PoAC: A chicken-or-the-egg argument

[velvetpage]

"The unionized (company) had lower worker morale, always had confrontation between management and workers and used more people to do the same amount of work."

Here's the question: which came first, the adversarial management/employee relations and low worker morale, or the unionization?

What do you guys think? Is there a way to get the best of both worlds, and if so, can you give an example of it?

Comments

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Who's to say that the unionized company did have lower worker morale? The company, no doubt? (You didn't attribute the quote, so I'm just assuming...)

There should be confrontations between management and workers. This is not inherently a bad thing. Unions only increase worker confidence in addressing issues that would otherwise be suppressed or ignored by management. If the managers/owners can't take the confrontation, that's their problem. They'll get no sympathy from me.

I think it's fairly obvious that the crappy conditions that most workers have had to endure gave rise to unionization. I tend to look at the history of unions as an ongoing affair, rather than something that occurred in the distant past. The fact that we are losing a lot of the rights that we fought for in our earlier struggles is an indication to me that a lot of people have forgotten why we fought in the first place. It is, or should be, an ongoing struggle.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The quote is from a right-wing zealot in canpolitik with whom you are most likely familiar, who believes unions have outlived their usefulness. He was an outside observer of unionized and non-unionized forestry outfits in BC. He's often right; certainly unionized Stelco has a horrible morale and management/worker relationship, while non-unionized Dofasco had good employee relations. Generally, Stelco would fight tooth and nail and three-week strike for their contract, and as soon as they had it, Dofasco would match it without anyone asking them to. So the one played off the other, and both were necessary.

I agree that unions are still valuable to ensure that workers' rights are not eroded. To which he replied that if they didn't like the low-paying jobs, they could vote with their feet and quit. I absolutely loathe that argument. It's such a "let them eat cake" rich white guy response.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

I just read that exchange on canpolitik. I think you and I are more or less on the same page on this issue.

I think if a company tried its best to maintain a good relationship with its employees, it is often only because they fear a union being installed. In a way, that fear can be its own bargaining chip. Personally, I would rather just install a union anyway, but perhaps it amounts to the same thing in the end.

Still, Dofasco is able to favourably compete with Stelco because of the lower costs due to not having a union. I don't see why they both can't be unionized. Hell, I can't see why both can't be run by the workers themselves, but I guess I take this socialism thing a little further than most.

By the way, I'm getting a little wary of canpolitik these days. Ever since about, oh, late January or so, the place has been a little too right-wing for my tastes. The fact that the right-wing asshat above can openly advocate murdering innocent people (http://community.livejournal.com/canpolitik/426207.html?thread=12983263#t12983263) and nobody but me calls him on it is a sad testament to how far that community has fallen.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I often don't read through the threads anymore, because I know I'll see something like that and not even be able to find a place to start disagreeing. Some of the more left-leaning people haven't been around much lately, so it's getting rather lonely over there.

The other right-wing not-quite-nutjob I was in that thread with, kept complaining that "Oh noes, Americanization!!!" was taking the place of good ideas in health care. So I showed him why the American ideas were bad, what a good option would be to fix the same problem, and he acknowledged the good ideas while still claiming that my anti-American bias was getting in the way. I suppose it's the same loop of logic that allows him to believe that capitalism is inherently of benefit to everyone in an economy.

Rather than unionizing companies that treat their people well, I'd like to see more co-operatively owned ventures. They'd eliminate the manegerial relationship almost entirely, while still remaining productive, innovative and competitive. But as long as we've got capitalism, we need unions or the threat of them.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Generally, Stelco would fight tooth and nail and three-week strike for their contract, and as soon as they had it, Dofasco would match it without anyone asking them to.And because they had lower costs still outdid Stelco without risking their own workers "voting with their feet" to Stelco or unionizing themselves.
Cynical self protective "generosity".

...he replied that if they didn't like the low-paying jobs, they could vote with their feet and quit. Then starve and decrease the surplus population.
I have crappy wages. I understand why the company doesn't (almost can't) increase them. But I could use more money. (who can't?). At 50 as far as most 30-something HR scumbags with all the power and buzzwords are concerned, I'm walking dead already. SURE I'm gonna walk out on my job. And SURE employers will milk that little fact for ALL I'm worth.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

And because they had lower costs still outdid Stelco without risking their own workers "voting with their feet" to Stelco or unionizing themselves.
Cynical self protective "generosity".

Oh, very much so. But it was a case of the end justifying the means, the end being a very content Dofasco workforce on the back of someone else's union. In the interests of not wanting a union for themselves, Dofasco management chose to eliminate the need for one. The auto industry has been doing this for decades, too, and it works there as well. It's not proof that unions aren't necessary; only proof that not all workforces need to be unionized in order for unions to do their job making workers' lives better.

...he replied that if they didn't like the low-paying jobs, they could vote with their feet and quit. Then starve and decrease the surplus population.

Exactly. How many single moms work at Walmart because that's the only place that will hire them? They don't have the skills to get anything better, no one will help them support their families long enough to train for anything better, so they're stuck in working poverty their whole lives while some idiot in government tells them that if they want more, they should take steps to improve themselves. Well, yes, they should, but who's going to help them with the rest of their lives while they do that?

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

Living in Quebec, i've become increasingly anti-union because they are simply abusive here - out of control completely (particularly the public sector unions). The best car plants aren't unionised - Toyota. Same wages and benefits as GM and Ford and such, but no union and guess what? They're doing far better than GM and Ford. You don't need a union to have a company that respects its workforce, and when you have company that screws over its workers, a la Walmart, bringing in a union doesn't help - see what's happened in Quebec - they just shut the store down. I don't really see a need for unions much anymore, not in most industries. I've never belonged to one. My parents have as they were teachers, but they both would have preferred to not have had to be a part of it.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Certainly some unions make the problem worse, not better. In my board of ed, CUPE is a dirty word for the way they protect the jobs of people who ought to have been fired long since for never, you know, doing anything. On the other hand, the reason Toyota offers comparable wages and benefits is that they have decided the union contracts are industry standard, so they fall in line in order to keep their own company from going that route. Toyota would not long maintain that standard if the unions disappeared from the competition. The unions don't have to be everywhere to do the job - they just have to be frequent enough to create an industrial climate where their demands set the standard for the industry. The same thing happens in Hamilton with Stelco and Dofasco. Stelco goes on strike, gets their wage increase/pension increase/whatever, and then a few months later, Dofasco matches it without their employees even asking. The result: people want to work for Dofasco, because they'll get union benefits without the nasty relationship. But Dofasco's benefits are based on those of Stelco's union.