The Wall Street Journal has a story on Wal-Mart's arguing to its managers and supervisors that a Democratic win might lead to a loss of rights to resist unions:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart.
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.
According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise. . . .
The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.
"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.
"If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression we were telling associates how to vote, they were wrong and acting without approval," said David Tovar, Wal-Mart spokesman. Mr. Tovar acknowledged that the meetings were taking place for store managers and supervisors nationwide.
Wal-Mart's worries center on a piece of legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which companies say would enable unions to quickly add millions of new members. "We believe EFCA is a bad bill and we have been on record as opposing it for some time," Mr. Tovar said. "We feel educating our associates about the bill is the right thing to do." …
The AFL-CIO and individual unions such as the United Food and Commercial Workers have promised to make passage of the new labor law their No. 1 mission after the November election.
First introduced in 2003, the bill came to a vote last year and sailed through the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, but was blocked by a filibuster in the Senate and faced a veto threat by the White House. The bill was taken off the floor, and its backers pledged to reintroduce it when they could get more support.
The November election could bring that extra support in Congress, as well as the White House if Sen. Obama is elected and Democrats extend their control in the Senate. Sen. Obama co-sponsored the legislation, which also is known as "card check," and has said several times he would sign it into law if elected president. Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, opposes the Employee Free Choice Act and voted against it last year. ...
Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees. While store managers are on salary, department supervisors are hourly workers.
However, employers have fairly broad leeway to disseminate information about candidates' voting records and positions on issues, according to Jan Baran, a Washington attorney and expert on election law. ...
Under the proposed legislation, companies could no longer have the right to insist on one secret ballot. Instead, the Free Choice, or "card check," legislation would let unions form if more than 50% of workers simply sign a card saying they want to join. It is far easier for unions to get workers to sign cards because the organizers can approach workers repeatedly, over a period of weeks or months, until the union garners enough support.
Employers argue that the card system could lead to workers being pressured to sign by pro-union colleagues and organizers. Unions counter that it shields workers from pressure from their employers.
Unions consider the Employee Free Choice Act as vital to the survival of the labor movement, which currently represents 7.5% of private-sector workers, half the percentage it did 25 years ago. The Service Employees International Union said the legislation would enable it to organize a million workers a year, up from its current pace of 100,000 workers a year. ...
The United Food and Commercial Workers was successful in organizing only one group of Wal-Mart workers — a small number of butchers in East Texas in early 2000. Several weeks later, the company phased out butchers in all of its stores and began stocking prepackaged meat. When a store in Canada voted to unionize several years ago, the company closed the store, saying it had been unprofitable for years. ...
Twelve years ago, 98% of Wal-Mart's political donations went to Republicans. Now, as the Democrats seem poised to gain control in Washington, 48% of its $2.2 million in political contributions go to Democrats and 52% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political giving.
The Act not only would allow unionization without secret ballot elections, but also would provide for mandatory arbitration on first contracts. I have never understood where Congress acquired the power to order people to enter into contracts that they don't want to sign.
I'm with the employers on this one. Not only do the cards allow for absurd amount of pressure (can you imagine a meeting of workers where supporters walk to the front of the room to sign the card, to the applause of others, and where everybody can see exactly who hasn't signed?), they're ripe for abusive fraud.
Cards wouldn't lower the amount of pressure employers could bring to discourage unionization. Right now, employers and union supporters pretty much have roughly equal opportunity for pressure.
As a former public teacher who refused to join the teachers' union, I have never understood where the State aquired the power to order me to pay dues to an organization I refuse to join or support in any way.
An individual employee is not a party to a collective bargaining agreement. A union contract no more forces employees to enter contracts against their will than does a non-unionized employer's right to unilaterally dictate working conditions. In both cases, employees who don't like their jobs can quit.
On the constitutionality of the NLRA, see N.L.R.B. v. JONES &LAUGHLIN STEEL CORP., 301 U.S. 1 (1937).
I worked in a non-union chemical plant and the line workers were proud to be non-union. The primary reason behind this was that the company wanted to keep it that way. So, it treated the employees in such a way that thinking about establishing alternative collective bargaining power was not necessary.
Why in the world can a company not promote a candidate to its hourly employees? It seems to me that that would be a 1st Amendment violation. It's not as if the Wal-Mart store manager can force employees to vote a certain way, or even vote at all. Likewise, I have no problems with Wal-Mart working to avoid unionization. Unionization is, at least from my admittedly limited understanding, generally bad for business.
