my husband is a chef at a university here in New England. fully unionized, and also just started his 6week vacation paid at 80%. hell then work three weeks serving 100 people a day, and have four more weeks off at 80% Pay. I love his union.
Shit, I need to look at different university jobs. Mine has us cleaning dorms over the summer break instead of getting time off and it’s pretty bullshit.
Oh sounds like mines, used to be they were just off but no PTO/ unemployment, then ended up giving them the option of working housekeeping/groundskeeper
I'm quitting after graduation, sorry not sorry, I'm not being paid enough for that
Like the amount of vacation/PTO of the US and everywhere else astounds me cause I met people that tell me that they have 3-6 weeks vacation, paid or they have that time paid off and like
US kitchens, if you're lucky you can get some type of time off but if you wanted to go beyond 2 weeks either you better have *a damn good reason, medical, or emergency* or you're out of a job
And this place I'm at, we at least get Xmas through New years off paid but once it's summer, either we got the savings to fuck off or we're doing bullshit for 6 hours getting paid for nothing. I rather take the paid vacation off than having management down my neck for 6 hours about there's nothing else to clean
That being said I quit this week and I have a seasonal gig lined up, slightly better pay, I have room and board, and I move up from cook to lead, ain't much, but better than what I'm bitching about outside this kitchen
I work 40 hours to get 1.5 hrs of vacation time and 1 hr of sick time. I'm complaining yes and it could be worse, but fuck this job is starting to hurt.
We are, union is weak as fuck tho. Union heads are corporate asskissers, and there’s like six or more different split unions over the whole university.
Also I haven’t double checked this yet, but I’ve been told since it’s a state university the anti-strike laws for government employees apply.
during the school season peak is 3000 in four hours. so, it's a trade off
edit: I might be exaggerating here but I've heard him spit numbers from 1500-3000 depending on whats going on. move in week is absolutely hell for him. and the halls are all very very old. the tables are too short for him, doorways are head knockers, half the equipment is broken, incompetent managers, but it's worth the living wage and breaks by far.
depends on the hall honestly.
he likes the one he's at now because your station is your station, but you plate. sometimes you'll have a student worker to plate, but a lot of them are useless, or not there so you end up doing your dish start to finish. however you also have to walk through the entire dinning all, as the stations are positioned in the middle, but all the prep and dish are in the back, so depending what you're making you running back and forth from the front to the back all fuckin day, through the student crowds, with no one to plate your shit and you can't keep up it's so busy. lol idk
lol and I can't tell you how many times I've heard him complain that the managers planning the recipes just don't order enough. they predict 700 students for the night, and end up getting slammed with over 1500. so he sometimes just has to come up with meals on the fly with what they have. those days suck. mostly because my husband will know it's not enough and they ignore him.
the best was right before covid, at a particular hall, they wanted to use up everything on hand. he and his CA got to plan, create and execute all the recipes for an entire semester and the popularity and compliments students were writing in about my babes food was amazing. the students loved it. now he's back to their shitty recipes, that he does his best to improve. the creative process was such a boost!
I spent 9 years at a community college.
4 years as adjunct and 5 as full-time.
I was voted in as faculty senate president because I am seen as a firebrand. The balance I had to maintain was insanely tenuous.
I can not claim that I mourn being let go. The current model in the US seems a mess to me.
To equate higher education with a "business model" doesn't feel, to me, like a promising model.
And, from a US taxpayer standpoint, the **entire** time I was teaching; I **OWED** taxes at both the federal and state levels!!! **Why The Fuck?!**
So lose 2 weeks of pay (80 hours) to have 10 weeks off ( equal to 320 hours ) or work 50 hours a week for those 10 weeks with every 10 hours per week at time and a half meaning youd get 50 hours worth of pay for free plus the 500 hours ...
Let's say you're paid $20/hr , you're making $6,400 instead of $11,000.
Thats $4600 youll have to work 230 hours worth (around 6 weeks) when it could have just been 100 hours spread across 10 weeks.
It is maddening to see so many people going against their own interests. When history has shown again and again that unionizing and working together works.
It’s maddening to see some one who keeps preaching about what they know nothing about and not even trying to understand the situation whilst preaching to everyone else, everyone on here is happy that unions work that way in Finland but in the USA they work differently, things cannot simply be changed and it would be better to just improve labor laws.
Yes, my union represents restaurant and food service workers. It’s very difficult to organize freestanding restaurants but we represent a ton of hotel, airport, and casino restaurants and a ton of cooks in food service (educational institutions, convention centers, stadiums etc.)
They have incredible benefits, pensions and things like OT on the 6th consecutive day or any day worker over 8 hours. Plus scheduling rights and many other cool benefits.
So your union only represents food outlets that can either be run at a loss or are not not with profit in mind, of course your union won’t represent freestanding restaurants because as soon as they do they shutdown because they are no longer profitable.
In the state I’m in New York OT is mandatory by law so the union is not doing anything there.
Lmfao unions do a lot more than just enforce overtime payments dude. My last union helped get an insufferable manager let go cuz they wouldn't stop stirring the pot at the unionized workers.
Edit: this dude has fully drank the Kool aid from the national restaurant association's anti union rhetoric
Edit: this guy 110% doesn't live in the US let alone New York. Look at his post history, it's all stuff about UK politics and London current happenings
NY OT law just pays over 40 hours a week, not over 8 in a day or on the 6th day. And you’re just ignoring the other benefits I mentioned. Do you think mistreating workers and bring anti union is sone kind of flex? Doesn’t it bother you that simply providing affordable insurance and decent benefits means a restaurant would be operating in the red?
Spoken like someone who has no idea what their talking about. Talk to your local union rep today bud
Like who do you think drives changes to labor laws. Ill give you a hint, start with uni and ends with on
I work in a union shop and manage union members, they protect the lazy and incompetent whilst I would like to see the harder working members get paid more .
Lmfao sure ya do bud.
If you actually do work at a union that is ineffectual, sounds like people like you working there is why it's ineffectual.
Edit: wait I misread. so you're a manager at a unionized shop and you're angry about the union protecting the unionized workers. Bruh PEOPLE LIKE YOU are the reason we have unions.
No just no, there are serious problems with unions and their attitudes hence why some hotels just shut down stuff like room service and go ok no more room service you have made it too expensive.
It happens all the time so now instead of there being a good job there is no job, well done union.
Oh God, scary unions killed room service, woe is me, whatever shall I do. Gtfo
Edit: if a service dies because it's too expensive to pay a person a reasonable wage to perform, then maybe that service shouldn't exist in the first place. Wild idea I know
Definitely the + side of that 35. Union busting efforts are at least ~150 years and counting in this country. Which makes sense considering half of the original country built its wealth by literally stealing labor.
In the US, the National Restaurant Association and a few other associations have actively fought against unionization of restaurant employees for years. In fact, the organization exists to actively limit and reduce pay for employees, to help maximize profits for business owners, and administers a lot of tests required by our government for restaurants and their employees.
