Conflict in the Workplace

WalMart is a good example of how a company can create a union. They really have been treating employees with distain. WalMart is also being sued by the US Department of Labor for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act for not paying overtime to employees. Actually it is my understanding that the union was invited in by the employees.

P.S. Love the avatar smc

Having had the mis-fortune of working for WalMart
in the capacity of pharmacist, I can vouch that we
were forced to sign reams of paper - declaring
that we would never ever even speak to any labor
board or union representatives. Then I found
that I was paid as "hourly" yet hired as
"management" - so that WM could avoid paying
me all the OT I constantly earned. They ARE facing
a huge lawsuit, and they ARE in the wrong.
I was often forced to work 7 days in a row, "if
I liked my job", and I DID!! No other pharmacy
position let you go home at 6PM, have dinner
with your kids, or have all major holidays off.
Then, a year or so ago - they changed ALL the
hours, now all the WM pharmacies have to stay
open 8am to 8pm, longer hours on Sat and Sun
as well. But, they also have a great cost cutting
scheme.....they basically attempt to fire anyone
who has a signigicant number of years service
time in with the company (hopefully right
before the person becomes fully vested)and
replace that person with a lower paid, right out
of school pharmacist. Dirty dealings there.

eek. I just got attuned to this and will have to simmer a bit before I answer. osso

The only state that I am aware of where
any pharmacists are represented by unions that
I know of is Delaware. I feel for all the rest of the
bunch... and I understand completely why they NEED
a union. But I think Walmart may win out due to the
forcing of compliance prior to being hired. EVERY
PERSON had to sign all those papers. No unions, not
ever. As far as unions go it seems that none of them
carry much weight anymore as it is. All that happens
is that the company who is being given a hard time by
a union - moves their base of operations (take U S Steel,
out of Pittsburgh, for example) to a location outside of
the USA, and just keeps office staff in this country.
Meanwhile, all those workers who THOUGHT they were
being represented & protected by the unions, ended up
jobless. Even our local county school board union is basically
useless, except for matters like filing petty grievances and
such. The school board isn't even held to rights regarding
things like employee seniority, with respect to job openings.
I wish that the days of strong union protection were still
here, & maybe in government work they still are, but I think
that some people abused those protections...I knew men
who worked for US Steel in Pittsburgh who were getting
paid $20 per hour to sweep the floor - and this was way back
in the 1970's. It's no wonder US Steel moved their plants,
between the unions and the environmental protection money
they would have had to spend to comply with the new standards,
they couldn't compete in the steel market anymore.

And what non-union company does anyone really expect to accept union labor? None of them will and they like it that way! Every company has a collective on their side, but singular employees do not.

I am actually a registered Republican. I cannot agree with union busting as an employee. As a collective, we can stand in numbers. As an individual, we are nothing short of slave wages and treated as such.

WalMart is well known in the business world to play hard ball. Anyone watching PBS Business Report knows that. WalMart has a great business strategy, smashing both vendor of product and employees. Has anyone seen the latest Forbes? Sam Walton's heirs are all in the top 10!

We all know what it cost to live today. We all should have some clue as to what our labor is worth. As an investor, I will admit to wanting to buy stock in this company. As a human, I know the tactics and can't do it.

Labor unions of the past went entirely too far. They were overpaid and held out to the point that American business could not compete, largely the auto unions, not others. They gave all labor unions a bad name.

That was the past. We live in the today. I feel a need for labor union representation as an individual. I don't ask for anything unfair or wish to put anyone out of business because of my demands at all. I want a fair wage for my work is all.

Do I make a lousy Republican?

FYI--I know that pharmacists at Express Scripts in Pennsylvania are union
members.

Okay--disclaimer--I am a third generation union member--so all the folks out there who are just anti-union by birth can feel free to ignore this post.

The problem with the labor movement in this country is not it has too many members, and too much power, but that too few people (especially in the private sector) are union members today. Currently, the percentage of workers in the overall workforce who are unionized is hovering around 12%--and it's under 10% of the private sector. That is down from 35% of the workforce in 1955, during labor's strongest period.

IMO, there are a couple of reasons for this.

1) Management started winning better legislation than we did. The laws that were passed to make union organizing easier in the 1930s & 40s were basically gutted in the 50s & 60s, and were dealt a death blow during the Reagan Administration.

2) Private sector businesses started buying off their non-union workers by offering them some of the benefits that unionized workers had to fight hard to get (ie--health insurance, pensions, overtime, 40 hour workweek, paid holidays). Now that unions are weaker, it is easy to take those benefits away from people who didn't get them through a legally binding contract. There's a reason that almost every contract fight that you hear about any more is about health care--it's because we (meaning union members) are about the only people left in the country (aside from the very rich) who still enjoy decent health benefits at reasonable (to the employee) rates.

3) Unions stopped--or never started--organizing in the industries that have grown, choosing instead to fight to save industries (like steel in Pittsburgh, or textiles in the Northeast) that they had fought to create decent jobs in fifty or sixty years before. Wal-Mart is actually a great example of this--if the UFCW had spent half of the energy & resources that they are now spending to fight Wal-Mart fighting against the Rite-Aids, Walgreens, Targets, K-Marts & other low-cost, lower-than-union-wage retailers in the 80s & 90s, they wouldn't be losing so many supermarket & union retail jobs now.

I guess to go back to the original post, the answer is, I would happily join a union, if my job were non-union, even if it meant having conflict with my employer. I have been a union steward and been on a strike committee, and even though it was stressful when we thought we would have to strike, it was worth making management think about what they would have to do if none of us were there, in order to win our point (which was protecting the ability to take sick days to care for a sick child). Seventy years ago, my grandparents fought to create decent jobs on the waterfront and in garment shops in Philadelphia, and it would be disrespectful of me to turn my back on the union now. But I don't have to make that choice .

Welcome to A2k booklover.

In Solidarity,

Joanne

Re: Conflict in the Workplace


I am lost. Are you referring to the union here?

"How do you think you would handle such pervasive forces of conflict and attempts to influence your behavior?"


If you are, I would join the union! Sheesh. I have been a union member since I was seventeen. About time Walmart was unionized.

Me too Deb and my behavior has never been controlled.