What happens if you don't join the union?

[brownmonster]

Starting pay non-union Fedex Express Package handler ~ 10.20
Starting pay union UPS package handler 8.50

"pays better..." ?

Not by my math.

just sayin.

My loader makes $20 plus an hour. He makes more than a Fedex Driver. Starting wage is a only a small factor.

 

[ORLY!?!]

I used to work for UPS. I was a seasonal worker, and thus was employed for about 2 months or so. Nobody talked to me about the union, because they didn't consider seasonal workers to be union candidates.

I was wondering, though: If I wanted to work for UPS again, on a non-temporary basis, must I join the union?

According to this thread, which is two years old:
http://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/does-ups-make-you-join-the-union.205600/
Most people in this thread said you must join. The driver I worked with also believed you must join. I think the man who hired me also said permanent workers had to join, though I don't remember exactly. At the time, I thought this was legal.

However, I've been reading that it's illegal to be forced to join a union. That is, union membership cannot be compulsory. In Colorado, I think I could be forced to pay some union dues. Is this the case? Here's what I was reading:
http://www.nrtw.org/a/a_1_p.htm

My second question is simple: If you work for UPS, and don't join the union, how would the company treat you differently?

The union will take 2.5% of your overall paycheck. That might seem much, but it increases as you earn more rasies.

I live in Florida and its a right-to-work state, thus the union has to stand for you.

The only reason I dont join is for political reasons. I cant stand for something that stands for certain types of government groups.

If your going to drive then I suggest you join, the only reason to do so.

 

[UPSSOCKS]

My loader makes $20 plus an hour. He makes more than a Fedex Driver. Starting wage is a only a small factor.

Wow another person wearing blinders.. I bet at the end of the year when your loader and the fed ex driver file their taxes your loader doesn't make more.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

The union will take 2.5% of your overall paycheck.

This is inaccurate. Union dues are a multiplier of your hourly wage not a percentage of your overall paycheck. I assume in your case it is the multiplier is 2.5. This is taken out once a month.

 

[Nimnim]

This is inaccurate. Union dues are a multiplier of your hourly wage not a percentage of your overall paycheck. I assume in your case it is the multiplier is 2.5. This is taken out once a month.

Yeah, here in Florida it's 2.5 hours a month. So someone making $10/hr would have $6.25 taken out each week.

 

[brownmonster]

Wow another person wearing blinders.. I bet at the end of the year when your loader and the fed ex driver file their taxes your loader doesn't make more.

I meant more per hour than a Fedex driver. I was going to make a mgmnt crack but you being one is already an insult to the rest.

 

[804brown]

:

I believe unions tend to actually harm their members for the following reasons:
Are you kidding me? Is it the union who suspends, fires and walks members out the door? Is it the union who sends us out with back-breaking loads and disfigures us and makes us a regular at the chiropractor? No, I don't think so!

1) Unions tend to make it difficult or impossible to promote exceptional workers.
Promotions? I believe it is up to the member if he wants to sell his soul to join management. On "exceptional workers", please. Anyone capable of withstanding all that management deals out is exceptional.

2) Unions tend to make it difficult or impossible to fire deficient workers.
Again, are you kidding me? Good members are fired everyday in this company by some very un-exceptional people! "Deficient workers"? No, just workers who don't live up to their standards of perfection.

3) Unions tend to suppress wages for new and/or inexperienced hires.
4) Unions tend to suppress raises for new and/or inexperienced hires.
UPS keeps starting wages low, not the union!

5) Unions tend to promise benefits that, in the long term, they cannot actually afford.
Both sides negotiate for wages and benefits. The only promises made are by the company who promises its shareholders increased profits.

6) Unions tend to demand no pay cuts, and end up with more people laid off instead.
Nonsense. UPS made billions the last 3 years during an economic recession in which other huge corporations lost money. As long as UPS is profitable, NO ONE should be layed off!

7) Unions can demand fees from employees whether or not the employee appreciates the union.
You mean dues? Well, its like paying taxes. We all complain about them but realize they are the price we pay for services and representation.

On laws: Union lobbyist support laws which severely harm the economy. These laws, I believe, actually make it difficult to get a job, bankrupt companies, reduce competition, and slow the economy. These lobbyists end up increasing unemployment, and decreasing wages of the economy as a whole.
You got it all backwards. It is corporate lobbyists that lobby and own our government. It is corporations that push sellout "free trade" agreements, allow good jobs to be sent overseas. It is union that turned this country into a decent middle class society!

