E
EdwardATeller
Guest
Having killed a few steel companies and slowly bleeding the Big Three
auto companies to death, the union parasite needs more victims to
devour.
I am not sure when we our society will realize the free market is the
best way to allocate jobs and pay, not a corrupt union system. Pay
people more than they are worth, and those jobs will disappear. Why
would any employer continue to employ someone that costs him more
money that he produces in benefits? Oh wait, I forgot about
government. Stupid me.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070325/unions_future.html
<quote>
Unions Look to New Groups for Survival
Sunday March 25, 12:48 pm ET
By John Seewer, Associated Press Writer
Not Dead Yet: to Survive, Labor Union Leaders Look to Recruit New
Groups of Workers
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Trying to stop the erosion of organized labor,
union leaders are looking beyond their core auto and steel industries
to recruit service workers making low wages and professionals worrying
about losing their health care.
The new faces of unions are immigrants working at construction sites,
hospital nurses, parking lot attendants, mechanics and casino dealers
-- all groups who are unlikely to lose their jobs to overseas workers.
"What's left anymore?" said Al Mixon, president of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 507 in Cleveland, which just finalized
a contract with American Red Cross employees in northern Ohio. "We're
all forced to look into new areas."
This may be just the beginning of the reshaping of unions at a time
when factory jobs are being sent overseas or lost to technological
changes.
"As we lose manufacturing jobs, we're going to move more into
nontraditional occupations," said UAW Ohio President Lloyd Mahaffey.
"The issues aren't different whether it's a health care facility or a
factory. It's about having a voice."
In the last year, the UAW signed up 2,500 new members in Ohio at auto
parts plants, county jails and a juvenile courthouse. The national
union last year voted to move $60 million from its strike fund into
recruiting new members.
"We had a good year," Mahaffey said. "But it wouldn't be fair to say
we're replacing everyone we lose."
Job losses at the Big Three automakers and at parts makers knocked
down UAW membership to below 600,000 members in 2005, from a high of
1.5 million in 1979.
Union membership has declined steadily nationwide over the last 50
years. Only about one in 10 workers belongs to a union compared with a
third of all workers in the 1950s.
"The question is have unions fallen so far and so fast that they can't
get up," said Gary Chaison, a labor specialist at Clark University in
Worcester, Mass. "I give them a 50-50 chance."
Unions likely need at least 500,000 new members each year just to make
up for their annual losses, he said.
"They don't have to look overseas for fertile fields," he said. "It's
all around them. They just have to use their imagination."
The Service Employees International Union has organized child-care
providers who work at home in Illinois and janitors who clean office
towers in Houston.
The union has doubled in size in a little over a decade, to 1.8
million members, and now is trying to unionize janitors in
Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus.
"We need health care, we need better wages," Lauressie Tillman said at
an organizing rally in Cincinnati in March.
Tillman makes $6.85 an hour cleaning offices downtown to support her
family of four. She has diabetes and must pay for doctor visits. "I
don't have money for my medicine," she said.
One challenge in organizing new members is that many workers don't
value unions like they once did, forcing labor leaders to reintroduce
and redefine themselves.
They are pushing for more than better wages, telling workers that
access to health care and the ability to join unions are civil rights
-- not just bargaining chips.
And they are becoming less adversarial.
"Workers are looking for an organization that solves problems not one
that creates them," said Andy Stern, president of the Service
Employees union.
Too many labor leaders are concerned only about negotiating contracts
for their own members and aren't focused on solving problems facing
all workers such as the lack of an adequate health care system, he
said.
"For way too long, we've tried to stay the same and, in some cases,
stop change," Stern said. "That's a losing strategy."
Unions also are trying to become a bigger part of their members'
everyday lives. That means bringing back labor-sponsored family events
such as pumpkin patches and mother-daughter banquets.
"It's an old idea regenerated," said Bill Lichtenwald, president of
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 20 in Toledo. Its
membership has been cut in half since 1980 and now is down to 7,000.
The union offers casino bus trips and ballroom dancing lessons at
special rates.
And Teamsters are going into schools to talk with students about what
unions offer their members and how they have shaped the middle class.
"We're taking a lot of steps to re-educate," Lichtenwald said. "It
used to be that labor unions were respected. That reputation went
away."
David Weil, an associate professor of economics at Boston University,
expects that unions will look much different in the coming years. He
predicted that unions may offer more job training, serve as a third
party to resolve disputes or work more as a support organization for
immigrants.
There are unions now that don't fit the traditional mold.
The Freelancers Union, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., doesn't bargain wages
or benefits with employers. Instead, it offers low cost health care,
life insurance and networking for its 45,000 members who are writers,
artists and Web site designers.
"The idea of a union conjures about so many images," said Sara
Horowitz, who founded the union in 2003. "The real answer is you have
to be helpful and provide something valuable."
Horowitz said that unions don't need to engage in collective
bargaining to grow.
"There are many structures that have helped workers from mutual aid
societies to guilds," she said. "The essence of a union is people
coming together to solve their problems."
