Quote:
Originally Posted by dc_dux
If a company suggests that it will shut down if unionized....that is intimidation.
If a company suggests that it will replace workers who unionize and strike in the future..that is intimidation.
If a company requires that every employee meet individually (and privately with no record of the conversation) with management prior to a vote...that is intimidation.
Those are the most common practices that take place during a period between the time an election is called and when its held.
Again..how is it "asking for extra help" in organizing by offering a CHOICE among the employees for a card check OR a secret ballot based on the expressed wishes of the majority of workers.
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There is "intimidation" and there is reality. If a business knows unionization will increase costs by XX%, and threaten profitability or competitiveness and then they say that to their employees with a clear message that they will relocate (and they are being truthful) you can call this intimidation if you want but I call it giving people information upon which will help them make a decision,
All we have to do is look at the areas of the country with the biggest percentages of union penetration during the past 40 years, and see what has happened to employment opportunity in those areas. The truth is many of these union jobs (the one's that could be moved, i.e. you can't move a teaching job or police/fire job) have gone overseas or have moved south or west into areas with less union activity.
-----Added 21/1/2009 at 04 : 46 : 14-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
the practices of american trade unions follow largely from the sector-monopoly model.
so they are particular to it, and are not statements about why unions are generally preferable to their absence.
unless you prefer being powerless, or unless you have somehow been persuaded that the interests of capital and those of people who sell their labor power for a wage are identical. on the second, it follows from general political and/or aesthetic dispositions, and so is circular--conservatives tend to pretend that these interests coincide, others do not.
so there's almost no point in bothering to lay out arguments, since they're little more that repetitions of more general political viewpoints.
so for example, had ace written something in support of union activity, i would have been incredulous.
but he didn't.
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I have written that unions have proven to be very valuable in the past, much of current legislation protecting workers in the workplace is due to what unions fought for. Early in the industrial age there was no balance between labor and management. That is not true today and you have government protecting workers in the work place. The useful life of unions appears to be past us today in my opinion.