Bottom Line: Who owns the job: the company or the worker?
We don’t often think of it that way when we talk about those ‘evil’ corporations and company owners. We think of how unfair something is or we think of the burden on the employee because, naturally, most of us identify with the employee and not the owner of a company.
Yet if the company owns its revenues, its liabilities, and its assets does it not also own the job itself? Shouldn’t a company have the right to modify the job, add responsibilities, or take away responsibilities without fear of recrimination? I think so. Of course it is possible to cross the line from adjusting jobs to fit a change in the company’s work flow model and adjusting jobs as a linked threat to accomplishing another objective. If that happens then owners have crossed the line in which there is a power shift that places a worker in a ‘take it or leave it’ proposition with no options to solve or resolve the underlying problem.
Case in point. The D J Yuengling Brewery told its workers that they either vote out the union or the work would be sent South. Here is the AP side of the story.
Would you agree that if the company threatened to close the plant unless the membership threw out the union that would cross the line on job ownership? This would be an example of using the threat of job losses to accomplish another purpose.
Would you also agree that in a lay-off situation, if the union blocks the ability of the owner to control which jobs are retained-and relinquished- that the union is interfering with the ownership of the job?
“Would you also agree that in a lay-off situation, if the union blocks the ability of the owner to control which jobs are retained-and relinquished- that the union is interfering with the ownership of the job?”
If the union and the employer had a binding contract in place, and the employer wanted to break that contract, how is the union interfering with the “ownership” of the job?
True, the contract between the organization and the collective bargaining unit supersedes the ownership of the job. And if the owner has negotiated job ownership away, he has no recourse except to abide by his contract.
And yet we hear regularly that employees have an inalienable right to their job, to its benefits, to its hours, and to its pay. This right does not exist naturally for an employee but can come from the collective bargaining unit. I would consider that an interference with the natural job ownership. Perhaps my question is poorly worded and it should be more of a statement that seniority systems interfere with natural job ownership.
I don’t think employees have an inalienable right to their job, but I do think employees should have some rights when it comes to their jobs. I don’t think power should reside solely with the employee or solely with the employer; there should be a healthy balance.
To play Devil’s Advocate, why should there be a healthy balance? And what would that be?
“…there should be a healthy balance.” The healthy balance already exits in non-union shops, becuase BOTH SIDES can “walk away” from their relationship at any time. When both sides can do it, it’s balanced and healthy. It can not get any more balanced than that.
“If the union and the employer had a binding contract in place, and the employer wanted to break that contract, how is the union interfering with the “ownership” of the job?” Just because the contract made sense when it went into effect, does not mean that it will remain that way for the length of the contract. Yes the union has the right to rest on the strength of the contract, but in the long run they’d be much better off to negotiate based on good economics, high sales, high efficiency, and maximum effectiveness. Without those, any company will eventually fail and NO CONTRACT can stop it. Bottom line: (in the long run) Contracts can not save the Yuengling jobs; only selling more Beer at profitable margins can save them.
Rich,Thanks for your comment. One interesting element in production/mfg plants is this: if a plant is running at +90% of its capacity (thereby making additional sales irrelevant) the cost of raw materials and labor will continue to increase and will then force the mfr to charge more for his product to pay his costs of production. Yet at the same time, competitors are seeking to purloin his ‘share’ of the market. His struggle then becomes to hold costs plus market share to stay in business. New mfrs with lower costs of production will have greater flexibility on pricing to steal his market share. Axiomatically, the game becomes to continue to grow or wither and die.
Where did you get this: “The D J Yuengling Brewery told its workers that they either vote out the union or the work would be sent South.”
Because first off, it’s the D. G. Yuengling brewery; second, the only way they could send work “South” would be to increase the amount of beer being brewed at the company’s Tampa brewery — which is also unionized (breweries are highly specialized and expensive facilities, there aren’t lots of non-union breweries around that are just waiting to make beer for you); and third, it’s a hollow threat, because Yuengling’s claim to being America’s Oldest Brewery would collapse if they stopped production at their 5th and Mahantogo Sts. facility in Pottsville: not gonna happen, and the brewery workers know that. The AP story makes no mention of this threat, and also states the outcome of the NLRB’s investigation into the episode: they found “no evidence that management pressured employees to leave Philadelphia-based Local 830 of the Teamsters.”
Oh, and…this story is two years old! How come everyone’s suddenly noticed the tearful plight of the poor union workers at Yuengling now? (Who, by the way, continue to make $20 an hour, and have 100% of their medical paid for by that evil Dick Yuengling.) It’s just part of the effort to put pressure on Arlen Specter to vote for the Employee Fair Choice Act. Poor Pennsylvania brewery workers, we stand in solidarity with you (now that we see an opportunity for leverage in your two-year-old not-so-bad situation)!
The only thing worse than union workers being exploited by management is union workers being exploited for political reasons by people who claim to support them.
Mr. Bryson, Thanks for stopping by. I apologize for the typographical error but the posting was less about the brewery than it was about the concept that jobs are owned by the company and not the employee. I am unclear what drives your defensiveness in this specific example. The age of the event is not relevant and I clearly pointed to the source of the story so that our readers could be fully informed. Is there a relationship between you and the brewery or its management that you have not disclosed? I did not manipulate the story to score any political points with ‘blue’ readers. In fact, my very point is counter to assertions by some ‘leftists’ that employees own the jobs they perform. Please come by again. I welcome all reasoned argument and recognize that others may have more cogent thoughts than my own.