#UnionizingWorkplace #EmployeeRights #WorkplaceCulture #JobSecurity
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt powerless at work, where you wished you had more say in decisions that affect your livelihood, but when the opportunity to join a union arose, you voted against it? If you’re one of those individuals who voted against unionizing your workplace, we want to understand your reasoning and help you find solutions that align with your concerns.
What are the common reasons for voting against unionizing the workplace?
1. Fear of Unforeseen Consequences: Some employees worry that joining a union could lead to negative repercussions, such as job loss, increased tension with management, or potential strikes that disrupt work.
2. Distrust in Union Leadership: Lack of faith in the ability of union representatives to effectively advocate for employees’ rights and negotiate fair agreements with management can deter individuals from supporting unionization efforts.
3. Personal Beliefs: Some employees may hold strong beliefs against collective bargaining and prefer to address workplace issues individually rather than through a union.
What are some practical solutions for individuals who voted against unionizing?
1. Education and Information: Seek out resources that provide unbiased information about unions, their purpose, and the benefits they can bring to employees. Understand the rights and protections that come with union representation.
2. Communication and Collaboration: Engage in open dialogues with colleagues who support unionization and listen to their perspectives. Explore ways to address concerns and build trust in the union’s ability to represent employees effectively.
3. Active Participation: Get involved in shaping the union’s agenda and priorities by joining committees or attending meetings. Contributing your ideas and feedback can help ensure that your interests are represented.
4. Utilize Alternative Resources: If joining a union still doesn’t align with your beliefs or concerns, consider exploring other avenues for addressing workplace issues, such as employee resource groups, professional associations, or seeking legal advice.
Remember, the decision to unionize is a personal choice, and it’s essential to weigh the pros and cons based on your individual circumstances. By staying informed, engaging in constructive conversations, and actively participating in the process, you can make a more informed decision that reflects your values and priorities.
Let’s continue the conversation and explore ways to create a positive work environment that values employees’ voices and rights. Together, we can work towards building a stronger, more inclusive workplace for all. 🤝 #EmployeeEmpowerment #WorkplaceEquality #UnityInDiversity
Many of my colleagues are useless and don’t deserve employment
they wanted to keep too much of my take home pay…fuck that. I wasn’t going to be at that place for life. it was just some place to get by for now.
Three reasons. Work rules make it impossible to get anything accomplished. Protecting the worst most incompetent employees is bad for everyone who is a good employee. Most of all, not wanting my money used for campaign contributions to politicians I don’t support.
Because, like most idiots, I fell for the anti-union propaganda talking points.
This was when I was in grad school (RA+student, paid researcher in a science lab basically).
The particular group that was trying to start a grad student union was outright making things up about our pay, benefits, etc. as if they just were going off a template. We actually had it pretty good, but they mostly just focused on saying how bad we had it that was pretty ungrounded. I’m generally very pro-union and still am, but that one instance did show me that the rhetoric about unions resorting to scummy political tactics, even in a science field, were not entirely unfounded like I had dismissed as standard anti-union talking points.
Unionization failed when it came to a vote. While I’m still supportive of unions in general, I’m a lot more tempered about them after that experience and picking up on rhetoric I’ve seen other unions using at times. It could be the scientist in me too that just has a low tolerance for rhetoric regardless of source too.
Because our company was already going through financial troubles and most of the workers knew a union would cause it to fold. A crappy job is usually better than no job.
Because when you are a better performer than the other people at your level, an EBA limits your earning potential.
It was a selfish decision, I was a relatively new hire and knew I would only be there for six months at most, and most unions run a lot of benefits by seniority, I didn’t want to be back to being low man on the totem pole.
I want promotions and pay increases to be based on achievements and merits, not how long I have been at the company. Also, lazy workers should get fired.
I work for a large employer (12,000 employees.) Some positions are union and some are non union. One thing that surprised me over the years. There are people who just cannot stomach the idea of making the same amount of money as their coworkers. They will literally go to a non union job that makes LESS money. Than live with equal pay. They will literally say “I will make less money as long as I know that “useless” employee next to me makes less than me. They will also admit that getting an “attaboy” from their boss or a monetary award or plaque is more important than a higher wage. As a person who grew up in union country going to non union area is super strange.