I don't particularly like Wal-Mart for shopping, but I go there anyway just to annoy my anti-WalMart friends who make the sign of the evil eye (sometimes literally) whenever they drive past one.
Wal-Mart is a perfect example of capitalism in action. They have a duty to their shareholders and as long as they are not committing fraud, I see no problem with them advocating specific political candidates that the company believes will help the bottom line.
Oh the humanity - imagine the horrors of a company trying to make a profit.
Of course there's a reason: Why do we have secret ballots? So that you can't be threatened with retaliation if you vote the wrong way. The only reason to get rid of secret ballots is so that you CAN be threatened with retaliation if you vote the wrong way.
That anybody would support this bill is shameful.
Unions are horrible.
Unions are great.
Even better than the explanation I was going to give.
Would you also favor a ban on the use of card checks in proxy solicitations, then?
Kind of a big "all"
Brett Bellmore: The only reason to get rid of secret ballots is so that you CAN be threatened with retaliation if you vote the wrong way.
These criticisms seem to be based on a fairly significant understanding of current labor procedure.
The way union organizing happens under existing law is as follows: Organizers try to get a majority of workers to sign forms stating they want to be members of a union, which are then submitted to the NLRB. The NLRB then may hold a secret ballot election.
It is therefore the case that under existing procedures workers may be part of a non-secret process of signing forms for submission to the NLRB.
(The difference with "card check" is that once the forms are submitted and verified, there is no follow-up election -- that's the end of the process.)
What fantasy world do you live in? Right now the employer holds all the cards. The employer can hold meeting after meeting telling the employees about the evils of unions while it is under no obligation to let the union hold any kind of meetings on the premises during work hours. About the only thing an employer is prohibited from saying is that a union will directly lead to the closing of a facility (although it can certainly say that if costs increase too much the company may be forced to close the facility).
But it addresses only the fact that ballots are no longer secret and not the use of a card check. I assume a proponent of the bill would argue that there are benefits to a card check period, e.g. greater total participation in the process and greater education about the process, and that the lack of a secret ballot is a cost, but one outweighed by the benefits.
Concluding out of hand that the only motive for the bill is retaliation seems to a) ignore that the bill has more than one mechanism and effect, and b) start with the presumption that the bill's proponents are manipulative and evil.
I know that the principle I am about to espouse runs against much of what internet commenters hold dear, but if there are multiple possible explanations for an action, it probably doesn't make sense to default to the one that would require as a premise that the actor be an idiot and/or evil.
And where exactly would this hypothetical meeting occur? The employer is certainly under no obligation to provide a meeting place for such a meeting or can the union demand that the employer mandate attendance at such a meeting or that such a meeting take place during work hours.
I love how you libertarians know absolutely nothing about how labor relations law and regulations actually work in reality.
You don't seem to understand that "mandatory arbitration on first contracts" would force the Company to sign a contract it didn't want. That is just not right.
J. F. Thomas,
The biggest advantage employers hold right now is that most workers do not want to unionize. Which is why the unions need card-check to even the playing field. It is easy enough to get 50% of the signatures when you are hassling someone trying to get out to their car and go home; getting to 50% with a secret ballot when they can't be pressured and have time to consider the issues the dues, and weigh all the pros and cons creates an almost insurmountable hurdle. That's pretty revealing.
Which is not surprising when the company can hold mandatory meetings implying that workers will lose their jobs if they unionize, that dues go to fat cat union officials or organized crime, that take home pay will actually go down, while the only opportunity the union has to counteract these falsehoods is as the employees head to the car at the end of the day or maybe during breaks and lunch.
That's a pretty important difference. Under the current system I can escape obloquy by signing the form, then escape unionisation by (secretly) voting 'no'. Under 'card check', I don't have that option.
Because contrary to the clever Unionfacts commercial, it is not the union reps who intimidate workers into voting against the union, it is the employers. Once the cards are turned in, the NLRB will schedule an election. An employer that doesn't want a union will then call in the lawyers (WalMart actually has a corporate team they will send out to problem stores). They know exactly what they are allowed to say to employees to put the fear of losing their job into them to ensure the vote is against the union (e.g., although they can't say that bringing a union in will cause the facility to close they can say that if costs rise too much the company may be "forced" to close the facility). The company can hold as many mandatory meetings as they like with employees to "inform" them what a yes vote for the union will mean. They will also work to delay the vote--arguing about the bargaining unit (who exactly will be covered by the union contract) is a favorite tactic.
