Michigan, Workers must not have a choice! Vote Union

[Sean Renaud]

Wanna start taking bets it gets overturned if things aren't going very well in the next four to six years?

 

[Balcor44]

.....

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/driveon/2012/12/10/chrysler-jefferson-north-workers-suspended/1759589/ it's all over the news. Apparently video evidence wasn't enough proof they were violating company policies.

At almost any company you would need proof of wrongdoing before you fire someone.

 

[BusyAfternoon]

Two years ago, a group of Chrysler workers were caught . . . drinking and doobing [i.e., smoking marijuana] on their lunch break. Not just that, they were caught on camera by a local TV station. The video went viral, and Chrysler was forthwith associated with quality enhanced by booze and marijuana. 13 workers were fired. Yesterday, they got their jobs back, courtesy of Chrysler's contract with the UAW.
The workers followed a grievance procedure process outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers. The matter went to arbitration. Two years later, an arbitrator decided in the workers' favor, citing "insufficient conclusive evidence to uphold the dismissals." Apparently, a video wasn't good enough.

The unions arguably brought right-to-work on themselves. Michigan's Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who was elected in the wave of 2010, long resisted the measure, reports Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press:

Too divisive, he'd say. Why go to war with unions when there was a tax code to fix and a budget to balance to begin his reinvention of Michigan?
And what did Snyder's stance get him? Headaches, mostly. . . .
Public employee unions opposed Snyder's moves to put more teeth into emergency manager laws that would enable swifter action to rescue cities and school districts that bungled themselves into insolvency.
In Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing and a spineless City Council were stonewalled by employee unions at every turn, slow-walking needed reforms and cost-cutting while the city burned through cash at a frightening rate.
As a result, Snyder's patient attempt to help fix Detroit via consent agreement instead of imposing an emergency manager has failed.
To top it off, Snyder found himself having to fight off Proposal 2, the ill-advised November ballot attempt to stuff a bag of goodies for organized labor into the Michigan Constitution.

 

[Liar]

The principle of right-to-work is like the principle of voter ID. Not bad principles per se.

If they were instituted in a sensible way, and the underlying problems that make them bad ideas were adressed first.

That, of course, will never happen.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

What about all the non-union jobs lost when Unions take out their companies as they did with GM and Hostess???


What did those people do to deserve losing their job because the unions would not negotiate in good faith?[/QUOTE]

Where do you get that from.

How many times did the company cut wages before the union MEMBERS said enough is enough...we ain't working for that kind of money

They ain't workin' for any money now in the case of the latter and in the case of the former, the company still had to go bankrupt...

 

[miles]

At almost any company you would need proof of wrongdoing before you fire someone.

Absolute bullshit. As usual you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Okay, I've read enough.

My turn...

So have I, and the Sarge is right: no union has held this position... ever!

Well, I guess that made you a piss poor Union steward, didn't it? Not to mention hypocritical, considering you were one of those 'bad Union people' you and the rest of your cadre constantly complain about.

Point one: bullshit. You do not have the intimate details of {∀ Unions} at your finger-tips. This yet another example of someone telling me my life experience is invalid because they "know" more than me.

As to your second point, I have often referenced my past as a good, upstanding Socialist Democrat and as we see in Michigan, this is, indeed, the way they behave and you, again, cannot invalidate my life experiences just because you are pro-union and have decided that you do not want to believe it.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Unions lead to higher wages.

This is a sophism easily dismissed as a variant on Bastiat's Broken Window.

The easily seen is that, yes, a Union worker can engage in group "force" and extort a higher collective wage. However, the unseen cost of this artificial wage floor is in the reduction of the total number of jobs available and thus more willing workers are not hired as are the unskilled. Now, this affects the economy negatively for they cannot participate and the Union wage is insufficient to replace the lost activity in the market and this loss of vitality further exacerbates the dearth of jobs directly due to the lessening of economic activity.

If workers can bid down the price of labor, then more can be hired and more can participate more fully in the general economy and this, in turn, has a positive effect in creating more jobs which then naturally begins driving up the wages of the more skilled and desired among the various employers.

Is short if we look at a worker, we see the union benefit, but if we look at the economy we see the greater harm done to the class of workers due to declining economic opportunity; a variant of the discussion of tolls and barriers in Sophisms of the Protectionists.

Why did you not want to tackle the actual economics of the Union?

 

[Liar]

Absolute bullshit. As usual you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

So are you saying that companies can fire people willy-nilly for any arbitrary reason?

