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fix
Guest
These are very thoughtful and considered comments.
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katherine2
Guest
No Union has ever opposed pay raises based on performance.
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katherine2
Guest
Southwest is a unionized airline. Thank you for proving my point.
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buffalo
Guest
Yes they have! All the time.
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JamesD
Guest
In all the unions I have worked with it has always been pay based on job function only, the only exception being the occasional premium for seniority. My experience is that unions strictly oppose performance based pay.
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katherine2
Guest
Union don’t. The issue is having some standards for definintion of performance rather than the boss gets to unilaterially decide who gets raises and who doesn’t.
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buffalo
Guest
Unions do not support performance reviews. They support protecting the lowest denominator.
If unions supported performance reviews they would cease to have any membership and the ones who were fired for non-performance would then be subject to merit.
If unions supported performance reviews they would cease to have any membership and the ones who were fired for non-performance would then be subject to merit.
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BLB_Oregon
Guest
That is a low blow. There is no reason to issue a blanket insult to hard-working union members over a few bad apples. Those situations frustrate them, too.
Unions exist because employee-employer relations were a power struggle that few individual workers had the leverage to win. Unions can be misused and can even be violent, but they provide a non-violent avenue for workers to insist on just treatment, if workers elect to use them that way.
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buffalo
Guest
83 steps and over $500,000 to remove a teacher from the classroom. That should frustrate the good ones. They should move to change the union rather than accept the status quo.
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BLB_Oregon
Guest
buffalo said:
You’re right about that: unions aren’t going to be any better than the membership makes them.
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mlchance
Guest
BENTONVILLE, AR—Wal-Mart, the world’s largest discount retailer, announced its biggest-ever rollback Monday, with employee pay cuts of up to 35 percent.
“Just in time for the holiday shopping season, we’re rolling back the hourly wages of workers in every department—housewares, automotive, health and beauty, and so many more!” Wal-Mart president and CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced at a press conference. “From Baton Rouge to Boise, we’re continuing our tradition of low, low prices and using our muscle to create unbelievable savings!”
“For us!” Scott added.
Scott then turned to a large projection screen on which the company’s trademark yellow happy face whizzed through the aisles of a Wal-Mart, enthusiastically “slashing” the hourly wages of employees all over the store.
“Paying $7.75 an hour for a Class-2 cashier with fewer than two years’ experience?” a cheery narrator asked in amused disbelief. “How about $6.50? And $8.45 an hour for a dockworker to unload boxes of bath towels all day? We think $6.75 sounds more like it!”
In addition to wage rollbacks, Scott said Wal-Mart will discontinue a number of shelf-stocking, warehousing, and sales-floor jobs that have been occupying valuable space on the payroll.
“Why, some of those old stockers have been collecting dust in our aisles and ledgers for five years,” the narrator said as the smiley-face ushered reluctant ex-employees and their bloated wages to the parking lot. “It’s time for a store-wide clearance! Out with the old and in with the new!”
The beaming smiley-face then placed a sign reading “Help Wanted—$5.15/Hour” in a window and welcomed in a long line of smiling job applicants bearing brand-new high-school diplomas, military discharge papers, and green cards.
“Wal-Mart is the place to find the latest of everything!” the narrator said. “The benefits of having long-time employees around don’t add up to the benefits we have to pay them. It’s time for newer, fresher, cheaper faces!”
As a result of the announcement, Wal-Mart’s stock rose 20 points Monday.
“We’re very excited,” Wal-Mart stockholder James Seaton said. “After all, everyone loves a good value. And you can’t beat the combination of low cost and high quality you find in good old-fashioned American labor.”
According to Scott, employees at all 1,362 Wal-Marts, 1,671 Supercenters, and 550 Sam’s Clubs will be notified of the rollbacks this week by greeters stationed at the employee entrance of each store. Greeters will address employees by their first names, shake their hands, and inform them of the store’s special new wage plan. Those who remain on staff will find red “Wage Rollback!” stickers on their time cards in celebration of the occasion and in compliance with the scant federal regulations protecting minimum-wage earners.
“Wow! A 24 percent reduction!” said Harold Reis, who works in the garden department in a Marshfield, WI Wal-Mart. “I can’t believe it! Why, I never saw cuts like this when I used to work at the family-owned Seubert Greenhouse!”
“But that was a few years ago,” Reis added. “Nowadays, you can drive all over town looking for someplace to pay you more, but good luck. Wal-Mart is the single biggest employer in 21 states!”
In spite of the savings on labor, Wal-Mart director of human resources Lawrence Jackson said he isn’t worried about incurring losses.
“What we might lose in terms of shrinkage of our work force, we’ll make back almost immediately,” Jackson said. “That’s what’s so great about being a part of so many small communities across the country—once we get a location up and running, people find out they can’t afford not to work for us!”
In a related plan, Jackson said Wal-Mart plans to slash the prices it pays for manufactured goods in various Pacific Rim and South American countries by 20, 30, and even 40 percent.
