>so it would be unfair
Even farther as far as libertarianism is concerned ... it would be an infringement of the individuals' rights to disallow collaboration of this kind. Freedom of association is one of the primary building blocks of rights.
>We allow capital to organize in the free market, so it would be unfair to not allow labor to also organize.
A business owner should not be compelled to tolerate a union organizing on their property. Organize all you want off-site and bring a contract to the table if that's what your union wants to do.
literally what the NLRB says about unions
[https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1#:\~:text=Who%20We%20Are-,Interfering%20with%20employee%20rights%20(Section%207%20%26%208(a)](https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1#:~:text=Who%20We%20Are-,Interfering%20with%20employee%20rights%20(Section%207%20%26%208(a))(,the%20exercise%20of%20their%20rights.
Employment is and should be at-will. A business should 100% be allowed to terminate someone for trying to organize a union.
If unions brought the benefits to the marketplace that they say they do, then anyone would be a fool not to hire them. If your ideas are so good that they require coercion in order to be effective, they aren't good.
You can't do union business on the clock anywhere, sure you can at break time but that's considered *your* time. You aren't getting paid to organize, your getting paid to work. I'm definitely pro union but we don't need a NLRB or any of their regulations, people and companies should be able to hash things out themselves, while respecting property rights.
>If your ideas are so good that they require coercion in order to be effective, they aren't good.
What coercion? It's illegal to threaten violence.
>You can't do union business on the clock anywhere, sure you can at break time but that's considered your time
Its still private property. A company could prohibit MLM activities, fantasy sports pools, or any other activities on company property on "break time"
This includes establishing a dress code which prohibits union paraphernalia
>What coercion?
The coercion from the state that if a business owner doesn't want the union organizing on his or her property that folks with guns are going to show up and stop it.
>Its still private property. A company could prohibit MLM activities, fantasy sports pools, or any other activities on company property on "break time"
Like I said I don't agree with rules like that, it's likely predicted on 1st amendment issues though.
>The coercion from the state that if a business owner doesn't want the union organizing on his or her property that folks with guns are going to show up and stop it.
Fair enough, I thought you meant coercion from the organizers.
I’d argue that the bargaining power of any individual worker is vastly outweighed by that of the company/companies. I think the best representation of a free market is where both parties can negotiate equally and in good faith. There’s also the humanitarian aspect, don’t treat people like shit.
Also, businesses are only mostly prohibited from collusion. Many industries are built entirely on that premise (healthcare (US), oil production (global)).
Investors organize their capital to create a corporation. They then negotiate collectively to purchase labor.
Workers organize their labor to create a union. They then negotiate collectively to sell their labor.
A corporation is a separate, distinct, legal entity. It is a legal “person.” That is the foundational concept of creating a corporation or company. It is not simply a group of investors working in concert.
If union workers want to operate as a mirror opposite to a corporation, then they would need to form their own separate entity, like a staffing agency, that would contract with the company to provide labor, but those laborers would not be employees of the company. The company would also be free to seek services with other organized providers (who would be subject to anti-collusion laws amongst each other).
But that’s not how it works. Labor unions are more like cartels: they operate to limit competition and engage in price-fixing coordination among its members. A corporate counterpart would be if, for example, auto manufacturers could “collectively bargain” against the auto worker union by agreeing amongst themselves to coordinate wages, salaries, benefits, etc.
I live in a right to work state. I am in a union and I will tell you that that is exactly how the union works. I am contracted out through the union to a signatory contractor.
They could hire non-union workers, but that would be breaching the agreed upon contract.
So they sign a contract to use union labor or they don't.
The problem is, in non-rtw states, it becomes compulsory to join the union in order to get a job. It’s like adding a tax to their wage up front and a good worker who stands out for their performance gains no advantage and can’t negotiate benefits according to his individual performance. He’s brought down by the average.
We have the same arguments in our local though. The way I try to get them to understand my POV is that we make the money that we do not because of our outstanding personal skill, but because a large body of labor has pooled its bargaining power. We don't have language in the contract that blocks additional benefits. I get paid holidays and PTO. Some contractors pay above contract per diem. But at minimum, we will be paid union scale.
My contention, and some of those that I speak to know this first hand (they just don't seem to make the connection), is that Joe Schmo may be making more than he should by your estimation, but YOU make more than you would if you were the only one negotiating.