</quote>
auto companies to death, the union parasite needs more victims to
devour.
I am not sure when we our society will realize the free market is the
best way to allocate jobs and pay, not a corrupt union system. Pay
people more than they are worth, and those jobs will disappear. Why
would any employer continue to employ someone that costs him more
money that he produces in benefits? Oh wait, I forgot about
government. Stupid me.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070325/unions_future.html
<quote>
Unions Look to New Groups for Survival
Sunday March 25, 12:48 pm ET
By John Seewer, Associated Press Writer
Not Dead Yet: to Survive, Labor Union Leaders Look to Recruit New
Groups of Workers
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Trying to stop the erosion of organized labor,
union leaders are looking beyond their core auto and steel industries
to recruit service workers making low wages and professionals worrying
about losing their health care.
The new faces of unions are immigrants working at construction sites,
hospital nurses, parking lot attendants, mechanics and casino dealers
-- all groups who are unlikely to lose their jobs to overseas workers.
"What's left anymore?" said Al Mixon, president of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 507 in Cleveland, which just finalized
a contract with American Red Cross employees in northern Ohio. "We're
all forced to look into new areas."
This may be just the beginning of the reshaping of unions at a time
when factory jobs are being sent overseas or lost to technological
changes.
"As we lose manufacturing jobs, we're going to move more into
nontraditional occupations," said UAW Ohio President Lloyd Mahaffey.
"The issues aren't different whether it's a health care facility or a
factory. It's about having a voice."
In the last year, the UAW signed up 2,500 new members in Ohio at auto
parts plants, county jails and a juvenile courthouse. The national
union last year voted to move $60 million from its strike fund into
recruiting new members.
"We had a good year," Mahaffey said. "But it wouldn't be fair to say
we're replacing everyone we lose."
Job losses at the Big Three automakers and at parts makers knocked
down UAW membership to below 600,000 members in 2005, from a high of
1.5 million in 1979.
Union membership has declined steadily nationwide over the last 50
years. Only about one in 10 workers belongs to a union compared with a
third of all workers in the 1950s.
"The question is have unions fallen so far and so fast that they can't
get up," said Gary Chaison, a labor specialist at Clark University in
Worcester, Mass. "I give them a 50-50 chance."
Unions likely need at least 500,000 new members each year just to make
up for their annual losses, he said.
"They don't have to look overseas for fertile fields," he said. "It's
all around them. They just have to use their imagination."
The Service Employees International Union has organized child-care
providers who work at home in Illinois and janitors who clean office
towers in Houston.
The union has doubled in size in a little over a decade, to 1.8
million members, and now is trying to unionize janitors in
Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus.
"We need health care, we need better wages," Lauressie Tillman said at
an organizing rally in Cincinnati in March.
Tillman makes $6.85 an hour cleaning offices downtown to support her
family of four. She has diabetes and must pay for doctor visits. "I
don't have money for my medicine," she said.
One challenge in organizing new members is that many workers don't
value unions like they once did, forcing labor leaders to reintroduce
and redefine themselves.
They are pushing for more than better wages, telling workers that
access to health care and the ability to join unions are civil rights
-- not just bargaining chips.
And they are becoming less adversarial.
"Workers are looking for an organization that solves problems not one
that creates them," said Andy Stern, president of the Service
Employees union.
Too many labor leaders are concerned only about negotiating contracts
for their own members and aren't focused on solving problems facing
all workers such as the lack of an adequate health care system, he
said.
"For way too long, we've tried to stay the same and, in some cases,
stop change," Stern said. "That's a losing strategy."
Unions also are trying to become a bigger part of their members'
everyday lives. That means bringing back labor-sponsored family events
such as pumpkin patches and mother-daughter banquets.
"It's an old idea regenerated," said Bill Lichtenwald, president of
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 20 in Toledo. Its
membership has been cut in half since 1980 and now is down to 7,000.
The union offers casino bus trips and ballroom dancing lessons at
special rates.
And Teamsters are going into schools to talk with students about what
unions offer their members and how they have shaped the middle class.
"We're taking a lot of steps to re-educate," Lichtenwald said. "It
used to be that labor unions were respected. That reputation went
away."
David Weil, an associate professor of economics at Boston University,
expects that unions will look much different in the coming years. He
predicted that unions may offer more job training, serve as a third
party to resolve disputes or work more as a support organization for
immigrants.
There are unions now that don't fit the traditional mold.
The Freelancers Union, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., doesn't bargain wages
or benefits with employers. Instead, it offers low cost health care,
life insurance and networking for its 45,000 members who are writers,
artists and Web site designers.
"The idea of a union conjures about so many images," said Sara
Horowitz, who founded the union in 2003. "The real answer is you have
to be helpful and provide something valuable."
Horowitz said that unions don't need to engage in collective
bargaining to grow.
"There are many structures that have helped workers from mutual aid
societies to guilds," she said. "The essence of a union is people
coming together to solve their problems."
</quote>