- cross-posted to:
- selfawarewolves@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- selfawarewolves@lemmy.ml
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I got higher at position as senior. But It wasn’t until I was able to join the Union that my income doubled. Year before I joined like in 2007 manager gave me a .10 raise. This shit is real.
When somebody insists, “X doesn’t matter because my salary depends on X,” it’s time to stop beating your head against a wall to teach them anything.
Pretty soon we won’t be able to trust BLS data, which is frightening.
The BLS data has historically been a method by which capitalists measured and managed labor power as a fungible resource. It has historically been a tool of capital to evaluate the influence of policy on labor, not a tool of labor to pressure capital for concessions.
Not to say the information isn’t valuable on its face. But it should be worth recognizing that we are looking at autocannibalization of capital. The people most injured by dismantling the BLS are the people who do the bulk of the hiring, not the people being hired.
Lol the fact that she even has a contract at all is because of unions.
Why does everything have to be sooo left or right?
Some unions are good, some are bad.
Not left or right, it’s up and down. Only one union is getting murderers and rapists off the hook. The rest are objectively good.
I would argue that the problem with police unions is that they’re too good at what they do. They’ve managed to achieve a degree of militantism that rivals any black panther or international world worker.
A single, heavily armed, deeply insular and dogmatic, horrifyingly MAGA-pilled community of workers would be bad in any sector. But to make matters worse, police have this natural affinity with media that makes them the recipient of tons of free positive publicity.
Would that everyone could claim membership in a union this strong.
Together we bargain, alone we beg.
This needs to be on a fucking t-shirt.
Sure. Have your pro Union T-shirt. And what better place to buy it from than
https://www.amazon.com/Union-Workers-Bargain-Collectively-T-Shirt/dp/B08XHYS16W
Speacial offer for Prime Members: Order today and get to watch the first 30 Minutes of Fightclub Ad-free.
Because unions don’t have merch or produce anything they might want to promote amirite
Ah, might be my wired humor kicking in. I just found it hilarious to find that T-shirt on Amazon of all things. It’s like a Butcher selling Vegan cakes. Amazon is like the Anti-Thesis to Unions, but happy to make a buck selling the line.
It felt like a “discount etsy agitprop” moment to me. Just shows how ridiculous capitalis is, realy.
But than again, I am wired sometimes. My humour doesn’t always translate. Oh well.
Man I was sad as shit when Nina Turner lost. Bernie Sanders backed her up too.
I think she’s running again. I was at a UAW conference last week and Nina Turner spoke there. I think she’s trying to drum up support for another run.
I hope she doesn’t give up and wins this time
She was ahead by a wide margin until AIPAC threw its weight behind some traitor and that was that. AIPAC needs to be abolished.
Wow, that just threw me for a loop. I still remember the hits, like “Steamy Windows” or “We Don’t Need Another Hero”. But then, that was Tina Turner. Not Nina. 😅
Didn’t Nina Turner turn to the grift or am i thinking of someone else?
I mean, did she or didn’t she? You’re heading us off with a Cavuto Mark, here.
Tina Nurner?
I love how one person cites a statistic, and another person just dismisses it as false because of their anecdotal experience.
If these people were good at critical thinking, they wouldn’t have these stupid fucking opinions to begin with.
And I’ve never heard of a contract that explicitly ties non-union workers’ pay to the union contact, but I’d be cheering the union guys on if they ever asked for a raise if that was the case.
That’s actually more common than you think. It’s not explicit.
My niece who works at a very popular coffee shop where some are unioned, the non-union ones get paid a bit extra and reminded on the daily about that benefit of higher pay for being non-unioned.
And my aunt works as a receptionist in a non-union hospital. Her counterparts in a union, when they went on strike and got a huge pay bump… She suddenly “mysteriously” got a pay bump aligned with it because the non-union hospital was afraid of employees unionizing (which secretly, they were).
It’s in the news that Starbucks does that
Part of the problem is that statistics can be abused. It takes a reasonable amount of training to be able to differentiate between reliable statistics and potentially dodgy. Even worse, we are often presented with them, striped or context.
The best solution is to teach people how to both spot problems and seek reliable data. The proper meaning of “do your own research”. Unfortunately, a significant chunk just give up with them and only trust their gut.
statistics can be abused
They can be abused, by people who understand statistics talking to people who don’t understand statistics. This is a good reason to learn statistical methods rather than reject them.