– Mark L. Chance.
“Just in time for the holiday shopping season, we’re rolling back the hourly wages of workers in every department—housewares, automotive, health and beauty, and so many more!” Wal-Mart president and CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced at a press conference. “From Baton Rouge to Boise, we’re continuing our tradition of low, low prices and using our muscle to create unbelievable savings!”
“For us!” Scott added.
Scott then turned to a large projection screen on which the company’s trademark yellow happy face whizzed through the aisles of a Wal-Mart, enthusiastically “slashing” the hourly wages of employees all over the store.
“Paying $7.75 an hour for a Class-2 cashier with fewer than two years’ experience?” a cheery narrator asked in amused disbelief. “How about $6.50? And $8.45 an hour for a dockworker to unload boxes of bath towels all day? We think $6.75 sounds more like it!”
In addition to wage rollbacks, Scott said Wal-Mart will discontinue a number of shelf-stocking, warehousing, and sales-floor jobs that have been occupying valuable space on the payroll.
“Why, some of those old stockers have been collecting dust in our aisles and ledgers for five years,” the narrator said as the smiley-face ushered reluctant ex-employees and their bloated wages to the parking lot. “It’s time for a store-wide clearance! Out with the old and in with the new!”
The beaming smiley-face then placed a sign reading “Help Wanted—$5.15/Hour” in a window and welcomed in a long line of smiling job applicants bearing brand-new high-school diplomas, military discharge papers, and green cards.
“Wal-Mart is the place to find the latest of everything!” the narrator said. “The benefits of having long-time employees around don’t add up to the benefits we have to pay them. It’s time for newer, fresher, cheaper faces!”
As a result of the announcement, Wal-Mart’s stock rose 20 points Monday.
“We’re very excited,” Wal-Mart stockholder James Seaton said. “After all, everyone loves a good value. And you can’t beat the combination of low cost and high quality you find in good old-fashioned American labor.”
According to Scott, employees at all 1,362 Wal-Marts, 1,671 Supercenters, and 550 Sam’s Clubs will be notified of the rollbacks this week by greeters stationed at the employee entrance of each store. Greeters will address employees by their first names, shake their hands, and inform them of the store’s special new wage plan. Those who remain on staff will find red “Wage Rollback!” stickers on their time cards in celebration of the occasion and in compliance with the scant federal regulations protecting minimum-wage earners.
“Wow! A 24 percent reduction!” said Harold Reis, who works in the garden department in a Marshfield, WI Wal-Mart. “I can’t believe it! Why, I never saw cuts like this when I used to work at the family-owned Seubert Greenhouse!”
“But that was a few years ago,” Reis added. “Nowadays, you can drive all over town looking for someplace to pay you more, but good luck. Wal-Mart is the single biggest employer in 21 states!”
In spite of the savings on labor, Wal-Mart director of human resources Lawrence Jackson said he isn’t worried about incurring losses.
“What we might lose in terms of shrinkage of our work force, we’ll make back almost immediately,” Jackson said. “That’s what’s so great about being a part of so many small communities across the country—once we get a location up and running, people find out they can’t afford not to work for us!”
In a related plan, Jackson said Wal-Mart plans to slash the prices it pays for manufactured goods in various Pacific Rim and South American countries by 20, 30, and even 40 percent.
– Mark L. Chance.
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Brad
Guest
Katherine - not too many of your points would I approve except in your imagination.
I studied Southwest. They treated their employees well as a matter of policy - it had nothing to do with unions.
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Brad
Guest
That’s just plain wrong or purposefully misleading. A union(not a proper noun by the way) would never turn down pay raises for all employess but a great many large unions will not allow someone that has been working under the union rules for 5 years to make more than someone that has been working under the union rules for 15, regardless of performance.
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Brad
Guest
This is hysterical Katherine. You support extremely simple objective standards for job performance (which does not reward an employee for complex skills) but you support subjectively complex analysis for moral debauchery.
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jlw
Guest
:clapping: Ah, liberalism in one sentence.
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katherine2
Guest
First of all, unions don’t have the ability to not allow anything. They can only bargain with management.
Secondly, you are full of horse hockey. I worked 20 years as a lady member of the Steelworkers Union (while raising my kids – successfully-- including one son a priest).
You also don’t know diddly about Southwest Airlines.
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Zoot
Guest
Does anyone know of a Walmart anywhere that pays less than $7.00?
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Zoot
Guest
Teachers unions routinely oppose merit increases.
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Zoot
Guest
One of the objectives of a union is to protect the jobs of their members. This means protecting both the competent and incompetent. Merit pay points out the incompetent and makes it much more difficult to get raises for their incompetent performance. Unions want absolutely no differentiation between employees based on performance.
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Zoot
Guest
Did journeymen steelworkers have merit pay? How did it work?
When there was more work than the union could handle, did they open their doors to new members, or did they call in travellers?
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