From: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp,sci.econ,talk.politics.misc,misc.misc
Subject: Re: GM Plant Closures Again? Won't Solve the Economic Problems
Date: 17 Dec 92 00:14:51 GMT
Reply-To: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH


In response to previus article, ae547@yfn.ysu.edu says:

In a previous article, bobp@hal.com (Bob Pendleton) says:

>From article <1glcjkINNlgk@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, by au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben):
>
>> My understanding of the labor laws is that they give someone the 
>> basis to defend their rights, if they choose to.
>
>That's my understanding also.
>
>> For example, I feel unions are an important right and that
>> the law against the employer paying a worker's union dues
>> so the worker can't be in a union is a violation of
>> that right.
>
>I don't understand what you are saying here. Are you saying that there
>is a law that keeps employers from paying union dues? And that that
>law some how prevents people from being in a union? This doesn't make
>sense to me.

The law I am referring to is a law that forbids employers from exercising
financial domination over unions by paying the unions the union dues
of the workers involved. To do so would be to have the union indebted
to the employer rather than to the worker.

That's what happened to me while I worked at Ford. My union dues was
paid  -- I wasn't allowed to pay it myself. Then when I tried to 
have the union involved represent me - it wouldn't because it was 
indebted to the employing structure rather than to the worker.

The law forbids financial domination by the employer of a union.
That is to protect a worker's right to be in a union. When the 
NLRB did not uphold that aspect of the law, and when the Michigan
Employment Commission (the state equivalent of the NLRB) did
not rule on the issue even though the case was brought to them 6 years
ago, my right to be in a union was taken away. (The right to be in a 
union is dependent on that section of the law being enforced 
promptly.)


>
>> similarly I know someone who was told that he wouldn't be paid
>> for the hours he had spent at work. He called up the Federal
>> Dept of Labor and inquired as to whether there was any law 
>> requiring the employer to pay him for the hours he had been at work. He
>> was told lthere was and that he could file a charge if he wasn't paid.
>> HHe told the employer that he knew he had the right under the law
>> to be paid. The employer agreed to pay him but then toldl him
>> there was no further work for him.
>
>This story brought back memories from a long time ago. In my very
>first job I once turned in a time card with 64 hours on it. I got pay
>for 32 (or something like those numbers, it was more than 20 years
>ago). I asked for the difference and was told, by the owner, that I
>would be paid if I could prove I'd worked the hours. Well, I figured
>no problem, the manager had signed the time card, he'd tell the owner
>he'd made a mistake.
>
>The manager wouldn't stand up to the owner because he was afraid of
>losing his job. The owner had the time card, and refused to show it to
>me...
>
>BTW, I did contact the state labor relation board (Utah) about the
>problem, and was told I didn't have a leg to stand on.
>
>This experience affected my life in several different ways. I learned
>to be very cynical, it made me study much harder, and I learned the
>"joy" of revenge.
>
>> It was good there was a law that required that he be paid
>> for the hours he was at work. It was bad that the law
>> has no teeth in it so the employer knows he will face a stiff
>> fine if he violates the law or penalizes the worker who wants
>> to defend his rights under the law.
>
>Unfortunately, you left out one detail. Did he go into the job
>believing he was going to be paid a salary or an hourly rate? Did he
>say he'd do a job for a fixed price and when it turned out to take
>longer than he expected did then ask for the extra?

He went into the job believing he would be paid an hourly rate
for every hour at work. In fact he was at that job for 5 years
working summers or part time during the year, before he had
this trouble. He had always been paid before and he had the right
to be paid under federal law. But there was poor enforcement of 
the penalty to an employer for violating the law or for 
discriminating against someone who tries to have his rights
protected under the law.

>
>What was the agreement between the person doing the job and the
>person paying for the job?

He was working in the computer department of a local university.
He was to be paid an hourly rate for the hours at work.

