End of a long day at work, and I was getting in the elevator to leave. The arrow lights up, and a UPS worker pops out, asks if I mind holding the elevator while he scans for final packages. Of course not. He scans, I hold, he returns. Anything, I ask? Nah, he sighs. "Well, less work for you, right?""Yeah, I guess. But more packages, more money.""Do they pay you by the piece?""Nah, but we're union, so if UPS is making more, we can say, 'you're doing this many packages, and making this much money,' and we can renegotiate our contract."To hear the spin on union employees, they're all lazy slugs content to rest on their contract and watch, slightly bemused, as unfinished work sits on the floor. Serves management right, they'll sneer, cracking open another Bud Light.Here's the other side of that. The guy I met in the elevator, at 7PM at night, is hustling for packages. Why? Because he know that if the company does better, his union has the power to ensure that he'll do better, too. His work doesn't just enrich management and ensure ever more lavish executive compensation -- it pays his salary, and the better he does, the higher his salary. And he can bank on that, because he's in a union.(Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Thomwatson.) HOW UNIONS CAN INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY.
End of a long day at work, and I was getting in the elevator to leave. The arrow lights up, and a UPS worker pops out, asks if I mind holding the elevator while he scans for final packages. Of course not. He scans, I hold, he returns. Anything, I ask? Nah, he sighs. "Well, less work for you, right?""Yeah, I guess. But more packages, more money.""Do they pay you by the piece?""Nah, but we're union, so if UPS is making more, we can say, 'you're doing this many packages, and making this much money,' and we can renegotiate our contract."To hear the spin on union employees, they're all lazy slugs content to rest on their contract and watch, slightly bemused, as unfinished work sits on the floor. Serves management right, they'll sneer, cracking open another Bud Light.Here's the other side of that. The guy I met in the elevator, at 7PM at night, is hustling for packages. Why? Because he know that if the company does better, his union has the power to ensure that he'll do better, too. His work doesn't just enrich management and ensure ever more lavish executive compensation -- it pays his salary, and the better he does, the higher his salary. And he can bank on that, because he's in a union.(Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Thomwatson.) 
