Question about the Right Wing

[bilby]

You lose some freedom by being in a union. If that is too much to lose, in your personal opinion, for the benefits of being in a union, that ought to be your choice.

Sure, but if you choose not to join, you should also choose not to benefit. If the boss offers a 0.5% pay rise, and the union bargains that up to 3%, non union employees should get the 0.5% increment.

Sadly, such a system would rapidly become unmanageable for employers, who would need to track different pay rates and increments for each employee.

The simple answer is to tell all those who benefit that they must join the union, or go elsewhere.

 

[Bomb#20]

I know you think that labor hasn't a chance without government backing, and I disagree with that. I think that labor would definitely have a strong case, if businesses didn't also have government backing. If you get rid of the pro-union AND the anti-union laws and regulations, it would be a level playing field. You see libertarians as only wanting to get rid of the pro-union side because that is the side you care about.

There is a reason some people like right-to-work laws. It is because they are a counter-narrative to closed-shop laws. Both are government activities.

Other than right-to-work what anti-union laws are there?

Taft–Hartley Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bomb#20]

You lose some freedom by being in a union. If that is too much to lose, in your personal opinion, for the benefits of being in a union, that ought to be your choice.

Sure, but if you choose not to join, you should also choose not to benefit. If the boss offers a 0.5% pay rise, and the union bargains that up to 3%, non union employees should get the 0.5% increment.

Sadly, such a system would rapidly become unmanageable for employers, who would need to track different pay rates and increments for each employee.

By "unmanageable", you mean, like every company I've ever worked for? You mean, the way they track different numbers of vacation days each employee has taken? Oh, the horror!

The simple answer is to tell all those who benefit that they must join the union, or go elsewhere.

Are you seriously suggesting "join the union, or go elsewhere" policies are because employers like them, not because unions like them? What say we keep the discussion at least a little reality-based?

("Like them" is an expression that here means "like them better than 'non union employees should get the 0.5%' policies". What a lot of unions like best of all are "No, you can't join the union, period. Go elsewhere, period." policies. (Those are illegal in the U.S., but I'm familiar with them from my time in Canada.))

 

[Swammerdami]

Right-to-work is right-to-not-be-a-slave.

Bullshit. Right-to-work is right-to-be-in-a-race-to-the-bottom.

It's a mechanism by which employers minimise wages, safety, respect, and security.

No civilised country permits it. Hell, even large parts of the USA, where workers are generally treated like utter shit, don't permit it.

If it's not a right to work state you have no choice but to work for whatever union covers your industry. And if you have no choice about working for somebody you're a slave.

Oh my. If you and I are BOTH "centrists", one of us had better find a new word to describe our politics because your version of "centrism" is inane.

Businesses in any state have the right NOT to sign any contract with a labor union.

Google's AI Overview gets it right:

In states with right-to-work laws, employers are prohibited from requiring employees to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.

Some of your views are so wrong-headed it's hard to tell if you're pro-freedom or anti-freedom, but read the above quote again: "In states with right-to-work laws, employers are prohibited ..."

 

[laughing dog]

Right-to-work is right-to-not-be-a-slave.

Bullshit. Right-to-work is right-to-be-in-a-race-to-the-bottom.

It's a mechanism by which employers minimise wages, safety, respect, and security.

No civilised country permits it. Hell, even large parts of the USA, where workers are generally treated like utter shit, don't permit it.

If it's not a right to work state you have no choice but to work for whatever union covers your industry. And if you have no choice about working for somebody you're a slave.

WTF? Slaves cannot quit their employer/owner, but workers can. How do you come up with such nonsense?

If you're not in a right to work state the unions can prohibit you from working in your trade. You can quit and become unskilled labor, but good luck having a decent life if you take that path.

Is this more satirization of anti union nonsense? Even accepting your ridiculous premise that unions in a right to work state are in every site of one’s “trade”, why on earth would anyone think if a person cannot ply their chosen trade, they become unskilled labor?

 

[Bomb#20]

If it's not a right to work state you have no choice but to work for whatever union covers your industry. And if you have no choice about working for somebody you're a slave.

