

Ikea's U.S. factory churns out unhappy workers - GICodeWarrior
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/10/business/la-fi-ikea-union-20110410

======
hugh3
I'm rather skeptical of any "workers at factory are mistreated, unhappy, et
cetera" story that just _happens_ to coincide with an attempt by a big-labor
union to unionize said factory.

Where did this story come from? Why are we reading about it right now? Of all
the thousands of factories in America, why is the attention of the Los Angeles
times focused on a single furniture factory in Virginia?

 _Some of the Virginia plant's 335 workers are trying to form a union. The
International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said a majority of
eligible employees had signed cards expressing interest._

Which is it? Are they trying to form their own union? Or is an extremely large
union trying to get them to join it?

Why is it that the only people they managed to interview for the story were
one disgruntled former worker (where did they find him?) and a union
representative?

What I'm trying to say is that I think the very existence of this story, and
the spin which has been put on it, is a combination of deliberate feeding by
the union combined with lazy journalists.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> I'm rather skeptical of any "workers at factory are mistreated, unhappy, et
> cetera" story that just happens to coincide with an attempt by a big-labor
> union to unionize said factory.

Unions don't waste their time trying to organize happy, satisfied employees.

~~~
hugh3
Unions are happy to take anyone's money. In fact they'd rather represent happy
workers rather than unhappy workers -- happy workers pay their dues and don't
cause any trouble.

I know from experience that unions are _very_ good at forcing reluctant
populations of workers to unionize. All they have to do is make you sign a
little card, and they're not keen on taking "no" for an answer.

------
GICodeWarrior
"The big difference is that the Europeans enjoy a minimum wage of about $19 an
hour and a government-mandated five weeks of paid vacation. Full-time
employees in Danville start at $8 an hour with 12 vacation days — eight of
them on dates determined by the company."

"It's ironic that Ikea looks on the U.S. and Danville the way that most people
in the U.S. look at Mexico,"

~~~
hollerith
Except that according to IMF 2010 figures, the average American makes about
124% as much as the average Swede:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita)

~~~
0x12
That's why you should not be using averages for comparisons like this.

The low end in Sweden is based on the local minimum wage and the vacation days
are mandated by law. In the US IKEA uses the room afforded by the law there to
pay their workers what they can get away with.

Clearly these are not 'average' Americans or Swedes we're talking about, we
are looking at the low end of the curve.

Cost of living for those American workers is likely not all that much
different from their Swedish counterparts.

~~~
thirdusername
There is no legally mandated minimum wage in Sweden (often to the surprise of
my fellow countrymen), there is however typically collective agreements
negotiated by the unions that about 80% of working Swedes belong too.

------
SomeCallMeTim
This is old news, by the way (April). Ikea followed up here in May:

[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/Swedwood_state...](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/Swedwood_statement)

In short, they plan to fix the mandatory overtime problem, and they claim not
to be involved in union busting. The latter charge, even in the article, was
weak -- mandatory meetings where management tries to talk people into not
unionizing? Sounds pretty benign.

They also denied the charges of discrimination.

Sounds like they hired American management who weren't really on board with
their philosophies, and that they're fixing the problem.

~~~
Natsu
It's interesting because most of those conditions (except discrimination and
union-busting) are completely normal, sadly. What happens, generally, is that
a company will under-staff because they can't predict their workload and then
try to make it up with temps when they get slammed. Except that the temps
can't do any of the semi-skilled jobs that involve special machinery, so the
people can use them end up with mandatory overtime and weekend shifts. They
may also be forbidden from taking vacation days. I know a guy who just had to
cancel his daughter's birthday party because the only other production worker
who can operate that machine was injured.

I don't know anything about how unions fit into the equation having never
dealt with that, but I know quite a bit about how production works at this
point, and it's not pretty.

~~~
hvs
Unfortunately, unions have a tendency to _limit_ the number of skilled workers
that a company can hire due to higher wages required for existing employees.

------
DanielBMarkham
As a former freelance writer, and somebody who lives just an hour north of
Danville, it's a really weird feeling to see an LA Times article about
something in our sleepy little neck of the woods. Woo hoo! We hit the big
time.

So naturally, I'm doing quality control as I read. Where are interviews with
management? Couldn't get them. Where are the interviews with the politicians
who set this deal up? Couldn't do that either (but no explanation). Interviews
with the people who like the work? Nope. Any attempt to try to see if there
was another side to the story? Unknown, but unlikely.

But more importantly: where is the _context_ to the story? You know, where you
look at similar plants in the region, talk to somebody who has seen this story
occur before, tell us how these things usually play out?

You see, there is a great regional story here. But you wouldn't know if from
this article.

I'm not saying Ikea is running a great plant. If the trend holds, it's
probably just like it was described -- at least for some. For others it's
probably a life-saver. It follows in a long line of plants where politicians
made tax concessions and begged overseas companies to come use the lower wages
and higher work ethic found around here. There's a big ribbon-cutting ceremony
where your local politician gets to smile and be on the news, there's a big
construction effort, there's a big story about management abusing the workers,
there's unionization threats, and then -- unionize or not -- both sides work
it out. I could tell you 4 or 5 of these stories myself, and I haven't written
any news copy in over 20 years.

But you wouldn't know any of that from this article. All we get is some hack
playing dialing for assholes from a phone hundreds of miles away. I'd like to
know where he got the list of people to talk with. I'd also like to know where
he got the story idea in the first place.

I don't know enough about Ikea to say this story is mostly correct or mostly
incorrect. But I know enough about writing and the local area to say this
story is mostly incomplete. Not a good article.

~~~
duncanj
Welcome to the world of corporate-controlled speech. You don't hear from the
managers because they aren't permitted to comment. You don't hear from
existing workers for the same reason. Only the disgruntled ex-workers and the
union rep don't have contractually-obligated silence. So the only opinions you
get are the corporate flack, the union rep, and the disgruntled ex-worker.

Reporters often bend over backwards to present the other side of a story that
has a left-wing bent. Typically they will find someone in that minority (24%
in this case) of workers who would have voted against the union and present
their opinions with equal weight to the disgruntled ex-worker, and the tone of
the article shifts to "existing workers like the job, disgruntled ex-workers
disgruntled because they're fired."

It's possible a better reporter could extend the same kind of protections and
anonymity to the existing workers as their Washington counterparts routinely
extend to political operatives, but would you then be complaining that none of
the workers or managers had the guts to put their name behind their words?

We have no real idea what's going on, and I think it's more in Ikea's
interest, than the union's, to keep it that way.

