My wife is a member of a non-striking teachers union..
I've always wondered what their ultimate collective bargaining power is if the single thing that grants them their leverage (to strike) is off the table from day 1. Shes never been able to answer.
Its not shocking that they rarely even settle for a fraction of what is asked and are just "thankful" when the government and politicians are so kind to budget them raises.
Best part....Due to the policies put in place during the 08 crash, salaries and raises were severely restricted. The government last year decided to "make up for it" by changing the base salaries for NEW teachers. So now a brand new teacher just out of college makes about as much (within a couple thousand) as much as my wife, who has a masters and has been teaching for about a decade.
Thats the issue with people that are passionate about something. It happens in IT as well. Many will work for peanuts because they like it and "experience". And my companies have been put off that I describe myself as a mercenary. I work for money and have absolutely no emotional ties to team, company or organization.
"I've always wondered what their ultimate collective bargaining power is if the single thing that grants them their leverage (to strike) is off the table from day 1."
While they can't strike, they can do the absolute bare minimum, which is what happens in a lot of professions (police, fire) where they can't legally strike. I'm not saying it's as effective as an actual strike, obviously, but with how much extra time teacher give beyond normal working hours, cutting it down to just working during business hours makes a school noticeably worse.
> I've always wondered what their ultimate collective bargaining power
To be fair, unions don't exist solely as threats to employers. The ability to bargain collectively still results in better/fairer outcomes in most situations. Most of the time, employers want to compensate their employees in good faith. Most of the time, employees want to work for a team who get rewarded more or less fairly and not compete in a cutthroat arena where everyone has to bargain for themselves.
But yes: non-striking unions are absolutely not going to have the kind of corrective power in the face of genuine imbalance that real organized labor does.
These sorts of unions happen in health, nursing in particular. And then the members end up overworked, underpaid and exploited.
My profession has a strident and aggressive union which I have not always agreed with, but they have improved pay and conditions (and have organised strikes).
I don't know the particulars of your wife's union contract but in my union (college faculty union) we can't go on strike while under contract. Our contracts are up for renewal every two years and when the old contract expires we can go on strike and we have in the past.
Depending on how it's structured, she may be able to bounce to a different city/county/state (depending on logistics) for a year or two. Much like in industry, how leaving (and potentially coming back) can get you far more of a raise than staying.
Put it on the one party to give into anything the other wants, because they're said to be important.
Does it work the other way in your mind too? If we all agreed that air traffic or say, Amazon, were a critical resource and has to run efficiently and for the country's benefit, not individuals, that means that they get to put whatever conditions on labor they like?
This is the worst kind of approach to governing ever, if it can even be called that.
EDIT: Just to clarify my point, my interest wasn't only in my wife, rather an anecdote about how these things can be vital to people's lives.
That being said, yes I agree we should be grateful for what we have and me an my wife regularly marvel that if she'd been born just 40 years earlier she would've been dead by the time she was 9.
That is true, but you cannot force someone to fly it regularly to her. The miracles of modern medicine allow people to live when this would not have happened 100 years ago, but cannot guarantee that. Take it as a gift, not as a given.
Curiously, one of the things that gives pilots and airline workers such powerful bargaining leverage, is exploiting safety regulations. If an airline is playing hardball with the union, the pilots go out of their way to create flight delays based on safety double-checks or "concerns" (a form of "work-to-rule" [0] strike), which the FAA gives them wide latitude to do.
Unfortunately, this works against those who work directly for those government agencies. At the end of the day, bargaining power comes from holding value hostage; and we react differently to holding on-time flight arrivals hostage, versus holding public safety hostage. It's a wicked problem for anyone who works in service of the latter.
> Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act states in part, “Employees shall have the right. . . to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Strikes are included among the concerted activities protected for employees by this section.
> An individual may not accept or hold a position in the Government of the United States or the government of the District of Columbia if he—
> (3)participates in a strike, or asserts the right to strike, against the Government of the United States or the government of the District of Columbia; or
Federal employees are not regulated by the NLRA but rather the FSLMRS. The FSLMRS explicitly denies the right of all federal employees from striking or even discussing a strike.
You can have a contract that makes striking illegal and that you have to do arbitration instead when disputes arise.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. A good arbitration setup can be less combative and feel fairer than a setup where the threat of strike is the motivating factor.
A wildcat strike is what it is called when workers strike when their contract says they can't.
It was an illegal strike so I am pretty sure he is not being sarcastic. They had "civil service" clauses in their contract that made them "Federal employees" and Federal employees could not strike (not sure if that is true today).
It absolutely is. The courts have their take on it, as expected, but the spirit of a strike remains consistent despite laws against it. A strike, by definition, cannot be illegal. That includes armed forces and every federal employee.
Whether existing legislation recognizes certain types of strikes as legal or not is irrelevant. Civil disobedience has deep roots in American history. This is an analogue to that, given that their rights to strike have been struck. (pun intended)
All civil disobedience is illegal, yet you seem to adjust for some of it vs. others.
Extend that to all employment. Nothing illegal about not being forced to work. A contract is not a prison sentence, or I should hope so.
I will grant you certain conditions apply to armed forces that wouldn't otherwise apply to civilian employment, as that does actively put other's lives at risk. This isn't a conversation about desertion of duty, merely protesting or quitting. Even then there are laws that protect conscientious objectors .
A strike, by definition, cannot be illegal. It's an established form of protest which may or may not lead to firing. Despite the results of the strike, the protest itself is not illegal, nor is walking out of a job. At least from both a moral standpoint.
Do you really expect us to believe that you don't know the concept of an "illegal strike"?
Then again, your profile picture is a soyboy face, and you're constantly spewing braindead leftist dribble, so, no one should be surprised by your glaring ignorance and naivety.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
HN does not value personal attacks like the kind you made.
Please consider that you could have elevated the conversation by actually addressing the idea of an illegal strike (what differentiates a legal one from an illegal one, for example).
Economic pressures didn't inform any of that, you think?
Most people (presumably you as well) have undergone at least one experience where they were forced to sign paperwork that they would not normally agree to, except under those specific circumstances (kid/family/rent/gadget etc.) Signing a piece of paper under such duress does not sign one's rights away exclusively.
I genuinely can't tell if you're being sarcastic with your comment.