Your Job/Union situation

[Forward Union]

What is your job or union situation?

[Rusty Shackleford]

job, no union :(

[Spawn of Stalin]

I have a job and I am in a union

[Niccolò Rossi]

What about the, I don't have a job but I'm in a union option? I reckon you'd probably have alot here, like unemployed wobblies or whatever...

I'm kind of in this position. Sort of. Kind of. I work as a painter in my holidays. I find out on Monday if I will be accepted for an engineering internship in which I will be working up in Newcastle for 6 months. All the while. I'm a member of APESMA (Association of Profressional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia) which is affiliated with the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions)...

I'm as prole as it gets son

Nic.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I have a job, and am active in the IWW, but my job isn't organized.

[Forward Union]

What about the, I don't have a job but I'm in a union option? I reckon you'd probably have alot here, like unemployed wobblies or whatever....

Option 3 comrade

[Die Rote Fahne]

No job, therefore no union...

[Tomhet]

Job/no union..

[Forward Union]

so far 62% of the Revolutionary left are in jobs but aren't unionised???! :blink:

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Unemployed but still a union member. Looking for some work in the summer before University, I've applied for about 15 jobs this morning and already had 3 rejections.

[Rusty Shackleford]

so far 62% of the Revolutionary left are in jobs but aren't unionised???! :blink:
Unions are a rare thing for most of us.

[Le Socialiste]

Unions are a rare thing for most of us.

^ This. Job, no union. Then again, I'm a church custodian. The only other people working here is the secretary and the pastor. Besides, can you unionize a church workforce? :confused:

[Rusty Shackleford]

^ This. Job, no union. Then again, I'm a church custodian. The only other people working here is the secretary and the pastor. Besides, can you unionize a church workforce? :confused:
if you can unionize cops and capitalists then sure, why the fuck not. :lol:

[Le Socialiste]

if you can unionize cops and capitalists then sure, why the fuck not. http://www.revleft.com/vb/your-job-union-t156380/revleft/smilies2/laugh.gif


I suspect any attempts to unionize wouldn't go over well with the church board...:glare:

[pranabjyoti]

This poll actually shows the level of consciousness of revleft members.:crying:
VERY VERY BAD.

[Thirsty Crow]

This poll actually shows the level of consciousness of revleft members.:crying:
VERY VERY BAD.
Clever boy is clever.

On topic, I work part-time and at that irregularly. Self-employed (newspaper ads for work services) or on student contracts (most of these kind of jobs are super exploitation). There's no (work) basis for me being unionised at this point.

However, I'm a member of a rank-and-file students' and academic workers' union. It's hard to believe it, but our org is the first union to be organized on, let's say, direct democratic organizational principles (everyone participates in decision making, election of executive councils, no president) here where I live.

[Tomhet]

This poll actually shows the level of consciousness of revleft members.:crying:
VERY VERY BAD.

Yeah, we don't have unions for gas station workers here dawg..

[tachosomoza]

I haven't needed a job in years. :cool:

Leeching from family is awesome.

[Metacomet]

Job, IWW. Workplace is organized, but only for certain employees (not people in my "temporary" position, which is 75% of the employees)

[Spawn of Stalin]

Yeah, we don't have unions for gas station workers here dawg..
Is there not even a general union? Better than nothing imo

[Tomhet]

Not that I'm aware of at the very least! I'll have to look into it eh...

[deLarge]

Full time job, no union. $10/hour and working an order of magnitude beyond my job description. Shit's cash. Well, a little cash, anyway. I made almost as much money off of Pell grants as from work last year :cool:

[Rusty Shackleford]

I suspect any attempts to unionize wouldn't go over well with the church board...:glare:
sorry, i was being a dick in that post.

of course you can.

try to unionize and if they fire you in retaliation, you have a lawsuit :cool:

[Le Socialiste]

No apologies necessary, friend. All in good fun. :laugh:



if they fire you in retaliation, you have a lawsuit :cool:


Yes I do. :thumbup1:

[Red And Black Sabot]

I voted other because I work in the horribly anti-union service industry so we aren't unionized however I am a member of the IWW.