There are levels of abuse, some blatant, some subtle. Leading questions are obvious, when you have the question asked. Publishing bias is difficult to spot, even for trained scientists looking for it.
Learning about statistical methods isn’t enough. People need to be taught how to weigh the data presented against the value of misleading them.
It’s a subsection of logical reasoning, and needs to be taught as part of an integrated whole.
Typically, statistics are abused by politicians/partisan hacks who take data from reliable sources and lie/spin it to their narrative. The thing is, the average Fox News viewer with a HS diploma isn’t going to dig any deeper. And I wouldn’t say they trust their gut… they trust the propaganda narrative.
When Trump and Vance said immigrants were eating people’s dogs and cats, they just nodded their empty heads… you can’t teach someone like that to engage reason.
This is how most people think and see the world, which is why we (the US) are in the boat we’re in now. People don’t see the big picture if they never have to or aren’t taught how to think critically.
I think it’s a complicated problem. To start with, the studies are usually paywalled. If you can afford to purchase access, you still need the capacity to understand and parse the formal academic language. Most people have neither of those requirements, and have to rely on the media to report the statistics accurately, which doesn’t happen.
This leads to a situation where the media keeps trying to say, idk employment statistics are better than ever, and then everybody updates their mental blocklist to filter out the word ‘statistics’.
Not to mention most issues are extremely nuanced and complex, not something that can be accurately broken down into 5 second sound bits.
Almost as of by design of corporate overlords and billionaires. Almost as of billions of dollars and collective hate can’t fill the emptiness. Almost as if we should focus on healing everyone’s (including billionaires ')wounded inner child schisms and social divides may start healing. Maybe
Sounds like every online platform ever.
False! Source: my ass
That’s good. I’m taking it haha
It was more like False, Source: this paper that says True.
Cite it
False! Source: (my ass, 2025, jerboa for lemmy)
Is that acceptable?
Actually, that’s not true at all. This one time, I met a guy who…
My thoughts exactly. And how I love this complete dismissal style with the “False.” at the beginning, that has established itself online. it’s a perfect giveaway for " now my personal but universal opinion, also called Truth bomb, is going to destroy your statement" - which in my opinion is just extremely patronizing and never really true.
Especially when comparing your personal anecdotal experience with a fucking statistic.
Oh and nobody talks like that in real life, or at least the people that do start their verbal line of argument this way are idiots and everybody knows it.
False. Bears eat beets. Bears. Beats. Battlestar galactica.
How is it even legal to have explicitly preferential pay for people not in a union? Is there a limit to that, or can companies just say, “Anyone who joins a union will be paid minimum wage.” Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?
I don’t think it’s preferential pay. It’s just that they pay more, somebody in the union also can get more money than the union minimum. Somebody not part of the union can get less or more than somebody in the union, just not below the union minimum.
It’s not that if they join the union that they get less money. The union + 0.5 just means that they earn better than the minimum and the employer gives them more than the minimum, because people like that.
At least that’s how it works where I live and union contracts are common.
Not everyone part of the union has to get exactly the union minimum, it’s just that you cannot legally get less. People might not be part of the union but they still fall under the union contract negotiated by the union, because it applies to the entire company.
My contract states that we make $0.50/hr above union wages
You may be right, but it certainly sounds like she’s claiming it’s contractual, explicit, and general policy.
sounds like their pay is based on union rates. that’s probably just a company policy for everyone.
What I’m saying is that if they can set “$0.50 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone, they can also set “$5 above union rates” as the company policy for everyone and then cut union rates by $5. It’s essentially just bribing people to not join a union or penalizing them if they do. It being company policy for everyone is irrelevant.
They can’t cut union rates since they have a contract. So they can, within reason, pay non union workers more but not lower the pay of union workers. One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can’t just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
There’s a limit to how much they can pay the ununionized workers before it becomes clear they’re trying to interfere with the workers rights to free organization. In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues, or could be explained as related to costs.
One of the benefits of being in the union is that they can’t just lower your wages and they may have issues firing you for bad reasons.
Not until everyone leaves the union to get extra pay and the union loses all its bargaining power.
In the image, it’s quite likely that the extra 50¢ is union dues,
That doesn’t make any sense. If it’s about union dues, the union pay is what should be higher.
I love how people downvote my comments with absolutely zero explanation of why I’m wrong.
Replace leaving the union with going to college instead and you get why we have a 3 generation straight loss in union membership.