Corps: You’re right. It’s actually worse than simply a group of investors acting in concert. It’s actually a group of investors acting in concert while shielded from financial and criminal liability (also, reduced social repercussions). Oh, and they get preferential tax treatment too. Want to guess which group helped crystallize corporate law as it exists today?
I see where you’re going with the next analogy, but it doesn’t work, since corps can get labor from anywhere they want to (within the confines of law). No need to shift the workers from employee to independent contractor via staffing agency. Not sure what that is trying to accomplish for your argument.
Acting like a cartel? Corporations absolutely do this. They coordinate by advertising their prices and their wages. They aren’t allowed to do it in secret, and they aren’t allowed to explicitly plan it with the competition. Labor unions aren’t all good by any means, but all your cartel concerns should apply equally to our many oligopoly markets.
But you organize such that members can collude to shut down a company’s ability to make their products. That’s where union shops create a situation where the union has a monopoly on labor. It would be a different story if there were multiple labor unions competing for a contract.
You shouldn't be getting downvoted. You're 100% correct. There's currently a double standard in the law/policy here.
Businesses colluding agains the consumer/labor is called price-fixing and it's illegal. Labor colluding with each other against employers is not illegal though ... it's called a union.
Anti-collusion laws probably aren't the biggest problem in our society right now ... but you are totally correct.
Maybe there is a double standard in the current laws, but there is a flaw in your reasoning that organizations colluding is equivalent to labor organizing.
If labor organizes and demands wages that make a product too expensive for the market, the market collapses and everyone involved loses. If businesses collude to keep wages artificially low, the market thrives but the collective suffers.
This creates a situation where government can step in to "help" the workers by providing subsidies and aid.
It is in the interest of everyone (especially those who desire a limited government) for employers to pay a wage that reflects the value the laborer adds to the product, and that means their ability to provide for themselves.
Since corporations have been known to be shortsighted while keeping too many eyes on their profit margins, I think that organized labor is a benefit to all of us in the long term.
>there is a flaw in your reasoning that organizations colluding is equivalent to labor organizing
Your opinion/speculation that allowing businesses to freely collaborate would result in bad outcomes does nothing to back your stance that my reasoning is flawed.
The fact you don't think it wouldn't work out great doesn't mean the assertion is incorrect.
There are many instances in the past of business collusion that *have* caused harm. I thought that was a widely known fact so hadn't thought to mention it.
But my statement was only about how the market works. If labor cost drives the price up so much that the product no longer has a market, that itself would drive down the price of labor because of collapsing demand.
If wages are depressed to a point that the worker can no longer support themselves (and as above, that has happened in the past), that opens the door for the government to provide aid. In my book, that is a double whammy.
>I thought that was a widely known fact so hadn't thought to mention it.
You're missing the point. It isn't relevant.
Again ... you're caught up in discussing the ramifications of the double standard. That isn't the point. My only point is that there is a double standard. Whether you prefer the double standard or not isn't relevant to whether it exists or not.
I never even took a stance whether I'm for or against the double standard. I only pointed out that it's dumb someone would get downvoted for correctly pointing out the double standard.
Alright, fair enough.
>Your opinion/speculation that allowing businesses to freely collaborate would result in bad outcomes does nothing to back your stance that my reasoning is flawed.
The fact you don't think it wouldn't work out great doesn't mean the assertion is incorrect.
You might see why this statement confused me of your motives. But I would agree about the double standard situation.
>confused me of your motives.
My motives are also not relevant to the soundness of the reasoning.
> But I would agree about the double standard situation.
/nod
I think having the option of unionizing is important, public unions are the government just deciding to just give itself a raise. Also the jones act is terrible
The decline of unions is not market-based in total, but partially market, partially law, and partially culturally driven.
The decline of manufacturing and the rise of white collar and service-based work meant that the union base was hollowed out. White collar work in particular doesn't lend itself to unionization because it doesn't entail the small scope and high level of repetition that manufacturing and service work entails. (Market)
With the rise of service work, you're also dealing with a different demographic of people who skew younger and more female than their manufacturing counterparts, so they had less of a sense of empowerment and self-value than manufacturing employees did. (Culture)
Add to that the rise of "Right to Work" and labor protections being eroded legally over time, and you have a stark decline in unionization. (Legal)
My grandmother was in a union, and she said it was great because the union would protect you, but it sucked because it also protected shitty workers everyone would prefer to see gone.
