Does the government do anything to require or very strongly "suggest" union membership in any industry?
Or, do any unions have "agreements" with companies which require that all their employees join a union?
Kind of.
Under U.S. law, in a company where the workers are campaigning to unionise, if the majority of workers vote to unionise, (I'm sure there are more legal strings involved in the actual unionisation process) then the company is unionized. And the minority who opposed unionisation either have to join the union or quit.
Although, I think companies can make independent deals with unions so non-union employees can remain.
i'm not sure if it's a federal or state law, but undoubtedly there is coercive backing to legitimize this:
my wife is a teacher and doesn't have to join the union but if she doesn't join she still has to pay 75% of the union fee but gets none of the so called benefits of the union.
Angurse: Kind of. Under U.S. law, in a company where the workers are campaigning to unionise, if the majority of workers vote to unionise, (I'm sure there are more legal strings involved in the actual unionisation process) then the company is unionized. And the minority who opposed unionisation either have to join the union or quit. Although, I think companies can make independent deals with unions so non-union employees can remain.
Really? (bolded) I trust wikipedia barely more than I trust Barney Frank, but in my brief interweb research it did make the claim that Federal law prohibited forcing workers to join a union. (I can't find the page now.)
wilderness: i'm not sure if it's a federal or state law, but undoubtedly there is coercive backing to legitimize this: my wife is a teacher and doesn't have to join the union but if she doesn't join she still has to pay 75% of the union fee but gets none of the so called benefits of the union.
Criminals. That's effectively almost the same. Not to mention the obvious intimidation factor you'd probably have to deal with. (Oh yes, I forgot this is illegal... if you can prove it happened, heh.)
Im not sure about US laws, but when i was living in Canada, I had a job where I had to join the union, in order to work there.
This is known as the "closed shop" law. The union is allowed to specify in its contract "All employees must be members of the union." Union dues are automatically deducted from the employee's paycheck, even if they refuse membership ("financial core" status).
This violates an individual's right to negotiate their own contract. If you have above-average ability, you can't negotiate a better contract than the one specified by the union.
For example, an NFL player can't say "**** the union! I'm going to negotiate my own individual contract!" They are obligated to follow the terms of the union contract.
By regulating unions, the State neutered their effectiveness. A union leader is more like a State bureaucrat than a true advocate for workers' rights.
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
Yeah, I could almost swear that I think someone I know personally had no choice but to pay union dues when they started. I'll have to ask around. It may have even been a comment someone made in a college class I had ones (many, many years ago unfortunately, lol).
Anyway, I researched this some more and came across something called the Taft-Hartley Act, which was supposed to outlaw "closed shop" contracts.
(Although I also found sources stating that practically speaking, it still happens in some industries--gee so a government regulation didn't accomplish it's goal? That never happens! ...)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/580245/Taft-Hartley-Act
And.... there's an NFL union??
Seph: Im not sure about US laws, but when i was living in Canada, I had a job where I had to join the union, in order to work there.
Yeah I feel like I've heard of this happening in the US too, but I can't remember where!
I asked this initial question here because I've had the misfortune of coming across someone who thinks this never happened, or maybe that it doesn't currently happen, I don't know.
There are two types of outlooks on unions.
Union Shops - Places where one must join a union in order to work or continue working at the establishment [ Usually the states in the New England region are prononents of this ]
Right to work - Places where one does not have to join a union in order to work or continue working [ Usually in the South region ]
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael