How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union? Is there a limit to that, or can companies just say, “Anyone who joins a union will be paid minimum wage.” Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?
How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union?
Other than the minimum wage and protected classes, there’s not really any laws around how much employers must pay. They can have two employees, Bob and Tina, and pay Bob half of Tina’s salary because they just hate the name “Bob”. If Bob doesn’t like it he can quit.
I don’t think it’s preferential pay. It’s just that they pay more, somebody in the union also can get more money than the union minimum. Somebody not part of the union can get less or more than somebody in the union, just not below the union minimum.
It’s not that if they join the union that they get less money.
The union + 0.5 just means that they earn better than the minimum and the employer gives them more than the minimum, because people like that.
At least that’s how it works where I live and union contracts are common.
Not everyone part of the union has to get exactly the union minimum, it’s just that you cannot legally get less. People might not be part of the union but they still fall under the union contract negotiated by the union, because it applies to the entire company.
So even then, the union people might be making more than the union minimum, so the non union person might still be making less than an average union person while not getting any union benefits.
What I’m saying is that if they can set “$0.50 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone, they can also set “$5 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone and then cut union rates by $5. It’s essentially just bribing people to not join a union or penalizing them if they do. It being company policy for everyone is irrelevant.
They can’t cut union rates since they have a contract. So they can, within reason, pay non union workers more but not lower the pay of union workers. One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can’t just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
There’s a limit to how much they can pay the ununionized workers before it becomes clear they’re trying to interfere with the workers rights to free organization. In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues, or could be explained as related to costs.
The workplace is deducting the union dues from union workers checks automatically.
Unions loosing membership causing them to be weaker in negotiations is entirely irrelevant to why companies don’t just lower union pay outside of negotiations.
There’s no faster way to get downvoted than to complain about being downvoted, particularly if you’re weirdly smug about it.
Unions loosing membership causing them to be weaker in negotiations is entirely irrelevant to why companies don’t just lower union pay outside of negotiations.
OK, here’s the source of the confusion.
What the fuck did I say that made anyone think I was talking about cutting union pay outside of negotiations? Literally where is anyone getting this from??
There’s no faster way to get downvoted than to complain about being downvoted, particularly if you’re weirdly smug about it.
Most of the downvotes I got (so far) came before I added that part.
Because referring to changing pay rates for union workers as a policy change pretty heavily implies it’s not a negotiation, and “why wouldn’t the company just get the union to agree to a significant pay cut” is an even more asinine point. They obviously would have if the could have. The assumption that you didn’t know unions negotiated contracts seemed more charitable than thinking you didn’t know how bargaining worked.
Most of the downvotes I got (so far) came before I added that part.
Because referring to changing pay rates for union workers as a policy change pretty heavily implies it’s not a negotiation, and “why wouldn’t the company just get the union to agree to a significant pay cut” is an even more asinine point. They obviously would have if the could have. The assumption that you didn’t know unions negotiated contracts seemed more charitable than thinking you didn’t know how bargaining worked.
But that’s not how bargaining works. What unions are able to negotiate is a function of how large, powerful, and organized they are. Rejecting what the company offers can mean going on strike, and if they aren’t powerful enough for that to be a credible threat (because people left the union for higher pay rates), then that means they have very little power to negotiate or say no to what’s offered.
So it’s more like, you don’t understand how bargaining works, so you jumped to the completely absurd conclusion that I didn’t know unions negotiated contracts? What?
Well, also, a lot of the union jobs simply don’t exist anymore. Not very many boilermakers, steamfitters, carmens, or glazers around anymore. So obviously union membership is going to be down.
Aren’t people with college educations more likely to end up in a union? One of the reasons some places don’t want to hire “overqualified” people is because they’re afraid of unionization.
There’s a variety of reasons for the decline of unions in the US, the main ones being:
Anti-union laws and propaganda (Mike Rowe being a big one)
Offshoring of manufacturing jobs
Major unions defanging themselves by purging radicals/communists to prove they’re “one of the good ones”
Literally not what I said at all. I said that you are more likely to be in a union if you have more education. Do you bother looking anything up before trying to incorrectly correct others?
At this point it’s extremely obvious that you’re just trolling.
Other people are incorrect as well, you’ve been notified and provided sources for how and why you’re wrong as well as why they are wrong. Again dunning kruger, go back to daycare.