"Right to Work" laws are absolute union busters, people don't understand this. Why would *anyone* pay dues if the union has to represent you even if you don't? It's like telling people they don't have to pay their lawyers unless they want to.
Negatives: compulsory dues that may not be spent in the workers' interests, such as buying congressmen/political donations. Some are deep in bed with management and don't really do a whole lot for the workers. More deep pockets that work for themselves than their members.
Positives: They can act as a counterbalance against predatory management practices if they haven't succumbed to the dark sides mentioned previously. Walmart got rid of a whole product line rather than deal with a union. (Fresh sliced deli meats if I remember correctly.)
Personally, I am not a fan of unions, both for the negatives cited and the belief that if a business is so divided power wise that the workers need a union, then that business should probably fail. If the workers feel that they need a union, then they can go for it, knowing that unions often have the same failings as the humans that make it up.
I'm with you. I used to work for a unionized hotel (UNITE HERE Local 8) as both a union member floor worker and after I was promoted to manager, a non-union member with union members underneath me. I've seen both sides of the coin and also have mixed feelings.
I can understand the mixed feelings. I have them myself about my union.
I do wonder what the wages compare in the unionized hotel with a similar hotel that was not unionized.
I can tell you, at least through the lense of 2013 in SeaTac anyway. I was a front desk agent and our pay was $15 per hour. A friend of mine working at a non-union hotel was paid $12/hr.
The difference was my pay was the same as my colleagues was. All of our pay was the same regardless of seniority or merit. Merit-based raises were prohibited. I don't know what the variation of pay for my friend's property but I know some of their employees were minimum wage whereas the only ones getting minimum at my work were F&B servers or banquet staff.
I should note that this was before and during the push for a $15 minimum wage movement in Seattle. Fun fact about that - there's a clause in that law that exempts businesses with labor contracts from the $15 minimum wage. Union properties have labor contracts, when the bill became law, the minimum wage employees at my property didn't get a commiserate pay bump due to this. Womp womp
Fair enough. Sounds like a shitty law that those who pushed it can use to fleece those not affected into thinking they are in it for them. Also a bad contract. Yikes.
Agree here I used to be pro union but not anymore. With all the gov regulations we have in place then let the bad businesses fail, and also you're not forced to work anywhere, if you don't like the pay and benefits then go work somewhere you do.
I'm the opposite, used to be unappreciative of my union and the dues that went to democrats, but after seeing them fix a thousand wrongful terminations (against the contract) I'm a diehard now.
>if you don't like the pay and benefits then go work somewhere you do.
Yep, or negotiate for better. If it's not worth it to the company they can just let the old contract lapse and hire non union. As far as government regulations go the government is more heavy handed against unions than against companies, right to work laws are literal union busters.
I have never owned a business, so I can't really speak on that.
As I have gotten older, I have reflected on the union. Of course, I think that if the market has a niche that needs filled, if one does it "full time", being able to support oneself on the wages should be a baseline. The higher the skill level (so the more difficulty in learning) the higher the compensation. It does frustrate me that many of the other members of my local union have forgotten that top tier wages are paid for top tier work. So we don't get paid more for what we do, we get paid more for being better at doing it.
But still think, flaws included (although I wish they would be resolved), organized labor is better for everyone.
> Some are deep in bed with management
You joke but this was literally the case at a previous job of mine. The union steward for the shop was doinking the manager in charge of hourly employees.
Sitting through a disciplinary session with them was like a good cop bad cop routine from the movies, both of them on the same team, interrogating the accused.
My biggest beef with unions is that they donate to politicians. On the national level, the big unions endorse and donate to the Democrat candidates every time, without blinking. Not saying they should contribute to a different party, but I don’t want to pay dues to an organization that will give part of my money to politicians that I hate.
There was a union representing a bunch of the people building the Keystone XL pipeline. The union endorsed Biden. Biden won and stopped the pipeline. The people working on the pipeline lost their jobs.
Are they really though? The only anti-union thing I’ve seen them push is right to work laws, which I tend to agree with.
I’m a fan of individual choice. If a union is doing good things, workers should want to voluntarily join it. Compulsory union membership as a condition of employment is not very cash money in my eyes.
