E Pluribus Unum: Employee Free Choice Act Now
I work. I know, big surprise. You probably thought this was all I did.
I have a job and it pays the bills, case closed.
Well, not really. I’m going through the process now of being represented by a union, other than my current membership in the Freelancers Union (Hey All You Freelancers!! Love ya!!). I’m looking to be represented because I changed positions in my agency and it looks as if now, I may be eligible to be in the bargaining unit. And I am THRILLED!
This past summer, I tried to find out the same information, but didn’t know who to contact within my agency to determine if I was in the bargaining unit or not. So, I went the route a lot of folks do, I asked management.
I’ve viewed management as a resource, not necessarily as management. I’ve believed that they wear many hats and one of the main hats is that of serving as a resource to employees, including being a resource to find information out about union representation.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
I have since requested union assistance in being represented. In a matter of weeks, they have pushed for me and others like me to be represented in my agency. They’ve provided me information on legal rulings and have included me in information they send out to members, and I’m still not a member yet. They are doing all of this work, in hopes that I might be able to be represented by them, to the tune of $299 a year.
That’s it. $299. That’s the membership fee. That’s $11.50 per pay. I can’t think of anything I pay for that’s so small and which I can receive so much for, by just being a member.
And now, this brings me to the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Hill Blog had a number of quotes from around the US in reference to Employee Free Choice. The number one thing I hear from conservatives when unions are brought up is about Dues. Here’s the quote from Grover Norquist (Mr. I-want-to-drown-Government-in-a-Bathtub)
The percentage of American workers paying union dues out of their paychecks has fallen from 33% in the 1950s to below 13% today. Fewer than eight percent of non-government workers are in unions.
The union bosses have made it clear that their number one goal is to force more Americans to pay union dues–average about $500 per worker.
So, I decided to find out where this number is coming from. I searched Google for Average Cost of Union Dues. Top three results are anti-union screeds. After that, it’s a mix of unions and anti-union forces.
What’s a girl to do?
I tried a new search. what are the median US union dues more anti-union crap mixed with union stuff.
What happens when you want an authoritative source of information and not anything biased?
I’d normally turn to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But this is where it became really interesting. Instead of finding what I really wanted, I found something entirely new and even more interesting than what I originally looked for, I found statistics on race, age and gender for unionized workers. And, I found median income values for those groups and subsets.
The data on union membership were collected as part of the Current
Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000
households that obtains information on employment and unemployment
among the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and
over.Some highlights from the 2008 data are:
–Government workers were nearly five times more likely to belong
to a union than were private sector employees.–Workers in education, training, and library occupations had the
highest unionization rate at 38.7 percent.–Black workers were more likely to be union members than were
white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.–Among states, New York had the highest union membership rate
(24.9 percent) and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.5 percent).
Wait, I’m not done:
Union Representation of Nonmembers
About 1.7 million wage and salary workers were represented by a
union on their main job in 2008, while not being union members them-
selves. (See table 1.) About half of these workers were employed
in government. (See table 3.)
One of the things that Republicans say when bashing unions is first, DUES, DUES DUES (um, dudes I want to pay MEMBERSHIP DUES for a union the way you, Mr Norquist, want to pay membership dues for your country club. I just get more out of my union, I get advocacy. Do you get that from the country club? Sorry, I digress). As if the concept of paying for a service is scary. I suppose to a Mr. Norquist or Mr. Newt Gingrich or Mr. Dick Cheney (oh, wait, he was a dues paying member of the IBEW, so his word probably doesn’t count) that paying for services rendered is scary because some of the services rendered are things like negotiating, or arbitration, or shop steward advocacy or web sites or… darn scary stuff.
Recently, I joined AFGE. No, I’m still not in the bargaining unit, AFGE is now filing suit on my behalf (and apparently, a number of other folks like me who have asked), but I decided I’d at least pay my dues to my local for the services I’ve already used, like the advocacy of my shop steward.
I might not be the kind of person who can or would pay to join a country club, but I am the kind of person who can manage to pay $11.50 per pay period to help my local build itself into a stronger union with better and more fabulous services. Most importantly, when I pay my dues, I am one of many, speaking in one voice, the union. What could be more American that that? E Pluribus Unum
True hard facts.
Right to work laws hurt unions.
Unions are in the business of representing their members and the workers. Unions have a requirement by law to represent all the workers in the job area where they have jurisdiction.
ALL workers including those that are not members. these Unions are required by law to represent a worker member or not to the best for their ability in grievance issues, even when that worker may be at fault and may deserve the reprimand, discipline, or discharge.
Unions by the nature of their mission end up representing all workers in all work places because when Union members get better wages, benefits and conditions along with some respects , then all works expectations have changed.
example in the Building trades the Unions have lost ground and compared to the number of workers have less members hip than the non-union. even then though the Union ‘Scale” or pay is the bench mark everyone is measured by.
Unions are also responsible for attempting to help keep the working environment safer for their members. if it were not for organized labor there would not be an OSHA or MSHA and the similar state agencies. the Bush Administration did everything they could to kill funding and enforcement by OSHA and it has cost us the lives of many workers.
EFCA the Employee Free Choice Act will help ALL workers in America.
do not get caught up in the Secret ballot issue no worker will lose the right to vote for or against a union.
Companies abuse their employees on a more than 20,000 to 1 ratio than do Unions.
EFCA will give the unions and it workers a reasonable time frame to get a collective bargaining agreement. today even if you are successful in forming a union the company will delay, delay and stall if a contract is ever accomplished.
then EFCA will impose higher costs on companies for violating the rules. Companies have decide it is easier to do the illegal acts and pay the cheep fines and ignore the judgments. they just add that into the cost of doing business. if we can cut the crap then we may just end up realizing some cost saving.
UNION YES – EFCA YES – A Fair and living wage will make our economy work better for everyone.
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I used to work for a grocery chain in upstate New York. The guidelines apparently do not allow me to name this chain, but it isn’t really important. The differences between them are rather small. They are all guilty of nepotism, of having extremely unpleasant working conditions, of setting hours in an unfair way, you name it. People get fired just before they become eligible for health insurance, or they have their hours cut below the company minimum for coverage.
They should be ripe for a union. Yet recently all the managers were called together for a meeting and told that union organizers were coming. What was shocking is that a large percentage of workers agree with management. Many of them have worked in stores which had a union, and they told me their union reps were useless and in bed with management, and they were even worse than management. They told me they have human resource people to help them, even though they also told me that if anyone above a department manager was involved the human resource people were useless, that in any case these people usually kicked problems over to the store managers. They said with a union, seniority counted over everything. Of course I back unions, but how do I answer these things?
Well, you have given me a good start. I don’t know whether any of these people will listen any more than they have before, but maybe with facts and a good argument they will. There are places where people just resist joining a union, such as grocery stores and security agencies. There are many others. What is necessary for all of us is to convince workers that unions will make their lives better, and also that if they end up with a union or rep they don’t think represents them properly they can get rid of them and get one that will work for them.
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