On monopolies: Unions within monopolies, such as government employees, are extremely harmful. Because they have no competition, there is no check or balance. If UPS becomes inefficient, then FedEx will crush them. Therefore, the UPS union must be reasonable in its demands to management. Government employee unions have no such competition, and so can make all sorts of ridiculous demands, and get them. They get benefits and wages at the cost of everyone else who pays taxes, regardless of economic downturn, efficiency, or positive outcomes.
It is Fedex who should be reasonable and allow their workers the choice of joining the union. But they won't because they know that a union will get the members more. And that of course would mean handing over more of their profits to the people who created their wealth!

 

[UPSSOCKS]

Listen to 804Brown, Local 804 has been stealing from their members for years..

 

[ORLY!?!]

Yeah, here in Florida it's 2.5 hours a month. So someone making $10/hr would have $6.25 taken out each week.

I know drivers getting 50+ taken out each week. Double edge sword, in my opinion.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I know drivers getting 50+ taken out each week. Double edge sword, in my opinion.

These drivers may still be paying their initiation fee--beyond that dues are taken out monthly and vary from local to local. Local 687 is 3 x our hourly monthly, or $89 (which is tax deductible BTW).

 

[brownIEman]

Are you kidding me? Is it the union who suspends, fires and walks members out the door? Is it the union who sends us out with back-breaking loads and disfigures us and makes us a regular at the chiropractor? No, I don't think so!

Well, you are incorrect. It is, in part, the union that does those things. The union helps to create the business environment UPS operates in. In this case, UPS pays more than any of its competitors, so it must get more from its workers or it will not remain profitable. UPS business plan in a nutshell is pay heaps of money, and get the return on that investment by pushing, pushing, pushing for more production and doing anything necessary to get rid of those who will not give it. UPS would not survive much less be profitable by giving the payout it does yet accepting the lower level of production other companies get. You can't have one without the other. The union demanded the one, in effect they were also demanding the other.

Promotions? I believe it is up to the member if he wants to sell his soul to join management. On "exceptional workers", please. Anyone capable of withstanding all that management deals out is exceptional.

He was not speaking about promotion to management. That is up to the company and can be based on exceptional performance and skills. As for promotion from say hub pt to driving full time, he is correct, the union has insisted it is based solely on time in. So the slug who has gotten exceptional only at skipping off to the bathroom when a supervisor approaches, forcing his brothers to pick up his slack will get a promotion before the young kid just hired who is smart, motivated, organized, understands addressing intuitively and is the safest most efficient driver on the earth. Just the way it is.

Again, are you kidding me? Good members are fired everyday in this company by some very un-exceptional people! "Deficient workers"? No, just workers who don't live up to their standards of perfection.

Sounds like the union is out of whack. How can they be allowing good workers to be fired every day when they fight tooth and nail to make it as difficult as possible to fire the guy that no-call/no-shows a minimum of 3 times a month, is late on average once a week, calls in sick about once a week. Or the guy who has to leave early due to feeling ill EVERY Friday. The sorter who comes in hung-over once a week and mis sorts about 100 pieces in an hour. Or the driver who sexually harassed his female helper. I could go on, and these are not hypothetical examples.

UPS keeps starting wages low, not the union!

The union fights for the wages that it gets for its members, and agrees to ALL of them at contract time. You cannot on one hand applaud the union for fighting for your high pay and benefits package and on the other say the lower pay for younger employees is all the companies fault.

Both sides negotiate for wages and benefits. The only promises made are by the company who promises its shareholders increased profits.

Not even sure where you are coming from here. Your first sentence is 100% correct. If you read UPS' prospectus to potential investors, you will find your second sentence is 100% wrong. UPS makes no such promise.

Nonsense. UPS made billions the last 3 years during an economic recession in which other huge corporations lost money. As long as UPS is profitable, NO ONE should be layed off!

This is an interesting and ironic stance. If UPS had laid no-one off during the last couple years when volume has gone down, UPS would not have made any profit. It is the ability to lay people off to control costs when volume, the work for people to do, goes down that allows UPS to stay profitable. Keeping on paying people when there is not work for them to do is one of the things that the UAW actually got GM to agree to in its contract negotiations. Any guesses how that worked out?

You mean dues? Well, its like paying taxes. We all complain about them but realize they are the price we pay for services and representation.

no argument here

You got it all backwards. It is corporate lobbyists that lobby and own our government. It is corporations that push sellout "free trade" agreements, allow good jobs to be sent overseas. It is union that turned this country into a decent middle class society!