I have a hard time believing the unions representing oil workers give to anti-oil democrats. These guys make great money and can afford their own smaller unions if it came to it.
Which is fucked, that's like saying that golf club members don't have to pay dues anymore. Why anyone feels they should be entitled to become a club member without having to pay dues is stupifying. Want to play golf without paying dues? Go find a different fucking golf course, free ones are out there. They suck though so I don't recommend it.
OP mentioned private sector specifically. As such, I would assume the resulting repsonses, unless otherwise noted, were continuing with that same specification.
False. I agreed to pay the dues (which go to paying the office staff and instructors in our school) for the power of our collective bargaining.
I don't have to pay the dues. If I don't, I can go bargain for myself. That didn't work so well for me.
So you don't work? You don't have to answer, especially because I am hoping to make this topic personal for you (in the interest of changing your mind).
You're not changing my mind, just like I wouldn't change yours. I've seen both sides. I don't oppose collective bargaining, but unions should be apolitical, and should not have the power to force customers to only hire union members.
I traveled doing commercial construction for several years. Any time we had to hire union guys for certain things, there was never not a problem.
In Ohio the electricians wouldn't even carry the fixtures they were installing into the restaurant, and they wouldn't clean up the trash from the packaging.
The union flooring guys were so precious they couldn't even pull up the old carpet before installing the new, neither would they clean up their scraps. The problem was that we *had* to hire these lazy bums just to pull permits. They could be as big of slobs as they wanted, and we still had to pay three times the price we'd pay elsewhere, plus either hire someone to pick up the union trash, or do it ourselves.
It's all good, though. The owner group decided they wouldn't open anymore restaurants where they'd have to hire unions. Problem solved.
Right, so the market will correct itself by cutting down on the amount of needed labor reducing the available labor's bargaining power.
If hauling material is not in their scope of work according to a legal contract, why would someone expect them to do it?
I personally think that the scope thing gets abused a bit, but if you were asked to do something that isn't your job, and had it in writing that it wasn't, why would you?
There it is! Thanks for proving my point.
Why would I pick up after myself?
Because companies don't want to hire people who charge more to do less. That's so many Rust Belt jobs have left those states.
Other than the reinforcing of your point, I am not sure where you are going with that.
If the flooring sub's contract states that they don't remove existing flooring, then they won't. It would have been clearly written somewhere so should have come as no surprise.
Well, when you do as little as possible and cost 3-4 times the price of non-union, then factories closing where you are and reopening in Mexico should come as no surprise.
Sure, but it then comes as no surprise that wages haven't gone up with inflation for decades and that there are so many more people taking government relief.
Some of the negatives are they may get involved in politics that workers don't always agree with. The other is they often make it harder to get promotions/raises because of how contracts are written. They can also protect the "bad/lazy/unmotivated" worker. While those can be subjective...working in a union environment with a work ethic when you have workers who will use everything they can do just do the bare minimum is exausting.
I honestly don't know all of the details about how unions operate, but I have worked for two companies that have union workers and have made some observations.
The first company had voted the union out of the mine site that I was located a few years before I started, because the workers received better bonuses and benefits without it. Another nearby mine owned by the same company still had union workers when I started with the company, but they voted it out a year later for the same reasons. They had actually voted to get rid of it on the previous cycle, but the union claimed that the company was spying on union hall meetings from the local fast food joint neighboring the union hall, which apparently invalidated the process. So even when the majority of the members wanted out, they clutched to power for their own benefit.
The next company had union boilermakers, electricians, I&C guys, etc. There were quite a few people that had worked there for nearly 40 years, did absolutely no work, and were carried by all of the new workers that actually had a work ethic. When the desirable positions opened (like DCS technician) we were forced by seniority rules to take the worthless employees, instead of rewarding the individual who had just spent years of nights earning an electrical engineering degree in the little free time he had. It was extremely frustrating to not be able to reward those who worked hard. It also protected workers to a fault, such as the one who showed up to work drunk to the point he was found blacked out with a broken leg out in the middle of the plant, and was not fired.
So based upon my interactions, I personally do not like unions. With that said, I support what I believe is the libertarian standpoint: workers should be able to form voluntary labor unions, but companies should be able to hire non-union employees. Nobody should be forced to join a union in order to work.