Show me a single comment providing me with a single source. Not one has been provided, and I even double-checked on .world in case there was one I wasn’t federated with. You are a liar and a troll.
They can’t cut union wages that’s the whole point of collective bargaining and they’re just maintaining competition with union rates which is legal. That competition might be specifically devised to draw potential employees away from union contracts and people may be dumb enough to go for it but that’s capitalism however dumb that may be.
The issue here is that if more people choose not to join a union for the pay raise in the short term, unions become weaker in the longer term. The capitalist in this case is paying a premium now to divide up labor for the chance down the line to save more money on labor overall in the long term.
Great, they increased pay for non-union workers, the workers leave the union for increased pay, now the company cuts union pay, and now there’s no organization for the workers to do anything about it. “Mission accomplished” indeed.
Literally what have I said anywhere that suggests I’m in any way, “baffled?” I’m just pointing out how fucked up it is to others who don’t understand, such as the person I replied to.
if salaries depend on union decisions then surely they are following the union’s demands.
i think the thing that makes it confusing is the missing context of whether unionised workers at that site are being paid less than non-union workers. i assumed the answer was no because it sounded like they had a CBA that the person was not aware of, since the alternative would have been immediately struck down by any union worth its salt.
My guess would be that this person is part of the collective bargaining block, but does not pay dues (possibly public sector). So the contract she describes was negotiated by the Union, and is the same contract that everyone in her position gets, union or otherwise. She probably just doesn’t realize it.
Could be wrong, but the above situation is unfortunately pretty common.
I mean of course it’s fucked up of course there’s room for abuse. That’s capitalism. The point of capitalism is abuse. The point of capitalism is the exploitation of the worker. In essence that’s the problem here. You keep asking why are things aren’t Fair, the answer is capitalism it’s inherently unfair. There are no rules in a capitalist Society to keep things Fair. The point of capitalism is to make things unfair.
I’m well aware of that. As I said, “Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?”
There are so many replies that don’t get it. 123. You’re explaining to me how it’s “obviously” fucked up (which I already acknowledged), but most of the replies are telling me that it isn’t fucked up at all - maybe you should try responding to those people instead of to me.
They’re not trying to tell you it’s not fucked up. They’re just surprised you’re stuck on the most Elemental aspect and are moving on to the next aspects. Everyone knows it’s fucked up and has moved on to the next topic. Fundamental truth to the world aren’t something we spend a lot of time talking about.
sure, but whether or not they know it they have caved to the union’s demands by doing that
You think this demonstrates that “everyone knows it’s fucked up?” Because it sounds a lot to me like they’re saying it isn’t fucked up at all, and is in fact, “caving to the union’s demands.”
I wish that when my critics attacked me from completely opposite angles, they spent half as much time criticizing each other for having 100% opposite positions on why I’m supposedly wrong.
No one is attacking you, people are just annoyed how worked up you are vrs how much you’re willing to actually do to find out things for yourself. No one here is your teacher, stop demanding an education and seek it for yourself.
No, like I just said in the comment you apparently didn’t read, they’ve moved past the fact that it’s fucked up onto the next topic. I don’t get what you’re not getting here. I’ll say it one more time. We all know it’s fucked up. That’s what capitalism means. That’s not a unique thing to say. It’s not a new thing to say. You’re not breaking ground here. Next topic.
No, they have not, “accepted it and moved on to the next topic” they are disputing the claim. That’s the opposite of accepting it. You can’t read, or you’re just saying complete nonsense to troll.
How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union? Is there a limit to that, or can companies just say, “Anyone who joins a union will be paid minimum wage.” Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?
Other than the minimum wage and protected classes, there’s not really any laws around how much employers must pay. They can have two employees, Bob and Tina, and pay Bob half of Tina’s salary because they just hate the name “Bob”. If Bob doesn’t like it he can quit.
I don’t think it’s preferential pay. It’s just that they pay more, somebody in the union also can get more money than the union minimum. Somebody not part of the union can get less or more than somebody in the union, just not below the union minimum.
It’s not that if they join the union that they get less money. The union + 0.5 just means that they earn better than the minimum and the employer gives them more than the minimum, because people like that.
At least that’s how it works where I live and union contracts are common.
Not everyone part of the union has to get exactly the union minimum, it’s just that you cannot legally get less. People might not be part of the union but they still fall under the union contract negotiated by the union, because it applies to the entire company.
So even then, the union people might be making more than the union minimum, so the non union person might still be making less than an average union person while not getting any union benefits.
