In fact, only social democratic countries --real ones, not those governed by leftish (allegedly "socialist") parties, in alternation with rightist ones-- that is, European Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and then Norway) are good examples. — Alkis Piskas

I fully agree with you!

Unions are paid by their members; they don't pay their members! — Alkis Piskas

My understanding is that American unions generally pay their members during a strike. — BC

In Spain, as well as in Greece, the trade unions do not pay their members whether they want to strike or not. It is the opposite, the workers are the ones who pay fees to the trade union that are part in, but the unions are not a guarantee for the worker's incomes if they go on strike.

I thought this as granted, but I learnt in this thread that it is obvious some unions are more effective than others. I started this OP in my own national perspective and maybe that's why some of you see it as unrealistic, because in your country the scab is covered by the trade union. Well, that's not the reality of each nation...

Now, I can understand why some of you folks consider the scab a selfish relatively.

That business of locking health care to employment is insidious.

Back when (say... post WWII boom years) many workers had employment with the same company for a long time, it made more sense than it does now, where many workers change employers maybe every 5 years. Before employers started offering health care coverage (like before WWII) workers had to buy their own coverage, if they could afford it. f

[aside: American religious organizations operated many of the health care institutions 'back then' and were prepared to provide 'charity' care to people in straitened economic circumstances. That helped a lot, and they offered pretty good care, on average. That all began to unravel in in the 1960s into the '70s when religious organizations started losing congregants (and $$$), and Catholic orders shrank drastically. Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians... all withdrew from healthcare or their facilities became "non-profit" organizations which turned out to be... quite profitable.]

In the 1960s Medicaid was introduced which was paid for health care for indigent people -- people on welfare, the working poor, etc. A big leap forward. About the same time, Medicare was created to provide health care to the elderly--another big leap forward.

There were no new initiatives that made it into law until Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act - ACA) was passed with Republicans kicking and screaming. The ACA doesn't pay for health care; it established a market for affordable health insurance--a helpful, but not huge, leap forward. It also trimmed the sails of commercial insurance companies abilities to deny coverage for "preexisting conditions", for children who turned 21, and so forth.

Quite a few democrats (from liberal northern states) like the idea of single-payer insurance where the government acts as the single sole health insurer. It gives Americans to the right of Karl Marx cardiac arrest just thinking about "socialized medicine" so it's not likely to happen in the near or medium future. As Keynes said, "in the long run we're all dead."

BTW, it was unions that established the principle of the employer paying for health insurance.

If a walkout [UAW - United Auto Workers, US] occurs, workers would receive about $500 a week —far short of what they earn while they're working. As a result, millions of dollars in wages would be removed from the economy.

[CUPE - Canadian Union of Public Employees] Members receive strike pay at a rate of $15 per hour, with a maximum of 20 hours per week of strike duties.

[according to German Labour Law] During industrial action, trade union members normally receive strike assistance, which is paid by the trade union and of which the amount is 2/3 of the gross income. Other employees who are directly affected by the strike receive social security payments from the State.

In NorwayThe compensation usually amounts to somewhere around 70 percent of your gross salary, but as it's tax-free, people are typically paid roughly the same as their regular net salary.

That's what members pay union dues for. Just as employees pay into a pension plan, unemployment and health insurance plans.

It is fascinating because the act of acting individually in modern society is punished by the group, whether you have reasons to do so. My conclusion is that we have to cooperate, because others would see us as "selfish", "traitor", "a black sheep", etc. — javi2541997

That's what all societies expect. Obey the law - yes, even the petty traffic rules. Serve in the armed forces if there is war. Send your children to school. Pay your taxes. Pay your debts.
It's what every collective expects. If you join a golf club, you pay your fees, wear the right shoes, keep honest score, stay on the cart track, keep quite when others are hitting.
No collective can function without so-operation and giving up some individual freedom. If you want to be a loner, go it alone, but if you want the benefits of a society, pay your dues and mind the rules. When you take a job in a union shop and accept the wages and benefits that union has previously won through collective action, you commit to collective action.

