I’m hoping someone with knowledge of collective agreements and unions can help me understand why union members would agree to 2 weeks vacation. Doesn’t a union hold more power for negotiation?
More than 1 year of continuous employment -> 2 weeks
From what I can tell this is less than most regular employers (maybe food industry is like that though).
I’m looking at forming a collective agreement at my workplace but seeing this result is discouraging.
‘Ask for more’ is different from ‘Get more’. The labor contract is a negotiation. Ultimately, the only card unions have to play at an impasse is a strike. If they use that tactict the workers of the union won’t get paid while the contract is unresolved.
Let’s say you’re supporting your kid, don’t have savings, and are offered a raise and some meager time off. Do you feel like you have the freedom to push harder, ie go on unpaid strike longer, or do you vote to accept the deal and get that paycheck again?
This isn’t true. The workers of the union can get paid during their strikes by the union through the worker’s contributions.
The more members and money the union has, while remaining decentralised and its leaders directly accountable — the more power the union has.
This is absolutely true for a lot of people. A salary isn’t guaranteed just because you’re in a union, and it is often a lesser salary on strike to preserve funds. I think this person was asking about starting a union too, so there would be no fund set up unless they joined into a larger union.
I mean, you gotta start somewhere. If you have 10 people in a union, and work for about one year, you should be able to spare enough together for a few weeks of striking, provided that you lot put the contributions high enough. If the median salary of those 10 is about €40k, and took about 1/3 of salary for unions, you’d have €10k, enough to pay everyone
If those 10 work three years, they can get enough for one month of striking. Now, it might seem like a lot to contribute to, but one month of no work being done might put a business out of commission quickly unless if they pay up.
Demand higher and many more things than you actually want. Demand eg. a salary increase of 50%. Demand that the boss earn only 10% more than the highest earning workers. And so on. The boss will refuse all of the things, but be probably amenable to some of the aspects. Negotiate until he no longer caves in.
Do it during an especially busy week, and make sure the boss can’t hire temporary workers.
they hold more power for agreements, but it depends on the culture they’re a part of.
tldr: The US is on the low end of employee rights internationally, so they get less compensation than other countries even though unions are fighting for employees constantly.
i assume you’re talking about US unions since you’re talking about 2 weeks of vacation, which is basically employee abuse in most countries.
Unions do have power.
If you didn’t have unions, you wouldn’t even have 2 weeks vacation.
you would have children working right next to you.
there would be no such thing as a sick day.
Unions are the reason you have the little employee rights and compensation you have in the states, and they’re trying to get better conditions all the time, but it’s very difficult in a country that’s been and is being deliberately poisoned against a better work culture.
American work culture is crazy, so Americans think you’re supposed to work all the time and your employers expect you to work all the time.
America is also obscenely expensive to live in for absolutely no good reason, so if you did take more than 2 weeks of vacation per year, most people wouldn’t be able to afford to live inside, let alone provide themselves with food.
To get sick days or paid vacation, you and your coworkers have to pay into a fund for that to happen, and even though in the long run, better healthcare and more vacation would be a lot cheaper and more profitable for everybody, including the company, lobbyists have persuaded Americans that you’re all fighting against each other and you shouldn’t help anybody else because The only reason they’re not receiving just compensation is because they aren’t working hard enough, especially not as hard as you.
The math clearly shows that social benefit programs are better for people and more profitable for companies, but the culture you’re a part of has been infected by self-interested corporate policies, so they’re only interested in the profit part and not in the "better for people’ part.
people in America are so poor amidst their surroundings and a lavishly projected culture that they feel pressured to work almost constantly, and so corporations siphon the value out of you and then cast you aside when you have no value left.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I’m in Canada, it’s 2 weeks.
got it.
yikes, yalls housing is the only place worse than the US at this point, huh?
Just because your union has 2 weeks vacation that doesn’t mean they all do.
I don’t work at a union. I was looking through a variety of collective agreements, they are all public.
