Two-tiered labor contracts: Unions’ eventual undoing?

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

I’ve been catching up on my reading this afternoon, things that I meant to get to a while ago. One is this interesting Nation story “How Two-Tiered Union Contracts Became Labor’s Undoing.”

Two-tiered contracts are when groups of workers doing the same job at the same company are paid and given benefits and raises along different scales based on their seniority. That is, it is not just that the older guys get paid more because they’ve been there longer, but the younger workers may never get paid at that higher level even if they last as long as the older guys: the newer workers are locked into a lower rate and a slower rise.

This is essentially what happened in the auto industry bailouts in 2009. While the United Auto Workers agreed to concessions from members as part of the government’s deal, those concessions applied mainly to new company hires. The existing workers retained their old wages and benefits. The union was protecting its existing members at the expense of its prospective new members.