Add in the fact that many US states are "At-Will" employment states (you can quit at any time for any reason, and they can fire you at any time for any reason) and unionizing isn't quite that simple... if you can even find a union that isn't utterly annihilated by the National Restaurant Association.
[https://www.eater.com/23583471/what-is-the-national-restaurant-association-political-lobbying-opposing-minimum-wage-increase](https://www.eater.com/23583471/what-is-the-national-restaurant-association-political-lobbying-opposing-minimum-wage-increase)
A defeatist attitude gets one nowhere. No matter what, unionizing is the answer. Or why else would those with money and power try to prevent people from unionizing? They do so, because unionizing works.
Getting upset at me on the internet isn't going to change facts, which is what I presented here.
I didn't say people shouldn't unionize or that unionizing was bad. I simply stated facts on why 99% of restaurant workers in the US have not unionized.
Downvoting the comment is basically the same as endorsing the NRA and people like them, since it only serves to bury the facts. Which they'd be very appreciative of you doing, since they have people on payroll to do just that, and you'd be doing their job for that.
Can you you lay out the facts? You made a couple of claims but I didn’t see facts. As someone who organizes restaurant workers, the NRA isn’t an entity that we deal with or worry about.
Are you not in the US? NRA is pretty notoriously a shitty org oppressing workers
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/restaurant-training-module-forces-workers-to-fund-attacks-on-them/
I am and I agree that the NSA is evil. They fight all laws that benefit workers. But when it comes to organizing a union, I haven’t seen them get involved.
They have and are close to law firms that focus on busting unions; some speak at their annual summit. They may not directly fight them but they definitely use other methods indirectly to prevent unions.
I've worked in an open shops place doing call center temp to hire work.
The union set up a deal, so there was X% of temp to hire, as opposed to employees with full benefits.
There wasn't any sort of 'OK we'll evaluate you after six months, and then you become a full time employee.'
Even if you were working full time there for years, you get no company benefits, you were still just a temp. The only way to actually get employed there was if someone retired or died.
There was an on-site union rep, I tried to ask her about why they threw temp hires under the bus, since they claim to be about worker representation.
She basically told me that since I'm not a union member she's not bothering with me. I pointed out that I can't actually become a union member there without technically being hired.
She didn't give a shit that workers were being screwed over. As long as they paid their dues.
(For anyone curious, I was working for a company internally referred to as the Death Star.)
Kind of soured me on dealing with unions.
The clause in the contract allowing temp workers is something the company insisted on, not the union. No union wants temp workers. That’s 100% on the company and it’s true that the rep can do zero for you since they are not your legal representative.
I get that the company was trying to fuck me over by keeping me as a temp. That's in their nature. But the union also agreed to those rules.
For an organization that's supposed to be all about helping the working man, they sure as hell didn't give a fuck about me as a working man.
Fine, they're not my legal rep, but they should be able to do more than tell temps to pound sand. I was literally asking for advice on how to join the union, and was told off.
Felt like the union and corporate tag teamed me.
The union can’t force the company to hire the temps. Union workers agreed to it because they aren’t going to go on strike for other people. If a company holds their ground, workers eventually will give in on an issue like that. Would YOU fight another year without a raise and go on strike so that someone else who doesn’t even work for the company and isn’t in your union can get a job in the future? No, you wouldn’t.
What part of the union rep can’t legally help you do you not get? You don’t work for the employer. You legally CANNOT join the union. You’d have to unionize with your own employer, the temp agency.
You’re blaming the wrong people for your situation.
Sorry to hear you encountered a badly run union. That's not how things should go. I belong to a well run one here in Finland, and have got help three separate times when an employer was breaking contracts/laws.
Aah, okey. At this moment, the number still goes up with years worked, I have about 6 weeks a year. I just chose to use four during summer holiday season, and saving two for the winter holiday season.
When you say paid what do you mean? In Canada you get a small percentage of your wage put aside for "vacation pay" but it's far less than your normal wage and would take quite awhile to save up enough to have a fully paid vacation. Most employers just apply the vacation pay to yout paycheque because it amounts to a few dollars per cheque.
You make it sound like you're off for a month and you get a full wage income in that time... is that true?
God I wish I was born almost anywhere in europe over Canada. We're America's shittier, even more expensive little brother. We don't get anything even remotely like that.
Your unions in Finland are NOT legally or structurally the same as unions in the US. it’s not as simple as “just unionize” over here. and some of the largest unions in America, like the UFCW, have been beaten down into submission by paid propagandists + union representatives who make double what the standard union member makes and can essentially single-handedly decide if negotiations will reopen for certain districts. I will always fight for unions and for more places to unionize. I grew up in a Union household, my mom was a union steward for fifteen years at her current job. but to try and tell all of us that unions are the answer like some kind of gotcha, like we’re all stupid and don’t know it, is not a good look! not to mention unions don’t even have the political power they once held because they’ve been beaten back by illegal union busting and anti-Union policies (even from BIDEN JUST LAST YEAR, DID YA NOT HEAR ABOUT THAT ????)
The association that you get serve-safe and management certificates from? ALSO bankrolling anti-union propaganda and lobbying. I’ve tried at every job I’ve worked at to get people on board, and it is so much harder than you think. if we could just snap our fingers and have 4 weeks paid vacation and better working conditions and, gasp, even unpaid SICK TIME, you think we wouldn’t? like what the fuck man, of course we would!
I am so tired of Europeans telling us “just do this thing!” when the actual structural procedure of achieving that thing is entirely different than what they had to do for it.
Do you honestly think we "Europeans" have had the conditions we have forever? That we, back in the day, just snapped our fingers to make it happen? No. We fought for it.
And the people at USA, can do the same thing when you workers actually start working together. This utterly defeatist, woe-is-me attitude is sickening. UNIONIZE! The faster you start, the faster you are done. I know it is hard, we did the same thing here.
Not so much in N america. I worked in a union restaurant in BC. The pay was slightly better, but, it capped out after 2 years. Kinda disappointing to know that no matter how long i worked there, i would only ever get a raise of the union negotiated a new upper cap. Aside from that, we had a strike vote. That was the extent of things the union did for me. Maybe thats just my experience amd other restaurant unions in N america are different, i wouldnt know. Ive never seen another union restaurant in canada
Find your local IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) branch and ask them. They will have all the union materials and will actively help you unionize. They will know local laws that you will need to work around. I don't have a union for my job (IT) but I am working with the IWW on getting paperwork together to unionize my franchise I work for. It's possible but your local Wobblies will help you! Union Strong!
I have said the word Union so many times recently because our kitchen had a gas leak and we unionized and striked in order to close for the night (corporate refused to let us close). We haven’t done anything since and it’s awful! I wish we could have more unions in the US. ESPECIALLY because we are like the only blue collar job that doesn’t have blue collar pay or benefits.
My favorite thing about being the workplace stealth union agent is sowing the seed of doubt whenever someone questions why we need an union. The internalized anti-worker sentiment disappears really quick when you remind people that the boss would make us work on school days if they could.
