I mean I personally know three family friends in unions who are incompetent and protected by union rules so they will never be fired. (One in immigration, one a court officer, one a public school teacher).
I think it would depend on what form the unions take. There is a range from "you can't fire anybody even if they're terrible" to "professional organization that holds its own members to high standards of quality, but assuming they meet that standard, protects them 100%".
Employers can't fire people for being in unions. That's illegal.
Either everyone should be protected, ie you can neither be fired for being in a union or for NOT being in a union, or nobody should be able to be fired for these things.
Unions are like lawyers members get representation irrespective of guilt or innocence.
Yes a Union cant stop some one being fired if they are guilty of Gross misconduct but they can make sure people don't get fired for say accusing a manger for unwanted touching or to make wahy for the CEO's nephew.
For example I bet James Danmore had no advice before his internal hearings that lead to his firing.
The union defends their members, that's part of their job. It's what prevents administrators from arbitrarily firing people they don't like - or, worse, people who stand up against malpractice on the administrative side. The administration has access to their own specialists who can and do "fight tooth and nail" for their side.
When someone is actually incompetent any halfway competent administrator will be able to fire them. It's not hard - it just requires collecting some actual evidence and documenting that you followed the processes correctly.
Just a note: it's illegal to fire someone for trying to organize a union. Not that it doesn't happen, but you often hear about how those people get their jobs reinstated, etc.
Yeah, it’s not like non-unionized enterprises make it easy to fire workers. There’s evidence collection, meetings with HR, PIPs even when it’s at will.
Do unions work differently in the US? Because I am pretty sure that while you can't get fired for being in a union (or strike action), you can get fired for every other reason you could get fired for.
I've never seen a union contract that didn't have a clear path to firing someone. I've worked in a union and in HR labor relations. My experience is that 'hard to fire' stories usually boil down managers not understanding the union contract, not enforcing the union contract until its too late, or wanting to enforce the union contract differently based on the employee.
Firing someone because they were involved in union activity is extremely illegal. It happens only when companies are confident there won't be consequences.
So how did the bad employees get hired at your workplace and stay there before it unionized? Did the company hire 100% good apples before unionization and then suddenly change its mind and start hiring bad ones? Are you really going to assert that firing people is impossible in a union workplace? We both know that's not true.
That's not how it works in countries with stronger protections. Unions don't have the power to fire anyone, nor do they have veto power. There are rules (e.g. no firing without a cause from a whitelist of acceptable causes that typically come with additional requirements), and courts to decide cases where there are disagreements over the rules.
reply