I'm a Tesla shareholder (of little significance in the grand scheme of things, but I bought some) and this wouldn't put me off. In fact, I think they should have a union.
Of course, it probably does require the company to route some of the products of their labor back to the workers, which I guess is what American companies are loath to do?
To ensure that those protections are enforced. To ensure those protections aren't rolled back. To advocate for their membership in a changing economy where their work won't remain static for 40 years.
Maybe it's because I'm not American but is it really so hard to see why having someone to advocate for the people in the economy is a good thing? After all, companies are just 'capital unions' that advocate for their members.
It's up to the members of a union to take sufficient interest in it that there are appropriate and effective governance structures in place - in the same way that it's up to the shareholders of a business to do the same.
Organizations of any kind have someone they're supposed to serve - from your neighborhood bowls club to a fortune 500 company.
Organizational (corporate) governance is how you make sure the organization is operating for the benefit of its intended recipients.
Some organizations do governance well. Some do it badly. When the owners (shareholders, members etc) take their eye off the ball over time that organization will skew towards badly.
I don't think this is a controversial statement at all, even when applied to workers' unions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarquet/2017/06/04/elon-mu...
Maybe if Musk spent time on his endeavor instead of throwing his time willy nilly in each direction he could have prevented a union. Cest la vive
Americans don't have basic labor rights like mandated vacation, paternity/maternity leave, sick leave, etc. I don't see the American political system as fixing this anytime soon.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to vacations -- that's a benefit that companies could offer in their bid to compete in the market for labor. It absolutely ought not be any of government's business. This is one of the reasons it's so incredibly unattractive to start a business in France and some other EU countries. The amount of government largesse at the entrepreneur's expense makes it insane to want to hire anyone let alone try and grow a business there. At the end of the day, "paid" vacation is paid for by the employee and the customers in the form of lower salaries and higher prices. Look at pre-tax salaries in Paris versus Silicon Valley. SV pays 3-4 times more AND offers health care and "benefits." In France, it's very risky to hire anyone, so salaries reflect the amount of risk assumed when hiring that employee -- meaning they're paid much less because there's a chance you'll be stuck with that employee indefinitely. Taxes are higher, living costs are higher, yet salaries are lower -- by 300%. All that "paid" vacation and "paid" benefits aren't cheap. If you look at net salaries, the difference is even more dramatic. The disposable income of a European worker is dramatically less than that of an American worker -- at least in software and tech.
The only people that demand "basic rights" such as 4 weeks paid vacation are people that have never run a business. The moment these campaigners for government mandated benefits actually try to start a business of their own is the moment they suddenly realize how destructive government-mandated benefits can be to a company and the economy. Employers should be able to offer whatever benefits they choose to offer. If an employee doesn't like the offered terms, they can walk away. If a company wants to compete for top talent, they'll end up offering good benefits as a response to the market as opposed to government mandate.
Look at the benefits offered by Facebook and Google. No government mandates there -- it's the market. They want to attract the best, so they have to offer the best.
I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's not impossible to come up with plausible situations that could lead to the situation described. I wouldn't be so sure to immediately discount the role of a union in how well a company fares a crisis, just as I wouldn't be so sure to discount the behavior of the executives. Each company probably had its own unique mix of problems.
Or, viewed through another lens: the auto workers' union is the organization that prevented auto workers from being squeezed tighter and tighter without end.
If they, the workers, hadn't banded together, the owners and shareholders could keep cutting their wages, could keep failing to uphold their obligations to the workers' pensions and health care, could keep screwing the workers out of wages and a good life.
It's hard for me to be sympathetic to the owners and shareholders. They're not the ones showing up to a factory floor day after day, bolting cars together, destroying their bodies for dollars an hour.
It's also especially hard for me to say, "you have a constitutional right to assemble, but not if you want to use that right to assemble to demand better pay for yourselves and your fellow workers".
In fact, given the history of how the owning class has treated the laboring class in this country, it's hard for me to say the laboring class should have fewer tools to better their lives.
$31 per hour for a non-skilled assembly line worker.
That's $31 per hour + very good benefits.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/
Perhaps we should demand government mandate a $100 per hour salary? I don't know, what's "fair" in your mind? Why not $200 per hour?
The truth is that many of these auto workers make more money than many of the shareholders. It isn't like "the shareholders" are ensconced in castles counting doubloons. These shareholders are teachers, fire fighters, normal people who invest in retirement funds or other retail investments. Sure there are a few rich people investing, but acting like shareholders are some kind of privileged class is disingenuous.