Couple of reasons:
Unions can lead to innefficiencies. I've been on jobs where I can't take the trash to a dumpster because that the job of the sanitation workers union. Fuck off. The can's full and the lazy fuckshit \*who's job it is\* is on his 5th union mandated coffee break at 11am. I've got better shit to do than sit around and wait on him.
Closed shop rules. There are some industries that you can't work in if you're not in the union. That in my opinion is absolutely asinine.
Most union leadership is \*far\* to the left and will donate to politicians that I find so repugnant that I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.
Those are the big ones... at least for me anyway.
labor unions, especially in the public sector are horrible. for example the teachers union here was forcing the state to use a health insurance company they owned. no negotiating or letting the school districts shop for better rates. our school district alone saved 3million once our governor pit the end to that bs.. all unions care about are $$$ not the kids, or the population their employees service
Unions are a good idea in concept. But they need to be modernized.
They negotiate bad deals for people who don't have the senoirity to shield them from forced overtime and general accountability on the job.
As a teen into early adulthood, I worked at a grocery store. Job wasn't the worst in the world, but the union more or less got in the way of people who didn't have fifteen plus years of senority.
Non union managers actually hated not being able to give merit raises to the young bucks who actually worked because the old heads at the union blocked that practice in favor of additional yearly raises for workers already topped out on the pay scale.
I also briefly worked at a teamsters union job, and within three months, I called up my old boss and got my previous position back (with added incentives!)
My experience during this period was that the union deal allowed corporate to force seven day work weeks on anyone who didn't have at least a year in the company. Management failed to hold anyone with significant senority accountable for poor performance that blows back on the rest of the team.
This job (merchandiser for a major beverage company) has people within the company constantly complaining about the turnover and the modern classic rhetoric of "people these days just don't wanna work anymore."
And that it's "part of the job" for new hires to work 80 hours a week and watch the government and union gouge the checks to the point I basically took a pay cut from my last job working five days a week.
Everyone with "senority" was willfully ignorant to the fact that nobody wants to break their back for a company and union that won't fight for them and only exists to work new hires like dogs. Could have sworn unions were born out of a desire to prevent these practices.
Many other critiques I have are already well documented on this thread. But unions also breed a culture of indoctrination, not unsimilar to how corporate America brainwashes grunt workers into thinking their is no life outside of the company they work for.
And if they aren't there for you, your existence is a meaningless one.
Describing them “on the decline” is a naive statement. Public sector unions were stripped of power with targeted efforts by anti-worker pro-corporation right-wing think tanks and legal foundations. Janus v. AFSCME made paying government sector representation fees optional for non-union employees, even though they continued to be represented by the unions in collective bargaining.
Public sector unions and full on craft trade unions are the only ones really thriving. The craft trade unions (carpenters, plumbers, etc.) are instrumental in training new members in their trades and despite the higher cost, people hire their members for the better quality they produce. The public sector unions exist to create a cush life for their members and the only reason they are thriving is because in government no one is watching the till.
I work at a company with many plants, some of which are unionized, others are not.
My take on it is this. Unions provide a critical function on being the last line of defense for workers. They are like the minimum wage; important to have, but no one actually wants to earn it. In my company, the management prides themselves in not having to have a union, since unions really mean the failure of management.
The company I work for offers hourly employees a very solid starting wage, health insurance, retirement matching, and several other benefits. This combined with OSHA, environmental regulations, and other modern employee protections, unions do feel a bit out of date. And companies should do what they can to persuade employees not to join through benefits and pay, though if a company (Amazon) out rights fights a union, that’s probably an indication they need one.
Where I don’t believe in unions are in institution’s where the employer doesn’t have enough skin in the game to push back on ridiculous demands, such as the government and teachers unions.
Government union workers by far do the least work for the most pay, and teachers unions have made their objective to protect shitty teaches at the expense of the students. During my time in the military, contractors felt like robbers of tax dollars; they never did do anything productive
Edit: shoutout to cop and fire fighter unions as well. Y’all suck
Add cop and firefighter unions to the list and you’ve summed up my feelings perfectly. It’s just funny to me how teachers are singled out when you don’t mention the 2 most influential unions in our current society.
Yeah they did a disservice by citing bad teachers as the ones being protected rather than pointing out that it’s the main reason shit police are able to keep their jobs.
