That sounds like one of those laws they pass to please the MTG base, but it is going to get tossed by the courts. It is a performative troll bill.
Small business!! Small business!! Small business!!! *Ben & Jerry's and Costco show up* Not like that!!!!!
Couldn't even get through a paragraph without floating a lie. Economic incentives aren't simply "making it easier. "
I think this is a misunderstanding of the issue here by you, UA, rather than a case where Matt or anyone is lying. The part that Matt was talking about in terms of "making it easier" was that the companies make it easier for their employees to unionize by a process of enough of the employees signing off on a union card, instead of having a whole secret ballot choice to unionize. https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgi...s-anti-union-bill/EJTABQ63JNFGTL22RLKBQDUFII/ The Georgia bill would prevent companies who allow their employees to form a union through this easier process of card-check signup to receive economic incentives from Georgia.
I'm of the belief that card-check should not be allowed. Just as people can be pressured by the company into not supporting unionization, they can be pressured by coworkers or union organizers into supporting it, and I think the right to a secret ballot should be sacred.
I dunno...I think it is a lot harder to unduly pressure enough people to publicly declare their support for unionization that 70 percent of people support it than it is to unduly pressure enough people that a simple majority support it or reject it. Also, the company can obviously bring more pressure to bear on pro-union people than the union can bring on anti-union people. All of which is not to deny that unions can and do pressure, but it's not the same. Nor is the secret ballot a solution to that pressuring. In fact, it seems like it would protract any possible pressure from both sides.
I never cease to be amazed at how frightened these corporations are. Circuit City used to conduct "training" for managers on how to spot possible union infiltration. Kinda like checking under your bed for commies. Home Depot made everyone sit through lectures about "protecting your signature." Cowards all...
21%, if not quite a majority actually support it. And that’s only if they do wait till 70%. That’s not a requirement. Its not the union who’d be pressuring the anti-union people, it’s the pro-union people. And they seem to me to be just as capable of pressuring the anti-union people as the employer. It’s not about the pressure per se during the campaign, it’s about retaliation afterwards, just like a government election. The real pressure during the campaign is ultimately in the implications of if you don’t toe the line when it comes to it. Anyone who took the card but refused to show it is a major target if the union vote fails. The pro-union people can’t know who to retaliate against if there’s a secret ballot. Likewise a secret ballot also makes it harder for the company to retaliate against anyone but the obvious organizers of the union because they risk hurting or firing the wrong people. Yeah, secret ballot is much better all around.
Yes, exactly. People can try to exert pressure, but the secret ballot basically nullifies its influence. I understand that card check is easier and faster, but you'd think the labor movement could see that depriving people of their right to a secret ballot is not a good look.
Sorry about not knowing the percentages. The pro-union people are limited in how much pressure they can reasonably/realistically bring. It's largely peer pressure/cold shouldering, unless I'm missing something. Maybe they can refuse to help anti-union people with their assignments, give worse assignments to the extent that there are intermediate supervisors that are pro-union. Anti-union people can at a start do all that for sure and have a wider array of things they can do to retaliate against union agitators, including and up to demoting them, firing them and badmouthing them for future employers. I don't think that you need to have too much of your finger on the pulse of your workspace to have suspicions of who's pro-union and who's not. That said, the secret ballot may result in people taking splash damage -- pro-union people being wrongly thought of as anti- and vice-versa.
There's plenty of history of violence by unions against "scabs". Mind you, I'm for workers having the right to organize, but here's an anecdote from the Great Depression. Growing up in Cleveland my father had the privilege of seeing his kind and gentle older brother worked over by union goons in front of his family. Until I heard that story I never understood my dad's hatred of unions. Corporate leaders are not capable of grasping that the harder they try to crush unions and crush workers under their boots the harder the survivors are determined to fight back (literally and figuratively). Unions are certainly capable of more than just "cold shouldering" and other passive-aggressive retaliation against non joiners. If you're working on a Hollywood movie set, you don't touch anything (literally) except something a union grip, electrician, property person, etc. hands you. If a light is falling over, you let it fall. In SAG/AFTRA radio stations in New York, disc jockeys touched nothing except their microphone on/off switch. Again, I'm pro-union, but unions are just as much a product of humans as corporations and just as capable of corruption and the excesses that power can be breed.
I might be naive, but I largely discount the possibility in 2024, either pro- or anti-union forces using actual violence against their perceived enemies. I would be certain that it continues to happen occasionally on both sides, but a) would think it super-rare and b) it's not something that secret ballots cure.
Not a matter of knowledge, a matter of basic math. If 49% actually support a union, and the union won’t move until 70% say they do, that’s only a matter of pressuring 21% who don’t want a union into saying they do, not the full 70%. Or beat you up or burn down your house. All of which are illegal retaliation, so why stop at the legal options for the pro-union folks? And of course, the employer can also have you beaten up or burn down your house. Theres no certainty, and that’s the point.
I think the world is better for having strong unions, but the history of organized labor ain't all kittens and rainbows. And even if the days of outright violence are over, it would be naive to think that there aren't some union supporters who would bully coworkers into signing when they don't really want to.
I agree, but to put that belief in context, if people are afraid that nothing else will work, they'll do what they feel like they have to do. Better to just let the process play out in a free and open manner that satisfies the parties that it is indeed free and open.
Free and open don't always go hand in hand. The secret ballot is what gives people the freedom to exercise their voice without coercion.
Uh, I guess that I'm the only person here who's been involved with trying to organize a company. Because here's what happens: The union folks hand out cards to employees, and those who are interested in joining a union sign the cards and send them in. If the union gets enough cards back, so that it looks like they've reached the threshold, the cards have to be shared with the employer so that they can verify that the people signing the cards are employees. This means that by signing the card, regardless of if the union is able to get enough votes or not, your employer knows that you're pro-union. Retaliation is absolutely going to happen.
My experience with unions has been terrible. UAW let a number of people get run out of GM in terrytown NY as they were allowing Ross Perot and EDS end it despite them spending years taking pay from the employees to cover their cushy salaries. If you even spoke to them about what EDS was doing to the workers forcing them to take pay cuts to keep their jobs, and cheapening their health care provisions the union people ratted you out to EDS as a troublemaker and you were the next to be laid off. Of course people think Perot and the UAW are awesome. Try explaining that one to your high school government teacher when he thought Ross was awesome. Then I try to get a job at grand union grocery stores and they tell me they are taking my pay to give to some union. I am here for a fucking summer job doing the hard work, and I am not paying for a corporate goon who isn't doing shit for me in a job I am not planning on having for life. So I cannot have the job because I won't accept take home pay that is less than every other job around because of union fees? I have better things to do with my hard work. In the end I could see the use for new unions as they seem to have helped things, but once the union is going then it is an established job that relies on sucking more and more money from the actual workers. So unless it is continually making your salary and benefits go off, it actually becomes less and less valuable because it sucks more of your money while defending it's own existence for doing nothing for you for years and years. What I might be for is a US wide workers unions which would bring this country to a unified halt if minimum wages were not raised across the board for the lower 75% of employees and health care was unified under a public run negotiated insurer that you could opt out of if you wanted.
