• TheEmpireStrikesDak@thelemmy.club
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    5 months ago

    Why are union subs so high in the US? As a part time worker I pay under a tenner a month, but even as a full time worker, I’d be paying £16.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Because here they have to fight constantly and legal battles are expensive as shit in the US.

    • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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      5 months ago

      Last I was in one it wasn’t nearly that much, but that was a couple decades back. My best guess is that so many places try to kill the unions by passing ‘right to work’ laws where people are not obligated to join even in a union voted shop. It makes it pretty tough to force a good deal when only a fraction of the workers are in and paying while they probably live in an area where people aren’t concerned about working across a line.

      • tech@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Woah, a correct reference to “right to work” state. Nice!

        I can also attest to the higher dues because of RTW policies. I was once in a union that included all the restaurant service workers at an American airport. The servers and bartenders made excellent money and it was a viable career, thus the union made sense.

        But, our union also included the food court workers, who were generally younger and didn’t view their job as a career. Most of them opted out of paying dues as health care and future raises weren’t their concern.

        There was also the issue of the servers paychecks being too low to pay dues as well. Since taxes had to be paid on credit card tips, our checks were often $0 so we had to manually pay dues. That never happened though…

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    “Explain how!”

    “Collective bargaining is a means of using a large labor base to argue for better wages and benefits!”

  • Capitao_Duarte@lemmy.eco.br
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    5 months ago

    Not American, but my union gets 1% of my payment every month. But every year, almost, we get raises and benefits from this

  • MissJinx@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Not American but my union deduct 10 dolars from my payment every month to cover union costs. It does it with thousands. Is it too much? Yes. But everyone got 10% payment increase this year plus some benefit increases too. i’m not going to complain

    • Clent@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      $120 a year is too much to justify a 10% raise?

      That’s some bad cost benefit analysis.

      • Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Maybe the pay is so low to begin with that a ten percent raise is less than the 10 dollars in union dues a paycheck.

        $520 a year isn’t much though, if your first 20 minutes of work for the pay period pays your dues then you have another 39.66 hours of money that is for you and your creditors.

        • Clent@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          What math are you using?

          They said $10 per month. You use pay period. Then you switch to weekly pay.

          This highlights another reason for unionization, using people who understand accounting to determine what is a good deal for the workers.

    • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I’m not American either, and I have no idea how much I pay my union. They’ve made sure I had several increases in salary in addition for the yearly rise, and I get several insurances for a better price than if I were to buy them for my self.

      Last year the collective raise wasn’t that high, but they made sure my colleagues with lower salary than me got it instead, and I expect the same thing will happen this year.

      I’m totally fine with that because that is what I voted for to happen. My salary is good enough for now, and I want to make sure others are taken care of.

      • Slatlun@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Totally, my union got us bonuses in our last negotiations. The lower your salary the higher your bonus. The only way to have it be fair at all as I see it.

  • twoshoes@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’ve just looked it up and I’ve paid ~300€ last year. But only because I neglected to tell them, that I’ve started training for a new job so my dues would actually be much lower. I’ve just changed it and this year I will pay maybe 30€ or so

    Edit: My math was way off ^^’ it’s actually more like 150€/year right now.

    Though they do take a percentage of income before taxes, so I think it’s still very fair.

  • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Not to forget the union puts restrictions on how often the boss can call you out, so you may actually have the time to play those video games.

  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Would you rather have no money and three video games or no video games and three money?

  • xX_fnord_Xx@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The grocery/retail worker Union in my city sucks for newbs. Takes a large chunk of your paycheck every two weeks until you gain seniority after 24 months, then you can be a lazy bastard as much as you want.

    Unions are great, some suck.

    I should’ve been a teamster, so lazy and surly…

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      two years seems like a really long time when you’re in the middle of it.

      But two years really is a long time to have huge chunk of already low paycheck taken out. 🫤 How do people survive those first two years?