Amazon workers just voted to join a union

[Ziggidy]

Heres how that show me your valid Union card thing works.
Show me yours first, and I will gladly show you mine.

Show me yours first, then I'll show you mine?

I can hear the little kids in the back giggling......

One would have thought with all that Union Knowledge you would know that simple fact.

He graduated from pre-school......left the child stuff behind him.

 

[04FXSTS]

Got laid off from a job back in the 1990's and a local GM foundry was hiring for temporary jobs. They had announced the foundry would be closing and needed workers to fill in as people transferred out to other plants. Temporary did last for two and a half years. It was a closed union shop, you had to join the UAW or no job.
A few years before that GM had considered adding an aluminum line to the foundry which already did cast iron. GM ended up putting the aluminum lines in a different foundry. While I was there I was talking to the head of the bargining unit for the plant and we talked about that. He believed if they would have gotten the aluminum lines the foundry would have stayed open. He also put some of the blame on the union for not getting it. GM started negotiating but the union was in his opinion to bitchy about job descriptions among other things. Said they should have got the lines in and running and then worked on how things were run.
About a year before the decision to close the plant a company tried to buy the foundry but insisted it had to be an operating business. IIRC it would "grandfather" in EPA and other processes as long as it was running. The prospective buyer also had to negotiate with the union before buying to make sure what they were getting. The union flat out refused to even talk with the possible buyer. The buyer was going to keep the foundry going and planned to add machining capabilities to the operation so there were possibly a lot of potential jobs lost. Jim.

 

[Creedmoor]

Show me yours first, then I'll show you mine?

I can hear the little kids in the back giggling......


He graduated from pre-school......left the child stuff behind him.

Yea, I giggle myself the first of each month, when Navy Federal tells me your Union Penison check has been deposited.

 

[Jaybird1980]

As far as the safety issue look back at posts from 42 to about 60 to see the discussion that if Jaybird hadn't been in the union he would have been forced to do things that could or would have gotten him killed.

I'm glad your union experience, whatever it was, was good for you.
Mine was wasn't.

I run work and have been for over 35 years, some of my subcontractor are union and some are not. Some of the individuals of both union and non are great guys, some are asshats.

You may want to reread what I actually said. I said I didn't have to worry as much about losing my job when I refused to do something dangerous. That protection is because of the union.

I've never once said non union is worse than union. I've been around the scene enough to see shops on both sides. I have a couple of good friends who got into a really good non union shop and have done very well.

 

[Ingomike]

Got laid off from a job back in the 1990's and a local GM foundry was hiring for temporary jobs. They had announced the foundry would be closing and needed workers to fill in as people transferred out to other plants. Temporary did last for two and a half years. It was a closed union shop, you had to join the UAW or no job.
A few years before that GM had considered adding an aluminum line to the foundry which already did cast iron. GM ended up putting the aluminum lines in a different foundry. While I was there I was talking to the head of the bargining unit for the plant and we talked about that. He believed if they would have gotten the aluminum lines the foundry would have stayed open. He also put some of the blame on the union for not getting it. GM started negotiating but the union was in his opinion to bitchy about job descriptions among other things. Said they should have got the lines in and running and then worked on how things were run.
About a year before the decision to close the plant a company tried to buy the foundry but insisted it had to be an operating business. IIRC it would "grandfather" in EPA and other processes as long as it was running. The prospective buyer also had to negotiate with the union before buying to make sure what they were getting. The union flat out refused to even talk with the possible buyer. The buyer was going to keep the foundry going and planned to add machining capabilities to the operation so there were possibly a lot of potential jobs lost. Jim.

Yep, that is how it works…

 

[Indyhd]

You may want to reread what I actually said. I said I didn't have to worry as much about losing my job when I refused to do something dangerous. That protection is because of the union.

I've never once said non union is worse than union. I've been around the scene enough to see shops on both sides. I have a couple of good friends who got into a really good non union shop and have done very well.

I did kinda make an assumption.
I've never asked anyone to ever do anything that I would not have done myself, and in most cases would do it myself before asking them to do it.
Anyone, union, non union should never have to feel they could lose their job if declining to do something they thought was unsafe.

 

[Ingomike]

Anyone, union, non union should never have to feel they could lose their job if declining to do something they thought was unsafe.

And then there will be the guy that work itself is unsafe…

 

[KLB]

It seems that union shops have much more of an us vs them mentality with management than non-union shops.

 

[actaeon277]

It seems that union shops have much more of an us vs them mentality with management than non-union shops.

I agree.
But.. which came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

[avboiler11]

Management teams get the unions that they deserve.

 

[STAGE 2]

Unions have no place in society any longer other than to support a particular political agenda, engage in quasi criminal activity and enrich a small percentage of leadership.

If this were really about equity and fairness you’d see benefits conditioned on productivity.