>
>In my case I agreed to do a job for a certain hourly rate and was
>ripped off. On the other hand, I have serveral times made commitments
>that forced my to work long hours to get a job done for an agreed on
>price. (Both contract and salary situations.) In a few (rather
>embarrasing) cases I've wound up make only a few cents/hour. But I
>made the commitment, and I had to keep it. If I tried to change the
>rules by invoking federal law, I would expect to not work there any
>more.

So it seems that the very weak laws for hourly employees are even
weaker for everyone else.


>
>>>BTW, I'm exempt from the labor laws. I'm classed as an engineer.
>>>
>> Why is that? Are you considered a professional (I thought teachers
>> are considered professionals but still have rights under
>> labor laws).
>
>Since writing that I've learned that the status of programmers and
>software engineers is quite ambiguous under current labor laws. 
>
>In some states I'd be considered a professional. In others I'm not
>consdered to be a professional. At one time the federal government
>classed programmers and computers scientists as clerical workers.

Both the experiences I have had and the research I have done show
how hard a fight it has been for any strata of the workforce to 
have any labor rights. It's a fight for any inch of new ground -
and there are wholesale backwards steps because employers, particularly
big employers, have legal departments that are very active trying to 
role back the rights their employees have under the law, but 
workers have very little knowledge ofwhat their rights are, of 
what the precedents are, and even if they do learn them as a 
result of a hard fight and sacrifice, which is what happened to me
and other people I have met, then the courts or agencies like the
NLRB just ignore the laws under pressure from the big employers 
and their political friends.

Thus the whole political and legal structure must be more closely
watched by more people. People shouldn't have to learn the hard way by their
own experience which is about the only way people learn now -- the 
employers have all sorts of ways of knowing what is going on.

>
>But, yes, professionals have some right under labor laws.

It seems that there are too many different categories under labor
law (and the National Labor Relations Act) - and these different
categories are used as loopholes by employers and the National
Labor Relations Board to keep workers from having any right.

>
>>>I've had access to usenet news or arpanet mailing lists for about 9
>>>years out of the last 12.
>> 
>> That goes back to 1980? Were you on the arpanet mailing lists before
>> they were gated to usenet?
>
>I believe so. I was on arpanet for sometime before I ever heard of
>usenet. 
>
>That's interesting. Do you have any memories of what was worthwhile
or interesting about the lists that were on arpanet?

Were there any newsgroup type groups on the arpanet?

>> Were you on human.nets?
>> I have heard that that was a high quality mailing list.
>
>Yes, I used to read human.nets. I can't say if I ever posted to it or
>not. 

Do you have any memory of the kinds of things that was on human.nets?
I have been told that it was very valuable and that when usenet 
began to gate it to usenet, then usenet got many new people.
So I wondered what was on it.
Someone says that he may have access to some old tapes and so I may
get to see some of it, but I'm not sure that will happen.

(I've often found that it helps to see the development of something
-- and I am going to present an introduction to usenet to a local
education conference in March in a talk that I have proposed called
"Usenet News: The Poor Man's Arpanet". So I hope to do some research
for the talk about how usenet news and arpanet were related.

(about unions)

>
>> No membership isn't voluntary. 
>
>This is obscene.

It essentially means that there are no real unions in the U.S. - for
unions as I understand them are voluntary organizations.

>
>> I don't know why the law in this area is so weak. But I know that it 
>> has led to the decline both of democratic rights for workers in unions
>> and to the decline of union membership in the U.S.
>
>I don't think it's a problem of the law being week. When the unions
>start being the exploiter, what is the purpose of being in a union?

But it is the law that makes it necessary for all workers in an
oganized shop to be a member and pay dues to the union. So it is
the problem created by the law that makes the union officials 
untouchable by the membership of the union.  Neither unions
nor corporations have any identity outside of what is provided 
for under the law in the U.S. - yet there is this wind that says
that these entities should not be subject to any obligations to
anyone. 

Thus the law serves these entities and sacrificies everyone else.

   ronda
-- 
Ronda Hauben                    email address:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
Amateur Computerist Newsletter              or
P.O. Box 4344                   rhauben@heartland.bradley.edu
Dearborn, MI 48126
Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.misc