Help me understand the "other side:" Why do corporations hate unions so much?

[ColbertWatcher]

Seriously.

Please post in reply every reason you can think of for why corporations believe it is in their best interests to be anti-union.

Is it because they despise workers? Because they're greedy? Because CEOs really don't know how to run businesses?

Tell me what you think DU.

[Oceansaway]

1. greedy....n/t

[leftofthedial]

2. unions are an affront to management's power

[XemaSab]

7. +1

Management believes in a strict father hierarchy, and unions undermine that.

[NMDemDist2]

3. 'divide and conquer' has long been a way to keep power. n/t

[LSparkle]

4. Unions allow workers to get what they DESERVE, not what the corp. ...

feels like doling out.

[GrantDem]

5. Because organizing puts power into the hands of the workers.

Once workers organize the employer must bargain over wages, benefits, disciplinary actions, and any issue that affects working conditions. Simply put it prevents corporations from doing whatever, whenever, and to whomever they damned well please.

They don't hate unions; they fear them.

[demosincebirth]

12. Well said...

Also, corporations think they know what a worker deserves

[Junkdrawer]

6. Corporations are institutions whose mission is to move wealth up the ladder...

Unions are institutions whose mission is to move wealth down the ladder...

If you squint just right, you can see a conflict there...

[Echo In Light]

11. LOL {imagines some actually having to squint hard and long on this one}

[JuniperLea]

8. Because without a voice

The workers would be taken advantage of, no question. We owe minimum wages, 8 hour work days, 40 hour work weeks, and a long list of other things we take for granted to the unions who fought for them.

[alsame]

9. They want the cheapest labor they can find - lowest wages, fewest

benefits, cheapest working conditions in terms of safety and health issues. Anything to maximize their profit margin. Unions set standards that eat into the corporations' profit margins.

[doc03]

16. That sounds like about the best answer to me n/t

[treestar]

10. It lessens their power

Each individual worker bargaining for himself or herself has little or no bargaining power where the job to be done is not something extra individual like it is for say an actor or the like. So that makes a contract that favors the employer more.

[Hannah Bell]

13. Hard to say when so many of extant unions are basically company unions

where union management assists corp management in herding the rank & file into whatever corp mgt has planned for them. Sometimes with token shows of resistance.

[SteelPenguin]

14. Unions hinder flexibility

Everything that unions do, from worker protections, to standard wages, to health benefits, etc, get written in stone with a company and can make those companies extremely inflexible which can make them weak.

There are good unions that both look out for their workers and their company, knowing that the health of their company is good for their union. There are corporations that value their unions, for being their partners and putting the company first, while also not neglecting their workers.

Unfortunately, the standard is probably neither of those. The majority of unions push for as much as they can, regardless of how it affects the company, and the corporation pushes against unionization and any benefits as it affects their viability.

I've personally witnessed businesses that closed down because the unions were inflexible. They weren't willing to give on certain issues to help the viability of the company, stuck to their guns, and the factory closes. Not gets outsourced. Closes. Corporations hate unions because way too many of them, though certainly not all, aren't working WITH the company, but AGAINST it. Once a union (or a corpoation for that matter) takes an antagonistic position towards the other it's rarely good. The union insists on the corporation carrying a certain number of union workers at all times, certain benefits, certain time off, etc, and next thing you know the market changes, the company is unable to lay off half it's work force which is sitting idle, and is unable to ramp up sales fast enough, and goes under.

Companies tend to prefer any situation which allows them maneuverability because that leads to the survival of the company. Therefore they look with a wary eye on everything from unions to environmental regulations, or anything else which will put costs on them which they can't avoid.

Really the best situation is one where the Union and the Corporation work as partners both looking out for the health of the company, as well as pride in their products, and the health of the workers as a whole. Those companies tend to do well, make good products, and have workers proud to be a part of it.

[old mark]

15. Companies want the workers to feel helpless and completely

at the mercies of the bosses. Even companies with unions try hard to have several unions for different groups of workers in order to keep them from having too much power and to be able to turn one group against another. It is like grade school-think of the school bullies in the recess yard and you have a good idea of the mentality of most bosses.

I was an AFSCME Steward for several years, and found some bosses to be reasonable, most just ego driven insecure bullies who really enjoy fucking with people simply because they can.

mark

[Mike 03]

17. I know that movie studios dislike unions because they work in solidarity to raise the

costs the studios have to pay to (actors, writers, etc...), and as technology becomes more complicated, so do the royalties issues, which are becoming tremendously complex. The studios wield tremendous power in forcing creative people to work for peanuts as it is. Without the unions, we would be screwed. Even with the unions, something like one out of a hundred artists are working and being paid at any one time.

That's my two cents, and I suspect this applies to other industries as well.

[Occam Bandage]

18. Self-delete. Post #14 is well-written and thorough; look at that explanation and not my lesser one.

[walkaway]

19. $

[Ikonoklast]

20. United, We Bargain. Divided, We Beg.

Very simple premise. Workers having one voice must be reckoned with.

[The2ndWheel]

21. It's a competing form of organization

Every form of organization seeks to make everything else like itself.

[tnlefty]

22. If corporations paid their workers really well and provided

decent benefits there would be less to suck up to the top and CEOs wouldn't be making 400+% of what the workers make.

Greed baby, it's been the American way for quite some time now.

[omega minimo]

23. http://www.thomhartmanncom. perhaps you've heard of Reaganism or recent history on this?

[lib2DaBone]

24. Europeans work 35 hours a week.. vacation for a month..and are more productive...

Corporations and their Republican Value Politicians have forced Americans to work "Like Rented Mules".

In the mean time, CEO's and Republicans have shipped their profits to safe haven Banks in the Cayman Islands where they pay NO TAXES.

"They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it", George Carlin.

[OhioChick]

25. Cheap labor. n/t