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[-] LethalSmack@lemmy.world 89 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Edit: I’m mixing up a at will employment with right to work. Sorry for the confusion. See updated comment below:

Right to work: Joining a union and paying union dues can no longer be a requirement of employment. This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers

~~Right to work~~ At will employment is: A right to be fired at any point for any reason or no reason at all

The goal is to get around any union protections that require things like a legitimate reason to be fired from a job.

It also has the added bonus of drastically reducing the benefits of unions and making them much easier to prevent.

[-] A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com 3 points 7 hours ago

This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers

I'm not sure I buy into that - but that said I live in a country where unions are popular, but unions are not allowed to force people to join (but unions do have a right of access to workplaces to ask people to join / hold meetings).

Firstly, it doesn't take that big a percentage of an employer's workforce to strike before a strike is effective... companies don't have a lot of surplus staff capacity just sitting around doing nothing. And they can't fire striking union workers for striking.

Secondly, if all employees have to belong to one particular union, that also means the employees have no choice of which union, and hence no leverage over the union. Bad unions who just agree to whatever the employer asks and don't look after their members then become entrenched and the employees can't do much. If there are several unions representing employees, they can still unite and work together if they agree on an issue - but there is much more incentive for unions to act in the interests of their members, instead of just their leadership.

A lack of guaranteed employee protections, on the other hand, is inexcusable - it's just wealthy politicians looking out for the interests of their donors in big business.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

It seems like maybe you are missing the point... The idea is to directly affect the amount of funding that a union receives, and thus, how well they are able to operate. The idea is: if you allow people who are ostensibly part of the collective bargaining bloc to simply opt out of paying fees despite receiving all of the benefits that the union provides for them, and then push anti-union propaganda, this will starve the union of funding and it will eventually break.

And it seems to have worked for several decades at least.

In the US, we're lucky if a job is unionized at all. The thought of there being more than one option of unions to choose from is literally unheard of in this country. I mean literally. I have never heard of that ever happening in the history of the US. Maybe I'm wrong.

Look into the SCOTUS decision of Janus v. AFSCME (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME) for some more info on Right to Work, and in this case, public sector unions. The important thing to note is that it is framed as "giving the employee the freedom to choose to be in the union or not," when in reality, they will receive all of the benefits of being in the union (they must, as they are part of the same collective bargaining bloc and covered under the same contract) for free. The entire point is to weaken unions.

[-] Dagrothus@reddthat.com 79 points 22 hours ago

I love how we name laws that really mean the exact opposite of what their name implies. Very american.

[-] eezeebee@lemmy.ca 23 points 22 hours ago
[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 hours ago

whoever told you that is your enemy

[-] Pyrin@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 17 hours ago

And how organizers make up cutesie names to name their treehouse clubs after.

Oathkeepers. Truthers. 1776'ers. American Freedom Party. Patriot Front. It just goes on and on. All of them bullshit, all of them are blanketed bigots, racists .etc bastardizing the names with what they think 'freedom' is all about.

[-] Travelator@thelemmy.club 9 points 19 hours ago
[-] lars 1 points 4 hours ago

They could have used any of the million other nouns. It’s worse than cheap satire.

[-] Lennny@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

Very human. Democratic Republic of Korea.....Congo....lol.

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 11 points 21 hours ago

The way I try to remember it is that it comes from the employers perspective:

  • Right to Work employees to death by ignoring unions
  • The employer has the right to fire workers At Will
[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 12 points 22 hours ago

Being fired for any or no reason is at will employment.

Right to work has nothing to do with that. It's about allowing people to not pay union dues. Those people are still protected by the union contract.

[-] LethalSmack@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago

You’re right. I updated the comment

[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

No union I've ever been part of required me being in it in order to work at a place. It was always optional. So strange.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Then you are in a "right to work" state (or a government employee since Janus). And FYI, you still benefit from that union as you are still ostensibly part of the same collective bargaining bloc, and under the same contract, as your union coworkers.

So basically you're getting the benefits of being in a union without having to pay dues. Sounds great, right?

Great way to get people to leave unions en masse, and starve them of funding. This kills the union.

[-] WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

Are you in a right to work state? That might be why, at least in Oregon when I got a job as a cashier it automatically made me a part of the union.

[-] MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago

You're conflating "at will employment" with "right to work" laws.

[-] LethalSmack@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

You’re right. I updated the comment

[-] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago

I mix these two up as well - thanks for the clarification.

this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
206 points (98.1% liked)

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