Thank a Union: 36 Ways Unions Have Improved Your Life

[ttosca]

Let's get one thing straight...

Employers and Corporations did not feel generous and decide to give you two days off every week to have a social/personal life. (We now call them weekends). Corporations did not just feel like being nice one day and give their employees paid vacations. CEOs didn't get together in a board room and say "Let's give our employees more rights at work" or "Maybe there should be laws to limit our power over an employee".

Virtually ALL the benefits you have at work, whether you work in the public or private sector, all of the benefits and rights you enjoy everyday are there because unions fought hard and long for them against big business who did everything they could to prevent giving you your rights. Many union leaders and members even lost their lives for things we take for granted today.

The right-wing attack on unions is nothing more than ignorance, lack of education, and propaganda.

If republicans would rather support corporations instead of organized groups of workers working to secure a fair work environment A.K.A a union, I ask them to walk the walk as well. Give up every benefit and right that you use that unions are responsible for.

Complete trust and submit yourself to the corporate agenda you fight for. Play by their rules with no influence from democrats or labor unions to try to force rights among the workers of this country. Dedicate your life to their life goal of making your company more money than the year before. Just understand that this may mean sacrificing the union fought rights you enjoy everyday. I mean, you don't want to be a hypocrite, do you? Like bashing unions on your union fought lunch break? Which means if you practice what you preach, you don't get a lunch break.

Corporations use to work employees 80+ hours a week, offer no breaks, hire children, offer horrid, unsanitary work conditions, paid literally next to nothing, and even murder. Not murder with a pen like they do today, but actual murder. They basically did whatever they wanted.

This is what they were like before unions. Don't take my word for it, look it up. (Links at bottom of page). If we rid the world of unions tomorrow, who is to say that they won't go right back to the way they were merely 70 years ago? The GOP governor of Maine signed a bill to repeal child labor laws this year, maybe they are going back to their roots whether we have unions or not.

So conservatives, please practice what you preach and give up all these rights and leave the umbrella of these laws for they were brought to you by unions...

36 Reasons Why You Should Thank a Union

Weekends
All Breaks at Work, including your Lunch Breaks
Paid Vacation
FMLA
Sick Leave
Social Security
Minimum Wage
Civil Rights Act/Title VII (Prohibits Employer Discrimination)
8-Hour Work Day
Overtime Pay
Child Labor Laws
Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
40 Hour Work Week
Worker's Compensation (Worker's Comp)
Unemployment Insurance
Pensions
Workplace Safety Standards and Regulations
Employer Health Care Insurance
Collective Bargaining Rights for Employees
Wrongful Termination Laws
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Whistleblower Protection Laws
Employee Polygraph Protect Act (Prohibits Employer from using a lie detector test on an employee)
Veteran's Employment and Training Services (VETS)
Compensation increases and Evaluations (Raises)
Sexual Harassment Laws
Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) 
Holiday Pay
Employer Dental, Life, and Vision Insurance
Privacy Rights
Pregnancy and Parental Leave
Military Leave
The Right to Strike
Public Education for Children
Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 (Requires employers pay men and women equally for the same amount of work)
Laws Ending Sweatshops in the United States

So will conservatives give up all 36 of these union fought rights? Will they stand by their rhetoric that unions are thugs and refuse to take benefits from these "thugs" or will they hypocritically carry on the diatribe that unions are ruining this country while enjoying their weekends and paid vacations?

Or...

Maybe they could just admit that while not perfect, like anything else, unions have done great things for working people that they use and benefit from everyday of their lives?

Maybe a conservative union-hating family got to have some of the best moments of their lives while on vacation from work, and they still got to come to a job still there waiting for them, because of unions?

Maybe a conservative can't wait for their lunch break at work so they can turn on the radio and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Back talk about how horrible unions are?

If you don't want to give up all your union fought rights and benefits at work, I understand. I don't want to either, that's why I'm pro-union and vote Democrat.

But maybe you could just admit that unions are not demons spawned from hell, and admit the FACT that they have improved your life in more ways than one?

Or am I asking too much?

Sources and Information:
AFSCME
Dept of Labor
Timeline
Wikipedia.org
Child Labor Public Education Project
AFL-CIO
SEIU

bigcorporationusa.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/thank-union-35-ways-unions-have.html

It doesn't matter that the author is criticizing the US Republican party, or a Democrat voter.

The same gains were achieved world-wide thanks for workers joining unions and fighting for their rights.

Next time you bash the unions, think whether you would give up your weekend, or your pension, or whether you want your daughter to work in a work environment free from sexual discrimination and harassment or protection from corporations arbitrarily firing your son without notice and good cause.

Unions nearly sank the UK in the 1970s. Unwilling to accept change, forcing goverments to prop up industries long past their sell-by date and hammering through wage rises with bully-boy tactics. They lost a lot of credibility & support after that. As for issues around equality and discrimination in the workplace, we've certainly made more progress that since being part of the EU than we ever did when it was left to all-male union leaders.

Great thread Ttosca, unions are needed now more than ever.

tories are going to privatise royal mail just announced

another once great service sold to the highest bidder

when are these tories going to stop?? When people are in food queues?

Good post Tosca.

Also worth remembering the benefits of union / management co-operation in other European countries, especially Germany.

Doesn't ignore Cogi - it was the fundamental and crippling lack of investment in manufacturing bases that had our econonomy in the shit in the 1970's. By that time we had the very lowest ratio of reinvestment to shareholder dividends, in the world.

as you were.

Unions have their place, but they haven't done much lately. They allowed unfettered immigration despite the fact that it clearly undermined the ability of British workers to negotiate for pay and conditions, and even the public sector are now feeling the effects of that decision.

