This is a story that my wife's uncle told about working in an OPEN shop at Boeing (Seattle). At one time, Boeing was an open shop, being it was voluntary to be a Union member (or Not). This wasn't a state (right to work for less) Law, but was part of the Union contract with Boeing, probable came about right after the War went the Aircraft industry was barely making it and many of the WWII Aircraft companies were going under.

Uncle Bill told stories of Union Members drilling into the tool boxes on the non-Union works and pumping them full of grease; sabotage their work, so they'd have to do it over; getting in their way and generally messing with them as much as possible.

As Boeing’s 707 passenger Jet, along with Military orders for the cold war, took off, during the "Boeing Bloom", the Union’s negotiated to have a closed Shop, ALL hourly works had to be Union, dues paying members.

Will company’s production efficiencies suffer in an OPEN shop? What about work place moral with paying and Non-paying workers?

Ken Ware: Yes, I see your point. I wasn't able to read the NY Times front page for yesterday 12/11/12..too late..it might be archived...so I don't know what article you refer to. Yes, I am in full agreement that had it not been for the unions we all would be working 18 hour days with slave wages and no benefits. No one would have been able to buy any of the products that they helped to manufacture..and I suppose even those top executives wouldn't even be as wealthy as they are today. Henry Ford had it right when he said that he was raising his workers wages so that they could afford to buy the products that they helped to make. It may not have really been a magnanimous deed after all...by creating an economy where people could actually spend more money...he was able to benefit himself.

Maybe what the workers in the United States should do is create an absolute worker's Union of the United States of America...as a bastion of protection against capitalists who have been steadily squeezing workers of America out of their decent wages and benefits and shipping our jobs overseas. Workers of the world unite...you have nothing left to lose but your chains!!!

Kend, wrong again. Your logic escapes me. If we are not forced to join unions, how can you justify the assertion that we are forced to pay them?! I give up. You apparently are incapable of absorbing anything. - Aliceinwonderland

I hope so too. The president dropped the ball and did not come to Wisconsin when the teacher's union was being attacked by Scott walker, so I am glad that he finally spoke out in Michigan, but I don't know what he can do when there are 30 Republican governers who are doing everything they can to destroy our demoracy, that does NOT belong to paid for politican and their greedy, criminal coporate counterparts, but belongs to US. This is just one battle. We need to fight on and those of us not in unions need to back up our brothers and sisters as we ALL benefit from an organized strong union-backed workforce

I'll answer those questions...
YES! YES! YES! YES! YESSSSSSS!!!

To expand on the "Liveable wage"...I think the federal minimum wage should be doubled, and Unions in their respectable States should require even higher wages (and benefits) when it comes to skilled trade and government jobs. It doesn't bennefit anyone to have people working for less than what meets the basic cost of living.
I have lived in California, Indiana, North Dakota, New York, and Florida...You can't afford the basic cost of living in any of those states if you are working for less than 16.00 per hour; especially if you have a family to support. Even than you are just making ends meet, and if you don't have a job that offers healthcare benefits...You and your family are screwed if you need any sort of medical treatment.

It is better to take care of your worker bees...You'll get mo-bettah-honey!

Excellent question...

And of course "global" two cents isn't worth much!
Skeeter, are you going to explain this????

We're waiting.

If you think for-profit, pay-or-die health "care" is so great, come check it out for yourself. Then you'll REALLY have something to cry about.

Have a lovely week. - Aliceinwonderland

Do you like working eight-hour days instead of twelve or sixteen-hour days? Having weekends & holidays off? Getting paid overtime for extra hours spent on the job? Do you want a clean, safe environment in which to work? Do you believe a fulltime job should pay a living wage? What is there about any of that you find so objectionable? How would it benefit you as an individual, to be deprived of such things? Please enlighten me.

Kend- who said anything about mandatory union memberships?! Sheer fantasy. For your information sir, it is ILLEGAL in this country to force anyone to join a union. So workers here already can choose whether or not to join, regardless of how much they've benefitted from the bargaining power that union has secured for them. I don't know what labor law is in Canada, but that's been the law here since 1947. So clearly, Mr. "Kend", you don't know what you're talking about.

When you ask such stupid rhetorical questions based on nothing of substance, you sound like a damn fool. Do you sincerely want to understand? My hunch is that anyone who tries to "help, as you've suggested, is just wasting time.

What I find so irritating about your input is the ignorance it shows. Apparently you don't know doodily-do about labor & union policy! You just keep spouting off hogwash like there's a serious disconnect between you and reality.

