this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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sure, but whether or not they know it they have caved to the union's demands by doing that
What kind of 5th dimensional chess are you trying to play where penalizing someone for joining a union is "caving to the union's demands?"
They can't cut union wages that's the whole point of collective bargaining and they're just maintaining competition with union rates which is legal. That competition might be specifically devised to draw potential employees away from union contracts and people may be dumb enough to go for it but that's capitalism however dumb that may be.
One of the main goals of unions is to increase worker pay. Mission accomplished.
The issue here is that if more people choose not to join a union for the pay raise in the short term, unions become weaker in the longer term. The capitalist in this case is paying a premium now to divide up labor for the chance down the line to save more money on labor overall in the long term.
if salaries depend on union decisions then surely they are following the union's demands.
i think the thing that makes it confusing is the missing context of whether unionised workers at that site are being paid less than non-union workers. i assumed the answer was no because it sounded like they had a CBA that the person was not aware of, since the alternative would have been immediately struck down by any union worth its salt.
My guess would be that this person is part of the collective bargaining block, but does not pay dues (possibly public sector). So the contract she describes was negotiated by the Union, and is the same contract that everyone in her position gets, union or otherwise. She probably just doesn't realize it.
Could be wrong, but the above situation is unfortunately pretty common.