You may be right, but it certainly sounds like she’s claiming it’s contractual, explicit, and general policy.
sounds like their pay is based on union rates. that’s probably just a company policy for everyone.
What I’m saying is that if they can set “$0.50 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone, they can also set “$5 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone and then cut union rates by $5. It’s essentially just bribing people to not join a union or penalizing them if they do. It being company policy for everyone is irrelevant.
They can’t cut union rates since they have a contract. So they can, within reason, pay non union workers more but not lower the pay of union workers. One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can’t just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
There’s a limit to how much they can pay the ununionized workers before it becomes clear they’re trying to interfere with the workers rights to free organization. In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues, or could be explained as related to costs.
Not until everyone leaves the union to get extra pay and the union loses all its bargaining power.
That doesn’t make any sense. If it’s about union dues, the union pay is what should be higher.
I love how people downvote my comments with absolutely zero explanation of why I’m wrong.
The workplace is deducting the union dues from union workers checks automatically.
Unions loosing membership causing them to be weaker in negotiations is entirely irrelevant to why companies don’t just lower union pay outside of negotiations.
There’s no faster way to get downvoted than to complain about being downvoted, particularly if you’re weirdly smug about it.
OK, here’s the source of the confusion.
What the fuck did I say that made anyone think I was talking about cutting union pay outside of negotiations? Literally where is anyone getting this from??
Most of the downvotes I got (so far) came before I added that part.
Because referring to changing pay rates for union workers as a policy change pretty heavily implies it’s not a negotiation, and “why wouldn’t the company just get the union to agree to a significant pay cut” is an even more asinine point. They obviously would have if the could have. The assumption that you didn’t know unions negotiated contracts seemed more charitable than thinking you didn’t know how bargaining worked.
Okay.
But that’s not how bargaining works. What unions are able to negotiate is a function of how large, powerful, and organized they are. Rejecting what the company offers can mean going on strike, and if they aren’t powerful enough for that to be a credible threat (because people left the union for higher pay rates), then that means they have very little power to negotiate or say no to what’s offered.
So it’s more like, you don’t understand how bargaining works, so you jumped to the completely absurd conclusion that I didn’t know unions negotiated contracts? What?
Replace leaving the union with going to college instead and you get why we have a 3 generation straight loss in union membership.
People told their kids to chase more money and then spent that money on cheaper foreign products and the whole house fell down within 20 years.
This was the plan by the way for capitalists.
Well, also, a lot of the union jobs simply don’t exist anymore. Not very many boilermakers, steamfitters, carmens, or glazers around anymore. So obviously union membership is going to be down.
Aren’t people with college educations more likely to end up in a union? One of the reasons some places don’t want to hire “overqualified” people is because they’re afraid of unionization.
There’s a variety of reasons for the decline of unions in the US, the main ones being:
Anti-union laws and propaganda (Mike Rowe being a big one)
Offshoring of manufacturing jobs
Major unions defanging themselves by purging radicals/communists to prove they’re “one of the good ones”
No most higher education jobs aren’t union. Do you bother to lookup anything by yourself before you speak about things?
Literally not what I said at all. I said that you are more likely to be in a union if you have more education. Do you bother looking anything up before trying to incorrectly correct others?
At this point it’s extremely obvious that you’re just trolling.
They can’t cut union rates.
Not until everyone leaves the union to get extra pay and the union loses all its bargaining power.
This doesn’t even make sense.
In my case, even that wouldn’t matter. The only way for an employer to get out of a union agreement is to shut down the business completely.
Your union agreements last until the end of time and never get renegotiated?
It’s a union shop on Union contract. Again you just don’t understand basic facts of life you should have learned in civics.
I’ll ask again, since you comletely ignored the question: so their contracts never expire and never get renegotiated?
That’s just union contract negotiations.
Not providing cost of living increase is effectively a pay cut FYI, and we’re speaking colloquially here.
Congrats you just figured out capitalism, .ml is speaking volumes here.
Thank you, yes as an .ml I do understand capitalism better than most of the people replying to me, it seems.
Dunning Kruger in action. Yes facts don’t matter your beliefs do, head on back to daycare and let the adults talk in peace.
Which facts are you talking about, exactly?
You yourself said:
So you agree with me, lots of people in this thread disagree with me 1 2 3, but you’re attacking me because??? I’m on .ml???
