Owner closes businesses days after employees unionize

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  • actaeon277

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    Well, maybe if the man writing the checks had ran his business better, his employees may not have wanted to join a union.

    I can see the advantages of both.
    I am in a union, and see bad things.
    That being said, would never work where I am without one.
    OSHA only comes in once in a blue moon, picks some stupid unimportant thing to harp on, then leaves. Unless someone is killed. Then they fine the company some pidly amount and leave.
    EVERY life threatening problem that got solved was solved because of union intervention.
    And the man that founded this company, Andrew Carnegie, is long dead. None of the founders are alive. So, it's not "THEIR company", it's not "THEIR investment". Heck, one of the bosses was mad because his son tried to hire in as an employee and didn't meet the minimum requirements.
    Yet, he (the son) was able to hire in and meet the minimum for MANAGEMENT. :faint:
    We have had new managers get mad that someone "questioned their authority" and try to fire hard workers with decades of experience. The "questioning of authority" would have damaged millions of dollars of equipment and lost tens of millions of production. So, the employee actually was profiting the company. And when the mandatory company/union meeting came up over the discipline, the middle level manager immediately restored the employee with back pay, "yanked" the manager out of the meeting, and yelled at him so loud you could hear it through a brick wall in a mill environment. The words had to do with the desire to replace the new manager with a hamster so he wouldn't do as much damage.

    I was given 5 days off for NOT breaking a Cardinal Rule. Cardinal Rule is a rule that results in instant firing if broken, instead of following the procedures for employee discipline. So, the manager told me to break a rule that would result in me being fired.


    So, while I can see unions pushing for too much, or protecting bad employees, I can also see where they may be necessary.
     

    Thor

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    This is funny...

    "To add insult to injury, Ricketts seems to have scrubbed all the sites’ archives. It’s unclear if this scrubbing is temporary, but it must feel like an insult to the editorial team that spent years writing thousands of well-reported articles."

    No, it's not an insult, the archives are Ricketts property. He paid for them, his employees provided them, he may do with them as he will. It's not your intellectual property unless you are paying for it.

    Unions tend to support both bad employees AND bad management. Good times make it easy for management to give in to unprofitable demands, bad times take those poorly written contracts and bludgeon the company to death.
     

    russc2542

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    Without knowing the specifics it's hard to say. No idea how the place was run, if the employees sought out the union, or if the union moved in. If 51% of the employees are enticed by the union to join, then you have a majority regardless of the conditions.

    I'm part of a very low-key union and don't mind it. I don't see much abuse either way but there's always potential. I've seen both sides of it elsewhere though: unions defending despicable employees and driving business into the ground and also places where unions are the only reason there are employees left. UAW's media image is the first. teaching unions can go either way. Theatre unions can go either way (though generally more of the latter)

    Either way, the business exists for the sake of the business and the owner(s). Nobody starts a business with the goal of giving money to the employees. If the business isn't viable at the wages the employees expect, sorry kids but it's a matter of numbers.
     

    rw02kr43

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    I don't have much respect for the union at Kroger. The one I worked at had an employee fired for sexual harassment. It was a cut and dry case. the union got him his job back. Not only that, they got him a new position that paid better and had a company car.

    Jason
     

    Libertarian01

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    I used to be very anti-union. My mother worked at several companies and I heard all the horror stories about lazy, abusive employees.

    But as I got older I became anti-abuse. I don't think it is right for an employee to abuse an employer, but neither is it right for an employer to abuse an employee(Google Walmart abuse for many stories).

    Here in Fort Wayne old Fred Zolner ran Zolners Pistons. There was NEVER a union in there while Fred was alive. Fred sent a man to the UAW negotiations with other companies and whatever the UAW got for their people, Fred gave to his - for free. Not only that, but Fred never laid anyone off when work was slow! Fred might cut people back to four (4) or three (3) or even two (2) days a week, but there was no seniority and no one went without a paycheck. They were all in the same boat.

    Within a year of Freds untimely passing Zolners Pistons had a union. The employees opinions didn't change, but their treatment by "new management" sure did!

    What happened here appears to be a clear violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Specifically;

    Sec 8 (1): ...It shall be unfair labor practices for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed under Sec 7(157)...

    Basically, this would be the threat to them BEFORE they even voted. A BIG NO - NO!

    Sec 8 (5): ...To refuse to bargain collectively with representatives of his employees..." (Note the old sexist language of "his";))

    By the by, these limits ALSO apply to the UNION! It is illegal for the union to coerce a vote or refuse to bargain. So the law isn't tilted toward one side or the other, only that it protects employees rights to organize.

    As a business major one of the big things taught to us in one of the classes I remember is how upper level management must always be playing a good balancing act. You must always balance the money for the employees, the vendors, the customers and the investors. If you heavily favor any one of these you are taking a big dump on the others that will eventually result in issues - loss of investors, loss of business, loss of employee cooperation, etc. For example, you can try to return the maximum amount to the investors. They're the ones who risked their capitol after all. Except when you do that your prices may not be competitive because your sticking it to the customers as much as you can. You're also sticking it to the employees. The investors will certainly be happy - for a time, but eventually the business will suffer.

    The same goes for favoring the customer. If you make your prices as cheap as humanly possible the employees won't make squat and will be mad, along with the investors who aren't seeing a return on their investment.

    Thus, it is always a balancing act where every stakeholder needs to be taken into account to keep a business running smoothly and profitably.

