industry in the name of profits. The fact that there are only 4 main railroads monopolizing the industry doesn't help either. These same ceos claiming to have labor shortages during congressional hearings last year are still slashing jobs today. There will be more derailments due to cutting maintenance jobs, preventing government officials from inspecting equipment, and punishing whistleblowers for reporting unsafe working conditions.
Three simple words to live by.
Unionize. UNIONIZE! UNIONIZE!!!
My Dad was an immigrant and a Teamster. He always had a job and has been retired many years with a good pension. I even was able to get braces as kid because of the union benefits
Being from the Netherlands, this entire video is sad and quit frankly shocking. I feel so bad for those born in the USA
I'm in the US and honestly idk why people want to move here so badly.
@@kaylawaters2691so we can send money back home because of the exchange rate.
Honestly, me either. I live here and it just seems the harder you work, the harder actually earning a living becomes. Every time wages are increased, cost of living seemingly must be raised as well.@@kaylawaters2691
@@kaylawaters2691 Well, it's better than Paraguay.... Though our right-wing geniuses tend to admire Paraguay as a social ideal....
Holland must be an AWESOME country to live in!!!
First I'd like to say that I love the new set up in this video! And secondly, thank you for all the information you guys provide. I love what you guys provide each week. It's educational and pushes those of us who watch the channel to make changes, be more informed, and improve our decision-making.
I’d love to be in a union, but in my state, managers are legally barred from unionizing.
Contact the NLRB. That sounds like it would be a law they should review
I tell people all the time job's were better before the 80s. I wish i could get a job like my grandfather had, but they dont exist anymore.
i’m a QA chemist in a lab, and the line workers who make the products we test are union and they have so many more rights than we do. unions are so important.
I now have a unionized job, and I hope to never again have to go back to non-unionized. There are so many indignities that just disappeared, things like: since I've been part of a union, not a single colleague or boss has groped me, or made nasty vulgar jokes at me, or tried to force me into accepting the bf of their choice, because they know that when you've got a union, there are going to be consequences, workers have recourses other than trying to take on a whole corporate legal department by themselves with a pro bono lawyer.
On the good news side: globalization is being undone, and workers are rightfully p***ed. Let's go for a union revival
This makes me interested in the global state of unionized labor. The role of cultural collectivism vs individualism in unionization efforts would be an interesting topic!
Lets also not forget the ever increasing efficiency. Young workers nowadays are expected to do 3-5 times the work from the prior generations thanks to the increase in work efficiency, and the ever increasing workload. A cellphone literally means you are at work even while off work.
A computer, efficient programs, automation, usually mean more work for the people who haven't been replaced by it yet.
Literally expected to do more for less. And thanks to skyrocketing inflation compared to wage increases over the years, the work to pay ratio in many jobs has decreased. Of course, I'm not including highly specialized jobs (but even then, I do also think its increasing, as more companies push for more efficiency, less cost, and smaller workforce).
There are a whole host of anti-labor factors making it worse for many people.
There’s a great documentary on CNBC about how pensions were replaced by 401ks.
Hey Chelsea - This was excellent, a great tool for people to understand the history of this mess. Yes, a deep dive into Reagan (Gen-X here) whom I remember well as an A$$hole. You may want to set up that video with Carter's deregulation and the Glass Seagall Act as getting everything started.
Jobs did use to be this terrible, then a labor movement happened that improved standards for workers and consumers. Then Reagan and his awful supply side economics model destroyed those gains, recreating the problems of the past.
Before my mother graduated Highschool her school (not a good school BTW, public school in the suburbs of Detroit) placed her into a job. That job was at US Army Tank and Automotive Command. TACOM. They build the Abraham's tanks.
She started at 18 with a HS diploma. Retired making over 150k. Paid college and training.
This took literally 0 effort on her part. She signed a piece if paper at her school as a 17 year old and was handed a good government job with a pension!
To get a job as a janitot at the same place you need a 4 year degree now. Not even a bachelors. A masters. To push a broom. Or to slop food onto trays. 4 year degree required.
Just a way to keep poor people from moving classes.
I’m the proud daughter of a teachers’ Union organizer. The teachers unions were so strong in the 60’s and 70’s - all the way until Ronald Reagan showed up.
I am a veteran teacher and a union member, but I was disappointed by the toothless efforts of our union. Teachers have been overworked and underpaid for years, and we’ve complained bitterly, yet so many teachers’ unions are banned from striking.
And now the US media is whining that there aren’t enough teachers. This has been a process that took nearly 50 years to achieve. Why haven’t you been listening?
In Wisconsin, our teacher unions were attacked by politicians who constantly criticized the importance of unions. Teacher pay has never been high (as compared to other college degree jobs), but the benefits that we used to receive better balanced out our time commitment. The unions aren't as strong as they were before. Collective bargaining and easy access to a union representative meant that schools and principals were forced to follow the rules. I worked at a school with no union representation. At that school, teachers had to attend trainings/ meetings (unpaid) whenever we were told to. We were expected to do 50 hours of unpaid curriculum development during the 2 months we were off-contract (Summer Vacation). When I questioned this, I was told that we don't have to complete the work before our next contract start date, however those 50 hours of work are due on September 1st. Of course, nobody wanted to do 25 hours of curriculum development during a 40-45 hour work week, so there was really no other choice than to complete the work off-contract/ unpaid.
People forget that unions also ensure that employees get rightfully paid for what they have earned. If there is an error on your paychecks, a union will help get it fixed right away while protecting your job. It took months for my paycheck error to get fixed, then I was strung along for several more months waiting for my backpay. I was then told that it would just be added to my salary the next year, but it wasn't. After 1.5 years of pursuing my backpay, I gave up because I didn't want to run the risk of losing my job or having the school tell a prospective future employer that I'm difficult/ uncooperative. Teachers who have strong unions at their schools don't have to worry about going through a situation like this.
