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Posts Tagged ‘Unions’

Blue Collar U.S. Males Are Taking the Biggest Hit During This Recession

One statistic that stands out in America’s recession-stung economy is the unemployment rate for adult men: in April for the second month in a row it surged ahead of the national average to 9.4 percent versus 8.9 percent for all workers. The jobless rate for adult women was 7.1 percent.

The reasons are clear: male-heavy sectors such as construction and manufacturing have been hard hit. But the implications may be dire for the broader economy and hamper the recovery as families that once had male breadwinners struggle.

The fact that American males without a college degree are especially vulnerable in this cycle point to more hard times ahead for the U.S. working class, which has endured stagnant and declining wages for the last three decades.

For those without a college degree or better, it has been a bloodbath.

The construction jobs will return, but we are seeing an unusually sharp drop in what is left of manufacturing and much of that drop will not be recovered when the recession ends, and much of what does remain will  be at lower wages with reduced fringe benefits.

What Can a Union Do For You?

• Employees bargain with strength for wages, benefits and rights when they join together. That’s why it’s important to unionize.
• Under the employment at will doctrine, the cornerstone of American employment law, in general terms, unless you belong to a protected group, your employer has the right to discipline or terminate, with impunity, you for any reason — even a bad one — or for no reason at all. That’s why it is sometimes called the fire at will doctrine.
• However, with a collective bargaining agreement, you have rights. Management must have just cause for any disciplinary action taken against a union employee. You bargain over wages, health benefits, working conditions and a retirement plan for your future. But, you bargain collectively with the strength that comes from a collective voice.
• ITS ALWAYS wise to take full advantage of YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS.
• WITH A UNION, the employer must bargain and pay the wages negotiated.
• WITH A UNION, your rights on the job are spelled out and must be respected.
• WITH A UNION, you can stop abuses on the job. The union can prevent unjust and unfair treatment by giving you representation on the job and the right to file grievances if you are treated unfairly.
• WITH A UNION, you can negotiate for better holiday pay, vacations, health and welfare benefits, and job conditions.
• WITH A UNION, you have greater security on your job. Company management cannot fire you without good reason and they must respect your length of service if there are layoffs.

Union Membership Rises for Second Straight Year

WASHINGTON — Amid widening unemployment, home foreclosures and credit woes, union membership jumped to 12.4 percent of the work force last year.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the ranks of organized labor rose by 428,000 workers — the biggest annual gain since the government began compiling such data in 1983. It’s also the second year in a row that unions have added to their ranks.

Membership rose by 311,000 members in 2007, to account for 12.1 percent of workers. Overall, union membership remains well below the peak of 35 percent during labor’s heyday of the 1950s.

Membership was about 20 percent in 1983, the first year the bureau began compiling the numbers.

Walmart Warns of Democratic Win

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.

The actions by Wal-Mart — the nation’s largest private employer — reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership.

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.”

Wal-Mart has fought hard to keep unions out of its stores, flying in labor-relations rapid-response teams from its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters to any location where union activity was building.

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.

What does union brotherhood mean to you?

To some it means looking at the big picture. As individuals we stand alone against the machine. As a union of individuals we gain strength in numbers. It’s a lot harder to crush the group than the individual.

Experienced management is well aware of this fact. That’s why the wealthy have been fighting to crush unions since the industrial revolution. In the U.S. today only around 7.5% of the workers are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, the lowest percentage in a century. In Western Europe approximately 80% of the workers are currently covered by collective bargaining agreements.

It seems that we Americans have chosen to be a nation of individuals. The attitude of “as long as I have mine” is undermining our very way of life. Millions of Americans are being driven out of the middle class while multinational corporations grow richer, CEO’s laugh all the way to the bank, and the richest 1% grow even richer.

While it would be easy to blame the unions, corporations, politicians, etc. we have no one to blame but ourselves. It is much easier to stand in the background mumbling under your breath about how you have been wronged, than to stand up and take a personal risk.

The brave men that formed the labor unions in this country suffered great personal suffering and humiliation. It saddens and disillusions me to see that so many workers today cannot even write and sign a simple statement that would help to right a great wrong. It is like spitting on the graves of our brave union forefathers.

I’ve been a proud member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 58 for 21 years. We have some of the best electricians in the country, unfortunately we also have many that just want a free ride.