johninnit

Bad day to be an HTC fanboi like me. LabourStart have a campaign running in support of YFOTU, the union of workers in Taiwanese mobile phone touchscreen manufacturer YFO. There have been some grim reports of working conditions at the company, with child labour, forced overtime and poor safety.

After seeing reports of bad conditions at iPhone component factories, I was feeling all smug with my non-union-busting HTC TouchHD (the third HTC handset I’ve had now, and a very nice one too), but it looks like mine may be just as bad. YFO have dismissed a number of union reps and members recently, which the union belives is in contravention of employment law. (more…)

Paul at Stronger Unions has a good round-up post on this week’s news from Canada, that Wal-Mart have (again) closed a branch after it unionised. The company claimed that if they had to give the 5 staff working at a Quebec Tire and Lube store a pay raise, they’d need to increase prices by 30%, so it was cheaper to close the whole store. Poor things, those 5 raises could very nearly have been the straw that broke the back of their $378 billion turnover camel.

First things first – It’s simply not the case that Wal-Mart can’t afford to pay better, it’s that they’re *choosing* not to pay better. Wal-Mart work by squashing down earnings (though not those of the $31.6million salaried CEO H Lee Scott), and by using their immense purchasing power to bully suppliers on cost. All of this undercuts local competitors, who were doing fine paying the higher wages before Wal-Mart moved into their area. Tires were being changed and lube being whatever-it-is-you-do-with-lube’d (is it something like motor oil, or are American cars inherently kinkier than ours?) for slightly higher costs quite happily before Wal-Mart, and they hopefully may again now that Wal-Mart have pulled out. (more…)

Scary article on unionbusting in the States on afl-cioNOW.  According to a survey by a union-friendly lobby group, 91% of US firms faced with an organising campaign will make employees attend one to one meetings with their managers about the union, and a whopping 82% engage a “union avoidance consultant” (the dreaded unionbusters). Worse still, 30% fire union activists during a campaign, and 49% threaten to close the plant if the union is recognised (though tellingly only 2% actually carry this out if they lose).

The AFL estimate unionbusting to be a $4bn a year business – a conservative estimate apparently, because it’s often very hard to prove the consultants were engaged for that purpose.

So far this is a far cry from our own situation in the UK, though the unionbusters are popping up over here too now, both home-grown and imported. US firm The Burke Group have been engaged against union campaigns at T-Mobile, Amazon, Virgin Atlantic and Calor Gas.

The TUC have a novel new approach to countering this, and are publishing a leaflet today, which outlines the actual benefits that an employer could be throwing away by not engaging with a union organising campaign. You can download a pdf here.

Yes – that’s right, benefits. Many of them in the tangible form of lovely cost savings. The Government reckons union reps are worth at least £3.5bn to the economy in increased productivity. 3000 workplaces have union funded (including through Government money) learning projects, which provide job related training to over 67,000 workers a year. Safety reps save firms millions through accidents and work related illness, and dealing with problems through a union means less tribunal cases, and hence much less money to lawyers.

…and of course, that’s before the cost savings in not employing a firm of extremely expensive unionbusters!