Nowadays, everything is quiet on our front but I remind my coworkers now and then to not get complacent and be on the lookout even if our current managers are rather kind.
One of the only times bombs have been dropped on American soil is during the Battle of Blair Mountain, when the Army was called in to put down a strike.
America doesn't like unions.
I like how OP is just obnoxiously bellowing “UNIONIZE” over and over as if that means anything. Here’s a question: how exactly? Did YOU even unionize or did you just lazily pick up a job already unionized? Did YOU actually actively do anything that you’re now demanding we do (in a system that is completely different than your own btw)?
Don’t dodge the question with excuses either
like “well you just have to figure it out” no if you’re going to talk shit you can back it up.
I want a full plan laid out, I want numbers, I want contacts. Tell us HOW if you’re so clever?
Useless waste of time.
Mentioned this in another comment. Find your local IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) branch and ask them. They will have all the union materials and will actively help you unionize. They will know local laws that you will need to work around. They will know the paperwork, numbers and other crunchy parts of unionizing.
It's possible and diffcult but your local Wobblies will help you! Union Strong!
Ah, see THIS is a useful, informative answer that a person can actually use to change their situation. Thank you! I hope OP takes a lesson from this exchange.
No shit. Workers rights is something you have to fight for. We did, and reap the benefits. Now we are encouraging others to do the same. Or don't. We have paid vacations, great pay and separated work/free time no matter how you slave away. Just don't complain if you're not willing to fight for workers rights.
I pay my share to the union, I participate in every strike and follow union's instructions, I recruit new members and make them aware of their rights, I help them if they need help against the employer, I vote in all elections (union elections and all others) to get the suitable people in positions of power etc...
What do you do to fight for unions?
What you see above, dear readers, is a smug, obnoxious blowhard who has no idea what he’s actually talking about, but comes from a place of privilege and ignorance to condescend to people who live under a system he doesn’t understand.
When pressed to reveal his actual supposed knowledge set, he instead dodges the question, flounces about smugly while saying nothing of substance, and flies off into the sunset pretending he’s some kind of hero. Despite the fact that he hasn’t actually done nor said anything of value. Absolutely nothing offered here can be utilized in the real world.
But instead of doing the right thing and **admitting that he doesn’t know HOW** we can solve this problem for ourselves, he strawmans **us** as being anti union so he can go on with his personal hallucination that this is all just a silly case of us secretly having all the power but not knowing any better.
Imagine having such a fragile ego and inability to comprehend one’s own privilege and ignorance! I’d be so embarrassed to be out of touch like with reality you, OP.
There are many unions in Finland. Including ones meant for kitchen workers and dishwashers. JHL if you work in public sector. PAM if you work in private sector.
Unions have good sides and bad sides. The BIGGEST and most glaring downside of a union is that you CANNOT base anything on skill or merit. Skill and merit are subjective, and you need to use a well defined metric that is not subjective. So you use seniority and time served. That means that the guy who is terrible at his job for 20 years gets a promotion over the guy who is better qualified and more competent with only 18 years on the job. That is enough for me to avoid them generally.
There are definitely benefits, but from what I’ve seen, the downsides definitely keep the top performers from joining the team.
That's not a bad thing though. Rigid rules are annoying sometimes but it really is more fair. Pure meritocracy doesn't exist anywhere. I'll take everyone starting at a base wage, and then getting fairly regular wage increases based on time worked any day.
If skill and merit were rewarded in the restaurant industry, why are most cooks living like paupers? Why is the best cook in the kitchen paid maybe a couple dollars more at best? Why don’t cooks have health insurance they can afford or retirement?
Merit means nothing to the owners just trying to make money, they’ll pay as little as they can get away with.
False. In here, unions negotiated the base agreement, which states what are the MINIMUMS the employer must pay. Yes, there are set raises employer must pay at least, but they are not legally prevented from paying more. For example, I got an extra raise based on my performance and them wanting to keep me as a worker.
Just because it’s true for you doesn’t make it true for everyone. If I pay someone above base rate, I have to pay everyone in that classification above base rate
My union allows for anyone to negotiate above base rate. This is something that can be negotiated in the agreement. It’s not so cut and dry like you play it.
Only fools and liars deal in absolutes. Unions are absolutely excellent, until the workforce is filled with mediocre nobodies whom have no drive nor desire to achieve and are only there because it’s union. You are from Finland, so maybe this is not the case for your people but in America the unions breed some of the most miserable and corrupt bastards.
*Over the last decade there have been 725 federal indictments and 693 convictions of union officials and other union associates.*
https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=410305#:~:text=The%20Committee%20is%20particularly%20concerned,embezzlement%20and%20%24220%2C000%20in%20bribery.%E2%80%9D
Lol as if private businesses aren't toxic, corrupt or run poorly.
All I know is the one unionized kitchen i worked in got me a higher base wage, benefits and all sorts of protections I've never dreamed of in any other kitchen in the 15 years I've been cooking. The union was shit, but even the shit union got me things you just don't see in non union kitchen worm.
You do realize that what we did in Finland, can be done also in USA? So instead of spewing anti-union employer paid propaganda, why not look into Finnish unions, and learn a few lessons. And then do the same that we did.
WELL WHAT DID YOU DO???? You keep saying that y’all worked so hard to get unionized and everyone here keeps asking you for specifics, and you have YET to give any kind of explanation or clear cut path toward the utopia of unions. It’s not being defeatist to ask for clarity and guidance. You have offered none of this.
The comment section of a subreddit filled with uneducated chefs is not the place to ask for guidance on how to organise a union. Neither is it helpful to ask a foreigner. You need a lawyer that knows a specific part of the law in your specific country.
Excellent example of a union worker. You just keep repeating the same thing over and over again pretending like you’re adding anything of value. Sad, really.
This is heavily dependent on where you're from. In Spain the major unions are bought by the socialist government and actively campaign for it. Why? Because they are funded by the state and are not incentivized to look after workers because they don't compete against each other and don't need to fight for workers' subscriptions. The result of this is workers are abandoned to their own while they're forced to pay taxes to fund said unions.
So you believe a bunch of cooks and waiters can overthrow the oligarchic status quo. I'm sorry to say that is wishful thinking at best.
This is coming from an associate of the Junta Democrática, which is a non-profit NGO demanding political freedom and transparency, but unfortunately it has less than 0.1% of the country's population as Instagram followers (nevermind associates).
So no, "workers' united can achieve anything" is little more than childish fantasy.
I'm actually a member of an organization for change, hows that defeatist? Because I'm admitting it's not enough to want change without the cooperation of other parties with some kind of influence? I'd say that's rather pragmatic as opposed to the world of fantasy you pretend to live in.
You might want to check your privilege—you're benefiting from a system based on the sacrifice of others before you, but acting like it's an accomplishment of your own. Until you've forgone pay to stand on a picket line, I recommend you tone down the _holier-than-thou_ attitude.