Aren't secret ballots a pretty-well ingrained social norm?
Also, with all the money labor pension funds control, do they only invest the funds in companies with unions?
Sure, all of these things are true, but it's so wrong for the company to point them out! =)
Fixed that for you.
I counted three assertions there.
1.that workers will lose their jobs if they unionize
Quite possible, if unionizing makes the plant uncompetitive.
2.that dues go to fat cat union officials or organized crime
Quite often true, though you might add, "or to candidates for office you oppose".
3.that take home pay will actually go down
Not generally true, though it HAS been known to happen.
"while the only opportunity the union has to counteract these falsehoods is as the employees head to the car at the end of the day or maybe during breaks and lunch."
And in mailings to the employees, and talk during work hours by union recruiters who took jobs for that purpose...
The bottom line is, secret ballots are a protection for the workers. There's no good reason for stripping them of that protection.
Oh, and xx, if you can figure out how to manage proxy votes with secret ballots, I'd favor that.
If the real problem is that prospective members just don't want to attend organizers' meetings, I don't see any role for the federal government in fixing it.
Speaking as a former Wal-Mart employee (I was a $5.75/hour cashier), I liked getting paid to hear propaganda. It was better than dealing with customers.
I certainly can't. The use of non-secret ballots reminds of one of my favorite scenes from the Godfather.
Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Kay Adams: What was it?
Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured the bandleader, that either his signature or his brains would be on the contract.
Now, just replace the word "contract" with "ballot."
Are their problems in this country? YES, but Card Check is not the path we should be following.
But of course the organizers cannot mandate attendance--a very important difference.
Card Check laws is Socialist/Marxist policies! I mean, they're basically the same thing as state owned property!
Allowing Wall-Mart to unionize will destroy the American Initiative, just as that funny-named Democratic guy wants!
Well of course this is a meaningless statement and not even true. Legislation is passed by a open ballots.
In a work environment almost nothing done by a secret ballot. When was the last time you got to vote for your boss, the CEO of the company you work for or own stock in (unless you own a significant percentage of it), or even how much you get paid. Heck, even the decision about where to hold the company picnic is not by secret ballot.
Corporate governance is hardly the paragon of democracy (in fact most corporations have more in common with the governance of the old Soviet Union with the Board more like a Politburo than anything else). If you think your proxy votes on your stocks are meaningful, read the proxy statement one day.
Not had much exposure to real world union tactics, have you? I've seen windows smashed, tires slashed, and remember the goon squad that got brought in during the newspaper strike, that got caught with caltrops in their car.
Not often enough. And you miss the point: Legislators are SUPPOSED TO face retaliation for how they vote. Enabling that is the point of making them do roll call votes. It's the point of taking the secret ballot away from employees, too.
I am so touched by all of your concerns for the poor workers and that you all obviously believe that employers only have their employees' best interests in mind while all the unions care about is padding the pockets of their bosses. Employees are of course every employers most important asset. Obviously, that was what WalMart was concerned about here. They are only concerned that their employees are able to make the best living possible, and of course voting for John McCain will ensure that.
When exactly was this? In the history of labor related violence, there is blood on both sides with management inflicting more casualties (often with the implicit or explicit support of law enforcement) than labor.
And while you are waving the specter of organized crime involvement in unions around, you might want to review your labor history as to exactly how organized crime got involved with the unions in the first place.
In terms of voting as citizens, yes. In commercial relationships, no.
Also, with all the money labor pension funds control, do they only invest the funds in companies with unions?
No, they don't, for a number of reasons, including the fact that substantial employer representation among trustees of such plans is generally required. See 29 U.S.C. 186(c)(5)(B) (requiring that "employees and employers are equally represented in the administration of such fund").
Card check agreements - end that ability to unlawfully discriminate against pro-union employees.
If you are aware of unions doing this, you should probably alert the DOL or DOJ with your specific facts.
The problem is that 28 years of anti-union dominated NLRB (even during the Clinton years the NLRB was hardly friendly to labor) has created a string of decisions that has tilted the playing field in favor of management and made unionizing a facility a very difficult task and extremely risky for those who attempt it. If you want to bring a union in at your place of employment you better make damn sure that you are very good at your job because if your employer can find a non-union organizing excuse to fire you he will get away with it.
