Union Busting: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

At my last job our union dues were 1.4% of our salary a year, flat rate. They then negotiated a 30% raise for us to match the industry standard we'd been asking for for years lol. Well worth it

I've been a union member for over 15 years, and it's turned into something that I'm insulted for by strangers on the internet lately. Unions are essential to keep capitalism in check.

"Union dues are around $700/yr." Oh no. The horror. For those who aren't mathematically inclined, that works out to about $0.35/hr assuming a 40 hour work week. If you manage to form a union and it gets you a raise of just $1.00/hr, it's already paid for itself nearly 3x over. Unionizing is just better. Period. I work at a hospital where the nurses have a union, but nobody else does. The nurses get 11 paid holidays, we only get 7. The nurses get to negotiate their salaries every few years, we get what they give us. The nurses are actually protected from the "thrown under the bus" trick, we aren't. Hell, the nurses' union even tried to negotiate a pay raise for ALL staff because they saw us being underpaid and overworked. Unions are good. The end.

That "Buy video games instead of unions" bit could've been the perfect time to bring up how exploited and in need of unions the video game industry is.

Never forget the time the American company Toys “R” Us came to Sweden and refused to sign with the union, expecting to be able to treat their employees as bad as they had in the US and instead ended up being boycotted by 70 countries because the Swedish retail union organized a strike. The union made sure they got no shipments to or from their stores, no money transferred via the banks, and no possibility to advertise in local or national media. They ended up being forced to sign the agreement giving workers better wages and safety. And thats the power of the unions.

As a union member, I can confirm that the ~700 usd a year for union dues is about correct (it's ~600 usd for me), but employers tend to leave out the part that for many unions, the cost of your healthcare is INCLUDED in those dues. I pay LESS for union dues that include BETTER healthcare than the cost of my WORSE healthcare when I previously worked for Amazon, without union dues. Edit: For those asking, the union I'm currently employed under is the Teamsters Union. At my current job, we pay a monthly due based on our hourly wage, which covers membership AND our healthcare.

Congrats to the Staten Island Amazon warehouse for unionizing!

It’s baffling as a European . I just went online and signed up for my union and my employer could do jack shit about it . Actually they started treating me better once they knew I was in the biggest union representing our industry

As a member of a union, I get paid $32 an hour to cook food. Free medical dental optical, 1 month paid vacation, and pto and esl. Dues are like $60 a month. Unionizing is always the correct choice.

Unions are a lot like condoms. If someone is weirdly stubborn about how you don't need one, you definitely need one.

I worked for a company of about 500 people. We used to joke that if you ever needed the one of the owners/COO for something all you had to do was say in your outside voice "We ought to form a union!" And he'd immediately appear out of no where.

Rewatching one week before I go on strike with UPS for a fair union contract.

I've worked at two companies that do the same thing. (I repair sewers for a living) the nonunion paid me 40k less a year, made me pay for my own insurance, also had no pension. My union job pays me 80k a year, pays my insurance for myself and my kids. I also have a pension. Laborers local 42 has has changed my life.

Imagine spending 300 million dollars on making workers' lives shittier instead of just using that money to pay them a reasonable wage.

I love how the U.S has huge controversies over things the rest of the world just does automatically.

"We're a family and you employees are children" is exactly how I view it if in an interview the employer says "we're a family here". It's a huge red flag, because in the hierarchy of a "family" they will see themselves as knowing what's best even when it's wrong and not listening to the newer or lower rated people in the staff. They view it as a "you live in my house you follow my rules" kind of way, and pretend to care about you.

Unions do a lot more than just secure higher wages. They also improve job security, prevent workplace harassment, and improve workplace safety.

Companies: “We can’t give you that $1/HR raise you asked for.” Also companies: We are going to spend $300 million hiring an union busting firm.

Watching this again durning the actor & writer strike. All I can think of is the executive who admitted on the record that their plan for the strike was to let people starve and lose their housing so they’d be forced to accept a bad deal. If/when I enter the job market after college I am joining a union. And if there isn’t a union to join I will fight to get one set up.

I was in one of those "but your wages could go down" unions. The extra .50/hr we got was entirely devoured by union dues... I'm still pro-union. I remember getting someone fired once when they told me that I couldn't carry my asthma puffer on me. I told him I wanted it in writing for the union to have a look at. He backed down, I reported it and he still got canned for it. Turns out it wasn't the first time he'd pulled shit like that and the union remembered.