Written by a guy whose office ran on unpaid interns. Look. I'm IATSE which is AFL-CIO. I'm even pro union. My grandfather was a regional president of the AFL. My other grandfather was a union pipe-fitter. And when writers write shit like this? My union "MADE ORGANIZING MORE UNION MEMBERS THE VERY HIGHEST PRIORITY. NOW" and the primary result is that more people are paying union dues, union contracts have more riders gutting them of their protections, necessary hours have gone up so fewer people are getting benefits but oh holy fuck those pension obligations that we all owe the 'boomers are almost covered. Know why people hate unions? When my daughter was born, we had to go to city hall to get her a birth certificate. We filled out a form with all of her information. And then we handed the form to a union clerk. And then we waited. And another union clerk led us into a room. And the second union clerk handed our piece of paper to a third union clerk, who asked us questions and typed the very same answers we'd filled out onto a piece of paper with a fucking typewriter. And then a fourth union clerk made us swear all that shit was true and notarized it. Back in my old neighborhood there's a "permeable path." That means "dirt trail" to you. And it rains sometimes and erodes. And people walk on it and it erodes. And they could do one of two things: 1) install a permeable concrete path (look it up - there are a million different ways to do this) 2) Bring out a truck of twelve guys making $70k a year to kill a week and a half every six months shoveling dirt around Which do you think my union public works department does? Here's the reality - unions fuck their workers, but they fuck everybody else harder and in an environment where the fucking is ripe, they fuck with no lube. Yeah - my health insurance is stellar but I'm ragged edge of not qualifying for it every year and I"m now living away from my family six months out of the year to have what is probably literally the best sound job in Hollywood. And it's not like I'm digging ditches. But my union? They make my rate, every day, 40 hours a week, with paid vacation, for "running the union." We undoubtedly do have a grim future of labor under Trump. But this knee-jerk "we have to unionize" from assholes that use unpaid interns and couldn't tell you what a "right to work state" is with a gun to their heads isn't helping the problem.UNIONS MUST ORGANIZE MILLIONS OF NEW WORKERS VERY SOON OR EVERYTHING POLITICAL AND ECONOMICALLY WILL GET WORSE. UNIONS MUST MAKE ORGANIZING MORE UNION MEMBERS THE VERY HIGHEST PRIORITY. NOW.
Currently, more than one in three public sector workers are in unions, making up about half of all the union members in America.
H'okay so. A year ago I didn't give a shitfuck about unions except they were cool for the people who were in them, they helped. But I wasn't in a union and wouldn't ever be and so didn't care about them at all. Now the girl's in a union so I hear about unions and I hear about how "unions are constantly being threatened by the gov't" and so on and I'm trying to understand it better because it sounds like MADD who got the .08 ABV legislated for drunk driving and then looked around and realized if they wanted to continue to exist .08 couldn't be enough. Because otherwise their point was done and they'd accomplished their goal. I'm not saying I believe unions literally are MADD in that way. Girl is concerned a lot about "right to work" and that sounds valid. But part of me's a skeptic and I can see she's very, very bought into unions and I am trying to learn more so I don't sound like a jackass when I ask her how she knows that the people leading her union aren't just filling their members' heads with scare stories to convince everyone that not only do unions 100% need to exist, but their power needs to continue growing and is constantly threatened all the time. Because of course the people in power over an organization want the organization to have more power. And of course it serves them if their members think that power is constantly in danger of slipping away. So break it down for me, huh? P.S. I found this 5 part horror short series (whatever they call the ones that aren't a full season and never go longer) that's British and satirizes Big Brother on Netflix, it's got zombies and it's called Dead Set. You might get a kick out of it. Or at least you could watch the first 30 minutes and tell me if that's what it's really like at BB behind the scenes. :D
In theory, unionization allows powerless individual workers to band together and secure equitable employment from large employers that directly benefit from worker abuse. In practice, unionization allows powerless individual workers to band together and be abused by large unions that directly benefit from member abuse. Obviously the truth is in the middle somewhere, and is an outcome of differing rules and treatment. Not all unions are created equal, not all union agreements are created equal. but look: My union hits me for about $250 a quarter for membership. It cost me $2500 to buy in. If I get my 400 hours every six months I keep my benefits. After 20,000 hours I get to retire on about $1200 a month pension. All this is through the Master Agreement so every trade in Hollywood has that same setup. The camera union hits their members for about $800 a month for membership It costs them about $8k to buy in. All else is equal. I have friends that used to be in the artists' guild. Then the art directors' guild ate them and now their membership dues are triple and nobody is protecting their interests because fucking storyboardists and set decorators have fuckall to do with each other. I have friends that check bags. They can join the union and pay $200 a month (of a grocery bagger's salary) in order to be a member of the union. The pay is the same. Except if you