My partner Jenna, and I met on Thursday at Coffman and had a good discussion about unions and labor politics. Neither of us had ever been a part of a union in the jobs we had in high school. She had worked in an eye doctor’s office mostly filling out paper work and doing various other odd jobs around the office. I had worked at Subway for about a year and then at a mini-golf course last summer. As I said before, neither of the jobs we had were unionized. We both knew some things about unions but, for the most part, they are kind of a new concept for both of us.
By no means did either of us have bad working conditions or needed a union for our jobs. I mean I even got a free sandwich every time I worked! I think that unions are only needed in a certain type of jobs and can be very helpful to employees that do not have the best working environments. My brother had worked for a union when he worked at Pick’n’Save. He said that the only bad thing about it was that he had to give a portion of his paycheck to the union every week. It was not a lot of money though, so he wasn’t too mad about it. The union made sure that he had enough breaks and that he was being treated fairly and all that good stuff.
Jenna’s dad had been working for a union for a good part of his adult life. So Jenna got a hold of him and he had some interesting things to say. He said that there were definitely some advantages to it and also disadvantages. He said that it can make it hard for the companies to fire or get rid of the bad employees and also he said the unions can provide a disincentive to work hard. This makes sense because what I know is that unions are usually made to help and protect employees and make sure that they are treated fairly. This however, worked in the opposite way. Because the unions protect the employees, the employees can get away with maybe not working as hard as they can. For the most part, Jenna and her dad both didn’t really sound too fond of unions.
I think that it is pretty obvious where each of us got our views on unions from. Jenna’s dad, being a union worker, doesn’t necessarily agree with the union that he works for. For example, something may come up at work where one of his colleagues isn’t pulling his weight. It will be very hard for that employee to get fired because the union will most likely back him up. In my case, while talking to my brother, I got the feeling that unions are good and they do a lot to make sure the working environment is fair for all of the employees.