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8/18/2010
Unions won’t take it sitting down

“Unfortunately for unions …small businesses don’t seem to be fertile grounds for organizing.” Uh, yeah, right. So Fake Consultant over at Uppity Wisconsin (Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere) suggests how to get around that – under the guise of growing union membership.

Picture, if you will, a union apprenticeship program for medical assistants that is melded with a “hiring hall” for fill-in positions. Instead of spending $12,000 to go to [for-profit] Bryman [College], people would join the sponsoring union and start paying union dues.

The union, in turn, would place these workers, at about 125-150% of “normal” wage, in the fill-in slots that become available, allowing workers to “earn while they learn”; at the same time they’re attending the academic classes that would be required of any apprenticeship program.

So unions will train the workers, serve as their very own temp agency and the workers will be an automatic on-site recruiting machine.

…. as the [non-unionized] group begins to see what the other has, this should help to make the idea of joining a union a lot more interesting to that portion of the staff the union does not yet represent.

It also removes the problem of the facility “pretextually” firing anyone who might look like they’re trying to organize the rest of the workforce.

Since workers would be finding out about the apprenticeship program through advertising and other means of contact, the ability of employers to intimidate workers out of joining a union is diminished; since employers are looking to bring in these union fill-in workers to fix a hole in their very, very, tight budgets, their desire to intimidate is also reduced.

Wisconsin’s Democrat-controlled legislature hasn’t been sitting down on the job either. The 2009-11 Wisconsin state budget brought stealth union organizing to a new level, creating the Wisconsin Quality Home Care Authority, which exists solely to serve as the “employer” for independent home care providers. I did a rundown on the program in two pieces for WPRI back in May (Need More Union Members? Legislate Them) and June (It’s All About the Dues).

This same budget also vastly expanded application of Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law, mandating union-level labor costs to be borne by more municipalities across the state.

In June, 2009, as the budget was on the verge of passing, I tried to summarize UW unionizing in the budget as well as card-check (!) for UW research assistants.

In the budget repair bill that passed in February, 2009 in Madison, hundreds of thousands of dollars were added for worker training – provided exclusively by union organizations.

Unions are having a tough time of it, yes, in the public sector and in heavy manufacturing , but also in profitable companies with an ample supply of qualified workers (an example – from today’s news).

But don’t think for a minute they will go peacefully into any quiet night.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

This (along with the taxes and regulations poured out of Madison) is the stuff that makes small businesses NOT want to hire.

Personally, I'm pretty much of the mindset that hiring help simply doesn't pay. If I can't do it myself or do it with the help of a subcontractor, I don't want to take the project on.

I'm aware of at least one other Fox Valley business in my industry with a very similar mindset. They have found that contracting 'somewhat permanently' with a temp agency is FAR more cost effective than to hire direct.

If unions want to price the workforce out of our reach they can do so ... it's a free country ... and their membership will continue to look for jobs that simply aren't there.

Jeff R. (Wed Aug 18 07:56:59 2010)

Jo, You picked a poor example here. Everest College charges about $35k per year for programs the local community colleges do a better job at for much less. http://www.matchcollege.com/college/384209/The-Bryman-School/AZ#tuition_and_fees

You talk about waste and cost? How about that fact that they and other private colleges simply market themselves aggressively for student loans and have a very high default rate leaving the taxpayer on the hook for the balance. I'll take an honest discussion of wages and benefits and union recruiting any day over the waste that goes on at that college and most of the heavily promoted private colleges. And in the Mott plant strike you refer to. The company has had record earnings and wants to cut wages and benefits. I guess some people won't be happy until everyone (but themselves of course) is working for minimum wage. When a machinist (as quoted in the article) is making $19 per hour and the company want's to cut that wage they simply discourage anyone from wanting to be a machinist and maybe the best and brightest will go Wall Street where they can manage capital and not produce anything but a few deep recessions.

dave allen (Wed Aug 18 08:09:42 2010)

Isn't capitalism just great? Unions can and often do price their workers out of jobs, and that's why fewer workers are union members. But it gets extremely harder to convince workers they are not worth $30 per hour when the elitest CEOs are drawing $10 million salaries by offshoring their jobs to $1 per hour countries. And getting taxpayer subsidies in the process.

I'm not going to be here (I hope) when the revolution begins, but as long as our politicians are beholden to the Fat Cats, it will indeed occur.

Jack Lohman (Wed Aug 18 08:39:58 2010)

Whoa Dave! It's not I that mentioned Bryman; it's our anonymous blogger. You appropriately publicize the tech colleges, that do a good job for much less than the for-profit schools. I don't disagree with your rant about them.