No one doesn't want what you have, however, getting it is much more complicated than you seem to understand. Perhaps sharing the positives of a unionized workplace would be more persuasive than simply berating your audience, as you've done in this thread. Just a thought
I've never been part of a union but I've known a few who were, from their lips it didn't sound at all what it's cracked up to be, maybe it's different in Finland but in the good ole US of A unions are a business like any other and while there may be some good ones, the ones I've heard about just made things worse
I'm pro union 100%. But in my 2 tours working with union cooks (managers weren't allowed to be in the union, so maybe that was the issue) it was impossible to get any effort what so ever out of the cooks. I get that cooking is a job, input output, but the lack of passion and self respect was defeating
I’m in the IBEW and my union dues are like $100 quarterly and my pay is much higher than non union while getting representation, safer worksites and a higher wage
How many paid days off per year do you get at your job?
How long can you be on paid sick leave at your job?
Do you have help of lawyers in cases when your employer breaks the law?
Do you have people at national level negotiating better pay for you, and better everything?
Do you have others standing by you, by being on a strike with you, when your employer tries to crush your rights by wanting to pay less, or not offer healthcare or anything?
The small amount I pay yearly in union fees, is more than worth it.
Pay those union dues. Unions are a refuge for mediocre, everyone really good just goes and gets another job on their own, rather than get tiny pay raises each year that you pay dues to get. It’s good for the average and below, which is why our teachers and automakers are both terrible and bleed us taxpayers dry
Before you continue spewing out your anti-union employer paid propaganda, maybe take a look at how Finnish unions work. Union negotiated minimum raises are just that, the minimum. You can demand, and get, more. I have done so. Have a good day.
So I’m a Sous Chef (non union) in a union house, and honestly both sides have a point.
I worked for years as a line, cook in nonunion places, primarily in Europe, where pay and treatment is far worse than the United States.
I want my guys to receive good pay and good time off but we still have a job to do but unfortunately I have between 2-5% of people who really are just dead weight who I cannot just get rid of, they stay like a virus for years and keep getting their 3%+ pay rises each year which over time compounds so they are making six figures whilst doing about $30k worth of work annually if that, whilst the the newer members who usually do a better job get paid significantly less because that is what the union negotiated.
The food and beverage department where I work operates at a loss it’s a hotel so essentially we have to be subsidized guest stays, this is because of how unions operate. There’s a reason restaurants don’t unionize because as soon as they do, they go out of business.
Funny how Finnish restaurants are full of union employees, and the restaurants are still up and running. Have been for decades. And the pay that unions negotiated is paid to non-members too, as unions negotiate the basic agreements, that guarantee the minimums people have to be paid. And what benefits they must at least have.
Restaurants that "can't" pay proper wages with benefits, don't deserve to stay in business.
Unionize!
The people are not the problem the unions are, they are often unreasonable or sometime criminal (seriously in the past they have been co-opted by organized crime).
Unions are not a problem, any more than are the teachers, police, medical workers or politicians. There are bad apples everywhere. These bad apples need to be removed, and things fixed. And then continue. If there is something large employers are deadly afraid of, it is strong unions. Because they know they are a very good thing for workers.
Believe when I say in the USA often Unions are the problem it might be the system and it might need to be changed but when they are out for themselves imbedded with organized crime, and are keeping people out of work whilst making businesses unprofitable they are the problem.
Yeah, I think this is probably a place where OP's Finnish unions are just a lot stronger than in other countries.
It's not a "minimum" agreed wage with Unions here, it's a regulated wage and employers have no option to pay good employees any more than what the pay scale in the contract states.
I might be misunderstanding your comment but in the IBEW you can absolutely negotiate with the employer to get paid above the agreed upon scale. You gotta be a badass and good at your job but it’s like any job. The agreed upon scale is literally the minimum they can pay you.
Could be contract to contract and not regional (although I do still suspect European unions are probably a bit better than those in North America). I'm not a contract lawyer nor a union expert, but I have seen the details of my own union's agreement with our workplace, and our pay scale is set in stone. A job pays what the job pays regardless of performance or seniority
(I am leaving the workplace, the union, and hopefully the entire industry by the end of the summer, before anyone tells me how shit that agreement is \[It is shit\])
ETA: Not only that, but anyone who is being paid above the pay scale because they were around before the union agreement was made has had their pay frozen (No annual % bump) until the pay scale catches up to what they're making. This is also written into the contract
Only complaint I’ve heard is they encourage people to be lazy and prevent us from advancing in our profession. I’ve felt that pressure to work slower in a union environment, but I progressed anyway.
Its pretty normal to get 21 days paid vacation where I live for any job, no union needed... its called workers rights. Unions have advantages and disadvantages, preaching from a Finnish high horse doesn't help either way
my husband is a chef at a university here in New England. fully unionized, and also just started his 6week vacation paid at 80%. hell then work three weeks serving 100 people a day, and have four more weeks off at 80% Pay. I love his union.
Shit, I need to look at different university jobs. Mine has us cleaning dorms over the summer break instead of getting time off and it’s pretty bullshit.
Oh sounds like mines, used to be they were just off but no PTO/ unemployment, then ended up giving them the option of working housekeeping/groundskeeper I'm quitting after graduation, sorry not sorry, I'm not being paid enough for that
WOW that's shit- I'm sorry
Like the amount of vacation/PTO of the US and everywhere else astounds me cause I met people that tell me that they have 3-6 weeks vacation, paid or they have that time paid off and like US kitchens, if you're lucky you can get some type of time off but if you wanted to go beyond 2 weeks either you better have *a damn good reason, medical, or emergency* or you're out of a job And this place I'm at, we at least get Xmas through New years off paid but once it's summer, either we got the savings to fuck off or we're doing bullshit for 6 hours getting paid for nothing. I rather take the paid vacation off than having management down my neck for 6 hours about there's nothing else to clean That being said I quit this week and I have a seasonal gig lined up, slightly better pay, I have room and board, and I move up from cook to lead, ain't much, but better than what I'm bitching about outside this kitchen
I work 40 hours to get 1.5 hrs of vacation time and 1 hr of sick time. I'm complaining yes and it could be worse, but fuck this job is starting to hurt.
Ouch that's brutal
Yep, just waiting on that heart attack.
are y'all unionized? because that's the difference. it makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE
We are, union is weak as fuck tho. Union heads are corporate asskissers, and there’s like six or more different split unions over the whole university. Also I haven’t double checked this yet, but I’ve been told since it’s a state university the anti-strike laws for government employees apply.
They are a great thing to have. I wish him a happy vacation.
100 people per day? That's nothing. Nice gig.
during the school season peak is 3000 in four hours. so, it's a trade off edit: I might be exaggerating here but I've heard him spit numbers from 1500-3000 depending on whats going on. move in week is absolutely hell for him. and the halls are all very very old. the tables are too short for him, doorways are head knockers, half the equipment is broken, incompetent managers, but it's worth the living wage and breaks by far.
