Have a job and no union? Employers will be real nice to you in the new year

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.kansascity.com/196/story/921188.html

Near the bottom of the article.

But, just in case, Shelly Freeman, principal in the human resources consulting firm of HROI, had some sound advice at a recent Lathrop & Gage legal seminar:

Employees who feel valued and rewarded don’t necessarily feel the need for a union.

The time is now for employers to be visible and communicate with their workers.

The time is now for employers to have ready answers when employees ask them to compare what a union can offer workers in terms of pay, benefits, job security, safety, other work issues, and voice.

Perhaps (and this is me talking) it’s also time to consider profit sharing or, at the least, more open-book management practices that make employees feel and act more like owners.

How one feels about the Employee Free Choice Act comes down to how one feels about unions.

[county worker]

1. Let those who want to join unions and bargain for better conditions do so. Let those who don't want

to join go without any of the benefits won by the union. Fair I think. Where I work you don't have to join the union but you get the same benefits union workers bargain for. You also have to pay to the union some part of your paycheck for getting the union won benefits.

We voted to take a mandatory no pay two week furlough in exchange for the county not laying off anyone. Both non union and union workers will benefit from not being laid off. Non union workers still have to take the furlough. I would think that they should not have to take the furlough and take the chance of getting laid off.

We also have gotten raises by collective bargaining. The non union workers get the raises too. I say screw that. They should not have to pay the union anything and not get the raises we get.