Students have been bombarded with immature letters being exchanged between union advocates and challengers on The Poly’s editorial pages. They’ve walked past men hanging around a giant inflatable rat on sunny days protesting something union-related. If that was not enough, they even received a biased Campus.News bulletin from the Institute a few weeks ago degrading the union. At this point, it’s no doubt that most RPI students lack sympathy for the unionization efforts of workers everywhere.
When having discussions with friends, I’ve had people tell me that union workers are lazy, that they get paid too much and do too little, and that if they don’t like the conditions they’re working under, they should look for a job elsewhere.
I’ve taken economics. I know these are all valid points, however, despite what your experiences at RPI may lead you to infer, unions aren’t always bad.
When we graduate from RPI, we expect to get a job offer or two. We also expect to have the chance to negotiate the salary, vacations, and benefits. Often, when making an hourly wage, people are forced to take what they get. Union negotiations force firms to come to the table and look at their laborers as equals. Through unions, many employees are able to recieve paid vacations and health benefits that salaried workers take for granted.
Most people don’t like the idea of sweatshops, but many people are against unions. Though the situation in a third world country is vastly different from what’s going on in the United States, the theory is the same. Unions force firms to pay living wages. Yes, someone can go from job to job if they aren’t happy—but so can someone in a third world country. However, this isn’t always a viable option, especially for people supporting a family; even a sub-standard salary is better than nothing at all. It’s not fair that someone could work 50 hours a week and still not support their family. Ideally, unions make sure that this doesn’t happen.
The necessity of a union is really dependent on the situation. They can be good. They can also be bad, as you’ve seen. But remember, like the male-female ratio, the unions’ actions here are another reason that RPI isn’t like the real world.