I don’t trust union leadership to make decisions, it’s trading one frustration for another.
I’m in a union now and its fine.
All the good stuff the union did happened decades before I started working. Every agreement we lose more and more of our benefits and get smaller and smaller raises.
The union protected obsolete jobs for years and until recently the company has been greatly falling behind the industry. When I first started in 2008, there were old timers there who’s sole duty was to staple papers and put them in an envelope making double what i was doing. Since then many of them have retired or forced to retire and we have seen whole department get axed and the union couldn’t do anything about it.
I’d be all for a union back in the 70s but the one I’m in now is all bark and no bite. Why am I paying $20 a paycheck in union dues when there’s hardly anything they do for us. And our pay and benefits are slightly worse than industry standards.
Because I’d rather be promoted based on merit rather than time served.
The union (grad student) was useless. They were proud of getting our parking fees waved, while we were at the same time the lowest paid grad students in the state.
The union for my field (television) is basically a gofundme for high profile journalists to sue networks who sack them for stepping out of line. It doesn’t get involved in anything that impacts the 99% of us that actually do the work and get treated like shit. Like… I generally would side with those journalists against the networks, but the union does fuck all for the staff doing unsocial hours, unpaid overtime, etc. Go off with your moral crusade for the truth, but I’m not going to fund your legal defense when I’m having to work unpaid hours to actual facilitate said crusade. Edit: to be clear, this is not the US tv unions, which are pretty good by all accounts!
One thing I don’t like about my job after joining the union was that they told my employer that my schedule that I loved had to change because it was allegedly illegal. I was working 7 days on, 7 days off, 9pm-8am
Loved it because of the 7 days in a row off that I was getting and if I used 7 vacation days, it would be 3 weeks in a row off. And since it was overnight, I could maintain that overnight shift schedule and then change over to “day time” Now my schedule is 11pm-7am, and I have the friday before my weekend working and the Monday after my weekend working off. So stupid.
Because I don’t want my union dues going to political parties.
I didn’t want to be forced to pay union dues.
The local factory will forever be my favorite story of union busting gone idiot. They were going to hold a vote and bribed members with a pizza party, and sadly I’m not kidding. They bragged about how they were convincing people to vote against the union with said pizza party and they were equally shocked when they got investigated for it. Like, bless Ohio or whatever, but I think the corns bleed them dry.
I’ve never voted in a unionization vote, but have worked in union shops – food workers union for grocery store jobs and a stint doing overnight package sorting at a UPS depot, a teamsters shop.
I’ve seen a lot of good things happen because of the union – but a lot of bullshit things too, such as being forced to transfer stores when I was harassed and assaulted by a coworker because he had seniority, management being completely unable to do anything about lazy and incompetent workers (that nearly resulted in me suffering broken bones), union leadership doing very little for their paychecks and actually quoting bible verses to justify the hatred of those that cross picket lines, etc. union reps “encouraging” people to vote certain ways in the election of 2000.
Good stuff too – the UPS job was a 5 hour shift 5 days a week that offered full medical coverage and overtime pay if we went past our scheduled time. Tuition reimbursement. At the grocery store I was a courtesy clerk (bagger) and if asked to step in and cashier I’d get paid for that time as a cashier – a difference of $3/hr.
I currently work for the government in an “essential to the continuance of government” designated job…so if the rank and file of the government I work for unionized I’m not sure how I’d vote or how my life would change if say a strike was called.
I’d have to reserve judgement as to how I’d vote if I was eligible, seeing why they want to unionize (I’m paid well for my job, I have good benefits, I have ample time off, I work 95% from home), and how they go about doing it.
On multiple occasions the organizers straight up lied to us about what they were negotiating. Their primary focus was closing the deal so they could say they unionized. Eventually we got rid of those people and the union brought in new negotiators but it cost us time. I was against that union specifically until they brought in the new guys. There were always issues with the union, but generally I felt like someone had my back when it came to my boss tried to discipline us for things that weren’t our fault.
Job I used to work with had a guy in management who mysteriously got promoted out of nowhere after voting no to a union. No one ever said outright he got promoted for voting no, but it was generally understood. He ended up getting fired for embezzlement, almost as if having a manager who you know is willing to fuck others over for personal gain is a bad idea.