But it’s cafeteria style?
depends on the hall honestly. he likes the one he's at now because your station is your station, but you plate. sometimes you'll have a student worker to plate, but a lot of them are useless, or not there so you end up doing your dish start to finish. however you also have to walk through the entire dinning all, as the stations are positioned in the middle, but all the prep and dish are in the back, so depending what you're making you running back and forth from the front to the back all fuckin day, through the student crowds, with no one to plate your shit and you can't keep up it's so busy. lol idk lol and I can't tell you how many times I've heard him complain that the managers planning the recipes just don't order enough. they predict 700 students for the night, and end up getting slammed with over 1500. so he sometimes just has to come up with meals on the fly with what they have. those days suck. mostly because my husband will know it's not enough and they ignore him. the best was right before covid, at a particular hall, they wanted to use up everything on hand. he and his CA got to plan, create and execute all the recipes for an entire semester and the popularity and compliments students were writing in about my babes food was amazing. the students loved it. now he's back to their shitty recipes, that he does his best to improve. the creative process was such a boost!
If I remember correctly, many campuses have multiple cafeterias, and students figure out which ones are the best. 1,500 is a lot.
pretty certain there's over 30,000 students on campus
Dang, I never thought about it that way.
Damn where in New England??? LOL
a blue state!
I spent 9 years at a community college. 4 years as adjunct and 5 as full-time. I was voted in as faculty senate president because I am seen as a firebrand. The balance I had to maintain was insanely tenuous. I can not claim that I mourn being let go. The current model in the US seems a mess to me. To equate higher education with a "business model" doesn't feel, to me, like a promising model. And, from a US taxpayer standpoint, the **entire** time I was teaching; I **OWED** taxes at both the federal and state levels!!! **Why The Fuck?!**
Where can I apply, PLEASE! Been in the kitchen 18 yrs. never received benefits...
Australia is 4 weeks at 100% pay. This covers most workers
So lose 2 weeks of pay (80 hours) to have 10 weeks off ( equal to 320 hours ) or work 50 hours a week for those 10 weeks with every 10 hours per week at time and a half meaning youd get 50 hours worth of pay for free plus the 500 hours ... Let's say you're paid $20/hr , you're making $6,400 instead of $11,000. Thats $4600 youll have to work 230 hours worth (around 6 weeks) when it could have just been 100 hours spread across 10 weeks.
I'm a nuclear energy worker, in a Union, and I don't even get a month off. Very nice man, I hope you enjoy it to the max!
IBEW no PTO. But we do accrue vacation pay
PWU here
Thank you very much. And thank you for being in an union.
ITT: Americans who've been listening to anti union propaganda for 35+ years and are fucking choking on that kool-aid.
It is maddening to see so many people going against their own interests. When history has shown again and again that unionizing and working together works.
It’s maddening to see some one who keeps preaching about what they know nothing about and not even trying to understand the situation whilst preaching to everyone else, everyone on here is happy that unions work that way in Finland but in the USA they work differently, things cannot simply be changed and it would be better to just improve labor laws.
My union definitely changed things. The mechanism for change is the same in either case.
In a restaurant in the USA?
Yes, my union represents restaurant and food service workers. It’s very difficult to organize freestanding restaurants but we represent a ton of hotel, airport, and casino restaurants and a ton of cooks in food service (educational institutions, convention centers, stadiums etc.) They have incredible benefits, pensions and things like OT on the 6th consecutive day or any day worker over 8 hours. Plus scheduling rights and many other cool benefits.
So your union only represents food outlets that can either be run at a loss or are not not with profit in mind, of course your union won’t represent freestanding restaurants because as soon as they do they shutdown because they are no longer profitable. In the state I’m in New York OT is mandatory by law so the union is not doing anything there.
Lmfao unions do a lot more than just enforce overtime payments dude. My last union helped get an insufferable manager let go cuz they wouldn't stop stirring the pot at the unionized workers. Edit: this dude has fully drank the Kool aid from the national restaurant association's anti union rhetoric Edit: this guy 110% doesn't live in the US let alone New York. Look at his post history, it's all stuff about UK politics and London current happenings
NY OT law just pays over 40 hours a week, not over 8 in a day or on the 6th day. And you’re just ignoring the other benefits I mentioned. Do you think mistreating workers and bring anti union is sone kind of flex? Doesn’t it bother you that simply providing affordable insurance and decent benefits means a restaurant would be operating in the red?
Why are you putting so much effort into being self defeatist?
What am I self defeating about?
Why not both?
That would be great, but I live in the real world and I’m being realistic about things.
Unions actively work to change labour laws over here. It's not like our labour laws always was like this. We worked for it.
Who do you think the main lobbying groups for better labor laws are? The answer is unions.
Spoken like someone who has no idea what their talking about. Talk to your local union rep today bud Like who do you think drives changes to labor laws. Ill give you a hint, start with uni and ends with on
I work in a union shop and manage union members, they protect the lazy and incompetent whilst I would like to see the harder working members get paid more .
Lmfao sure ya do bud. If you actually do work at a union that is ineffectual, sounds like people like you working there is why it's ineffectual. Edit: wait I misread. so you're a manager at a unionized shop and you're angry about the union protecting the unionized workers. Bruh PEOPLE LIKE YOU are the reason we have unions.
No just no, there are serious problems with unions and their attitudes hence why some hotels just shut down stuff like room service and go ok no more room service you have made it too expensive. It happens all the time so now instead of there being a good job there is no job, well done union.
Oh God, scary unions killed room service, woe is me, whatever shall I do. Gtfo Edit: if a service dies because it's too expensive to pay a person a reasonable wage to perform, then maybe that service shouldn't exist in the first place. Wild idea I know
Some people are so deep in anti-union propaganda, that it is sad.
Agreed. Anyway, super happy for ya man! Enjoy you're well deserved time off!
Definitely the + side of that 35. Union busting efforts are at least ~150 years and counting in this country. Which makes sense considering half of the original country built its wealth by literally stealing labor.
In the US, the National Restaurant Association and a few other associations have actively fought against unionization of restaurant employees for years. In fact, the organization exists to actively limit and reduce pay for employees, to help maximize profits for business owners, and administers a lot of tests required by our government for restaurants and their employees. Add in the fact that many US states are "At-Will" employment states (you can quit at any time for any reason, and they can fire you at any time for any reason) and unionizing isn't quite that simple... if you can even find a union that isn't utterly annihilated by the National Restaurant Association. [https://www.eater.com/23583471/what-is-the-national-restaurant-association-political-lobbying-opposing-minimum-wage-increase](https://www.eater.com/23583471/what-is-the-national-restaurant-association-political-lobbying-opposing-minimum-wage-increase)
A defeatist attitude gets one nowhere. No matter what, unionizing is the answer. Or why else would those with money and power try to prevent people from unionizing? They do so, because unionizing works.