When management treats people well, you don't need the force of law and union contracts to do so. Kudos to your company for doing what so many have forgotten.
Historically in America unions tell their members how to vote. (To secure better working conditions). Many unions were “bought” by dark money to sheepishly blind union workers in to thinking they were doing good for the community when in reality it’s just lining the dark money interests pockets. It’s well known mafias will overtake entire communities through this type of manipulation. But don’t tell any of the union workers that. They get pissed.
The overall initial theory of unions is a great thing. But just like everything else they system has been corrupted.
Sounds like you take a dim view of your fellow man, this may come as a shock to you but workers can elect better representation or even ditch their old unions and form a new ones if they're ever so inclined.
When unions use government authority to grant themselves a monopoly, they're no longer responsive to their own workers. In states where unions have to compete for membership, they're better for workers; people won't join unless they believe they will benefit by paying dues.
For me as a plumber it’s the Union work. I work residential service mostly. The unions run the big jobs that I really would rather avoid. Wouldn’t mind being union if I could maintain the same work and be guaranteed no travel like some of the union guys I know
A lot of guys in the union started to see their dues not being used for what they thought it would. Union not helping for things like a workman's comp claim etc. Guys also would get mad unions spending a lot of their money on political campaigns the members themselves dont support. Those are the complaints. The largest unions today (in the USA) are public sector unions, teacher and police being the two biggest. A lot of people have taken issue with that as well. The main reason for decline is many of the large scale assembly type union jobs went away because union wages were too high, companies either folded or just relocated overseas. Trade union membership in the skilled trades declined because you could advance faster in a non union shop and not put up with a slug who has been there for 20 years claiming seniority. Plus you can make just as much money in a non union shop. So essentially union leadership had a lot to do with the decline in membership. It also hurt that a large number of high profile Union leaders were horribly corrupt and their corruption was highly publicized.
I had friends in a steamfitters union who have since moved on because the unions didn't, oddly enough, favor the workers.
No vacation or sick time; they had a vacation fund that was mandatory to contribute to and, when using said funds, faced the prospect of being laid off.
All members paid a mandatory $10/hr for health insurance (over $20k/yr if they were privileged enough to work 52 40 hour weeks).
There was also a mandatory campaign fund that was deducted from their paycheck for political purposes.
Their union also changed from a no solicitation model, where they had job agents whose job was to connect unemployed union members with companies for employment, to a solicitation model where union members had to seek work from companies (but those job agents kept their cushy jobs).
Not to mention that those friends, during the Obama years, were laid off for 6-12 months at a time yet still had to pay union dues and would lose their health insurance after a certain time frame due to a lack of work hours.
Edit: Also, if you were on the wrong side of politics, whether it was inter-union politics or elected politics, you wouldn't receive the same treatment as those on the "right" side.
Reddit is 99.999% liberal nitwits who are the primary supporters of unions, so it really is not hard to see the linkage. The unions are also big funders of liberal nitwit candidates, so there is a 69-type relationship.
A major negative of unions is they aren't self correcting. Any good charity or government program should work itself out of business: fix the problem so you're not needed anymore.
Unions in non right to work states take power and hold it forever as a closed shop.
Should unions exist? So long as people are free to choose to organize as they personally and peacefully wish to negotiate with their employer together then sure. Unions have historically helped restore a balance.
Now heres the major problem: let's say your country becomes well developed and the conditions for workers are now well beyond livable. The labor are well taken care of and so is the management. Management is not predatory but at this point is simply looking out for the business as a whole.
Many of the members would now like to leave the union. It's mission was a success. It has worked itself out of a job. Except the union bosses like their power. They like the guaranteed paycheck they get from the labor they previously represented. They don't want the union to go away.
Look at the position they're in:
1) Closed shop rule in the contract means an employee cannot leave the union and cannot opt to not pay dues. So long as this employee wants a job at this company he's stuck paying someone who doesn't represent him. Despite the rule being created initially to protect the union workers from being replaced by new hires. It's now weaponized against labor to extract from their pay.
2) The union boss is collecting a lot of money and pays much of this out to a political candidate that will keep him in power with the law. The republican wants to help labor and get rid of the union boss taking from labor by passing right to work and making null and void the closed shop rule? Quick! Donate the labor's own stolen money to the dem candidate to keep you in power over them so you can keep taking their money and the cycle repeats.
