mudsy: What do you really think "temporary" workers will get out of a Union? Qx: A chance for concerted, collective action to combat the trend towards becoming "permanently temporary". Not to mention that they get to fight for a living wage.
mudsy: sure, they might make a little more money, but then they have to pay back dues into the Union...
Qx: For starts, not every union is the same. Much of what happens can be affected by the level of participation by the rank-and-file members themselves. I'm not a believer in taking union dues from the pay cheques of workers myself and that's one reason I'm in the IWW. We have control over our money because the books are open any and all members of the IWW. Besides one of the role of mutual-aid organizations is to provide a pool of funds for untimely events and the everyday functioning of a workers organization itself. If the dues are exorbitantly large then tell your opinion to the union members and don't be afraid to make waves. That's how democracies work.
mudsy: and what do you think will happen to their pention plan? Think they will get it? over 80% of all Fast Food workers are Temporary. that means they will leave in 1-2 years. You have to stick around and retire to receive your pention --
Qx: The pension plan can be indexed to the amount of dues put in by the mebers themselves. It doesn't necessarily have to be dependent on the emount of time worked at a particular restaurant. It makes me leery that some unions I have knowledge of have invested their pension plans into the stock market and other speculative endeavours that are clearly high risk gambles. The case for a democratically run rank-and-file union has it's strong point when it comes to the handling of finances.
mudsy: so, who gets all that cash that you pay into the fund... hummmmm.. take a big guess.... Yup, unions are just like Corporations
Qx: That's why the case for union democracy is so urgent. These shady financial practices are also tolerated by such groups as big business and the US Justice Department. Democratically run unions are perceived as a threat to the corporatist trend that can clearly be seen by the establishment of "criminal-syndicalist "laws at the turn of the century in America.
But what the general public is spoonfed is the image of the Mafia-run Teamster unions that are in fact a result of colloboration between big business interests and the top brass of these unions. These people didn't really represent the workers in these unions and at times murdered union members who wanted to see some democratic change wityhin the day-to-day operations of the unions. Hence the union boss being seen playing golf with business men became even more typical and noowadays is hardly even comented upon.
mudsy:-- the only difference is they sucker you in by making you believe they really want to help you... -- need more proof... just do a little research into the fraud that goes on in some of the larger unions...
Qx: That's why any people who contemplate joining a unions should do some deep research into unions before they take the plunge. Besides, people can always form their own independent unions also.
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