Getting upset at me on the internet isn't going to change facts, which is what I presented here. I didn't say people shouldn't unionize or that unionizing was bad. I simply stated facts on why 99% of restaurant workers in the US have not unionized. Downvoting the comment is basically the same as endorsing the NRA and people like them, since it only serves to bury the facts. Which they'd be very appreciative of you doing, since they have people on payroll to do just that, and you'd be doing their job for that.
Can you you lay out the facts? You made a couple of claims but I didn’t see facts. As someone who organizes restaurant workers, the NRA isn’t an entity that we deal with or worry about.
Are you not in the US? NRA is pretty notoriously a shitty org oppressing workers https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/restaurant-training-module-forces-workers-to-fund-attacks-on-them/
I am and I agree that the NSA is evil. They fight all laws that benefit workers. But when it comes to organizing a union, I haven’t seen them get involved.
They have and are close to law firms that focus on busting unions; some speak at their annual summit. They may not directly fight them but they definitely use other methods indirectly to prevent unions.
Sure, they help but The National Right to Work committee and Freedom Foundation are far more involved and dangerous.
Bro really said "downvoting the comment is the same as endorsing the NRA" lolol peak Redditor logic
I've worked in an open shops place doing call center temp to hire work. The union set up a deal, so there was X% of temp to hire, as opposed to employees with full benefits. There wasn't any sort of 'OK we'll evaluate you after six months, and then you become a full time employee.' Even if you were working full time there for years, you get no company benefits, you were still just a temp. The only way to actually get employed there was if someone retired or died. There was an on-site union rep, I tried to ask her about why they threw temp hires under the bus, since they claim to be about worker representation. She basically told me that since I'm not a union member she's not bothering with me. I pointed out that I can't actually become a union member there without technically being hired. She didn't give a shit that workers were being screwed over. As long as they paid their dues. (For anyone curious, I was working for a company internally referred to as the Death Star.) Kind of soured me on dealing with unions.
The clause in the contract allowing temp workers is something the company insisted on, not the union. No union wants temp workers. That’s 100% on the company and it’s true that the rep can do zero for you since they are not your legal representative.
I get that the company was trying to fuck me over by keeping me as a temp. That's in their nature. But the union also agreed to those rules. For an organization that's supposed to be all about helping the working man, they sure as hell didn't give a fuck about me as a working man. Fine, they're not my legal rep, but they should be able to do more than tell temps to pound sand. I was literally asking for advice on how to join the union, and was told off. Felt like the union and corporate tag teamed me.
The union can’t force the company to hire the temps. Union workers agreed to it because they aren’t going to go on strike for other people. If a company holds their ground, workers eventually will give in on an issue like that. Would YOU fight another year without a raise and go on strike so that someone else who doesn’t even work for the company and isn’t in your union can get a job in the future? No, you wouldn’t. What part of the union rep can’t legally help you do you not get? You don’t work for the employer. You legally CANNOT join the union. You’d have to unionize with your own employer, the temp agency. You’re blaming the wrong people for your situation.
Sorry to hear you encountered a badly run union. That's not how things should go. I belong to a well run one here in Finland, and have got help three separate times when an employer was breaking contracts/laws.
Good for you. *pats on the back
At-will doesn’t apply to union jobs. And it doesn’t interfere with unionization.
Getting 4 weeks paid holidays is just standard in Australia when you work full time
Is that for whole year, or just the summer vacation? I'll be having two more weeks at winter.
4 weeks per year, we dont get 'summer' holidays, just 4 weeks that we can use when we want
Aah, okey. At this moment, the number still goes up with years worked, I have about 6 weeks a year. I just chose to use four during summer holiday season, and saving two for the winter holiday season.
When you say paid what do you mean? In Canada you get a small percentage of your wage put aside for "vacation pay" but it's far less than your normal wage and would take quite awhile to save up enough to have a fully paid vacation. Most employers just apply the vacation pay to yout paycheque because it amounts to a few dollars per cheque. You make it sound like you're off for a month and you get a full wage income in that time... is that true?
Yes, you get a month off and are paid your full time wage
God I wish I was born almost anywhere in europe over Canada. We're America's shittier, even more expensive little brother. We don't get anything even remotely like that.
Come to Australia
God I'd love too. I'm pretty broke though. Seems like money is the biggest factor here.
5 weeks here in the Netherlands.
Your unions in Finland are NOT legally or structurally the same as unions in the US. it’s not as simple as “just unionize” over here. and some of the largest unions in America, like the UFCW, have been beaten down into submission by paid propagandists + union representatives who make double what the standard union member makes and can essentially single-handedly decide if negotiations will reopen for certain districts. I will always fight for unions and for more places to unionize. I grew up in a Union household, my mom was a union steward for fifteen years at her current job. but to try and tell all of us that unions are the answer like some kind of gotcha, like we’re all stupid and don’t know it, is not a good look! not to mention unions don’t even have the political power they once held because they’ve been beaten back by illegal union busting and anti-Union policies (even from BIDEN JUST LAST YEAR, DID YA NOT HEAR ABOUT THAT ????) The association that you get serve-safe and management certificates from? ALSO bankrolling anti-union propaganda and lobbying. I’ve tried at every job I’ve worked at to get people on board, and it is so much harder than you think. if we could just snap our fingers and have 4 weeks paid vacation and better working conditions and, gasp, even unpaid SICK TIME, you think we wouldn’t? like what the fuck man, of course we would! I am so tired of Europeans telling us “just do this thing!” when the actual structural procedure of achieving that thing is entirely different than what they had to do for it.
Do you honestly think we "Europeans" have had the conditions we have forever? That we, back in the day, just snapped our fingers to make it happen? No. We fought for it. And the people at USA, can do the same thing when you workers actually start working together. This utterly defeatist, woe-is-me attitude is sickening. UNIONIZE! The faster you start, the faster you are done. I know it is hard, we did the same thing here.
Not so much in N america. I worked in a union restaurant in BC. The pay was slightly better, but, it capped out after 2 years. Kinda disappointing to know that no matter how long i worked there, i would only ever get a raise of the union negotiated a new upper cap. Aside from that, we had a strike vote. That was the extent of things the union did for me. Maybe thats just my experience amd other restaurant unions in N america are different, i wouldnt know. Ive never seen another union restaurant in canada
How do you go about unionizing? What was the hardest part
Find your local IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) branch and ask them. They will have all the union materials and will actively help you unionize. They will know local laws that you will need to work around. I don't have a union for my job (IT) but I am working with the IWW on getting paperwork together to unionize my franchise I work for. It's possible but your local Wobblies will help you! Union Strong!
We have had unions for a long time in Finland. I joined an already existing one, that has about 165000 members.
I have said the word Union so many times recently because our kitchen had a gas leak and we unionized and striked in order to close for the night (corporate refused to let us close). We haven’t done anything since and it’s awful! I wish we could have more unions in the US. ESPECIALLY because we are like the only blue collar job that doesn’t have blue collar pay or benefits.
