Without Trade Unions We’d Be Treated Like Slaves

[gatsbygirl20]

Dead right. Enough legislation exists to protect good workers and employers dont want to lose a good worker that adds value and profits so they will pay the going rate or more for the employee. The pro union posters seem to not fundamentally understand market forces, global compettition and basic economics. The trade union dinosaurs are on the way out, the forces which drive economic growth and therefore job creation are largely external to this economy so we cant dictate ur own wages in anything other than short term.

Dinosaurs from the Dinosaurs Union posting here do not understand basic economics, unlike whizz-kid non-dinosaurs who have got it right thank God,. And thank God for "market forces, global competition and a fundamental understanding of basic economics" Without them the world economy would have crashed, turfing non-unionized workers (who did not "dictate their own wages in anything other than the short term") onto the scrap-heap while their employer moved to Morocco, causing untold hardship and misery.
Yep, without market forces, global competition and whatever the other one was...that's what could have happened. And then where would we be?

[eyeswideopen]

Dead right. Enough legislation exists to protect good workers and employers dont want to lose a good worker that adds value and profits so they will pay the going rate or more for the employee. The pro union posters seem to fundamentally understand market forces, global compettition and basic economics. The trade union dinosaurs are on the way out, the forces which drive economic growth and therefore job creation are largely external to this economy so we cant dictate ur own wages in anything other than short term.

Trade unions for this reason are becoming international.

Worker protection legislation was introduced under pressure from Trades Unions.

"The going rate" is set with the intervention of the organised working class, whose work creates profit. People who work have every right to combine together to achieve the best deal that they can.

[TommyO'Brien]

There are a couple of threads here discussing capitalism and poverty. What is missing from the discussion is that most of the benefits, social services and decent living standards that have been experienced in capitalist countries have been fought for by workers organisations, not "given."

Constantina Kuneva, a Bulgarian cleaning worker in Greece, is one of the people who has fought for Unionisation and decent living standards for workers. A year ago, after threats to stop organising, she was attacked with acid, losing an eye, her vocal chords and put onto life support for months. Her attacker has not been found.

Bulgarian labour union activist speaks out after acid attack - Bulgaria - The Sofia Echo

She was interviewed just before the attack, and said she had been harassed by the police and bosses, and had death threats by phone.



ITUC-CSI-IGB - International Trade Union Confederation

Trade Union membership worldwide has declined in the last 30 years, in part because the boom made people feel they didn’t need a Union and part because of employer and government opposition and hostile changes in employment law. Trade Unions are harrassed, infiltrated and leaders are bought off: but when the crunch comes, its the Unions who make the running on working hours, safety, employment rights and wage rates.

They may not have all the political solutions, but strong unions are essential if workers are to have decent conditions.

I agree.

I worked in three non-union companies. In all three workers were exploited, conned and ripped off. In one the company had some staff on the minimum wage - it tried to pull a stunt that would have enabled it, illegally, to get around the minimum wage. In another the company chose to forget to pay its staff over Christmas and told the staff 'oops. Sorry about that. We'll pay you at the start of January!' Another practiced widespread bullying and intimidation of staff. (They docked one woman a week's overtime because she was two seconds - that was the time they stated - back at her desk after lunch. The actual reason she was late for work was because a manager stopped her on the way back to ask a question. The suspicion was that the manager was sent to delay her to enable the company to scam her out of her overtime. It was deliberate. She had defended a rather shy girl in the office whom a senior manager repeatedly verbally abused. For that 'offence' they targeted her using her bonus.)

Those experiences left me appalled. I was someone who never felt particularly strongly about unions before then. I came to see what the reality is without them. I now believe that some form of worker representative structure must be a right in every company. There are some companies without unions that do treat staff well, but a hell of a lot of companies that ban unions ban them for a reason, so they can treat workers like sh1ite, can rip them off on the basis that they presume the staff won't know their legal rights, etc.

[TommyO'Brien]

I agree.

I worked in three non-union companies. In all three workers were exploited, conned and ripped off. In one the company had some staff on the minimum wage - it tried to pull a stunt that would have enabled it, illegally, to get around the minimum wage. In another the company chose to forget to pay its staff over Christmas and told the staff 'oops. Sorry about that. We'll pay you at the start of January!' Another practiced widespread bullying and intimidation of staff. (They docked one woman a week's overtime because she was two seconds - that was the time they stated - back at her desk after lunch. The actual reason she was late for work was because a manager stopped her on the way back to ask a question. The suspicion was that the manager was sent to delay her to enable the company to scam her out of her overtime. It was deliberate. She had defended a rather shy girl in the office whom a senior manager repeatedly verbally abused. For that 'offence' they targeted her using her bonus.)

Those experiences left me appalled. I was someone who never felt particularly strongly about unions before then. I came to see what the reality is without them. I now believe that some form of worker representative structure must be a right in every company. There are some companies without unions that do treat staff well, but a hell of a lot of companies that ban unions ban them for a reason, so they can treat workers like sh1ite, can rip them off on the basis that they presume the staff won't know their legal rights, etc.