I am frankly not the least bit surprised that someone like JF is backing elimination of secret ballots with a lot of (often illegal) horror stories. After all, where do almost all political contributions by unions go, regardless of the desires of the rank and file? In other words, you could view this as the Democratic Party Protection and Benefit Act.
Again, union dues do not go to support candidates or parties in federal elections. It is illegal. All contributions come from PACs that are not funded by dues, but by voluntary donations. The same rules apply to corporations.
I dont think your case is all that compelling--and the only way I see to make it compelling is to cite a decline in ALL union growth rather than in the economic sectors that are becoming structurally less relevant in the overall economy. Thats my take--ymmv.
Again, to claim that "democratic protections of a secret ballot" are an integral part of labor relations or commercial law is simply silly. It isn't. If I suggested as an alternative to card check that employers must provide equal time and access to unions to employees to rebut anti-union meetings, I'm sure you would be whining about the government abrogating the employers' first amendment rights.
You simply refuse to acknowledge that the employer has the upper hand in this situation or to accept a reasonable solution because you simply don't think there is a problem.
You have asserted that management is rapacious, screws the unions all the time and anyone who poses reasonable arguments are wrong. Not the best argument I have ever seen but pretty typical for you.
If I understand the text of the law (this, amending this) correctly, with the card check approach, signatures can be collected over a significant period of time (anyone know how long?). If you don't have enough signatures yet, just go get more, regardless of what previous signers want. Compare to elections, secret or open, which only last a short time. If the election doesn't give the result you want, you can hold another election, but all the votes from the previous election are set aside.
Say I have ten employees, unusually fickle for purposes of illustration. Monday, only Bill and Frank want a union. Tuesday, only Martin and Phil want a union. Wednesday, only Greg and Larry. Thursday, only Zeke and Albert. Friday, only Ted and Wally. An election would indicate (correctly, imho) that a majority of the workers don't want a union. A card-card, assuming daily signature collection, would indicate that a majority do want one.
Imagine flipping a coin repeatedly and only writing down when the coin lands heads up. After a while you have record of the coin coming up heads every time. Your record is true because every time you recorded it heads, it really did come up heads. But it doesn't tell you much about the coin.
If we elected presidents this way, a candidate could campaign as a liberal one day to get liberals to vote for him, then campaign as a conservative to get conservatives, and win handily. Under an election system, such campaigning happens but it is (righly, imho) not so overwhelmingly advantageous.
Deliberately exposing employees to retaliation for voting 'wrong' would scarcely be a reasonable solution even if the employer had the upper hand.
I do have a real problem with a non-secret ballot. J. F. Thomas is a fool (we knew that already) if he believes that employees won't get strong-armed into signing those cards. If someone won't sign a card, then word travels fast and he will suffer. Now an employee can make a secret vote against unionization after signing the card to "keep the faith" with his co-workers. I do want to see unions get stronger and represent more people when that makes economic sense. But not Walmart and not this way.
However, do those of you who feel this way also agree that Walmart has no business pressuring its hourly employees to vote Republican? You don't think they might face unacceptable repercussions at work if it became known that they support the "wrong" candidate? Walmart is already entitled to supply them with information about the candidates' positions; isn't that enough? As the customer service supervisor said, she's not stupid, they were telling her how to vote!
A time limit for card validity perhaps? Six months/1 year or you start again?
Or maybe 55%/60% to avoid a secret ballot? If you get just a majority, there has to be a vote.
There is no reason to allow them to exist at all considering all of the other protections that workers have today.
I guess I missed it when this country got rid of employment at will.
How's Walmart going to know if the employees don't vote Republican? We've got secret ballots for government elections, after all, and nobody is threatening to take those away... yet.
Walmart can tell all they want. Doesn't mean squat.
I think there already is but I am too lazy to look it up.
As an ex-employee at a warehouse that was trying to unionize this is patently false.
The employees who are FOR the union can come talk to you at just about any time, usually in groups of 3-4 and badger you over and over again about why voting for the union is so great.
Trust me there's PLENTY of pressure from the pro-union crowd. In fact in my experience (the one time which apparently is more than a lot of people discussing this), the most pressure and badgering came from the pro-union side. There was almost no talk from the anti-union side. It seemed to me they were more afraid of retaliation than the pro side.