BTW, it was unions that established the principle of the employer paying for health insurance. — BC

That's interesting - an act of desperation? The result is a health system that is overly expensive.

Australians receive free health care at public hospitals. Other types of health care are covered by a combination of private and government payments. The scheme is an unstable compromise between the ideologies of the two main parties, one of which is a Labor party funded in the main by unions. We also have a seperate scheme to support folk with disabilities, another Labor initiative.

In the US, hospitals are required to render care in emergency rooms, regardless of ability to pay. However, if you need hospital care once the emergency treatment is finished, then you are back on your own again. No insurance? Tough luck.

Publicly funded benefits have always been grudgingly provided, against the wishes of the ruling class--even against the wishes of the conservative American Medical Association. Those with money, even those in the professional class who are often not close to being rich, tend to think like self-made Republican bankers. They don't want to see the poor or working class people "getting something for nothing" -- forgetting that many of them got quite a lot of something for nothing during their first 25 years of life. They also don't see "something for nothing" in the many tax breaks the wealthy get.

All that is why the US has dragged behind other industrialized countries in providing public services, health services, and so on. In the three major actions to create Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA--from the 1930s onward, hard-core conservatives have been willing to contest the legitimacy of the benefits in court.

Yes, it's tragic. I'm suggesting it goes hand-in-hand with the lack of a strong relation between unions and a political party.

That's what all societies expect. Obey the law - yes, even the petty traffic rules. Serve in the armed forces if there is war. Send your children to school. Pay your taxes. Pay your debts.
It's what every collective expects. If you join a golf club, you pay your fees, wear the right shoes, keep honest score, stay on the cart track, keep quite when others are hitting.
No collective can function without so-operation and giving up some individual freedom. If you want to be a loner, go it alone, but if you want the benefits of a society, pay your dues and mind the rules. When you take a job in a union shop and accept the wages and benefits that union has previously won through collective action, you commit to collective action.

A collective that excludes the needs and wants of its own members is not a collective, least of all any sort of community. At best it is an aggregate of factions, each concerned with their own advantage. Whoever makes the rules and to whom we pay our dues is the only collective that matters in any of your analogies. As you mentioned the rest are expected to pay up and fall in line. In my mind it sounds more anti-social than social, anti-society than society.

A collective that excludes the needs and wants of its own members is not a collective, least of all any sort of community. — NOS4A2

Which collective? Which of its members? Every nation-state excludes of the needs and wants of some citizens - often, the majority of its citizens - and yet demands their absolute loyalty and ultimate sacrifice.

As you mentioned the rest are expected to pay up and fall in line. — NOS4A2

Yes. The miners are expected to be loyal to the owner, who is free to fire them at any time. They have to pay their taxes, while the owner can write off his private jet as a business expense. The miners are far more likely to die in work accidents than the owners who cut costs by reducing the number of pillars. The workers are supposed to understand that their livelihood depends on the owner, but the owner can forget that he's nothing without the workers.

In a union, at least no pigs are born more equal than any horses.

I agree with your view that strong pro-labor and progressive politics requires "a strong relation between unions and a political party". Whatever they may say, the two political parties in the US are pro-capital, and at best lukewarm about labor, unless than can be outright hostile.

The official name of the Democratic Party in my state (Minnesota) is the Democratic Farmer Labor party. The Democrats merged with the larger leftist Farmer Labor party in 1944.

Hubert H. Humphrey was a key player in the fusion. Humphrey was mostly on the solidly liberal side of politics. When he was elected mayor of Minneapolis in '47, he led the attack on entrenched antisemitism in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, the progressivism faded. 40 years later, DFL governor Rudy Perpich sent the national guard into Austin, MN to help break the union strike against Hormel, pork and beef processor and maker of Spam.