I don't have much time for them tbh. They have very nice shiny offices and produce nice brochures going on about their work in Africa etc, but as far as saving people's jobs here, they aren't really interested.

ttosca, I thank the chartists and the unions for the fact that my children do not have to work in factories, that workplaces are now safe places to work and that we no longer work 18hr days and live in hovels. I think this right wing government is the worst thing to happen to working people since the invention of the spinning Jenny, that's a whole 248 years of human history and civilisation wasted.

"I think this right wing government is the worst thing to happen to working people since the invention of the spinning Jenny, that's a whole 248 years of human history and civilisation wasted."

Don't you think that's a bit OTT?

How are working people worse off now than they were under Labour?

If unions are so unerringly beneficial why is membership dropping like a stone? A bad sales job?

People don't know what they are missing until it's gone altogether - it's called complacency.

People don't know what they are missing until it's gone altogether

Yeah, like jobs in factories. Remember them? it was back when we still made stuff

Cogito, I think that there are a number of reasons for falling union membership. The main one is the change in the structure of the economy - away from manufacturing (traditionally heavily unionised) and towards the service sector where unions have always been under-represented. I'd agree that this is a failure on the part of the unions.

Also women have traditionally been much less unionised than men (and many unions historically had a very ambivalent attitude to women's work) whereas of course now they make up a large proportion of the workforce. My impression is that unions are now much more women-friendly than they were in the past (especially the public sector unions of course) but there is a hangover in the effect on membership.

So I would agree that the union movement hasn't been that successful (or perhaps as successful as in other countries?) in moving with the changing industrial structure of the UK. But in terms of 'sales job' I think you also have to take into account 30 years + of pretty relentless anti union media coverage.

Yes, the union movement has been marred by sexism. Unlike employers.
Where did the Equal Pay & Sex Discrimination Acts come from?
(Clue - not the Tory party or the CBI)

Agree about the expensive HQs. We were in London and walked past the really posh offices of union that DH and DS are members of. The union bosses are very well paid as well.

They do have a very honourable history but the demarkation of 60s' 70s 80s when for eg whole factories stopped because only members of a certain union were able to change a light bulb was idiotic.

NUT really looked after one of my family a few years back.

Their time will come again I'm sure. When we are all being feed in soup kitchens.

Julia, absolutely employers are more guilty of sexism, and the union movement has definitely helped women gain legal rights to equal treatment.

But (as a lifelong union supporter - not a member now as I'm self employed!) it is really important IMO to be aware of history. And that history says that unions in the past have often viewed women in the same way that people now view immigrants - as cheap competition to their members.

And even back in say the 80s there was a tendency for unions like NALGO to assume that women were working for 'pin money' and treat their issues as less important than those of the male members.

That isn't a reason not to support unions, though! And right now women need unions more than ever, especially in the public sector :(

Takver You're right - I've written essays etc on this; i'm just playing devil's advocate

i think that public sector unions exist to protect their own existence. my union did not exert itself on my behalf when i was pushed out of my job. they said they couldn't help me as an individual. if there were a dozen of us whose jobs were threatened they could have taken some action. they did not need me to be a part of a group of 12 when they took my individual subscriptions from me over the years. tell me how the unions are going to help all the middle aged women and ethnic minorities being pushed out of their jobs now while all the white, in crowd, non union member, graduates keep their jobs?

I'm sure once upon a time unions were absolutely necessary and I am sure they've done a good job in the past of raising standards and better/fairer pay.

But it's a different era nowadays. By and large workplaces are very safe and there are a plethora of laws to stop rogue employers from exploiting staff. That's not to say there's still no place for unions, there is.

But what's also not helped is that UK unions by and large do not work with employers to get a fair deal for both their workers and also the long term good of the company. Instead all they are interested in is demanding payrises which the business may/may not be able to afford.

I think that's the main difference between UK unions and say German unions which seem to have a more cordial relationship with their employers. The latter gets more respect and look at the results.....Germany thrashes us in every economic/manufacturing indicator.

In the early days the unions did some good - although many of your 36 points are irrelevant, or don't apply, to Britain. Since the 70's though, their influence has waned sharply. The lack of a significant manufacturing base in the UK can be blamed on the unions. Similarly, their refusal to make economies within the coal industry led to the disastrous (for the miners) strike which destroyed a whole industry.

These days, unions largely exist to protect the incompetent amongst the workforce. Read about the cases which have caused some of London Undergrounds strikes - it's a farce. The capital city of our great country brought down by an over unionised workforce striking for the rights of drunks to drive trains or staff that thieve from their employers to remain employed. The government has even had to pay a Danegeld to these bastards to ensure that they don't strike in the middle of the Olympics.

The unions have even tried, and succeeded in overthrowing an elected government. Mrs. Thatcher saw what happened to Ted Heath's administration (which was brought down by industrial action by the miners) and vowed never to let it happen again.

Some union leaders of the 60's and 70's were even paid agents of the Soviet Union. Imagine that! A union leader capable of overturning the results of democratic elections being in the paid employ of a foreign government with hostile intentions towards our own way of life. There is only one word for that and its treason.

Never read so much bollocks on MN as in the last two posts. Too late/early to get round to balancing your tripey ignorances.

I look forward to your rebuttal noodle.

Well, I really wouldn't wait for it, nice. Life is waay to short to play internet table tennis. It was mainly the shite talked by the aptly named MrPants that prompted the 'bollocks' bit. He is clearly a bit unstable and wild-eyed.
But I am sure there is so little happening in terms of view-changing stuff that it wouldn't warrant all of the keyboard strokes involved.