Why should the factory worker have more rights than the old lady living off her General Motors dividends?
If they can work collectively and demand it, who are we to stop them?
Isn't that a market at work? They don't own the building, but they do provide the labor. Let them negotiate, collectively, and get whatever they can.
Why is the little old lady who does literally nothing for that dividend prized over the people who go to work day after day?
"Fair" is the value that workers' labor generates. It's probably a lot more than $31 in the case of autos.
For that idea to be rational, you probably are the owner of some big enterprise.
Strong fucking everything
Let's not forget that unions are not opt-in or opt-out. If you work in a union shop you are in that union and their dues are automatically taken directly out of your pay. You don't like what your union is doing? Tough luck. Suddenly you need to negotiate with the people who should be on your side and are taking money away from you to fund themselves. Union workers are often doubly screwed by their employers and their unions.
No one is ever legally obligated to join a union in the U.S. You may be required to pay dues, since the union affords you protections even if you're not a member, but you'll never be required to join it.
It's also not true that "don't like what your union is doing, tough luck". Unions are democratic organizations. Don't like what it's doing? Take your case to your fellow union members, persuade them, and steer the ship to what you do want the union to do.
You seem to have a view of unions that is tinged with much of the anti-union lies that have been propagated for decades in this country. (I won't dignify those lies by calling them propaganda.)
I doubt a handful of forum posts would convince you to reexamine the things you say that aren't true, but I hope you'll consider the fact that you've been mislead for a long time by very wealthy, powerful, media-savvy people.
(Unions are none of these, by the way--not particularly wealthy, nor powerful, and not media-savvy in the slightest.)
So you can instead choose to pay money yet have no voice, or choose to not have a job at that company, or in some cases a job in an entire profession when the union has bought legislation to that effect. Great choice.
> Take your case to your fellow union members, persuade them, and steer the ship to what you do want the union to do.
Sure. And if you can't, then you should be able to stop giving them money if they're going to use it for purposes you oppose.
(For clarity: I have no problems with unions; in some cases they've achieved extraordinary things. I do have problems with mandatory union dues/membership, and mandatory unions for entire professions. Voluntary associations are a great thing; involuntary associations are not.)
No one is ever legally obligated to join a union in the U.S.
There is agency shop organizing in which workers have to pay full dues but do not have to join the union. It can be seen as a distinction without a difference to those who have to pay the dues.
Then there's full right-to-work situations, where unions cannot compel workers to join the union or pay dues as a prerequisite to work in that shop.
[0] http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/how-union-card...
[Edit]: closed shop definitional error
Unions are also not very democratic. They are democratic in principle but once again fall to the tyranny of the majority. If you are a minority in a union you are completely screwed unless you can trump their demands by using a protected class.
Unions have already served their purpose, well their original purpose was racism pure and simple, but their purpose of protecting workers is no longer necessary. Now they exist to only protect themselves.
Exactly how much work-oriented racism was there in 14th century England, when trade unions were first outlawed? Or in industrial age Britain?
Stop spreading your crazy FUD.
since the union affords you protections
Here's one example I experienced directly. Normal California law at the time mandated minimum break periods and frequencies based on hours worked (e.g. 4+ hour shift = 1 rest break, 5.5+ hours mandated a meal break, 6?+ hours mandated a second rest break).
The union negotiated away all rest and meal breaks in our unit in return for either a shorter shift or slight shift premium depending on which shift one worked.
For example, consider doctors. They don't have a union but there should to help regulate working conditions. There are so many abusive workplace practices in medicine like number of hours that doctor is forced to work through residences and fellowship. There are many examples of doctors dying from a car crash after their shift. We limit the hours truckers, pilots, and air traffic controllers but we are ok with having our doctors being sleep deprived as they operate on us? Doesn't make sense. This article deep dives into it: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/12/no-doctor...
Another area - cab / ride sharing drivers. Do you really want Uber and Lyft to set rules on hours, breaks, etc. for their drivers given their track record on ethics and following regulations? As one example, Uber had a known bug for several months where they didn't pay the correct amount of commission to their drivers. We can't just rely on regulators (they are swamped and have their own conflict of interests) to regulate worker rights, Unions are appropriate in many conditions.
There are lots of abusive industries where unions are needed to prevent exploitation of workers. I also acknowledge that the flip side of the coin is that in many areas unions have hurt companies - it's definitely a balance.
A union doesn't work so well when there's sizable power differential between members, and that's the case with doctors. The political power of a senior consultant with tendrils into management is usually orders of magnitude more than that of a fresh graduate.