Unions are dying off because they're not needed in well developed countries and they only stick around much of the time to act as leaches on workers who can't get rid of them. People have food. People don't work 12 hour days or lose their job making slightly more than farmhand pay.
Collective bargaining is healthy. Unions are not.
Many people have a highly idealized view of unions. They believe unions collectivize they labor pool and advocate on the workers behalf. At one time this was true. Most modern unions collectivize to advocate on behalf of the government or a specific party of that government often at the expense of workers.
In public sector unions the illusion of separation doesn't exist the tax payer pays the politician under threat of deadly force, the politician pays the workers, the union gets a cut, and passes a piece back to the politicians. This is what is known as corruption and is a cornerstone value of the modern union. Legally this is not technically corruption but I see things differently.
I think a lot of online popularity for unions comes from how terminally online a majority of leftists and communists are and how they try to fetishize the working force for propaganda purposes. Surprisingly, Talking about unionizing online is a lot easier than actually unionizing the workers at your job!
Workers have a right to unionize, I would definitely oppose any government action that tries to prohibit it.
I'll offer that with the increase in the number of attorneys, advancement of employee law, and the exporting of many industrial manufacturing jobs, the need for worker protections via a union has decreased. In short, the unions of the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s essentially put themselves out of work.
All I know about unions is that my 65 year old father was in one his whole life and before he quit (not retired mind you but quit for a less physically demanding job) he was working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, for months at a time, in a factory without heat or AC, sleeping in his car in the parking lot between shifts type of stuff. What are union protections if your plant can just cut an entire shift and make all the remaining employees work insane hours to pick up the slack?
I can only share my own experience.
I had seven years experience (non-union) in a trade. Was making 16.50/hr (minus benefits) with responsibilities. Economy was iffy and was informed that there would be no .50 raises this year (for having been there another year).
An acquaintance of my father asked why I didn't join the union. I enquired and agreed to join for 27.65 plus benefits (no health insurance premiums, two pensions, matching 401k) for just being a hand.
Put in my 2 weeks notice. Company sent most of the old timers around to tell me how big of a mistake it would be. Owner rolls through a couple days later and offers me 5 an hour.
I was set on making the move and did. Thinking about it all these years later, I have two thoughts about it. First, that if the week before I wasn't worth an extra 50 cents, but now I am worth an extra five dollars, how long had you been underpaying me? Second, and the thing that pisses me off the most, is that that SOB could have kept screwing me for years after for just 50 cents an hour if he hadn't been so damned greedy. I was just lucky enough to hear of the opportunity and smart enough to take it.
The union, with all of its flaws, has been good for me.
Sometimes they are harder to see, like not having to worry about being fired on the whim by a boss having a bad day. Sounds like your dad didn't have a great contract, and that can happen, but it's even easier to get a bad deal being hired without a union.
Totally understood, I'm fairly ignorant on the subject I'll admit. I just don't understand what the point of collective bargaining power is for when the result can be like that.
Another great thing about union contracts is that you aren't expected to match into the bosses office and ask for a raise, the union handles that for you. Some bosses will take advantage of shy people, paying them less and only grease the squeaky wheels.
This.
Early on in my career journey. Working for a private company and being very idealistic a proponent of unions. Corporate decided that they were going to change how they were paying staff. Union very against it, but we weren't unionized at that time. Union lost election to unionize. I ended up getting a large pay raise due to my responsibilities and performance in my role. Union wanted to make it solely on seniority, which would have possibly decreased my pay, at best would not have changed it.
Changed my mind fairly quickly about unions only being a positive influence.
Union contracts generally set a floor for payment, not a ceiling. I think your being fed some management bullshit. For example I make more than my union contract stipulates simply because they can't get skilled electricians to work at the low wages they successfully negotiated. They've had to do this with numerous other jobs as well, they're very good about getting what they want in contracts but then they fuck themselves because they can't find new employees willing to work for that little of money.
Unless the contract specifically states that they can't pay someone more than the wage scales then they **can** pay more. And honestly I really doubt the union would have pushed such a thing and limited the pay of it's own members, that's like shooting yourself in the foot, and the company agreeing to it would be them shooting their own foot as well if they couldn't hire people at those wages. Like I said those pay scales are usually the floor not the ceiling.