    Getting back to my mothers abuse stories I realized that it wasn't just the employee that was lazy, it was also a lazy, incompetent management that just didn't care enough to follow the union contract to get bad employees fired! Every union contract has rules on firing an idiot. Verbally warn them twice, write them up twice, suspend once, then fired. Whatever it is had management taken the time on the lowest hanging fruitcakes the rest would have seen the writing on the wall and overall production would have improved. I have talked with multiple union stewards about these scumbags. They would love to see management jump through the hoops and fire the rotten eggs, management just doesn't have the spine in many cases to do so. They have a legal obligation to protect their union members rights, not the union member. Many have said they would love to say, "Sorry Bob, but you were late seven (7) times this month and management did everything by the book. So, BYE! Nothing I can do. They followed the rules."

    If the employees were being abusive, I hope everything works out for the owner. If the owner was being abusive I hope the employees nail his hide to the wall. Either way, not enough here to go on except the NLRA law seems to indicate an employer unfamiliar with the idea of rules applying to him.

    Regards,

    Doug
     

    Hohn

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    It's like taking your annual salary and buying gift cards for a store that goes out of business the next day :rofl:

    No, it's like spending your annual salary on gifts cards KNOWING that the store will be driven out of business if they honor yours.
     

    Hohn

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    I oppose unions because I support basic fairness.

    Now, I'm guessing that if all of the local gas stations colluded to set the price of gasoline at a higher-the market rate, we'd probably be pretty upset. For some reason, when this "collective bargaining" occurs, we clearly see it for what it is.

    Yet when a group of potential workers colludes to set the price of labor at a higher-than-market rate, somehow this is "sticking it to the man" and totally justifiable.

    Know how Apartheid in South Africa started? Trade Unions. Gotta collude to keep out the dark-skinned people.

    Goose, meet gander. I won't endorse any conspiracy to rig a market price by any party, public or private.
     

    hoosierdoc

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    edporch

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    Employees have the right to unionize.
    The owner has to right to go out of business.

    Each to their own, but personally I would never work as an employee in a union shop.
    The owner should set the pay, benefits, workplace rules and decide on promotions.
    Workers can decide as individuals whether they wish to work there or not.
     

    spec4

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    Never was in a union. One thing that would bother me is being paid the same as everyone else. I prefer my pay to be linked to what management thinks I am worth. In my work years I only worked for three companies. If you have a problem with your job, you always have the option to leave and go work somewhere else.

    I'll grant that unions served a purpose in our history, but that was well over 100 years ago.
     

    Rookie

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    I don't have much respect for the union at Kroger. The one I worked at had an employee fired for sexual harassment. It was a cut and dry case. the union got him his job back. Not only that, they got him a new position that paid better and had a company car.

    Jason

    Of course, everyone ignores two facts about situations like this. One, the union is required, by law, to represent every union member regardless of what they've done. Two, at probably more important, the company agreed to bring back the employee. Everyone *****es about unions, but they rarely get both sides. For example, we have an employee that is in their ninety days. That means, management can terminate for no reason. The union isn't keen on having this person stay because they know there's going to be problems down the road. However, management refuses to do anything because, he/she has a week left and he/she will get bumped to another shift where it won't be my problem. So, sure, blame the union, right?
     

    actaeon277

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    Never was in a union. One thing that would bother me is being paid the same as everyone else. I prefer my pay to be linked to what management thinks I am worth. In my work years I only worked for three companies. If you have a problem with your job, you always have the option to leave and go work somewhere else.

    I'll grant that unions served a purpose in our history, but that was well over 100 years ago.

    I disagree with this. Since we already kill something like 1.2 workers every year at my plant, and almost EVERY safety problem is addressed through the union.
     

    MarkC

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    From what I can see here, it appears that unions have done good for some, at least in the past, and may still have a role today, depending on the industry.

    However, one place where unions do no good for anyone is, in my opinion, in government. At least in the private sector, management has an incentive to actually bargain on the employer's behalf, doing their best to ensure the company remains viable. In the public sector, at least in some cases, management colludes with or caves in to the union to curry favor with segments of voters, especially in deep blue states. Overly generous employee benefits and underfunded pensions, bargained for by unions and agreed to by management, are why states like Illinois are on the ropes financially (well, at least partially the cause).

    I was an Indiana executive branch employee in 1990 when Evan Bayh implemented limited collective bargaining by executive order. This was not true collective bargaining, which the General Assembly had rejected for state employees. The net result was a very limited ability to bargain for some terms of employment, and, more importantly, the ability for the unions to collect mega amounts of dues without having to really do much.

    It was a win-win for Gov. Bayh, who could tell the unions, "I did what I could" without really having to give up that much.
     

    Rookie

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    I disagree with this. Since we already kill something like 1.2 workers every year at my plant, and almost EVERY safety problem is addressed through the union.

    Yup. I don't know how many times I've seen someone given time off for safety violations, and the very next day management is asking someone to do the same thing because they need the parts.
     

    T.Lex

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    To pick up the thread, I worked for a factory here in Indy that was (and still is, I believe) family owned. It was a non-union shop because the owner did at least as good for the employees as the unions were doing, without the fees. Basically the same story as Libertarian01's guy, but I don't think they ever sent a rep to the negotiations. Instead, the owner just paid attention to what the employees wanted/needed.

    If there was something the union got that he couldn't do, they figured it out. That's how it should be.
     
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