EMPLOYEES
By Gary Goldman
8 REASONS
Why Landscape Workers Should Unionize Having a difficult time finding trained workers? Maybe unionization is an answer both employees and employers could learn to live with – and maybe even love.
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f you are in the contracting/service industry, you know how hard it is to attract, hire and keep employees. For whatever reason, there is a shortage of both skilled and unskilled labor. Business owners, on any given day, are faced with the realization that an employee may quit to earn 50 cents more from a competitor. The frustration, not to mention the economic and
financial costs that business owners are faced with, has reached epidemic levels in parts of the country. If you are fortunate enough to find help, you also quickly realize that they often lack training, want outrageous wages based on their experience, dictate the hours they want to work, and also have a lot to say about working conditions. Many do not have a driver’s license, and many get offended if you tell them they are required to take a drug test. For men and women who plan on entering the job market as non-professionals—who see themselves more as blue-collar “workers” than as whitecollar “careerists”—here are eight practical reasons why they should consider being represented by a labor union. I strongly suggest that business owners also review these—because you, too, might conclude that unionization may not be that bad of an idea.
YOUNG FOLKS GROW FONDER OF UNIONS According to Pew research first published in January 2016, labor unions are viewed more positively today than five or six years ago, up from 32% to 45%. Furthermore, today’s younger workers—millennials—are much more likely than their elders to view unions positively (57% compared to 42% of Gen-Xers and 41% of Baby Boomers).
8 GREEN INDUSTRY PROS
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1. Money
Unionization automatically stabilizes wages, which means there is no more
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holding company owners hostage for pay increases every few months. From the employee’s standpoint, union jobs generally pay more than non-union jobs. You want to be part of the American middle-class? Join a union. From top to bottom, industry to industry, region to region, union wages are going to be roughly 10-20% higher than non-union wages. (Unionplus.org actually puts the number at around 30%, while current Bureau of Labor Statistics data puts it at 25%). That’s a big reason why many companies are adverse to the concept of a unionized workforce: They don’t want to pay one dime more than they have to. However, when a business owner calculates the costs associated with untrained workers, downtime, and unstable wages for a given contract period, they quickly realize that the increased payroll costs are quickly offset. Anti-labor propaganda suggests that it’s a trade-off: The additional pay an employee receives will be eaten up by monthly union dues. That’s a lie. ❯❯ continued page 10
2/27/17 12:48 PM