The union guys are the one slashing tires and abusing people for crossing picket lines, not the other way around.
Shouldn't the priority for a hypothetical Obama administration be reforming the NLRB, not a new policy which is only tangentially related to the current problem?
Even stuck in Congress, isn't it possible reform the National Labor Relations Act in ways that are more closely related to the offenses?
Removing the secret ballot opens employs to personal coercion from both sides. You can bet that, without the secret ballot, employers will pay MUCH more attention to the card checks.
Comparing this to proxy voting is a red herring.
1) The nature of proxy voting makes it considerably more difficult to institute a secret ballot in that case.
2) Few of the participants in a proxy vote are vulnerable to the same sort of coercion that potential union members are.
Sarcastro, take note. This guy is doing it right.
Also, grats to Brett Bellmore for consistently dominating this thread with logic and common sense.
I acknowledge that some people will indeed be intimidated into signing cards. What I am claiming is that the strong-armed tactics of the employer leading up to a secret ballot are even more intimidating--especially against those same people who may feel intimidated by a coworker who has no power of their employment but just pleads in the name of solidarity.
As for your WalMart economics lesson, sorry but I don't buy it. The reason I don't buy it is that I can read the Fortune 500 list of the richest Americans and see who occupies 4 of the top 10 slots. The Waltons are the only retailers in the the top 10.
This is horseshit. In my pre-law days I often had more say over my employment terms than my employers did, both during and after the hiring process. Remember that your skill is relatively rare in society while all your employer offers is fungible money in trade.
If you have a skill that is in demand, you can threaten to withhold it to gain concessions. The more demand there is for your skill, the more you can demand and receive in the way of concessions. Companies that don't play this game lose their best employees to competitors. Employees that don't play this game get underpaid. Additionally, the more vital a member of the company you are, the more difficult it is for them to fire you on a whim. Necessity requires that they be tolerant of their employees.
But this cuts both ways. If your skills are easily learned by others or not in high demand, you will have a harder time finding work that pays well. The solution, as with any business experiencing reduced demand, is to either tighten your belt or develop new skills to sell.
Unions are a refuge for the stupid and the lazy.
The point isn't that they are intimidated or not, the point is whether they can know how people voted and retaliate. With card counting, both employers and unions can retaliate. With secret ballot, the employees vote how they wish with no fear of retaliation. Most people aren't willing to stand up to a group willing to slash their tires to get them to sign a union card. And they shouldn't have to. The secret ballot is the only non-abusable means to unionize.
Of course. However it is revealing that you felt you needed to ask this. We don't ALL have fangs and eat children, Suzy. Some of us eat kittens, too!
The secret ballot for voting republican/democrat is what protects the employee from this kind of retaliation. It serves a similar purpose for unionization.
Um, please cite where they literally tell her how to vote.
The only valid concern J F Thomas has (assuming its true, of course) is that employers can require employees to attend sessions where the employer makes political speech. Such speech is the employer's right to make, but attendance should only be on a voluntary basis. That should level the playing field.
Seriously! The Capitalism's Awesome Hand demands workers be treated right! Stupid FLSA. I yearn for the good old days of the 1920s when the stupid and lazy were working 20 hour days.
After all, acquiring new skills is easy!
What exactly did you do? I'm just trying to imagine. Because I imagine you are full of horseshit. Even highly skilled professionals who work for large companies rarely have much control over their terms of employment. Salaries are banded, so while you might be able to negotiate that within a range, there is generally not much wiggle room outside of the range set by HR. As for things like vacation, health, life, the size of your office, retirement, unless you are an executive, the package is standard, you take it or leave it (sometimes declining health insurance isn't even an option). If you don't like something in the stack of papers they hand you to sign on your first day of work (and I don't care if you are a janitor or a rocket scientist), well usually your only option is to quit on the spot.
I certainly remember this being the case. Growing up in a middle class neighborhood it was always the shiftless union people that were doing nothing with their lives, like working long hours, often involving hard physical labor, to provide a better opportunity in life for their children. Heck, my grandfather worked a union job most of his life and he could barely lift his head, let alone buy a house, own two cars, raise of family of six kids, grow a garden, donate his time time to the church, etc.
Why do Democrats hate working class Americans so much? Because they are stupid and lazy!
Of course an employer shouldn't be breaking unions by abusing people. But the "cure" for the union breaking excesses of the past is pretty lethal in regards to our rights.