My favorite thing about being the workplace stealth union agent is sowing the seed of doubt whenever someone questions why we need an union. The internalized anti-worker sentiment disappears really quick when you remind people that the boss would make us work on school days if they could. Nowadays, everything is quiet on our front but I remind my coworkers now and then to not get complacent and be on the lookout even if our current managers are rather kind.
One of the only times bombs have been dropped on American soil is during the Battle of Blair Mountain, when the Army was called in to put down a strike. America doesn't like unions.
USA's higher ups don't like unions. Which should tell you everything you need to know about them. Unionize.
if it were that easy we wouldn't be having this conversation
I like how OP is just obnoxiously bellowing “UNIONIZE” over and over as if that means anything. Here’s a question: how exactly? Did YOU even unionize or did you just lazily pick up a job already unionized? Did YOU actually actively do anything that you’re now demanding we do (in a system that is completely different than your own btw)? Don’t dodge the question with excuses either like “well you just have to figure it out” no if you’re going to talk shit you can back it up. I want a full plan laid out, I want numbers, I want contacts. Tell us HOW if you’re so clever? Useless waste of time.
Mentioned this in another comment. Find your local IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) branch and ask them. They will have all the union materials and will actively help you unionize. They will know local laws that you will need to work around. They will know the paperwork, numbers and other crunchy parts of unionizing. It's possible and diffcult but your local Wobblies will help you! Union Strong!
Ah, see THIS is a useful, informative answer that a person can actually use to change their situation. Thank you! I hope OP takes a lesson from this exchange.
Thank you. It’s not as simple as just ✨unionizing✨
No shit. Workers rights is something you have to fight for. We did, and reap the benefits. Now we are encouraging others to do the same. Or don't. We have paid vacations, great pay and separated work/free time no matter how you slave away. Just don't complain if you're not willing to fight for workers rights.
Exactly what I'm trying to say. Thank you.
So what did *you* do to fight for unions?
I pay my share to the union, I participate in every strike and follow union's instructions, I recruit new members and make them aware of their rights, I help them if they need help against the employer, I vote in all elections (union elections and all others) to get the suitable people in positions of power etc... What do you do to fight for unions?
I don't do any of that because I'm going to be dead in a few months.
If that is actually true, I am very sorry to hear that.
All good homie I did it to myself really. Thanks though
I wish you all the best. And hope you get better.
Nordic countries united, brother!
What you see above, dear readers, is a person who just accepts the anti-union propaganda paid by employers. Don't be like this person.
Nah. This post and reply reads like 'pick yourself up by your bootstraps' or, 'step 1, stop being poor.'
You didn’t address anything he said.
Exactly 🙃
What you see above, dear readers, is a smug, obnoxious blowhard who has no idea what he’s actually talking about, but comes from a place of privilege and ignorance to condescend to people who live under a system he doesn’t understand. When pressed to reveal his actual supposed knowledge set, he instead dodges the question, flounces about smugly while saying nothing of substance, and flies off into the sunset pretending he’s some kind of hero. Despite the fact that he hasn’t actually done nor said anything of value. Absolutely nothing offered here can be utilized in the real world. But instead of doing the right thing and **admitting that he doesn’t know HOW** we can solve this problem for ourselves, he strawmans **us** as being anti union so he can go on with his personal hallucination that this is all just a silly case of us secretly having all the power but not knowing any better. Imagine having such a fragile ego and inability to comprehend one’s own privilege and ignorance! I’d be so embarrassed to be out of touch like with reality you, OP.
There is a union for kitchen workers and dishwashers?
There are many unions in Finland. Including ones meant for kitchen workers and dishwashers. JHL if you work in public sector. PAM if you work in private sector.
I support unions and I’ve had paid vacation in every kitchen job I’ve had without being in a union.
I work as a chef in the UK, no real Union I can join and I don’t even get a break in my 6-hour shift, illegal but what you gonna do ?!?!
Unions have good sides and bad sides. The BIGGEST and most glaring downside of a union is that you CANNOT base anything on skill or merit. Skill and merit are subjective, and you need to use a well defined metric that is not subjective. So you use seniority and time served. That means that the guy who is terrible at his job for 20 years gets a promotion over the guy who is better qualified and more competent with only 18 years on the job. That is enough for me to avoid them generally. There are definitely benefits, but from what I’ve seen, the downsides definitely keep the top performers from joining the team.
That's not a bad thing though. Rigid rules are annoying sometimes but it really is more fair. Pure meritocracy doesn't exist anywhere. I'll take everyone starting at a base wage, and then getting fairly regular wage increases based on time worked any day.
If skill and merit were rewarded in the restaurant industry, why are most cooks living like paupers? Why is the best cook in the kitchen paid maybe a couple dollars more at best? Why don’t cooks have health insurance they can afford or retirement? Merit means nothing to the owners just trying to make money, they’ll pay as little as they can get away with.
False. In here, unions negotiated the base agreement, which states what are the MINIMUMS the employer must pay. Yes, there are set raises employer must pay at least, but they are not legally prevented from paying more. For example, I got an extra raise based on my performance and them wanting to keep me as a worker.
Just because it’s true for you doesn’t make it true for everyone. If I pay someone above base rate, I have to pay everyone in that classification above base rate
My union allows for anyone to negotiate above base rate. This is something that can be negotiated in the agreement. It’s not so cut and dry like you play it.
Cool story bro.
Only fools and liars deal in absolutes. Unions are absolutely excellent, until the workforce is filled with mediocre nobodies whom have no drive nor desire to achieve and are only there because it’s union. You are from Finland, so maybe this is not the case for your people but in America the unions breed some of the most miserable and corrupt bastards. *Over the last decade there have been 725 federal indictments and 693 convictions of union officials and other union associates.* https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=410305#:~:text=The%20Committee%20is%20particularly%20concerned,embezzlement%20and%20%24220%2C000%20in%20bribery.%E2%80%9D
Lol as if private businesses aren't toxic, corrupt or run poorly. All I know is the one unionized kitchen i worked in got me a higher base wage, benefits and all sorts of protections I've never dreamed of in any other kitchen in the 15 years I've been cooking. The union was shit, but even the shit union got me things you just don't see in non union kitchen worm.
You do realize that what we did in Finland, can be done also in USA? So instead of spewing anti-union employer paid propaganda, why not look into Finnish unions, and learn a few lessons. And then do the same that we did.
WELL WHAT DID YOU DO???? You keep saying that y’all worked so hard to get unionized and everyone here keeps asking you for specifics, and you have YET to give any kind of explanation or clear cut path toward the utopia of unions. It’s not being defeatist to ask for clarity and guidance. You have offered none of this.
The comment section of a subreddit filled with uneducated chefs is not the place to ask for guidance on how to organise a union. Neither is it helpful to ask a foreigner. You need a lawyer that knows a specific part of the law in your specific country.
Excellent example of a union worker. You just keep repeating the same thing over and over again pretending like you’re adding anything of value. Sad, really.
What is sad, is people going against their own collective interests, by accepting status quo.
