Just as the city begins to retreat from the pandemic, union agitators — whoops, “organized workers” — arrive to nip the rally in the bud.
Workers at both the big Amazon warehouse in Staten Island and the giant “Roastery Reserve” Starbucks in Chelsea voted to unionize this week — the first two units of the city’s companies to be charged with “collective bargaining”.
The last thing the still-ailing Big Apple needs is more private-sector unions on top of those that are already sapping the motivation of our community employees, i.e. everyone “from accountants to zookeepers,” according to a boast from the District Council 37 website.
Unions not only punish the companies affected by this, but also their customers.
As the New York Times reported, “Amazon’s ability to get packages to consumers faster relies on a vast chain of manual labor monitored down to the second. Nobody knows what will happen if the reorganized workers try to change this model or disrupt operations.”
If?
Ever wonder why the Plaza Hotel’s Grade II listed Oak Room and Oak Bar are closed except for private functions? Thanks to prohibitive contract terms imposed by Local 6 of the Hotel and Motel Trades Council.
Why are Broadway tickets so expensive? Musicians Local 802 has a historic stranglehold on orchestral scoring. There’s even a rule that every show must have a minimum cast count based on the size of a theater, not how many cast members are actually needed.
As New York emerges from the pandemic, the last thing the struggling city needs is more unions to sap worker motivation, AP
Union featherbeds were a key reason why the Second Avenue Subway was the “world’s most expensive subway mile” — costing $2.5 billion per mile compared to a similar project in Paris that cost just $450 million US dollars per mile.
The Newspaper Guild was part of the cabal of print unions that put four New York dailies out of business in the 1960s, and in 1993 came close to the New York Post doing the same — a disaster averted only when union offices Representing printers, press people, drivers and other craftsmen have wisely chosen not to take part in the guild’s suicidal strike mission.
Unions suck the economy dry under the guise of giving hard-working bunglers a living wage. Public sector union contracts guarantee members pensions and health insurance unavailable to the general public, squandering valuable state and city resources on behalf of a fortunate few. Meanwhile, as surveillance site Unionfacts.com puts it, “The American labor movement . . . is still plagued by rampant corruption, embezzlement, extortion and the influence of numerous organized crime organizations.”
The moment Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse declared victory in their vote to form the first Amazon union in the United States pic.twitter.com/Fr92Wz1LIN
— Kei Pritsker (@KeiPritsker) April 1, 2022
But my aversion to unions is mostly based on life experience. Time and time again, I’ve seen union colleagues combing through the contract language for any loopholes to do less work than a job requires. A friend once attended a funeral where, when rain delayed the service, the coffin was exposed to the elements while gravediggers took a contractually mandated lunch break.
My father was a shop steward at a Brooklyn factory until he was promoted to management – and quickly learned that the same union labor rules he once enforced made “management” impossible.
When I was a student at a Suffolk County supermarket, union reps did nothing to help workers with real beef, instead pocketing a percentage of our weekly paychecks.
Union workers at Amazon’s Staten Island operations may feel compelled to change the Amazon model, which requires up-to-the-minute accountability to work. AFP via Getty Images
Workers at the Stony Brook College cafeteria where I worked were inexplicably covered by a health union. The shop steward was a Communist Party member with ID who sometimes stopped the kitchen just for fun but did nothing to help employees who were being burned through fat or cheated out of overtime.
Ironically, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz has long embraced pro-work wake-up rhetoric. He treats employees to “partnerships” for stock sharing and other perks rare in fast-food establishments.
It remains to be seen how much more his roastery workers will charge. Maybe a limit on how many Nitro Pepper Jerky Cold Brews they have to serve?
Union bigwigs usually do nothing to help the average worker except sit back and collect dues. Annie Wermiel
Starbucks founder Howard Schultz has long embraced pro-work wake-up rhetoric.AP
Of course, every revolution eats its own. Let’s just pray that these new “bargaining units” don’t engulf the businesses they hijacked – or what’s left of our economy.