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Tyco Bronye
  • Minneapolis, MN
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Why would a busness owner hire a union employee?

Tyco Bronye
  • Minneapolis, MN
Posted Mar 4 2015, 10:06

I'm wondering why an employer would hire a union employee if he doesn't have to?

I work at a hotel and I learn about what people make in various departments

Housekeepers get around 11 bucks an hour to start and max out at 14 an hour

Front desk people are in this same range around 12 dollars an hour

The maintenance department surprisingly only gets 14 dollars an hour, these are people that need a lot of skills and knowledge in all the trades.

Dishwashers 11 an hour

I personally work as a banquet set up person.  Almost no skill is required just setting up chairs and tables and we get a wage plus gratuity so I end up making 27 dollars an hour, which I truly can't understand why I get this much for a no skill job which anybody could learn and master in under a week.

Most surprising is the banquet waitresses get 40 dollars an hour.  I can not understand why the owner of the hotel or the general manager would pay me 27 an hour and the waitresses 40 an hour when we could easily be replaced with people making 15 an hour.

The maintenance department is constantly short staffed because of high turnover and then they have a lot of trouble filling the position because of how much knowledge is needed.  To me it's clear as day that the market is speaking and 14 is not enough, if they paid these people 4 bucks more an hour, there would probably be no turnover.

I'll ask the waitresses and my co workers "don't you guys find it odd that we are paid so much compared to the other employees?  Why wouldn't the owner of the hotel just cut our pay in half?"  

Of course our department has no problem with turnover, we have many people who have worked there for 20 to 30 years, because of high pay. 

Why wouldn't the owner give us less, especially the waitresses who get 40 an hour and give maintenance  or other departments with high turnover more money? 

To which I'll get a reply like..... "The union wouldn't allow that."

Which to me is basically a non answer because  it's not like business owners are required by law to hire union employees.

To be clear since I am a worker and not a business owner so I'm pro union, because it means I get more money.  The part I don't understand is it seems like 90 percent of the work force would need to be a union member in order for the union to work, since it's not required by law it seems an owner is much better off just hiring non -union workers.