Unions do plenty of lobbying of their own. I believe the IBT's political action comitte takes in about twice in receipts what UPS' does. Ironically, both PAC's monies have been spent in the past to enable UPS to better compete in the infrastructure that enables the shipping of jobs overseas, cause it helps UPS to create teamster jobs here.

It is Fedex who should be reasonable and allow their workers the choice of joining the union. But they won't because they know that a union will get the members more. And that of course would mean handing over more of their profits to the people who created their wealth!

Fedex cannot prevent their workers from joining a union. If the effort was put forth and the will was there, it could be done. You just gotta get 50% of them nation wide on board. Difficult? Of course. Impossible? I doubt it.

 

[SloppyJoes7]

:
1) Unions tend to make it difficult or impossible to promote exceptional workers.
Promotions? I believe it is up to the member if he wants to sell his soul to join management. On "exceptional workers", please. Anyone capable of withstanding all that management deals out is exceptional.

2) Unions tend to make it difficult or impossible to fire deficient workers.
Again, are you kidding me? Good members are fired everyday in this company by some very un-exceptional people! "Deficient workers"? No, just workers who don't live up to their standards of perfection.

You know, some people here, (such as yourself), have argued that I'm misled. Not thinking straight. Wrong.

I applaud mindsets such as yours. You actually argued against my position. Others just questioned my sincerity. I suppose they cannot comprehend that anybody could disagree with them. I'd prefer that they just disagree.

Anyway, I'm not going to go point-by-point in my response. I just noticed a consistent mindset throughout your responses: UPS and management are the enemy. I don't fully understand this mindset. The people who employ and manage you are your enemy? Why?

In a good company, management wants to make money and be successful. (Being successful is more than money, by the way.) The owners and managers want good, productive employees. They pay according to scarcity, so talented workers get paid more. They don't want unhappy employees, because such people are worse workers. In addition, and this is important, the management and owners are people, such as yourself. Therefore, they do not like making others miserable and unhappy. Do you get satisfaction from making others miserable? Well, I doubt your boss does either. Very few people are sadistic like that.

But, like others in this thread, you speak of management like they're "out to get you." They're just itching to fire good employees. What utter nonsense.

No, I think the greatest enemy to economies and businesses are inefficiencies. And unions create bureaucracies, and bureaucracies are the greatest inefficiency I can imagine. Dues and agency fees pay for people to talk and negotiate within the company, which produces no product whatsoever. I can think of plenty of systems which would serve employees better, and cost a lot less.

 

[soberups]

No, I think the greatest enemy to economies and businesses are inefficiencies. And unions create bureaucracies, and bureaucracies are the greatest inefficiency I can imagine. Dues and agency fees pay for people to talk and negotiate within the company, which produces no product whatsoever. I can think of plenty of systems which would serve employees better, and cost a lot less.

If that is the case...then wouldnt it be more "efficient" for you to simply take a comparable job at a non-union firm? Wouldn't it cost a lot less if you did not have to waste any money whatsoever on the dues or agency fees that you are so critical of?

It seems to me that an employee of your obvious abilities would be served a lot better by taking a non-union job and negotiating your own wages and benefits instead of being forced to have some inefficient bureaucracy like a union do it for you.

You are obviously an intelligent and well-read person. You make...superficially at least....a very articulate argument against unions in general. I would not presume to try to change your opinions on the subject. The one thing I am having trouble comprehending is the one thing you keep refusing to explain...which is why you are even considering taking a job at a union shop to begin with.

Perhaps someday we will be graced with an actual answer to that fundamental question, instead of yet another long-winded dissertation on the evils and inefficiences of unions in general.

 

[soberups]

You know, some people here, (such as yourself), have argued that I'm misled. Not thinking straight. Wrong.

I dont think that way.

Its obvious to me that you are thinking straight, and that you are in no way misled.

You are very clear on exactly what you want and what you believe.

You want the pay and benefits of a union job, but you dont want to pay union dues. Its really that simple.

 

[Jones]

But Sober, in a country where 87% of all jobs are non union, what choice does this young crusader have?

 

[upsman68]

Starting pay non-union Fedex Express Package handler ~ 10.20
Starting pay union UPS package handler 8.50

"pays better..." ?

Not by my math.

just sayin.

How much does the non-union Fedex package handler pay for insurance?