Other people are incorrect as well, you’ve been notified and provided sources for how and why you’re wrong as well as why they are wrong. Again dunning kruger, go back to daycare.
Show me a single comment providing me with a single source. Not one has been provided, and I even double-checked on .world in case there was one I wasn’t federated with. You are a liar and a troll.
sure, but whether or not they know it they have caved to the union’s demands by doing that
What kind of 5th dimensional chess are you trying to play where penalizing someone for joining a union is “caving to the union’s demands?”
They can’t cut union wages that’s the whole point of collective bargaining and they’re just maintaining competition with union rates which is legal. That competition might be specifically devised to draw potential employees away from union contracts and people may be dumb enough to go for it but that’s capitalism however dumb that may be.
One of the main goals of unions is to increase worker pay. Mission accomplished.
The issue here is that if more people choose not to join a union for the pay raise in the short term, unions become weaker in the longer term. The capitalist in this case is paying a premium now to divide up labor for the chance down the line to save more money on labor overall in the long term.
Thank you, this is exactly what I said, but since you don’t have a .ml next to your name people might not just randomly attack you over it.
Great, they increased pay for non-union workers, the workers leave the union for increased pay, now the company cuts union pay, and now there’s no organization for the workers to do anything about it. “Mission accomplished” indeed.
Yes that’s capitalism, how exactly you’re baffled by that this late in life is in itself quite the quandary.
Literally what have I said anywhere that suggests I’m in any way, “baffled?” I’m just pointing out how fucked up it is to others who don’t understand, such as the person I replied to.
if salaries depend on union decisions then surely they are following the union’s demands.
i think the thing that makes it confusing is the missing context of whether unionised workers at that site are being paid less than non-union workers. i assumed the answer was no because it sounded like they had a CBA that the person was not aware of, since the alternative would have been immediately struck down by any union worth its salt.
My guess would be that this person is part of the collective bargaining block, but does not pay dues (possibly public sector). So the contract she describes was negotiated by the Union, and is the same contract that everyone in her position gets, union or otherwise. She probably just doesn’t realize it.
Could be wrong, but the above situation is unfortunately pretty common.
deleted by creator
I wouldn’t be surprised if the union has other benefits that more then make up for the 50 cents, e.g. better medical, vacation, or whatever.
I get that, I’m just highlighting the potential for abuse. Or rather, that it’s fucked up in the first place.
I mean of course it’s fucked up of course there’s room for abuse. That’s capitalism. The point of capitalism is abuse. The point of capitalism is the exploitation of the worker. In essence that’s the problem here. You keep asking why are things aren’t Fair, the answer is capitalism it’s inherently unfair. There are no rules in a capitalist Society to keep things Fair. The point of capitalism is to make things unfair.
I’m well aware of that. As I said, “Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?”
There are so many replies that don’t get it. 1 2 3. You’re explaining to me how it’s “obviously” fucked up (which I already acknowledged), but most of the replies are telling me that it isn’t fucked up at all - maybe you should try responding to those people instead of to me.
They’re not trying to tell you it’s not fucked up. They’re just surprised you’re stuck on the most Elemental aspect and are moving on to the next aspects. Everyone knows it’s fucked up and has moved on to the next topic. Fundamental truth to the world aren’t something we spend a lot of time talking about.
Are reading the same replies?
You think this demonstrates that “everyone knows it’s fucked up?” Because it sounds a lot to me like they’re saying it isn’t fucked up at all, and is in fact, “caving to the union’s demands.”
I wish that when my critics attacked me from completely opposite angles, they spent half as much time criticizing each other for having 100% opposite positions on why I’m supposedly wrong.
No one is attacking you, people are just annoyed how worked up you are vrs how much you’re willing to actually do to find out things for yourself. No one here is your teacher, stop demanding an education and seek it for yourself.
Point to anywhere where I’ve “demanded an education,” troll. “I’ll wait.”
No, like I just said in the comment you apparently didn’t read, they’ve moved past the fact that it’s fucked up onto the next topic. I don’t get what you’re not getting here. I’ll say it one more time. We all know it’s fucked up. That’s what capitalism means. That’s not a unique thing to say. It’s not a new thing to say. You’re not breaking ground here. Next topic.
No, they have not, “accepted it and moved on to the next topic” they are disputing the claim. That’s the opposite of accepting it. You can’t read, or you’re just saying complete nonsense to troll.
Oh of course. But this is America, the land of the exploited.
We still have 7.25 minimum wage.