I gather that Labor had its heyday in the States with the new deal, dropping off after the war, but in Europe and Australia that heyday came post-war, leading to greater social reform than in the States - Galbraith's 'affluent society', the end results of failure to invest in the common wealth being the social disparity that incongruously leads to support for oligarchs...

Odd times.

but if you want the benefits of a society, pay your dues and mind the rules. — Vera Mont

Which are those "benefits"?

It occurs in any collective where the people are bound by no more than some inkling of an idea. It could be a nation, a race, the greater good, the common weal, a union, and so on—not any actual entity or anything that can be pointed to, let alone be social with, but an epitaph on a fleeting sensation of one’s own brain. It’s easier to afford rights to this idea than it is to do so for flesh-and-blood human beings because in the end it’s easier to afford rights to oneself.

It seems to me that if a fellow worker has fallen on hard times the others ought to rally around him and help him rather than to penalize him, ostracize him, and abandon him to the whims of some union administration. But that would be the social thing to do.

I Google-translated the first para of the article. It seems that there is a kind of compensation from union funds for the workers for ther loss of income during strikes. But under certain conditions. Anyway, it's interesting.
Thanks for the ref.

I

The 'pros' and 'cons' list is not balanced. The 'pro' side is far stronger than the 'con' side. — BC

Maybe so. I have not weighed them on a scale. :smile:
I just mentioned that there are pros and cons, to show that unions are not always or necessarily the best solution.

unions generally pay their members during a strike. — BC

Maybe in some cases and countries. But this is not a regular pay. It's a kind of compensation.
Anyway, my reaction to the payment of the members by the union was maybe wrong. I meant regular payment. But a compensation is a payment too. So you are right.

I just came upon the following from https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-survive-a-strike:
"Unions typically set up a strike fund to help members cope with the loss of income during a strike. Union member dues support the strike fund, and each union has rules about how much members can draw from it."
I guess that works as a kind of insurance premiums. Interesting.

Doesn't the union provide income during the strike? — Benkei

Benkei, my reaction to the payment of the members by the union was too absolute and so in part wrong. I referred to regular payment, income, as you said. I was also referring esp. to Greece. But as I learned on the road, in some cases and countries, there's a kind of compentation by the unions to the workers for their loss of income during strikes. And a compensation is a payment too.
Sorry about that, anyway.

the unions are not a guarantee for the worker's incomes if they go on strike. — javi2541997

Yes, this is the central idea, I think.

I learnt in this thread that it is obvious some unions are more effective than others. — javi2541997

Right. I learned about that too in the way! :smile:

No problem. It's interesting to see quite a few people in this thread were unaware this is relatively common. I think unions are fantastic. They managed to get people the right of freedom of association. A right we have thanks to the early unions and gives individuals the right to get together and to collectively pursue an objective. Without unions we wouldn't have HS&E laws in the workplace either. They're an important countervailing power against corporate and monied power that love externalising costs unto their employees.

OK. I understand that you have valid reasons for saying all that and that you have personally benefited from being a union member ...

I've never been a union member but I'm a trained human rights lawyer. People underestimate the good unions have brought because especially Americans are hung-up on the mob influence on the unions in the past. It's not representative of its history.

You'd still be working six days a week, starting at 8 AM until past midnight (90+ work week, hooray), no holidays, no paid leave for family deaths or health issues. They ended indentured labour. Women would still not be voting because mass protests wouldn't be accepted and women's suffrage movement would never have been possible. And they did all that in the face of corporate and government backed violence. When unions were most powerful, income inequality was lowest.

Do not underestimate the good we enjoy now that we only have thanks to unions. Those early unionists were some of the bravest and morally upright persons, who not only fought for their own good but that of all labourers, even those who weren't brave enough to stand up for themselves.

yep.

I'm a trained human rights lawyer. People underestimate the good unions have brought because especially Americans are hung-up on the mob influence on the unions in the past. It's not representative of its history. — Benkei

Oh, then you should tell so --that you are an insider-- from the beginning ... I would have been more careful in the way I expressed my comment! :grin:

Yet, you have to do justice to me regarding the "income" part, which refers to a regular pay, whereas a compensation is just a special and occasional payment.
Besides, I don't know if even such compensation exists in most countries. Certainly, not in Greece. Where, BTW syndicalism is considered by many as a permanent ode to the evils of the Greek economy and development. Working for the state and knowning that it is very difficult to get fired, makes for lazy and incometent employees and workers. That is why Greece is so much behind in infrastructures, public services and facilities, etc. than other members of the EU.

&Yes, income was the wrong choice of words by me.

There's no one way to arrange this and I suspect you have much more information and "insider" knowledge to know everything that's wrong with the Greek system. The Dutch system looks horrible a lot of the time as well but pretty good when compared to UK or USA, for instance.

I think we could relax employee protections provided we create a good safety net. That should include options to learn new trades at no cost and substantial efforts in combatting discrimination (age, sex, ethnicity, etc.) would go a long way as well.

The other side of the coin of employee protections is also that employees feel safe to speak out against corruption or to challenge management views. And diversity of views makes for more profitable companies as well. It's very hard to get fired in the Netherlands as well, probably not much easier than in Greece (if at all, I haven't compared the two). The problem is often that those advocating for relaxing employee protections do it for the wrong reasons (the ephermal market) and would double-down by also cutting unemployment benefits or otherwise make life harder for the unemployed as a perverse incentive to force them to work as soon as possible. Whereas we're probably better off (morally as well as economically) with people doing what they want to do instead of what they have to do to avoid starving.

Where, BTW syndicalism is considered by many as a permanent ode to the evils of the Greek economy and development. Working for the state and knowning that it is very difficult to get fired, makes for lazy and incometent employees and workers. That is why Greece is so much behind in infrastructures, public services and facilities, etc. than other members of the EU. — Alkis Piskas

I know what you feel because it happens the same here. Trade unions are considered as a socialist lobby. But this is not a complot from the media, it is literally a leftist thing and they do not operate objectively against companies. Although I understand that syndicalism comes from Marxism, I think that they are scavengers of resources nowadays.

On the other hand, trade unions tend to parasite in some working areas. For example: trucks, trains, and everything related to transportation. Most of the members of these lobbies have been there for decades and just face the system or government for personal and selfish aims.

Spain is behind in all of those resources as well. I think this is due to how our representatives act. Instead of looking for a real collective goal, most of them act selfishly and make traps during the process. They are not Alternative Dispute Resolution. They are the ones who create the dispute!

All that is very interesting, Benkei. Thank you for sharing. :up:

Ha! I read this after I responding in the Inbox. So you can get a slight idea how it is with Greece. And I me, with Spain. :smile:

but if you want the benefits of a society, pay your dues and mind the rules. — Vera Mont

Which are those "benefits — javi2541997

I believe that your country has feeble, underfunded and possibly criminal trade unions. Corruption can happen anywhere. But I imagine you still have police and fire departments, roads, bridges, harbours, traffic lights, schools, hospitals, old age pensions, media and communication network, electricity, public transit and sanitation, running water and sewer systems... those benefits.

It seems to me that if a fellow worker has fallen on hard times the others ought to rally around him and help him rather than to penalize him, ostracize him, and abandon him to the whims of some union administration. But that would be the social thing to do. — NOS4A2

Every year, more than 25 scholarships, bursaries, awards and grants – totalling more than $300,000 – are available to UFCW Canada members and families.

Unionized workers typically bargain for a package of wages and health benefits — giving them a vested interest in containing health care costs. And some union members have more than just skin in the game; they also have a seat at the table when it comes to deciding on their health benefits.

He hasn't been ostracized and abandoned. He's still deciding whether to betray and abandon his fellow workers. Even though he has been enjoying whatever benefits the union previously won by putting their own livelihoods on the line.
Meanwhile, the company that offered him no health insurance will abandon him when they close the mine, pull out all their money and set up again in some other country where people are even cheaper.