You have to remember that our part-timers get insurance after a certain time there.

 

[brownIEman]

How much does the non-union Fedex package handler pay for insurance?

You have to remember that our part-timers get insurance after a certain time there.

That is a good question, I would be interested to know if the Fedex handlers get insurance and if so what they pay for it if anything. And also when it starts for them. The "certain time" our part timers have to wait is now 12 months for themselves, and 18 months for their families.

 

[SloppyJoes7]

I dont think that way.

Its obvious to me that you are thinking straight, and that you are in no way misled.

You are very clear on exactly what you want and what you believe.

You want the pay and benefits of a union job, but you dont want to pay union dues. Its really that simple.

In a competitive market, I don't agree that union jobs pay more or give better benefits. You seem to have missed this point, even though I've made it about a dozen times now. Others have even provided examples of FedEx vs UPS pay scales. I haven't done my own research on this particular comparison, as it would surely be a lot more complicated than $/hour. However, I am confident they are competitive.

To answer your earlier question, right now I'm going to college full time, so I'm not actually considering a union job right now. I actually quit my last job, and am working on my B.S. in engineering. It is conceivable that I could get a union job, but it is highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all.

If I got two job offers, of similar quality, but one was union and one was non-union, that would mean I'd likely take the non-union job. However, why would I consider the union job? Because I'm rational, and that's not my only consideration. That would be crazy. Of course I'd consider a union job. No job is perfect.

And, since I'm a curious person, I wanted to know what it would be like to work for a union company, and what rights/responsibilities I would have. Which is why I signed up on this forum, and why I've asked so many questions.

So, have I answered your questions?

 

[UnconTROLLed]

In a competitive market, I don't agree that union jobs pay more or give better benefits. You seem to have missed this point, even though I've made it about a dozen times now. Others have even provided examples of FedEx vs UPS pay scales. I haven't done my own research on this particular comparison, as it would surely be a lot more complicated than $/hour. However, I am confident they are competitive.

To answer your earlier question, right now I'm going to college full time, so I'm not actually considering a union job right now. I actually quit my last job, and am working on my B.S. in engineering. It is conceivable that I could get a union job, but it is highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all.

If I got two job offers, of similar quality, but one was union and one was non-union, that would mean I'd likely take the non-union job. However, why would I consider the union job? Because I'm rational, and that's not my only consideration. That would be crazy. Of course I'd consider a union job. No job is perfect.

And, since I'm a curious person, I wanted to know what it would be like to work for a union company, and what rights/responsibilities I would have. Which is why I signed up on this forum, and why I've asked so many questions.

So, have I answered your questions?

I am confident that at THIS point you cross the line into not thinking straight, misled, wrong..

Non-union FedEx is not nearly as lucrative as UPS-Teamsters, especially since the Portable Pension came about over at FedEx. Now, PT UPS/Teamsters have full benefits plus a real pension plan while PT FedEx do not.

UPS FT is no comparison a higher paying and more secure job than FedEx FT.

Basically, a UPS union job is far more lucrative than FedEx once you reach 4-5 years. However in it just as a short-term job, they're probably close to equal.

 

[SloppyJoes7]

I am confident that at THIS point you cross the line into not thinking straight, misled, wrong..
...
Basically, a UPS union job is far more lucrative than FedEx once you reach 4-5 years. However in it just as a short-term job, they're probably close to equal.

This may be somewhat true. However, while markets allow for differences in the short term, the long term is a different matter. One competitor cannot provide superior benefits while its opposition does not, in the long term.

A point I made earlier was that unions often promise benefits that, in the long term, they cannot actually afford. Of what do I speak? Retirement plans, usually. I've seen many pensions go under, become unfunded, go broke, etc. In every case that comes to mind, it was a union-promised pension.

Now, in some of these cases, the government bailed out the pension plans. So, in those particular cases, yes, the union members got huge pensions, while others did not. And, the non-union workers actually got to fund those people's pensions. How's that for fairness and equality?

Anyway, imbalance also happens if a company does extremely well. Again, this tends to not last very long. For example, Starbucks gave full benefits to all part-time employees. I know people who worked there, and the pay/benefits were fantastic. And then, a couple years after, the CEO stated that benefits for part-timers was soon going to be "unaffordable" for the company. Sure enough, Starbucks' massive growth slowed down shortly thereafter, and some stores even closed. The market always adjusts, and thing even out. (As long as the government stays out of it, that is.)