[danyboy27]

a job and no Union. Some of us would like to be unionised, but there are just too many anti-union reactionaries inside of the buisness who believe that the salary of an individual is his sole responsability.

to be unionised would require at least 51% of folks to agree, and unfortunately, the current support is around 25%.

wich is i think dumb beccause those who are the most hardent defender of the bosses are the one who get fucked the most by them.

[cu247]

I have a job, but I work for a charity organisation and it's only a student job so I'm not unionized. Since it's not full time or anything I voted other.

[xub3rn00dlex]

Part time carpenter during college, full time when I have breaks. No union. Working as an apprentice for $12/hour, yet have way more responsibilities and demands than I get payed for. I've started floating the idea of unionization around my company, and some definitely seem interested, but I get the feeling that most of the workers are afraid of joining. I assume they fear losing their jobs. Don't really care if unionizing my company excludes me, as long as it takes care of my coworkers.

[MarxSchmarx]

I was in a union in my previous job, they were OK and the union people I worked with were super cool. It was a limited time contract position, tho, so when my contract ran out I was removed from the membership roles. I still get their emails,but in my new position I'm not a union member anymore.

[Watermelon Man]

I work in higher education in Australia and am a member of the National Tertiary Education Union, which comes under the ACTU. The NTEU does amazing things, and my job is better paid and has better conditions because of their work.

I'm a huge union fan, and NSW premier Barry O'Farrell's attacks on the bargaining rights of public sector workers is getting me worried about what a future Coalition government would do at federal level: O'Farrell's changes are worse than WorkChoices, and seem the rival anything from the Howard years.

Anyway, it surprises me that so many RevLeft members aren't part of a union. I'm wondering if this has something to do with their age - I sense the forum has a big teenage element, who are probably working casual or part-time, and whose bosses haven't mentioned that they have the freedom to join a union. But I just don't know about the demographics of RevLeft, and I don't know the status of unions among employers in the US and Britain. I know there would be employers here in Australia that wouldn't take you on if you mentioned you were part of a union, though as far as I know they can't fire you for it.

My 2c.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Im right now working with construction/demolition and im a unionmember in a quite big union thats organizes many different proffessions, not specificly construction. Even thou they being reformists the seems to be a good organization to work in and many of my co-workers have started to joine it.

[Diello]

I work at Target. When I got hired they showed me this video explaining how they were protecting me from being taken advantage of by a union. Unions are these groups that take all your money and screw up your ability to work with all kinds of arbitrary rules and subterfuge. Thank goodness I have Target to look out for me.

[Barry]

I work as a bar man in a hotel, in Ireland are both hotel and bar staff have no union and are therefore exploited. At the moment the government are attempting to attack the pay of this workforce which is actuallyl quite large, so at the negotiating table there exists the employers and government. Problem is a large portion of this workforvce is part time students and such. Although I am tempted to try and set one up but there is huge red tape

[Welshy]

I have a job but my workplace isn't organized. It's just a summer job so I don't feel like organizing my workplace. Plus the two bosses at my work place (it's a maintenance job) are really relax and good about having flexible schedules for the workers and they are basically workers with just some special privileges, so they are well liked. Because that even if I wanted to organize the work place, I doubt I would get much support. Though the place could use it. They stopped paying overtime and we need some equipment that would prevent us from having to spend 6 hours shoveling dirt and other things.

Now for whatever job I get when I go back to school, I might try organizing that. However I don't really have an idea how I would go about finding the right union to organize with, what I do to actual organize the place, and what my legal rights are in that situation. So if anyone who has experience with that or knows those things could help me out, I would appreciate it. (contact me via PM)

[L.J.Solidarity]

I'll be working as an assistant librarian (apprenticeship) at the public library of a small East German city from September. I'm very likely to join ver.di, the big German services union, since the GEW (Education and Science Union) I'm a member of now doesn't really organize outside schools, universities and kindergartens. Due to the small size of the library there's probably no union structure of its own but rather one for the entire city administration/all council workers.