People told their kids to chase more money and then spent that money on cheaper foreign products and the whole house fell down within 20 years.
This was the plan by the way for capitalists.
Aren’t people with college educations more likely to end up in a union? One of the reasons some places don’t want to hire “overqualified” people is because they’re afraid of unionization.
There’s a variety of reasons for the decline of unions in the US, the main ones being:
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Anti-union laws and propaganda (Mike Rowe being a big one)
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Offshoring of manufacturing jobs
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Major unions defanging themselves by purging radicals/communists to prove they’re “one of the good ones”
No most higher education jobs aren’t union. Do you bother to lookup anything by yourself before you speak about things?
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Congrats you just figured out capitalism, .ml is speaking volumes here.
Thank you, yes as an .ml I do understand capitalism better than most of the people replying to me, it seems.
Dunning Kruger in action. Yes facts don’t matter your beliefs do, head on back to daycare and let the adults talk in peace.
Which facts are you talking about, exactly?
You yourself said:
That competition might be specifically devised to draw potential employees away from union contracts and people may be dumb enough to go for it
So you agree with me, lots of people in this thread disagree with me 1 2 3, but you’re attacking me because??? I’m on .ml???
Other people are incorrect as well, you’ve been notified and provided sources for how and why you’re wrong as well as why they are wrong. Again dunning kruger, go back to daycare.
They can’t cut union rates.
Not until everyone leaves the union to get extra pay and the union loses all its bargaining power.
In my case, even that wouldn’t matter. The only way for an employer to get out of a union agreement is to shut down the business completely.
Your union agreements last until the end of time and never get renegotiated?
It’s a union shop on Union contract. Again you just don’t understand basic facts of life you should have learned in civics.
That’s just union contract negotiations.
Not providing cost of living increase is effectively a pay cut FYI, and we’re speaking colloquially here.
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.
Great, they increased pay for non-union workers, the workers leave the union for increased pay, now the company cuts union pay, and now there’s no organization for the workers to do anything about it. “Mission accomplished” indeed.
Yes that’s capitalism, how exactly you’re baffled by that this late in life is in itself quite the quandary.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the union has other benefits that more then make up for the 50 cents, e.g. better medical, vacation, or whatever.
I get that, I’m just highlighting the potential for abuse. Or rather, that it’s fucked up in the first place.
I mean of course it’s fucked up of course there’s room for abuse. That’s capitalism. The point of capitalism is abuse. The point of capitalism is the exploitation of the worker. In essence that’s the problem here. You keep asking why are things aren’t Fair, the answer is capitalism it’s inherently unfair. There are no rules in a capitalist Society to keep things Fair. The point of capitalism is to make things unfair.
I’m well aware of that. As I said, “Ofc with at-will employment they can always just fire you, but like, if you think about it it’s pretty fucked up right?”
There are so many replies that don’t get it. 1 2 3. You’re explaining to me how it’s “obviously” fucked up (which I already acknowledged), but most of the replies are telling me that it isn’t fucked up at all - maybe you should try responding to those people instead of to me.
They’re not trying to tell you it’s not fucked up. They’re just surprised you’re stuck on the most Elemental aspect and are moving on to the next aspects. Everyone knows it’s fucked up and has moved on to the next topic. Fundamental truth to the world aren’t something we spend a lot of time talking about.
Are reading the same replies?
sure, but whether or not they know it they have caved to the union’s demands by doing that
You think this demonstrates that “everyone knows it’s fucked up?” Because it sounds a lot to me like they’re saying it isn’t fucked up at all, and is in fact, “caving to the union’s demands.”
I wish that when my critics attacked me from completely opposite angles, they spent half as much time criticizing each other for having 100% opposite positions on why I’m supposedly wrong.
I wish that when my critics attacked me
No one is attacking you, people are just annoyed how worked up you are vrs how much you’re willing to actually do to find out things for yourself. No one here is your teacher, stop demanding an education and seek it for yourself.
No, like I just said in the comment you apparently didn’t read, they’ve moved past the fact that it’s fucked up onto the next topic. I don’t get what you’re not getting here. I’ll say it one more time. We all know it’s fucked up. That’s what capitalism means. That’s not a unique thing to say. It’s not a new thing to say. You’re not breaking ground here. Next topic.
Oh of course. But this is America, the land of the exploited.
We still have 7.25 minimum wage.