don't join the union you never get promoted. I have friends that teach classes. They can join the teacher's union and pay about $350 a month (of a teacher's salary) in order to be a member of the union. The pay is the same. Except if you don't join the union you will never get the AP classes, you will be the last substitute called and your review will never go well. And look - my bennies are off the chain. COBRA on them is something like $1800/mo and I pay $400/yr for my family of 3. If I keep working at the rate I'm working for another 18 years, I'll have a legit pension which is kind of like having a unicorn. BUT My bennies are off the chain because unlike SAG or the Directors Guild of the Producer's guild, I get no residuals from anything I do. ALL that money goes to my union. ALL OF IT. The union that told me they couldn't get my back wages because "the production company is too mean." The union that asked me "is Big Brother shot on film or video." The union that told me "we're coming to help" but didn't get a signed contract until 3 months after the production wrapped. The union whose secretary makes the same rate I do, day in, day out, sunrise, sunset, so that she can have an unpaid college student "intern" do all her typing. The union that told me I couldn't join because they hadn't called me despite the fact that I was able to throw 3,000 hours of work in their face. Again. My grandfather was a regional president of the AFL. But you know what? That pretty much meant that he made a shit-ton of money without having to do any work. In theory, unions are great. And there are aspects of union membership that are great. But the fundamental benefits of unions are largely experienced by union leadership, not union membership, because they're predatory organizations that require you to swear a blood oath to uphold your brothers under penalty of death'n'shit so that they can get into pissing matches with other unions. I like having medical insurance. I would pay a lot more without my union work. But the International was perfectly happy signing off on my rape-me-in-the-ass rate so long as they got the opportunity to take money from me for really shitty insurance because not all unions are created equal. And not everybody benefits from them. And yes. I've been aware of Dead Set since it came out, but never got around to watching it. We're all of a mind that it's pretty fun, and we don't hate it nearly as much as we hate Unreal.
I dont really understand whats wrong with "Right to work". Why does everyone in a union shop have to be in the union? Even if the union does a bad job for you, its basically impossible to get rid of the union. The problem I see with a non "Right to work" state is that once a union is established it has little need/desire to actually represent its employees because members cannot leave. The union has a monopoly of sorts on "representing" the employees and establishes a confrontational attitude with management in order to justify its own existence.
What's wrong with "right to work" is that the core value of collective bargaining is that many powerless individuals gain power through numbers. "right to work" eliminates those numbers. That's the theory, anyway. Here's what I know - I worked a non-union show in a right-to-work state that flipped but because of the rules, despite my 8-year IATSE local membership the rules shoved me into the International. So all my friends that had a mailing address in California made twice as much as me, got four times the money marked into their pension, and got their hours counted. Meanwhile, the fuckin' International mandated that I needed to buy into a $1500/mo insurance policy unless I opted out through two notarized certified mail letters that had to be overnighted. And that was with my local going to bat against my international. Without the local, the International would have actually ended up taking my money for a duplicate insurance policy that I couldn't have opted out of. That's an effect of right-to-work - competing unions get to fuck you harder. At least with a Union state there are fewer sharks chewing on your toes.
The girl told me what's wrong with "right to work" is that it means that the union will have to legally represent anyone in the shop even if those people don't pay dues. The big thing that unions spend their money on is representing people legally. Legal costs are very expensive. If the union has to represent people who don't pay dues, the unions will be bled dry paying for legal fees for people who may not have even ever paid into the union. She says it'll be a slow, several year death, but ultimately, will kill the unions.
Ive heard of this argument as well but I dont actually understand what kind of legal representation the union has to offer a non represented employee and what kind of representation it offers a represented one. Ive never actually heard of anyone ever getting a union lawyer for anything. The only time I have heard of union lawyers is when the union sues the company for breach of the union contract and almost always the union either looses or wins no significant victory.
This is all my union gives a F about. More members, F the current members, their benefits, pensions, etc. They would rather employ 4 guys at $9 dollars an hour than one guy at 30 who can do the job of 4. They do a great job representing union leadership and get a huge pension kick back for the top couple guys a every time new contract is negotiated. Somehow there is this Idea that if you are union you will vote union but they are doing such a bad job representing the membership that most guys vote republican and feel little loyalty to the union.UNIONS MUST ORGANIZE MILLIONS OF NEW WORKERS VERY SOON OR EVERYTHING POLITICAL AND ECONOMICALLY WILL GET WORSE. UNIONS MUST MAKE ORGANIZING MORE UNION MEMBERS THE VERY HIGHEST PRIORITY. NOW.