[Bright Banana Beard]

I have a job and I am a member of UNITE-HERE.

[MarxSchmarx]

Anyway, it surprises me that so many RevLeft members aren't part of a union. I'm wondering if this has something to do with their age - I sense the forum has a big teenage element, who are probably working casual or part-time, and whose bosses haven't mentioned that they have the freedom to join a union. But I just don't know about the demographics of RevLeft, and I don't know the status of unions among employers in the US and Britain. I know there would be employers here in Australia that wouldn't take you on if you mentioned you were part of a union, though as far as I know they can't fire you for it.

My 2c.

You have to understand that except for a small number of countries like Sweden and I guess China, most private sector work places are not unionized. When an individual worker is not in a unionized workplace, the employers have no obligation to deal with the union to which the worker may belong.

Thus although one could pay dues to a union, in most situations outside of unionzed workplaces it has little relevance. From the employers perspective, the worker might as well be paying money to subscribe to "eggplants weekly".

But more seriously, this means that the union can't represent the worker in talks and at best can offer individual advice - advice the worker can often frankly get without paying regular dues.

[Principia Ethica]

I am an independent contractor so I do not belong to a union. I wish there was a union for my industry. A lot of my sisters are exploited and taken advantage of. I think that if my industry was unionized, there wouldn't be so much stigma and it wouldn't be so marginalized and exploitation wouldn't be so rampant.

[Olentzero]

Job, union. Though I'm still pretty new to it and not sure what they really do, especially since it's a union of cultural workers and suchlike.

Where's the option for "headed a union"? Surely there are others besides me who actually were elected officers, local or otherwise...

[Proukunin]

I have just been called for a job and they have a union. I'm ready to get it going though. I have one week before I start.

[Barry]

I was wondering actually how hard it would be to form a union in Ireland, most of the leaders of the other unions are lazy elitist beuricratics. I war in a hotel in a bar there , this is a ununionised workforce in Ireland except for half assed attempts to recruit some people.
This is a industry that could do hugly with unionisation as the rights of its workers are constintaly being abused and changed

[BootOnFace]

I'm working part-time at an ice cream shop franchised out by a non-profit. No union and I doubt that any fellow employees would want to join a union anyway. It's half charity(giving kids jobs just for experience) and half regular employees(me.) There isn't need for a union anyways, considering that it's a non-profit set up for the benefit of the workers.

[Catma]

I'm a student and part-time worker.

I dunno, maybe other people just get new jobs and say "screw this, imma unionize this place!" As for me, I don't know a thing about organizing. Learning takes time and practice. Organizing a union against a major retailer in the US is probably one of the most nightmarish tasks even a veteran organizer could face.

Let's say I was a competent organizer and had tons of support. My shop is in an unprofitable retail location filled with students. We have far more workers than we "should" have because we moved from a larger location. The competition for hours is brutal and I'm only saved from it (partially) by having a relatively indispensable position. The level of consciousness is low. There are maybe 3 or 4 non-supervisory full-timers in a shop of 80 or so; the rest are part time.

Did I mention that it's not profitable? Due to a decision made by some unelected moron in an office hundreds of miles away(who probably got a bonus); a decision any one of those now-work-starved workers could have said was a terrible one, we relocated to a terrible location. We are at something like 25% of projected revenue.

Even if we were to succeed against all odds and unionize the shop, it would almost certainly be closed down. And that would be 80 workers who would probably be hostile to unions for the rest of their lives.

I don't know what this expectation is that everyone on the left should have a union job. They're hard to come by. Unionization is tremendously difficult and frightening, especially in economically uncertain times. I would love to belong to a union, but it just isn't gonna happen right now.

[Aspiring Humanist]

I work in a supermarket, and in the UFCW but it doesn't really do anything for the workers except mandate us lunch breaks...really wish I had a choice to join a more pro-active union thats not bogged down by bureaucracy