I live in California, so there was a lot of bemoaning the rising minimum wage.
“Why should someone flipping burgers earn as much as I do in a trade field?”
Mate, you should be arguing for increased wages, not trying to keep others down.
This is the new American way. Zero-sum thinking all the way down. Anyone else’s win is our loss. Every situation must have a winner and a loser. Win-win situations are considered immoral for these people. We’ve moved past rugged individualism to a full-on Hunger Games mindset.
Seattle metro area has the highest minimum wage in the country. The top 5 cities in the US are all in this metro. This is because when the wage increases were passed by city, they were tied to the inflation rate so that increases every year, so no new laws have to be passed year over year to get this increase. No arguing every year for a simple cost of living adjustment.
Fucking thank you! Why is this so complicated?? Why fight for $15 or whatever if you know by the time your get the fucking laws past your dollar is worth half as much.
It’s so transparently flawed to because tying minimum wage to a formula/basket/col/astrology FFS, Would mean not having to revisit this fight every. Single. Year.
Credit for that goes to Kshama Sawant, she had to fight the Democrats on the city council and shame them to get there.
Mate, you should be arguing for increased wages, not trying to keep others down.
It’s my opinion that people like this aspire to be their own boss, make their own money, and look up to business owners as mentors.
None of that is inherently wrong, until the mentors/business owners start espousing the evils of increased wages, how paying taxes is preventing pay raises for their workers, etc.
So not knowing any better, these wannabes go out and parrot what they’ve heard their heroes say as if it’s gospel. And of course the talking heads that they listen to say the same shit, further solidifying the class warfare mentality.
Those same people get mad if nobody is flipping burgers for them.
“Why should someone flipping burgers earn as much as I do in a trade field?”
Because someone flipping burgers has more value to society than someone who spends their day making rich people richer.
“your statistic is false because I have an anecdote” is literally the entire basis of the conservative understanding of science.
union workers don’t make more on average because I earn half a dollar more.
global warming isn’t happening because I brought a snowball.
vaccines cause death because my friend walked out of a clinic after a shot and got hit by a self driving tesla.
“conservative understanding”
Sounds like all conservatives are idiots or rather idiots are the ones who are politically conservative.it’s both. conservatism is both appealing to stupid people and it compounds stupidity.
Global warming is a hoax, it’s cold in my basement today!
Because I have an anecdote, and interpret it in the stupidest way possible, as exhibited in the OP
It really is a kind of solipsism, emotional immaturity as a self-justifying worldview. Problems don’t exist until they impact me personally, repeat and nauseam.
vaccines cause death because my friend walked out of a clinic after a shot and got hit by a self driving tesla.
😂
Cathy is a dumbass. Don’t be like Cathy.
That’s up there with refusing raises to avoid going up a tax bracket.
Or the boss calling a cost of living adjustment a ‘raise’. No, motherfucker, I’m just back to where I started.
I will forgive people who were previously had a low enough income to have benefits that magically disappeared completely at a certain threshold when they received a raise for assuming that making too much money could be a negative. They generally never made enough to understand how tax brackets work and assumed the worst.
If it is explained to them and they refuse to learn, that is on them.
I believe the name is “benefit cliff” or something similar
Yep and it sucks hard.
Yes, that is something that really sucks.
Here in Ontario disability gets clawed back as soon as you stop making poverty wages, it’s disgusting.
“If I work overtime, I make less!”
– dumbfucks we’ve all worked withI’m salary or contract, so working overtime is often just doing work without pay.
I’ll do it every now and then to get things done, but I’m never going to make that my normal.
Cathy? If I see FirstNameBunchOfNumbers and a twitter checkmark my first assumption would be that its a bot.
This is what Swedish unions did even more directly. A company hired labour from Latvia I think it was. The union showed up and said that thats all fine, but you have to pay them properly. None of them were members. They picketed the company for the sake of non-members wages. Why? To avoid social dumping down the line.
Net income is a small factor. One should compare the total package because the unions are usually way ahead of the non-union.
My union gives me benefits that are included in my $30/month dues and I’m not even full time.
My company was spread across 3 unions. 1 and 2 got decent healthcare. 3 got a $1000 signing bonus. I hear they like pizza parties.
“Rising waters lifts all ships”, Cathy. Ever heard of it?
“This is my water! You go float on your own water!”
It’s worse.
It’s “I’ll have you rising my water thank you, but I refuse to concede anything that could help you.”