You know what? An employer should be able to fire a person for joining a union. Unions are a drain on any company. The truth is that a union is more useful to the average employee as a threat than as a reality, because unions will drag a business down.
An employer should be allowed to let in anyone he or she wants on his premises to say whatever he or she wants, and to still be allowed to excude unions.
An employer should be allowed to ask his employees about unionization.
And most of all, the government should not be involved in the forming or recognition of a union at all, or even in recognizing that a union has been recognized.
What the government should do is say "here are a few very basic ground rules" and then let the unions and the managers have at it.
I don't object to WalMart being a successful corporation. Zarkov used dubious figures to imply that WalMart could not be successful if it paid its employees more. I find this suspect as even though his wealth was split four ways, the children of Sam Walton are still four of the ten richest people in the country. The comparison is often made between non-unionized Sam's Club and equally successful and unionized Costco. The world, nor profits, would not end if WalMart paid its employees a little better.
I am fine with this if at the same time the government ceases involvement in the forming or recognition of any business entity (partnerships, LLCs, Corporations). Let's return to the days of sole proprietorships. Then everyone, employees and employers will really be on an equal footing.
Honestly, working for giant corporations is the dumbest thing you can do if you want to let the free market work for you. They are heavily structured and have taken great pains to reduce the impact of individuals on their overall performance through very formal and precise process development, employee training and so on. I've worked at such places and the best employees distinguish themselves by leaving for higher salaries elsewhere. It's a very restrictive environment for anyone with any degree of ambition or initiative.
Tell me your background JF. I'm guessing you know almost nothing of real world job environments from personal experience.
"What the government should do is say "here are a few very basic ground rules" and then let the unions and the managers have at it."
In England they used to have "collective lassaiz faire." It meant that there were no limitations on pickets, secondary and tertiary strikes, terminations, lock outs, wildcat strikes and the works. I think unions would love that. In fact, the entire NLRA was created, because they did not want open industrial warfare.
Now let talk about the outrageous and ridiculous billable hour charges foistsed on the backs of working stiffs like me. Theres a real outrage! The government should step in a mandate a sliding scale of billable hours to protect the american consumer of legal services. And legal offices should be unionized.
One example is that I was able, with little trouble, to negotiate an extra week of vacation, in apparent contradiction to all published HR guidance, at a Fortune 100 firm, as a non-manager. It was actually very easy and was readily agreed to by HR. Another example, more recently, is when an employee of mine offered to forgo health insurance, in exchange for some other benefits. I thought HR would tell him to go fly a kite. Nope - HR was VERY interested in an employee they didn't need health insurance. They basically split the difference with him.
Most employers have so many different benefits packages, they end up having flexible HR management systems, due to employees in different states and countries with differing mandates. You just need to ask.
BTW, Walmart is being boorish here, but the secret ballot rocks. And as to the earlier comment about engineers and rocket scientists - we don't want unions because we want to negotiate our own compensation and not get saddled with incompetent co-workers whose work we will have to do.
You must have gotten out of computer programming a few years ago--because the industry is not like that anymore. I was one too. I got out of it when it became too unstable as offshoring became a real problem. And I have worked for small companies and large as well as the government.
I have the feeling that the cycle of unionization has a very long period, maybe 75 years. When the corporations have been greedy enough, and abusive enough, the political system system will become more pro-union, and unions will rise again. Any employer that does not want unionized employees need only treat it's employees well, obey it's own policies, and make employees feel like they have a stake in the company.
Bad ones... eh, not so much. Since there is no lump of labour, "offshoring" has taken away about as many jobs as "open source."
What if a company gets 60% of its employees to sigh a "no-union" card at the same time the union gets 60% to sign a union card?
"I don't object to WalMart being a successful corporation. Zarkov used dubious figures to imply that WalMart could not be successful if it paid its employees more."
Walmart has 2.1 million employees, see here. Their annual after tax income as of 1/31/2005 was $17.3 billion. That gives a pre-tax income per employee of $7,700. For Walmart salaries look here. As you can see $10 per hour is about right to describe the entire work force. What's "dubious" about my figures? You can use 2007 income, which is somewhat higher, but that won't change my argument. I used 2005 because I remembered that year's average salary.