I forgot to mention one typical stunt one of the companies would pull. They would find a vulnerable member of staff and summon them to a meeting for "corrective action" - they would be told of the meeting at 10am but the meeting wouldn't be scheduled until 3pm. So the junior staff member, often someone quite vulnerable and new, would spend the entire day worrying, wondering what they had done, whether the company was going to cut their bonus, whether they were going to be sacked, or whatever. By 3pm they would be in a state, at which time the company would say "oh the meeting room is booked for something else. We'll reschedule". Of course they never would, having worried some staff member for no apparent reason all day. They did that to humiliate staff and intimidate them, saying in effect 'if we are such ruthless bastards we are willing to humiliate that little girl who never did a thing wrong in her life, think of what we would do to you if we decide to.' One of the managers admitted later on when jarred to a senior member that the '3pm meeting for corrective action' was bogus, the staff would have done nothing, and he was just engaged in a mindfukk with the staff for the craic. He forgot however that two junior staff were at the table at the time, and they heard it and promptly told all the staff what the 'game' was.

Another stunt that company pulled was to arrange the salary so that it was 50% bonus and 50% guaranteed, which looked great until you found that they rigged the bonus structure to prevent staff getting their bonuses. One bonus was constructed based on when you arrived in the building. They knew that the DART would get people in the building at 8.40am for the 9am shift. So they required that to get the bonus staff would have to be there for 8.30, knowing that because of the location staff would have to get a bus and DART, and so it would be physically impossible to be there at 8.30. (The next earliest bus and DART would get you there at 7.45, for your 9am shift!) If someone was on the phone to a customer they had to end the call within 3 minutes or they would lose their week's bonus. (All it would take was one call in a week to overrun 3 minutes and bang would go the bonus.) But the catch was that if you hung up on the customer, you lost your bonus. If you told the customer you had to finish the call you lost the bonus. If you tried in any way to speed up the customer to get them finished within 3 minutes you lost the bonus. It was catch 22.

Then when a small number of staff began achieving the 3 minutes, the bonuses were rearranged so you had to finish the call within 2 minutes, which was impossible. Someone in the week was guaranteed to overrun the three minutes.

The scams they pulled were spectacular. The way they treated staff was appalling. But they were able to get away with it because they could intimidate staff into not complaining. When they went under, even though a lot of staff lost their jobs, people there were glad. As a manager there I was sickened by what I saw and quit after a short time. That company revolted me.

[Malcolm X]

Trade unions for this reason are becoming international.

Worker protection legislation was introduced under pressure from Trades Unions.

"The going rate" is set with the intervention of the organised working class, whose work creates profit. People who work have every right to combine together to achieve the best deal that they can.

Workers organisations have always been international. As Marx said "Workers of the World unite!". Unless we have international socialism the capitalist bosses and international banking parasites will just play one nationality off against another to drive down wages and conditions while increasing profits.

[politicaldonations]

Workers organisations have always been international. As Marx said "Workers of the World unite!". Unless we have international socialism the capitalist bosses and international banking parasites will just play one nationality off against another to drive down wages and conditions while increasing profits.

Who will buy the products and services from the capitalist bosses to keep them rich if wages are driven down so low?

[Malcolm X]

Who will buy the products and services from the capitalist bosses to keep them rich if wages are driven down so low?

Ah here's the really clever part. Just get the bankers to extend ridiculous amounts of credit to working class people at extortionate rates so that they can afford to buy back the products and services they produce! Genius eh?

[politicaldonations]

Ah here's the really clever part. Just get the bankers to extend ridiculous amounts of credit to working class people at extortionate rates so that they can afford to buy back the products and services they produce! Genius eh?

But if they are getting such low wages they will inevitably run out of credit or be unable to repay and the bankers will lose all their capital. Your theory isnt really stacking up.

[sauntersplash]

Bulgaria is a poor choice as it's a profoundly corrupt country and truth is hard to uncover.

Not a valid criticism.

Unions dont dictate wages/conditions. We are a small open economy, and subject to global market forces.

You say this as though it were decreed by the almighty. This is a sovereign state. Its political and economic affairs are set by the will of the people and are subject to change as their opinions do. Trade Unionism is nothing but an incarnation of the "people" of a country asserting their rights to form political organisations to protect their entitlements.

Very few union members in USA and i dont think the people there think they are slaves.

Seriously? Do you honestly expect anyone to take this sentence seriously?

[selfemployedmar]

Without Trade Unions we would probably have more internationally recognised companies re-locating to Ireland.
Without Trade Unions the ones we did have would probably have stayed.
Without Trades Unions the shoe factories would still be in existance in Ireland.
Without Trade Unions we would have less adminstration staff in our hospitals
Without Trade Unions we would have less derelict factories the length and breath of Ireland.
Without Trade Unions we would not have the huge discrepancy in wages in the Public Sector and the Private Sector.
Without Trade Unions we might just survive this recession and hold our heads high in an International Stage.
Without Trade Unions dictating we might just see the green shoots in 2010
Without Trade Unions we could become proud of our nation once again.