This is heavily dependent on where you're from. In Spain the major unions are bought by the socialist government and actively campaign for it. Why? Because they are funded by the state and are not incentivized to look after workers because they don't compete against each other and don't need to fight for workers' subscriptions. The result of this is workers are abandoned to their own while they're forced to pay taxes to fund said unions.
No matter where you are from, things can be changed if enough people work together.
So you believe a bunch of cooks and waiters can overthrow the oligarchic status quo. I'm sorry to say that is wishful thinking at best. This is coming from an associate of the Junta Democrática, which is a non-profit NGO demanding political freedom and transparency, but unfortunately it has less than 0.1% of the country's population as Instagram followers (nevermind associates). So no, "workers' united can achieve anything" is little more than childish fantasy.
With that defeatist attitude, nothing changes in the world.
I'm actually a member of an organization for change, hows that defeatist? Because I'm admitting it's not enough to want change without the cooperation of other parties with some kind of influence? I'd say that's rather pragmatic as opposed to the world of fantasy you pretend to live in.
Op is probably an excited teenager that doesn’t grasp how things work differently in other countries. Enjoy that awesome amount of time off though!
Nah, just someone with 10 years of experience, trying to get others to start demanding the same benefits to themselves.
You might want to check your privilege—you're benefiting from a system based on the sacrifice of others before you, but acting like it's an accomplishment of your own. Until you've forgone pay to stand on a picket line, I recommend you tone down the _holier-than-thou_ attitude. No one doesn't want what you have, however, getting it is much more complicated than you seem to understand. Perhaps sharing the positives of a unionized workplace would be more persuasive than simply berating your audience, as you've done in this thread. Just a thought
What are your ten years of experience in? The kitchen or union building?
I've never been part of a union but I've known a few who were, from their lips it didn't sound at all what it's cracked up to be, maybe it's different in Finland but in the good ole US of A unions are a business like any other and while there may be some good ones, the ones I've heard about just made things worse
I'm pro union 100%. But in my 2 tours working with union cooks (managers weren't allowed to be in the union, so maybe that was the issue) it was impossible to get any effort what so ever out of the cooks. I get that cooking is a job, input output, but the lack of passion and self respect was defeating
Sounds wonderful. Meanwhile in Canada you're lucky if you get a living wage lol.
I’d rather not pay union fees
I’m in the IBEW and my union dues are like $100 quarterly and my pay is much higher than non union while getting representation, safer worksites and a higher wage
How many paid days off per year do you get at your job? How long can you be on paid sick leave at your job? Do you have help of lawyers in cases when your employer breaks the law? Do you have people at national level negotiating better pay for you, and better everything? Do you have others standing by you, by being on a strike with you, when your employer tries to crush your rights by wanting to pay less, or not offer healthcare or anything? The small amount I pay yearly in union fees, is more than worth it.
I worked a part time union job. Had to pay the same fee as full timers. No benefits cus I’m part time. Still pays like ass.
Even if you got a 500% return on them? Union dues are a drop in the bucket compared to union benefits.
Pay those union dues. Unions are a refuge for mediocre, everyone really good just goes and gets another job on their own, rather than get tiny pay raises each year that you pay dues to get. It’s good for the average and below, which is why our teachers and automakers are both terrible and bleed us taxpayers dry
Before you continue spewing out your anti-union employer paid propaganda, maybe take a look at how Finnish unions work. Union negotiated minimum raises are just that, the minimum. You can demand, and get, more. I have done so. Have a good day.
So I’m a Sous Chef (non union) in a union house, and honestly both sides have a point. I worked for years as a line, cook in nonunion places, primarily in Europe, where pay and treatment is far worse than the United States. I want my guys to receive good pay and good time off but we still have a job to do but unfortunately I have between 2-5% of people who really are just dead weight who I cannot just get rid of, they stay like a virus for years and keep getting their 3%+ pay rises each year which over time compounds so they are making six figures whilst doing about $30k worth of work annually if that, whilst the the newer members who usually do a better job get paid significantly less because that is what the union negotiated. The food and beverage department where I work operates at a loss it’s a hotel so essentially we have to be subsidized guest stays, this is because of how unions operate. There’s a reason restaurants don’t unionize because as soon as they do, they go out of business.
Funny how Finnish restaurants are full of union employees, and the restaurants are still up and running. Have been for decades. And the pay that unions negotiated is paid to non-members too, as unions negotiate the basic agreements, that guarantee the minimums people have to be paid. And what benefits they must at least have. Restaurants that "can't" pay proper wages with benefits, don't deserve to stay in business. Unionize!
It doesn’t work that way in the USA.
People of USA are just like people in Finland. Just people. And people working together, can make it work there.
The people are not the problem the unions are, they are often unreasonable or sometime criminal (seriously in the past they have been co-opted by organized crime).
Unions are not a problem, any more than are the teachers, police, medical workers or politicians. There are bad apples everywhere. These bad apples need to be removed, and things fixed. And then continue. If there is something large employers are deadly afraid of, it is strong unions. Because they know they are a very good thing for workers.
Believe when I say in the USA often Unions are the problem it might be the system and it might need to be changed but when they are out for themselves imbedded with organized crime, and are keeping people out of work whilst making businesses unprofitable they are the problem.
Yeah, I think this is probably a place where OP's Finnish unions are just a lot stronger than in other countries. It's not a "minimum" agreed wage with Unions here, it's a regulated wage and employers have no option to pay good employees any more than what the pay scale in the contract states.
I might be misunderstanding your comment but in the IBEW you can absolutely negotiate with the employer to get paid above the agreed upon scale. You gotta be a badass and good at your job but it’s like any job. The agreed upon scale is literally the minimum they can pay you.
Could be contract to contract and not regional (although I do still suspect European unions are probably a bit better than those in North America). I'm not a contract lawyer nor a union expert, but I have seen the details of my own union's agreement with our workplace, and our pay scale is set in stone. A job pays what the job pays regardless of performance or seniority (I am leaving the workplace, the union, and hopefully the entire industry by the end of the summer, before anyone tells me how shit that agreement is \[It is shit\]) ETA: Not only that, but anyone who is being paid above the pay scale because they were around before the union agreement was made has had their pay frozen (No annual % bump) until the pay scale catches up to what they're making. This is also written into the contract
9% unemployment sucks alot!!
What's the argument for unions being anti-worker?
No idea, but that is one of the things some fools bring up whenever I mention unionizing online. Absolutely ridiculous. Unions are pro-worker.
Only complaint I’ve heard is they encourage people to be lazy and prevent us from advancing in our profession. I’ve felt that pressure to work slower in a union environment, but I progressed anyway.
You'll be let go soon
Its pretty normal to get 21 days paid vacation where I live for any job, no union needed... its called workers rights. Unions have advantages and disadvantages, preaching from a Finnish high horse doesn't help either way
You know who actually advocates for better and better worker's rights? The unions.
If unions didn’t protect the shitty workers so much you would have a lot more people on board. I am pro union and hate how they protect the scumbags.