LogFAQs > #952269146

At least in Australia, union dues are tax deductible. You pay your dues, and you get some of it back in tax.

Those dues pay for lawyers and union training. If you're unlawfully fired, you can get legal representation from the union for less than you'd be paying for a lawyer out of pocket - and a union lawyer is an expert when it comes to work and trade law, so you're being taken care of. Union training goes towards informing union members of their rights, keeping them updated about any changes to the law or any agreements between the union and the business, and union delegates can take the opportunity to ask higher members of the organisation about different conflicts and issues that might be occurring at their store.

You don't deserve to be treated like trash for getting an "unskilled" job. You should be getting overtime and vacation days, and there should be legal recourse for a business who skirts OSHA laws and labor laws to make more money off of you without compensating you fairly.

The argument against unionisation and fair work practices I've seen from CE is that companies will just take jobs out of America and give them to nations with laxer labor laws - as if that's an indictment of workers seeking fair treatment, and not the organisations who squeeze the most work out of working class people for the least amount of money. You have no sympathy for someone who has a job unloading trucks? You probably would if you had family members who worked jobs like that. If you saw the way that blue-collar laborers are treated for work that directly keeps these organisations in business to begin with.

Whether it's a janitor who needs a new broom because the one they use is 20 years old and hurts their back to use, or a warehouse worker who lifts hundreds of pounds of stock a day for minimum wage and no benefits, all workers should have an organisation looking out for their best interests. They should have a third party to go to about how they're treated in the workplace, who'll be able to take an objective look at the facts and see if a company has been skirting labor laws, and who'll look out for the workers who may have been exploited in that way. Companies like to pretend they're these big bullies who sue over nothing and keep incompetent rubes in positions of power - when their main function is to look at the law, get the worker's side of the story, and if they've been treated unfairly under the law - working overtime with no overtime pay, forced to use unergonomic equipment for months on end etc. They then get in contact with the business on behalf of that worker to bring any law violations to light - if there are any to begin with - and to achieve a fair outcome for everyone involved. If a company is within the boundaries of the law, they have nothing to worry about - there's a dialogue, the business and union go over their agreement and get to the bottom of things, and there may be a token of goodwill provided as a means of reconciliation at most if there's nothing legally wrong with the situation. A union only gets involved when the legality of how they treat their workers is in question, and their power extends as far as labor laws do.

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