As an example I worked in a job in 1983 for a wage of $3.25 per hour. The company charged$12.50 per hour for their service. Today that company charges $125.00 per hour for that same service and pays employees $15.00 per hour for the same job I was doing. That should be pretty easy math for anybody. That is what happened to our work ethic. Why work when all of your effort goes to some rich man living in a gated community and you get to go hungry while your children are in rags.
We need 4 day work weeks.
My workplace is an example how jobs have gotten worse. I work at a.private school for the 1% of my city. In 1080, teaching assistants and subs would get scholarships for their kids. In 2000 they stopped giving those scholarships and now only teachers and administrators in higher positions get them. In 2017 they got cut. They only cover for 2 kids. And the rule was retroactive so teachers with 3 kids that had been working at the school for years and whose first child had already graduated were left with no coverage for their second and third kid at the school.
One thing to do research- benefits to the non union staff of heavily unionized industries. I worked as a salaried worker in an industry where the gross majority of line workers were part of a large union. And we (the ones not eligible to be in a union) got many of the same benefits as the unions negotiated during their contracts- good PTO, a large set of holidays (most notably- we got the week off between Christmas and New Year), good healthcare choices, and some job security items. So unions benefit all of the workers in an industry, not just themselves.
That is correct.
Union power is one reason why (in Canada) women can't lose thier job for becoming pregnant. CUPW! forever grateful for the folks who fought for parental protections.
You can't discuss the middle class without recognizing there is a whole class below it
And below that one.
There is no class above or below. It's a class war: Owners against workers. As long as workers are willing to take the few crumbs they get every once in a while, nothing will change.
Why on earth not?
There’s actually two below it (to the extent that “middle class” even means anything). It goes: Lumpenproletariat (criminal class), proletariat (labor class), Labor Aristocracy (Middle class), Petty Bourgeoisie (Small-scale employers), and the Bourgeoisie (owning/capital class).
Growing up there were like 3 middle class upper ,middle and lower I was definitely raised lower
I was in a union for 20 years and it locked us into 2% pay increases per year for years at a time and didn't prevent the loss of the pension benefit. The corporate execs are usually able to get their way despite the unions. And unions create mistrust and lack of cooperation between managers and workers. It's up to the government to provide policies and protections for the workers. But the government is controlled by the corporate leaders so it's really a no win situation for workers. Best is to work for yourself in your own business or go back to farm life and stop working for corporations, companies, other people who only seek to exploit you for their profit.
I worked in a factory in the 2000s. It was a Union plant, and paid very well. In 2007 the owner passed away, and his sons sold the company. The new owners promised us our jobs where secure. You know the usual BS a new owner tells you. In 2008 the we all where laid off, and the plant was closed down. A year later I saw them hiring for a new plant. I looked into it they reopened the same location with lower wages, and no Union.
One thing that I think contributes to the continuing decline of unions is the reputation many have gained for not ensuring decent quality workers. I can only speak from experience in the A/V industry, but I have heard this more generally from people in several industries. In A/V, a lot of non-union workers don't want to work alongside union members because they feel like they frequently take the brunt of "union laziness". I know several people who have had issues with union workers. From the lead union person deciding to milk the clock and telling the other union workers to go hide (literally. They deliberately hid so that the set up would take longer) or taking their break right then instead of helping everyone pack up so they could clock out and go home, or just plain not being qualified for the job they were sent to do, union workers frequently have terrible reputations with non-union employees. Whether this reputation is actually representative of the group doesn't matter. The perception I hear from almost every non-union worker is that they hate union-workers. And that mentality can make deprogramming yourself from decades of smear campaigning almost impossible.
I agree with your point re; unions but I think that's only one of many factors. The "winner take all" nature of digital advancements and the breaking of the "hard work=advancement" dynamic are two that I can think of off the top of my head but there are more. Yes, unions would help with those but they should be called out.
It is very interesting to hear about unions in the US. In Spain, unions are basically useless in the private sector (no one unionizes anymore because of that and so they don't put effort there despite being where they're most needed) and they only work properly in the public sector. It's a mess, honestly.
Workers need to unite
We run the world.
I hope in your video about Regan, you can explain how he went from a literal strike-leading union president to a president who busted striking unions??
The biggest problem when talking about politics in the US is the framing. When the US media talks about the political centre, they aren’t actually talking about the political centre as defined by broad policy positions (where - for example- those left of centre are pro-worker and pro-union while those right of centre are pro-corporation and anti-union). US political framing talks about the “political centre” as being the gap between the policy positions of the two major parties. This is confusing because that shifts constantly, and has drifted steadily to the right (or to the right and up - more authoritarian - if you want to talk in vote compass terms) over the past 4 decades. Currently, almost the entire Democratic Party is to the right of the political centre (anti-union, anti-worker, pro-corporate power) as is all of the Republican Party.
You get the government you vote for - both in the general election, but also in the primaries.
… and for anyone saying “I don’t care about politics”: political decisions affect every aspect of your life, from the food you eat (how much it costs and how safe it is for you to eat) to the education you get to the job that education enables you to do to the car you drive to the home you can or can’t afford.
You can choose to be uninterested in politics but you can’t choose to be unaffected by it.
If employers were not psychopaths this would not be a problem. It's called being greatful we all learned the idea as kids.
Thank you for focussing so much on "dignity".
The map of where unions are and how successful they are is misleading. The numbers are skewed by population density not success of the union. Unions fell in decline in the USA because they became crippled by a one party rule and stopped representing the true middle class. They are not glorified institutions anymore. it’s not just capitalism that made them unpopular it’s their own culture and ideology that did it.