Say Anything Blog

With the United Auto Workers in the headlines recently, and with Massachusetts passing a version of the Employee Free Choice Act, I’ve been thinking a lot about organized labor.  I got to thinking more about it today when I overheard an acquaintance (who just happens to work in a unionized job) talking about wanting to quit and go to another job.  It struck me that there’s a great deal of inequality between employees and employers when it comes to terminating employment.

See, employees can pretty much leave whenever they want.  If they find a better job somewhere else they can take off really with no notice at all given to the employer.  And that’s as it should be, I think.  As frustrating as it can be to lose a needed employee without any advance notice, free choice is free choice.

But in unionized workforces, the reverse is not true.  If an employer suddenly no longer needs an employee (perhaps demand for production is dropping off or something along those lines) who happens to belong to a union that employee can’t be simply terminated.  Most union contracts contain convoluted processes for terminating employees that can take months or years even when that employee is completely inept.  In fact, union contracts are so difficult to deal with that many employers (such as auto industry companies and schools) are forced to keep paying incompetent or superfluous employees to do nothing more than sit around in a room all day and read magazines.

Yet what would most of us think if the roles were reversed and it were employees who weren’t allowed to leave their jobs?  I think most of us would be upset about that.  So why aren’t more people upset at what labor unions are doing to our businesses?