Palindromedary - I read the article on the front page of the N.Y. Times this morning. I did not read the whole article but I am sure you can read it online. I can understand the frustration of needing a union technician to check it out. Different jobs have different regulations and some can be a pain the butt. One of the reason some union agreements have this included in the contract is because of the employers constant attempts to use nonunion workers in the "shop". I have worked for companies where the management constantly tried to slip-in nonunion workers, so to prevent this unions have had to include specific regulations for outside personnel working in a union shop. For as long as I can remember it has been a constant battle between the union and the management to insource or outsource jobs. It is like the situation that occurred in the L.A. docks where management was trying to outsource some office jobs which is against the contract they signed, so all union members that work the docks and related jobs went on strike. If the dock workers did not support the office personnel the management would have started outsourcing all of their jobs. You need a union, especially in the present era or management will simply outsource your job for more profits. They do not care about the workers who are the people actually producing the profit. The only thing that is important to this type is higher profits and screw the workers for more profit. And the myth that you cannot fire a union worker is simply a lie to destroy the Unions today. Unions usually support the Democrat party and that is why the Republicans have been trying to destroy the unions for decades and decades. Without the unions the workers would be at the mercy of the management and we have seen how much they care about the workers.

I had to travel to a lot of places around the world...but mostly in the US..for most of my life..to work at various high tech factories that made integrated circuit chips. One place I had to go to, sometimes, was in Indiana where there was a major manufacturer that had a Union Shop.

As a representative for the equipment my company manufactured, I had to diagnose and repair that equipment when the Union equipment techs could not..so they called me in.

One thing I noticed was that I had to follow certain rules to avoid violating the union/company rules. And if I, or the Union workers, my overseers, slipped up and if I was seen working on the equipment without a Union rep present then the Union (or maybe it was the company) could be fined something like $100,000.

At most other non-union places, I'd just find the problem and repair it. Here, I had to diagnose the problem then have a Union "electrician" come in to, say, solder a wire or measure a voltage or replace a UV Lamp. If I found a pneumatic leak, I had to have a Union "plumber" come in to replace a defective valve. If I found a problem with a laser interferometer needing to be aligned or any other thing ..like a computer component to be replaced I had to have a Union technician actually do the work.

But sometime, with their blessing..if they liked me...I was allowed to actually make the repairs myself...as long as the appropriate Union worker was there to watch me. Oftentimes, if I found a problem and needed a Union rep to come in to fix the problem I had just found, they weren't available..working on another problem..or on strike (they would find a corner of the shop..fence off the small area with yellow "caution" or red "warning" tape and sit till their strike was over)....and I had to wait....boring!!!

What got me was that these Union workers all made a lot more money than I did...some had huge houses with 3 and 4 car garages sitting on 5-10 acre lots..I saw their pictures over their desks...and they had very expensive hobbies like race cars. But, I'd bet that none of the Union workers had bank accounts and property as lavish as any of the "suits". All this, granted, in an area that may not have been very expensive to live...nor expensive property values...but, I thought, I had kinda wished I had started work in one of those Union plants many years ago after I got out of the military. But then I wouldn't have had the opportunity to travel to all those far off exotic places either.

Another thing I noticed was the glaring animosity between "the suits" and the Union workers. Both, often staring each other down as they passed each other in the hall ways.

It was frustrating to me to have to put up with all of this Union overhead just to get my job done...and thought it was all pretty darn silly. But, I realized that they were just trying to protect their jobs in a corporate jungle that would tear them apart if they had the chance.

I had worked in a Union shop for about a year right after getting out of the military. It wasn't a big and powerful Union like in Indiana and the only thing I found peculiar was that whenever we had to attend a Union meeting...everyone would call each other "brother"...kind of like a religious revival..or something.

And aside from Unions protecting jobs, I also experienced countries...like Canada...protecting their jobs as well...when I had to go to Edmonton, I found it was not easy to get parts into and back out of Canada. They had to make things very difficult...just my being there at the University where they had equipment was a bit of a problem because I could be taking away some Canadian's job. Maybe one could think of Canada as being one big Union?

A Slave is just a worker who has lost his individual rights. A union worker is an indiidual member of a workers rights organization. Unions have been corrupt and decieptful and bogus at times just like the the corporations they negotiate with. Wealth by widgits. Some one who invents something and patents it assumes a risk that his widgit will sell. If it sells reasonably he will have a good middle class life, but if it sells big then it is like a huge windfall. The amount of money and power is enormous. Power surpses money early on in the game. There is therapy for gamblers and the likes but no therapy for the power junky. It must be fun herding livestock and managing their interest. It must also be sick. There are no kindly benevolent rulers. As Marx pointed out in the communist manifesto capitalism is doomed inspite of its creative power. It is ultimately doomed. It fails everyday by bankruptcies. Inevitably those who make or sell stuff run out of enough wage earners able to afford the stuff being sold. Since the late 60's captilaism has been patched by credit cards, home refinance, now by reverse mortgage. Most have lost their retirement, their homes, their ability to find living wage employment. It is a very vicious game. I personally grew up in an old world agricultural community were people practiced captialism and socialism simultaneously, without calling it either. They didn't question what they were doing or give it names other than neighborly and it worked to everyones advantage. I think it can still work but it doesn't serve the wealthy. It serves the people with kindness and sharing. I'll cut your wheat if you'll thresh mine. We will both go to market. It works.