• LethalSmack@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Edit: I’m mixing up a at will employment with right to work. Sorry for the confusion. See updated comment below:

    Right to work: Joining a union and paying union dues can no longer be a requirement of employment. This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers

    Right to work At will employment is: A right to be fired at any point for any reason or no reason at all

    The goal is to get around any union protections that require things like a legitimate reason to be fired from a job.

    It also has the added bonus of drastically reducing the benefits of unions and making them much easier to prevent.

    • A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com
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      2 hours ago

      This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers

      I’m not sure I buy into that - but that said I live in a country where unions are popular, but unions are not allowed to force people to join (but unions do have a right of access to workplaces to ask people to join / hold meetings).

      Firstly, it doesn’t take that big a percentage of an employer’s workforce to strike before a strike is effective… companies don’t have a lot of surplus staff capacity just sitting around doing nothing. And they can’t fire striking union workers for striking.

      Secondly, if all employees have to belong to one particular union, that also means the employees have no choice of which union, and hence no leverage over the union. Bad unions who just agree to whatever the employer asks and don’t look after their members then become entrenched and the employees can’t do much. If there are several unions representing employees, they can still unite and work together if they agree on an issue - but there is much more incentive for unions to act in the interests of their members, instead of just their leadership.

      A lack of guaranteed employee protections, on the other hand, is inexcusable - it’s just wealthy politicians looking out for the interests of their donors in big business.

    • Dagrothus@reddthat.com
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      17 hours ago

      I love how we name laws that really mean the exact opposite of what their name implies. Very american.

    • mesamune@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      No union I’ve ever been part of required me being in it in order to work at a place. It was always optional. So strange.

      • WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Are you in a right to work state? That might be why, at least in Oregon when I got a job as a cashier it automatically made me a part of the union.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      Being fired for any or no reason is at will employment.

      Right to work has nothing to do with that. It’s about allowing people to not pay union dues. Those people are still protected by the union contract.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      The way I try to remember it is that it comes from the employers perspective:

      • Right to Work employees to death by ignoring unions
      • The employer has the right to fire workers At Will