Jo (Wed Aug 18 08:57:57 2010)

I guess Dave, if they don't want to be a machinist, they can always work at McDonalds or Burger King for $10 an hour. Some how you forget that the auto workers were and perhaps still are, making $70 to $80 an hour with benefits. It killed them. GM also pays out something like $750 million in retirement costs each year. Even after all the recent problems, they came right out with a new line of cars that are all nearly close to or over the $30,000 range. They'll sell a few now because people (union people mostly), will feel sorry and not want to buy a Toyota, Honda, and others now made here in the U. S. with about half the production payroll and no unions. Then they'll go bust again and look for another handout. The unions and Obama saw to it that they own about half of GM now. More disaster ahead for GM. Same thing happened years ago to Autolite in LaCrosse. Their largest employer with a plant covering several city blocks. The union kept asking for more and more and finally, Autolite just up and left. It devasted LaCrosse at the time. I moved their shortly thereafter however, and it became an ALL-American city. (Read whatever you want into that remark - Ha)! Then Heilemans and Trane also had lots of problems. Also look at the teachers unions. The U.S. has twice or even three times (California) the cost of other Westernized nations and get half the results. Can't fire anyone because of unions. I have to admit however, that much of the blame is caused by parents or lack thereof (70% of black babies being born to single moms) causing a 76% high school dropout rate in Detroit last year (new record). Nationally it is now near 40%. I'd probably have to say however, that this problem is worse than the union problem. Both are ugly and destroying us.

John Hyland (Wed Aug 18 08:57:24 2010)

I'm not going to be here (I hope) when the revolution begins,...

Please will me your ammo, Jack!

dad29 (Wed Aug 18 09:14:07 2010)

And if the above formula does not work, Andy Stern can send over a few thugs to "soften" the opposition.

Oh that is right, Andy retired.

No way in hell I want my health care dependent upon union workers who might strike at any time.

Ken Van Doren (Wed Aug 18 12:55:11 2010)

I see, Ken, and only public workers have unions? You should get this week's Newsweek. Good rundown on all the nations, the US being first in some categories but 11th overall. And 12th in education, which you can attribute to unions (and their money, and the corrupt politicians who pocket it).

Jack Lohman (Wed Aug 18 14:15:18 2010)

John,
I don't think a $19 per hr machinist is overpriced. Do you? God help us if it is. And you don't even address the issue of the blog relative to the college example(my apologies to Jo for attributing it to her but it is her blog forum).
It seems that union bashing while ignoring the big corporate ripoffs is quite acceptable today. An overpaid union worker (to the extent one exists) is far more likely to spend their largess in the community compared to an overpaid CEO. Sooner or later there will be no more community. There will be a revolution when the middle class disappears, when you can't support a family on a skilled trade living. It wasn't the unions that wrecked the economy this time around was it?

dave allen (Wed Aug 18 16:50:11 2010)

John likes to use these egregious $70 to $80 an hour numbers because they are convoluted with the retirement of every GM worker's pay, even those who are retired. And who knows how much they contributed to them while working. He forgets that they were negotiated under our capitalistic system and also forgets the multi-million pay packages of the executives. That's the conservative way of thinking.

Jack Lohman (Wed Aug 18 17:22:23 2010)

Jack,
You are correct. The focus on "profits for today" attitude that the big (used to be 4) automakers had for decades allowed them to spend their seed corn while the Japanese and other passed them by. The unions, for all their faults, were encouraged to play along, party while it lasted. If management had focused on improving process and technology instead of finance there would have been a chance to avoid the problems they had. Look at UPS, heavily unionized but very efficient. Look at Germany, heavily unionized but the biggest exporter in Europe. When labor and management work together for the common good results are positive. When one side tries to screw or exclude the other disaster awaits. The non-union foreign automakers succeed with non-union workers because they treat their workers fairly and don't have lavish perks for management. This country will sink to the bottom as long as capital sees labor as a cost instead of a resource.

dave allen (Wed Aug 18 17:35:58 2010)

Growing up in a family of tradesmen I witnessed many issues and circumstances related to Unions, as valid now as then. First, unions once represented not only the wages and working conditions but consumer protection resulting from correct, validated training, e.g. apprentice, journeyman, master.Pride of skills and workmanship was reflected in a superior product, or so the unions said. My experience confirms that notion, for the most part, not all.

The next experience illustrated the ugly side of unions and their stranglehold at that time. My father's up and coming company was lobbied to accept work for major chains in other states, an exciting prospect and a testament to the quality of work produced. As my father's company hoped to utilize a few of their most qualified workers, the foremen, on site, to manage and insure the responsibility for work produced, quality and adequate production to meet the contracts. The the union stepped in, refusing my father's foremen, Union members in good stead, the opportunity to manage, reducing the company's ability to produce to the whims of the local unions shop. Coming from another state, the animus reveled the unions goal of first, bleed the out-stater, and second, crush their ability to return. It worked, as these contracts, began the end of one of the most up and coming companies of it's kind in our state.

Do I hold some bad feelings towards unions from these events. Absolutely, it crushed my father, his partner, and took it's toll on many worker's; the entire process gathered debris in it's wake like a tornado, all in the mis-guided , mis-represented union's face of protection. Union's need to regain our respect by putting more than wages on their list of goals.

Richard Parins (Wed Aug 18 18:35:48 2010)

Richard, people are people and some of them stink. I often use the 80-20 rule, and union leaders that are more intent on keeping their high-paying management job are going to make some selfish decisions. But that does not remove from the membership the right to ban together and strike. Hell, our own political parties have formed a legal two-party conspiracy, which some have likened to unions, and we the people have the same right to vote them out. I think there are good unions and bad unions, and I am certainly a proponent of the secret ballot.

Jack Lohman (Wed Aug 18 20:04:30 2010)

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