 

[actaeon277]

Unions have no place in society any longer other than to support a particular political agenda, engage in quasi criminal activity and enrich a small percentage of leadership.

If this were really about equity and fairness you’d see benefits conditioned on productivity.

Wow.
Nice sweeping statement.
Have you been EVERYWHERE in society?

When Indiana went 'Right to Work', several quit our union.
Funny thing, just about all came back pretty quick.

 

[Creedmoor]

Unions have no place in society any longer other than to support a particular political agenda, engage in quasi criminal activity and enrich a small percentage of leadership.

If this were really about equity and fairness you’d see benefits conditioned on productivity.

No place in society you say, what employment in todays working world gives you a penison? A great 401 and with some Unions an Annuity.
Not once did a Union Bossman reach over my shoulder and pull a different lever than I wanted to vote for.
Quasi Criminal. lol
Enriching Leadership you say? Like the Leadership and Management with all Business's and Corporate Executives and Owners.

And I ask again, what happened to yesterdays pensions?
They weren't replaced with 401's they just evaporated.
Talk about being taken advantage of by The Corporate Man.

 

[KLB]

I agree.
But.. which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Hard to say. I know that our plants are non-union and there no worker/mgmt antagonism like the stuff described here. Safety is huge. If a supervisor tried to get an employee to do something that did not follow safety protocols, they would be the one facing discipline not the employee.

 

[Ingomike]

No place in society you say, what employment in todays working world gives you a penison? A great 401 and with some Unions an Annuity.
Not once did a Union Bossman reach over my shoulder and pull a different lever than I wanted to vote for.
Quasi Criminal. lol
Enriching Leadership you say? Like the Leadership and Management with all Business's and Corporate Executives and Owners.

And I ask again, what happened to yesterdays pensions?
They weren't replaced with 401's they just evaporated.
Talk about being taken advantage of by The Corporate Man.

We got it, you have all the answers, no one else has a point.

Yesterdays pensions, which locked an employee to the employer to receive them, were done away with because employees wanted freedom of movement to new jobs without the risk of losing retirement benefits. Even if they were there just a couple of years.

Who is being taken advantage of free employees or those tied to an antique pension, a fund necessary for union leadership to enrich themselves…

 

[KLB]

We got it, you have all the answers, no one else has a point.

Yesterdays pensions, which locked an employee to the employer to receive them, were done away with because employees wanted freedom of movement to new jobs without the risk of losing retirement benefits. Even if they were there just a couple of years.

Who is being taken advantage of free employees or those tied to an antique pension, a fund necessary for union leadership to enrich themselves…

We have a pension still, employees are vested at 5 years. We also have a 401K.

 

[Ingomike]

We have a pension still, employees are vested at 5 years. We also have a 401K.

My experience has been this usually happens in companies that have been around a long time. I would rather it all go in a 401k.

 

[KLB]

My experience has been this usually happens in companies that have been around a long time. I would rather it all go in a 401k.

120 years now. There are a lot of people that work here for a long time, many their whole careers.

 

[Creedmoor]

We got it, you have all the answers, no one else has a point.

Yesterdays pensions, which locked an employee to the employer to receive them, were done away with because employees wanted freedom of movement to new jobs without the risk of losing retirement benefits. Even if they were there just a couple of years.

Who is being taken advantage of free employees or those tied to an antique pension, a fund necessary for union leadership to enrich themselves…

Dont get frustrated that a few of us that have spent decades easily refuting what you post in this thread.


Ive read and listened to everyones point, so employers stopped investing in employees penisons for the good of the employees?
I believe that vesting starts from 5-10 years of employment, what does it say about an employee that cant hack 5-10 years of employment to earn a partial penison?

You cant be serious?

It started,
In 1978, Congress approved The Revenue Act of 1978, which allowed for 401(k) plans. This act was implemented in the spirit of the government giving employees options for retirement outside of the standard pension plan. Sounds pretty reasonable, right?

In reality, large corporations were lobbying Congress to shut down their pension plans because they were too expensive to administer, and the employer held all of the investment risk.

Corporate America needed a way to reduce costs and transfer the risk from the company onto the employee. Congress was determined to create additional options in order to shift funding away from pension plans, hence the birth of the 401(k).

The 401(k) allowed companies an alternative to pension plans so that they were no longer responsible for paying their retired employees. In addition to continuing to create a paycheck for the retired employee, the employer had a large amount of investment risk. If the underlying investments of the pension plan did not perform well, the company would have to add money to the pension plan to make sure it was properly funded. Without appropriate funding, the plan would fail, and the paychecks would stop.

Interesting how those Unions still make those Corporations make those monthly deposits into that Union Penison Fund so the Vested Union Members get that retirment check still today.

 

[Creedmoor]

We have a pension still, employees are vested at 5 years. We also have a 401K.

Can I ask what industry you all work in?