Gee, if only there were some sort of organisation where employees could turn for support and leverage in a situation like that.

 

[miles]

So are you saying that companies can fire people willy-nilly for any arbitrary reason?

Gee, if only there were some sort of organisation where employees could turn for support and leverage in a situation like that.

Yep.

It's called Employment at Will. Either party can terminate employment at any time for any reason, as long as it doesn't violate laws against discrimination, etc. Depending on their labor agreement most Union members are protected from EOW.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I live in a right-to-work state.


Last time I got fired, it was over "differences in management philosophy".


In other words, they wanted me gone, and they had the right to can me at will.


I could have quit at will, too.

 

[miles]

I live in a right-to-work state.


Last time I got fired, it was over "differences in management philosophy".


In other words, they wanted me gone, and they had the right to can me at will.


I could have quit at will, too.

Right to work and employment at will are two different things. RTW means you don't have to join a union in order to work. So in MI union goons are rioting because they don't want people to have the right to choose whether or not to join a union.

Nice.

 

[mercury14]

Yep.

It's called Employment at Will. Either party can terminate employment at any time for any reason, as long as it doesn't violate laws against discrimination, etc. Depending on their labor agreement most Union members are protected from EOW.

Sort of. It depends on the terms of employment. But practically speaking any company that fires an employee willy-nilly leaves itself vulnerable to a lawsuit, bogus or otherwise.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I live in a right-to-work state.


Last time I got fired, it was over "differences in management philosophy".


In other words, they wanted me gone, and they had the right to can me at will.


I could have quit at will, too.

Exactly. The employer owns the job; the union wants to act like it owns the job.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Right to work and employment at will are two different things. RTW means you don't have to join a union in order to work. So in MI union goons are rioting because they don't want people to have the right to choose whether or not to join a union.

Nice.

I was working for a contractor doing telephone work 30 years ago. The telephone guys were out on strike and we had to cross the picket lines to pick up materials so we could work. I was young and stoopid and had little experience, but I remember thinking that it would be a good idea to try not to piss those strikers off.


They did let us through without incident, and a few weeks later, it was settled and things went back to normal, with the inspectors off the picket and back to being annoying at their jobs.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Exactly. The employer owns the job; the union wants to act like it owns the job.

My problem has been being low-level "manglement".


I am shopping for a local machine shop that can fix this broken motor mount casting on this fucking union-made 383 block.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Quakers usually got all their replacement parts from China 'cause their stuff was so old that it had to be made from scratch. Of course they always had to double their orders due to the 50% fail rate...

 

[Saint Peter]

Mangled?

Machine shops that work on blocks either have the fixtures to hold specific blocks or they do not.

Good luck with that.

 

[mercury14]

Exactly. The employer owns the job; the union wants to act like it owns the job.

You're acting like unions want to single-handedly determine the terms of employment. But it's always a negotiation. Always.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I see the Chinese are stamping new 1940 Ford coupe bodies now. By the time they get here, they're nearly $16K.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Mangled?

Machine shops that work on blocks either have the fixtures to hold specific blocks or they do not.

Good luck with that.

Yeah, I know.


It looks like an easy enough fix to me . . . for someone with the equipment and experience . . . of which I have neither.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I see the Chinese are stamping new 1940 Ford coupe bodies now. By the time they get here, they're nearly $16K.

I feel kinda "retro..."

 

[miles]

Sort of. It depends on the terms of employment. But practically speaking any company that fires an employee willy-nilly leaves itself vulnerable to a lawsuit, bogus or otherwise.

I had to take you off iggy because I knew you'd say something stupid. Unless the employer violated conditions of employment (highly unlikely) or violated employment law and terminated someone because of their race, gender, age, etc., they can fire people "willy-nilly" all they want. Unless it is specifically spelled out in a Union contract there is no such thing as wrongful termination in most states. It's a myth, like the "labor board."

Now stick with something you know how to do, like pretending to be a doctor.

 

[Liar]

Yep.

It's called Employment at Will. Either party can terminate employment at any time for any reason, as long as it doesn't violate laws against discrimination, etc. Depending on their labor agreement most Union members are protected from EOW.

See this is the sort of underlying problem I was talking about.

Soundslike there's little to no regulation of unilateral termination clauses in employment contracts.

I'm not a wage slave these days, but when I was, those things were solid. If I was terminated for a reason not specifically enumerated in my contract, it would have been lawsuit city. Also, regulation of what can be enumerated is strict as hell. And making sure there's no wiggle room is on the employer.