So tell me how Walmart could raise average pay by 20% and not reduce their return on capital? Don't you think a 30% hit to pre-tax income is a lot? If you think you can run Walmart more efficiently than it's current managers, I suggest you apply for a job there. Moreover, I never said you couldn't be successful. I said that they would have to change their business model to something like a Target. Do you doubt that? Just how much do you think Walmart could raise pay? Why don't you give us numbers instead of BS? If my numbers are dubious, what are the correct one?
Actually I think the consumer has the upper hand, and I'm satisfied that this should remain the case. Unions screw the rest of us for the benefit of its members, and history shows that even those benefits tend inevitably to atrophy over time.
BTW, I would consider the severely inbred clique of CEO's and cronies that make up the Boards of Directors of American corporations to be the most egregious union of all.
I mean, for those who want some enlightenment.
The history of labor relations in America is not a history of poor abused employers having no say.
Acrually, it is a damned good means of determining the quantum of public coercion that thuggish union hacks can put on working people who just want to be evaluated and promoted on their merits.
-Union ALWAYS resort to violence to get workers to vote how they want.
-Workers hate unions because unions will make them all get fired.
-Management NEVER intimidates employees regarding unions.
First, how does this solution relate to the problem? And second, why shouldn't employees be informed of how the company will respond to a union, and that the company will do everything legally in their power to prevent it. This seems like valuable information for an employee to have before making their decision on unionization.
They won't be in the voting booth, but now the customer service manager might have to think twice before displaying a yard sign, or even talking about the election with anyone she works with, or who knows anyone she works with. Will she have to worry about scheduling her hours, if her supervisor--who required her to attend the meeting in which she was instructed that a Democrat win would be bad for the company--finds out her political opinions?
It sounds like what some commentors really disagree with here is the federal election law.
Someone will have to look it up, since I got the info from my dad, and I'm not sure he remembers the case, but it's supposed to have been held legal for unions to use violence. I'll call and see if he has a reference for that.
It's more reliable that unions are exempt from RICO statutes. Why would they need that if they're so nice? I'll bet removign that exemptino would do a lot to help.
The unions subject is interesting to me. I live in Mississippi, where unions are strange, outlandish entities.
But we recently got a Nissan plant nearby, and the UAW has been struggling to get a union going there, with much resistance from the usual suspects.
I can see some of the problems with the federal powers &privileges accorded to unions, but as I suggested above, given the employers' typical power advantage, it's only to be expected that there's some effort to restack the deck.
Ideally, I think, the feds would regulate such that unions wouldn't be necessary -- but of course, THAT is anathema as well. Anything that keeps the employer from exploiting the workforce to the max, is a violation of the free market -- which some people seem to think is an end in itself.
What worker protections do you feel are currently lacking? Given that the vast majority of workers aren't unionized, do you feel that the vast majority of workers are being over-exploited? Are you being over-exploited?
If a worker can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, what protection can you think of that he can risk invoking?
Ironically, "at will" employment was a reform FOR the worker. In times past, a worker could not just quit a job because he was dissatisfied--and oftentimes employees were indentured to their employers. Not slaves--but certainly not free, either. By letting an employee quit for any reason, or for no reason at all, the employee gained the freedom to sell his services to the highest bidder.
If unionization were actually in an employees' self-interest, there would be no reason to object to a secret ballot. The employees would be unionizing out of rational self-interest. The fact that employees are not making that choice, or that places where that choice have been made have gone out of business or overseeas is instructive. If there is a legitimate reason to strip the anonymity of employee voters (let alone one sufficient to counter the likelihood of coercion), I have yet to hear it.
1. I'm not sure telling employees that if they vote democratic, there will be a union and a union will be bad for the company actually accomplishes the goal. Unions are typically capable of getting health care benefits, higher wages (even if slightly so) and the ability to make the management pay for being bad. So why would the typical Wal-Mart worker ever listen to what the management wants? In fact, it's highly plausible that they will do exactly the opposite of what they were told to do. Maybe this is some sort of insane democratic conspiracy? Ohhhh.
2. If someone has the opportunity to negotiate his own employment terms, that's fantastic. But it DOES NOT happen very often. If it did, there would be little need for unions, and the theoretical increase in bargaining power that such an organization provides for typically lower level employees.
