Today’s worker is much more transitory regarding their employment. This is no longer the day of someone going to work for a company and stay with them for their entire working life.
Idiots continue to reject union membership. Any unskilled or marginally skilled American that rejects a union isn’t very bright. I can see if you have a skill and can command a higher wage. Not otherwise.
It’s like being a shovel jockey in a union as opposed to a private contractor. By me, those working for private contractors don’t choose that. There’s just not enough union jobs. No one chooses to make less money. No one chooses to have less benefits.
Same with the small delivery trucks. FedEx vs UPS. This isn’t even fair. The driver that chooses FedEx is probably an ex con.
Funny you mention FedEx and UPS. I’m a retired Teamster. I worked at UPS for 27 years. I worked my ass off all that time delivering 350-400 packages per day up to 150 lbs and I have the spinal, knees and rotator cuff problems to prove it. I retired almost 10 years ago at age 55 and because we had one of the strongest Locals in the country, my pension just about matches what I would have earned in 40 hours. I have full medical, dental, drug and eye coverage and all I ever pay is a $200 deductible. When I go on Medicare in a few months, my UPS health benefits becomes my supplement. The last 3 years I worked I made over 100k, not bad for a woman with an 8th grade education, huh? I didn’t love my job, didn’t even like it, but without the Teamsters, I could never have lived the life I did.
“The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor.” — THOMAS DONAHUE
God bless you. I’m 55 now. I have 25 years and can retire if I want. I know UPS is a tough place to work for, I was employed by them for a year back in 1984. None of these jobs are pleasant. I’m a toll collector for over 20 years getting 1500+ vehicles a day, that wasn’t pleasant. Now it’s 85% EZ-Pass.
When I do retire in a few years I get basically the same as you. None of this is possible without a union.
Three thoughts 1.)
As an investor. I take a small sum of my money, pool it together with thousands of others and own a company. We are represented collectively by a single management team. That provides great benefits to me.
It seems somehow “just” that since one side (capital) is represented collectively, that the other side should be as well.
Imagine if employees, not liking the wages or the schedule or the work rules one manager offered without leaving the company, could easily “do a an end around” and negotiate with a second set a third set and so on. Plus 1 for the unions!
2.)
Moreover for a few years in my younger life I too was a teamster. That job, the benefits and good wages it offered was an important turning point in my life. It was without a doubt THE thing that allowed me to get out of the debt and credit card and terrible car and terrible place-to-live phase of my working youth. Plus 2 for the unions
3.)
That said, I find it appalling that union leaders so often take themselves out of the realm of me, my job my wages and instead turn themselves into a funding and propaganda arm of the polticalleft, telling me who to vote for, how I should feel about abortion, gay marriage and the latest tax bill and using my dues and the position I gave them to fellate their favorite politicians and political causes.
They have as much business doing that, as much moral rectitude doing that, as they would if they similarly took sides in some series if contests between impressionist painter vs neo-realist. America would be a better place if they stopped doing that. The Dem party clings to power by narrow majorities in every election, and won those majorities ONLY because of immoral and underhanded tactics such as those. The House, the Senate and the results of the last Trump election were all decided by margins slimmer than the size of union membership in America.
We should not even have reason to discuss this, and would not be if union leadership stuck to union business instead of using their office to tell us what kind of ice cream we should like, and what we should think about the latest political issue.
If unions don’t do #3, it’s much harder to get #2.
Multiemployer pension funds are created by agreements between unions and companies and are partially insured by the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The insurance program was on track to become insolvent in 2026, but the pandemic relief money is expected to keep it on firm footing through 2051
Of the two parties, one will laugh as the workers’ hard-earned pension withers through no fault of their own, and the other will ensure that the worker gets his due.
The democratic party is better for the working class so it follows that a labor union will lean that way.
I have no problem with a one time rescue. However if you just throw money at it without also correcting the reason they lost the money, ie leadership, investing, saleries or whatever it is, they will just be asking for money again in a few years.
Using rescue money for covid relief is wrong however. Congress didn’t give Biden a blank check to use the covid relief fund however he wanted. It is turning into a Dem slush fund.
When I was a teamster (which as I said was an important positive turning point in my life)
Union bosses took a side on whether gay marriages should be called marriages or unions, took a side on the war in Iraq etc… They used their positions and my dues to further those causes and candidates.
Doing so was completed unrelated to whether the union was yet again running a underfunded pension plan, how much I got paid or whether a manager could fire me because he was in a bad mood etc…
In the above article, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation was on track to become insolvent. It was underfunded and/or had invested in hair-brained schemes again. The union bosses’ job was to watch that fund and make sure it did not happen. Instead they watched the polls and voter registration data then asked for and got a taxpayer bailout for not doing their jobs.
Imagine, the anti-union leadership rebellion that would had taken place had it not been for the tax-payer bailout. What if the hard truth had come out “Union leaders were so busy kissing up to liberal polticians they failed at one of their basic jobs. they needed a taxpayer bailout to cover up their gross negligence.”
This is an occasion for questions, investigatons, and committees. But it’s not an excuse for workers to face austerity measures. The workers deserve their money and there’s only one political party that will get it to them.
Because that one party gets the money they give them. It is almost money laundering. If the Dems thought their whole party supported it they would have wrote it in. But they didn’t because they understand they don’t have the support from enough in their party. The other side is more. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.
As long as it gets democrats elected, it’s still a campaign in pursuit of the union’s main purposes. That’s just what happens when there isn’t any contest between the ideologies on labor issues.