I worked at a hotel that was union, and scheduling, hours, etc was all based on seniority, rather than ability or skill. So, you had people who had worked there for 20+ years and did the absolute bare minimum but still got a full 40 hour minimum and the shifts they wanted, rather than the newer people who wanted to do a good job and were clamoring for hours. I eventually left because I wasn’t getting any hours and couldn’t support myself, and took a job with a non-union hotel where I got as many hours as I wanted and was treated with respect my management, who I could actually talk to and negotiate with without having to go through a union rep who tbh didn’t ever actually help me.
When a few staff members at that hotel tried to get a union going, I was quite vocal about why I didn’t want a union in, and said that if we did unionize, I wouldn’t work there anymore. They never did unionize.
Last job, the union reps seemed to team up with the bosses and do more harm than good to employees. They negotiated things employees had not mentioned at all in any sort of agreements. This job I already negotiated my salary above the market average and dont want another person in my pocket that will squander my money for politics I do not believe in.
Because I wanted to strategically position myself into a high wage and increased benefits/bonuses and if I was considered with the rest of the pack it wouldn’t have mattered what I did:
Because they protect people who shouldn’t be protected. Like drunks (guy literally came to work drunk, almost ran over myself and another worker with a forklift, damaged several pallets of product, reported him to manager and union Rep, and they “sent him home to sober up”), harassers, etc.
In the late 80’s Reagan had broken the Unions, and then the leadership got flooded with a bunch of spoolies in leadership who were there to grab a buck. The companies were pilfering pensions and moving jobs overseas as fast as they could load the trucks, the Union bosses were in their pockets, and I had just got a factory gig in a “split shop”. All the old guard wanted me to sign up for the Union, but I told them flat out “I’m here for six months, put a wad of cash in my pocket, and I’m out of here”. And I was.
I am a fan of Unions btw, I saw the before and after, and it was no joke that corporate greed hollowed whole parts of the country out- Those couple of generations who lived through that and had as their biggest aspiration a good job in a factory are left behind- and they’re the generations of angry white people who think people crossing the border took their jobs. I think the current trend and the quality of leadership with a pro Union President is a good thing for everybody-except the fat cats.
I used to work for a place with a union. Had to do split shifts totaling 8.5 hours a day. Had benefits and was being trained for the next step which would have been straight hours, better pay and better shifts. The union then agreed that workers doing the split shift could not be scheduled for overtime. So you could only work either the 3 hour shift or the 5.5 hour shift. Lost full time, benefits and the future career
The particular union I voted against joining has a long history of protecting shitbags
I didn’t get to vote in this election, because I wasn’t in the organized category, but I heard union reps telling these low-wage kids with very few skills that they would “force” the company (which was a horizontally-organized firm with a lot of severable plays in different parts of the value chain) to pay them $50-100/hr. The kids lapped it up, they voted to unionize, and the company cut the department within a few weeks. It was very predictable, and very dumb.
I’m generally pro union, but being willing to go on strike does *not* necessarily mean you have infinite leverage. You have to pick the right battle.
I was part of a union while in state government. I generally regard unions the same as religion. The idea is great, the application often less so.
It essentially made it impossible to fire people, so half our office was incompetent and plenty comfortable. When it came to hiring, the prioritization of nonsense qualifications (like years of state service or “applicable” degrees that had nothing to do with the field) led to hiring wrong fits for every position. Which was all handled by HR, so we didn’t have much if any input on who was ultimately hired (although the department did get to hold an interview in the middle of the process). and merit increases didnt exist, every single person got the same COLA regardless. Never again.
Was against unionization when I was an RA in college. Felt a lot of the things they were demanding were forcing ideological conformity on the members. Like healthcare, dental, better pay? Totally on board. Demanding the university adopt BDS, adopt race base hiring practices for management, and give paid time for workers to engage in activism? Ewww- no. People organizing the union couldn’t figure out, not everyone agrees with progressive stances and pushing everyone to join a union where pressuring our employees to adopt those politics was alienating and frankly bullying a lot of people into conformity.