Unions Shrinking But Gaining
The Sacramento Bee's, Dan Walters, takes a look at the odd situation where labor unions, shrinking except in the government sector, still have a strong influence over the state legislature.
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posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:28 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Tuesday's Times Standard has a picture of Bonnie, Chris, Patty and Peter. Not a union member amonst them.
Shrinking, but gaining? Typical lib revisionist spin like when they lose a closely contested election but claim a moral victory.
Perhaps, but the fact is union membership has been decreasing for quite a while, yet they still have a stranglehold on Sacramento. Well, maybe not a stranglelode, as they still have to compete with the indian casinos and trial laywers.
Well, they certainly won last fall.
But they've been in decline since the 1940s. They accomplished too much for their own good apparently. Another factor is the rise of small business, which employs about 70 percent of the workforce now (not sure if that's 70 percent of the private sector workforce, or overall). It's much harder to unionize small business.
Indeed, small business is a big factor. I can't help but wonder, though, how many union members are willing union members?
Back in the 70s, I became a member of the International Union of Security Officers, or whatever it was called. I didn't want to, but I had to join when I got the job working security at Humbooldt Bay Power Plant.
Anybody have any idea of how many union shops in California are, what do the call them, Closed shops, where you have to be a union member to get hired?
Most shops are closed, although construction companies that hire both union and nonunion are regarded as "twogators." The unions have a two-headed alligator float that they use for labor demos in the Bay Area.
I was a member of the teacher's union, and also I was a Teamster when I worked for UPS. The first did very well by me, but the Teamsters, well, just before I got the job they'd negotiated my wage down from 14 an hour to 8 an hour (plus 35 cents because I worked the night shift).
On the other hand, the teachers union was of enormous help when I was a substitute teacher in SF.
You have to have a security clause (Closed Shop) in a contract to force all workers to pay union dues. Then there are ways for union workers to get out of paying to the unions also. Without a security clause (Open shop) what is the motivation to pay union dues when you get the same benefits. Does not work in most cases.
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