3. Wal-Mart has a great deal of litigation liability for its employment practices. Obviously, this is due in large part to their huge numbers of employees since every employee is a potential lawsuit. Maybe not so obvious to some of the more republican leaning commentators is that Wal-Mart has made a number of bad mistakes in formulating their employment policies, and has ended up costing the company in judgments and legal fees. If Wal-Mart viewed its lowest level employees as more than just a number, and paid them (and treated them) in a respectful manner, which also happened to comply with the applicable federal statutes, there would be an overall savings. Wal-Mart is a large company and it has to act as a reasonable profit maximizer, but even so, it's hard to believe a reasonable profit maximizer wouldn't figure out exactly how much they can legally get away with and then stay at least two points above that to avoid any liability.
In Miss., an at-will employee can be fired for claiming his workers' comp benefits.
But hey, who needs a union?
Lest you suggest that this is a problem of their own making by making big trucks and SUVs over the last number of years, keep in mind that those vehicles have much higher margins, needed to pay the benefits and retirements of its retired workers. The company would likely be in much worse shape financially right now if it hadn't followed the fad of oversized vehicles.
I love how crappy management and failure to plan for the future is somehow the fault of the worker on the assembly line and not senior management.
Not exactly. The secret ballot became the dominant way of electing people only in the late nineteenth century. Maybe that development was for the better, but it's not the whole "history of this country."
(Mostly kidding)
I, and I suspect at least a few others, would be grateful if you gave us some kind of warning, either in your posts or the comments, about when you're going to close the threads.
Thanks.
I love how you don't have the wit to be embarrassed by your lack of counterargument.
My uncle worked in the coalfields, and he never joined a union unless he had to get a job. He more than once said he slept with a pistol next to his equipment to keep union thugs from burning it, when he had a non-union job.
When I was working with a non-union fire sprinkler company, union men threw the cutouts from the sprinkler pipe back down into the assembled pipe. That was in a hospital, if I recall. What I know about unions is, they aren't scared to burn babies to death to discourage at-will work, if it comes to it.
I mean every bit of that. The only actual intimidating factor the employer has is that they have the job a person wants, and no open balloting will change that. They only thing an open ballot can do is let union leg breakers know who to target.
It should be revealing that they want it, and it should let everyone know what kind of person JFThomas is that he wants them to have it.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfp
It isn't only walmart afraid of unions either. McDonalds has closed plenty of stores where there was just talk of organizing. Why are these giants of industry who claim to treat their workers better than anyone in the world afraid of unions. I am sure it has nothing to do with all the crap employees are currently forced to put up with just to keep their jobs.
While I can see the potential for abuse, in general this doesn't seem too unreasonable. If someone is injured to the extent that they can no longer work, how can they expect to remain employed? Why should an employer be obligated to continue to employ someone who can no longer work. (To be clear, I'm assuming an act of God sort of accident through no fault of the employer. If the employer had an unsafe workplace, that's different, but there's also recourse for that).
I don't understand this problem with at-will employment. The employer is willing to pay someone to do a job for them. If they can get someone willing to do the job cheaper, why shouldn't the employer have the right to hire the cheaper employee? Alternatively, if the employee can find someone willing to pay better, offer better working conditions, etc., the employee has every right to take the new job.
I also strongly question the assumption that at this point in time strong unions are in society's best interests. There's too much labor mobility and too much competition, and those are both positive developments that strong unions impede. Are strong unions in the union worker's best interest? Perhaps (but perhaps not, ask a UAW worker if you can find one), but not society as a whole.
But the utility of unions aside, I still haven't heard a reasonable argument for getting rid of a secret ballot. Union supporters believe card-check will help them organize so they must believe that some people will support unionization in public when they wouldn't in private. I can't conceive of a reason why a secret ballot is not the best indicator of someone's true opinion, so the only reason I can see for doing away with a secret ballot is because you anticipate some sort of coercion being applied that would cause the person to support in public what they wouldn't support in private.
And as an aside, I know I've read Anderson and J.F. Thomas expound at length on how evil coercion is when it's used to gather intelligence intended to save American lives. Why does coercion become good when it's used to break false consciousness and boost union rolls?
Because their employees will cost more. Why should Walmart ignore its fiduciary (read actual) responsibility and fail to oppose unions?
Good on 'em!
Must not be hard to hire butchers. What should that tell the butchers?
Probably saved money doing it to, and the people likely then kept getting the meat for less money than they would from Kroger, Kmart, or Giant.
Unions do nothing but at the expense of the common man and at length their own members expense.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
If the workers are so hurt by Walmart, they should find another job.