Oh my. If you and I are BOTH "centrists", one of us had better find a new word to describe our politics because your version of "centrism" is inane.

Then so is yours. "Centrist" doesn't mean a person who has no unreasonably extreme views on any topic; it means a person whose views on topics in general are mostly moderate and don't mostly skew toward one side of a political spectrum. So LP thinks "union shops" are slavery -- whoop de do. You think cigarettes have "intrinsic value".

 

[unapologetic]

(Yawn) I thought union debates were settled decades ago.

Sadly, such a system would rapidly become unmanageable for employers, who would need to track different pay rates and increments for each employee.

That is already the case.
Most employees get different rates: new hires, 5-year vets, 10-year vets, different shifts, etc.
Raises are paid by years of experience, skill levels, etc.
Even among union members.
Do all bus drivers get the same rate?

----

My union experience (I know, nobody asked):
As a teen I had to join the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)
to get a job assembling lamps after school. My shift was all students.
I couldn't even go to the union meetings, because they were held at night, while I was at work.
My shift manager was my union rep. (The same guy I would complain about given the chance)

 

[bilby]

(Yawn) I thought union debates were settled decades ago.

In whose favour?

Sadly, such a system would rapidly become unmanageable for employers, who would need to track different pay rates and increments for each employee.

That is already the case.

Well, no, it often isn't. Typically there are a handful of pay bands for a given role, and everyone is paid one of those bands as a base wage.

Most employees get different rates: new hires, 5-year vets, 10-year vets, different shifts, etc.
Raises are paid by years of experience, skill levels, etc.
Even among union members.
Do all bus drivers get the same rate?

We get paid one of seven band rates as a base wage, plus allowances and extra payments that are calculated via a standard set of formulae (eg 150% of basic for time worked in excess of 38 hours in a given week).

My employer would certainly baulk at being asked to maintain a separate basic wage for each driver - that would be a hundredfold increase in the complexity of the payroll.

Obviously it would be fairly easy to implement such a system today, if that was designed in from the start. But our payroll system was computerised in the 1970s, and big chunks of it are still written in COBOL. It would be a massive and expensive project to attempt to replace it.

And I say "attempt", because recent history with such projects suggests that failure is a very likely outcome.

----

My union experience (I know, nobody asked):
As a teen I had to join the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)
to get a job assembling lamps after school. My shift was all students.
I couldn't even go to the union meetings, because they were held at night, while I was at work.
My shift manager was my union rep. (The same guy I would complain about given the chance)

That sucks.

I presume that you are aware that it's not typical, at least, not worldwide.

The US seems to be as uniquely bad at unionisation as she is at healthcare.

I suspect the hideous corruption of the US system has its roots in the massive boost to organised crime that resulted from Prohibition, which was contemporary with the rapid growth of trades unionism between the wars.

Labour unions were just another power base corrupted by gangsters, at a time when gangsters were given a blank cheque by the Eighteenth Amendment.

 

[unapologetic]

We get paid one of seven band rates as a base wage, plus allowances and extra payments that are calculated via a standard set of formulae (eg 150% of basic for time worked in excess of 38 hours in a given week).

7 rates is not as simple as you implied. Are you at the same rate for life? Are you making the same as a new hire? Was everybody hired at the same time? If you answered NO to any of those questions, then each employee is calculated separately.

 

[bilby]

We get paid one of seven band rates as a base wage, plus allowances and extra payments that are calculated via a standard set of formulae (eg 150% of basic for time worked in excess of 38 hours in a given week).

7 rates is not as simple as you implied. Are you at the same rate for life? Are you making the same as a new hire? Was everybody hired at the same time? If you answered NO to any of those questions, then each employee is calculated separately.

No, employees are grouped into seven pools, within each of which every employee is paid the same base wage, plus allowances, penalties and overtime calculated using the same formula throughout.

I understand what you are trying to get at, but I can assure you that, algorithmically speaking, you and I are talking about VERY different things.

And algorithms are everything when operating an actual, real-world, payroll system.