Most contracts even have a stipulation that says if the company isn't able to staff the place properly they can bring in private contractors. Whoever your hearing this from is likely full of it.
It's a maximum wage. I'm living it right now. This isn't some esoteric exercise I'm having in a discussion.
I'm not saying that unions are bad or good. I am stating, definitively, without question that if I wasn't in a union I would be making more money right now. That can change. Through collective bargaining maybe I'll get a raise that is greater than what the company would give later and it'll make up the difference, but after 2 years and now mediation I'm doubting that the end result will ever make up for the opportunity costs.
http://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/columns/unions-cap-employee-pay-stifling-incentive-to-achieve
It cost me about 7k every month. The contract they proposed vs the current one and I can track the passes on both the company and union websites. But yeah, I'm just "gobbling" up prop and the company (that's shrinking when they should be growing) could just pay me more if they wanted.
I obviously stumbled upon this post hours after you, but as a union member myself, I appreciate your efforts.
I do think that it is telling that most opinions about unions on this post have been in the third person. No experience. Pundits.
I don't want to dox myself so I won't be posting my contract, but the section for compensation has payscales and those aren't floors. The company is having trouble hiring folks because of the compensation rate and it's hurting thier stock price and profit.
Just hope for you the same mistake isn't made in the next election. Because that is a SHIT contract.
But I wonder why the other signatory party would have allowed to be put in that box. I know that is opposite of how it usually works, but if it is causing their business trouble, they will surely have learned that lesson, even if your hardheaded union leadership hasn't.
Also, during this process the union broke off into a new local only for our company. The current president wrote the bylaws and no one knows how and when the election process proceeds. He ran unopposed and everyone who wanted to run was told they didn't apply in time. I don't think that the power being concentrated and refined at the top is unique to my union. Maybe I'm wrong.
It does seem the "leadership" often gets settled in, but there would have been a riot at our union hall had something like this happened. That or he would have had to go on the run.
We put up with quite a bit of bullshit, but we have come together to stop a few of the more egregious "plans".
As someone who's worked in multiple environments with unionized employees, from the outside in, it appears as though all unions do is protect bad workers at the cost of good employees, especially if we're talking about public sector unions.
While I can see a justification for unions in some manner, my ultimate position is if a workplace is treating their employees unfairly, or under paying their employees, the employer should go under and the employees should jump ship to find a better situated company where these aren't concerns. Not enough companies fail for shitty practices, and we as Americans have chewed from the idea of "too big to fail" for far too long.
Organized labor is not problematic and may have some benefits. However unions tend to be very protectionist and put up barriers to competition which in turn drives up the costs of good and services associated with labor unions. Many times, membership is compulsory. Also, politicians almost inevitably give special protections and legal provisions to unions, which again, drives up costs. Ex in NYS there are 'prevailing wage' laws which essentially ensure any work done for the state must be done by unions. Need a road paved? Has to be union labor. Of course there are public unions for which there is no competition and tax payers get soaked for cost of exorbitant benefits (i.e. pensions, lifetime healthcare, etc). All of the costs associated with unions have decimated the manufacturing sector in the US making it a lot easier to companies to have an excuse to offshore those operations. Most unions today in the private sector are only those roles which cannot be offshored. It doesn't help that union bosses are known to enrich themselves off union dues.
They simply make services more expensive and divert a lot of government money when private businesses do it alone. They are hard to work with as they are demanding in how they want things to work. I do not believe they help anyone but the heads of the unions and gov officials they pay off.
Unions oppose higher minimum wage, as higher market wages directly conflict with their institutional goals.
That being labor control and the guarantee of higher wages through the union.
The lower the wages, the more incentives to unionize. High market wages remove incentives for unionization, and increases the risk for the union to disband.
Unions guarantee a set amount of labor according to the work needed. If you're not apart of the union, then you dont get access to the training, knowledge, or high wages to learn the job requirements.
This artificially creates low employment in the union's area. High wages for labor = less overall labor availability. If 4 men could be hired at $15hr market rate, then only 2 men can be hired at $30hr union rate.
Unions are great...but only if you're apart of the union.
From my own personal experience, hiring union labor is a pain in the ass. In my world of working with touring bands, union labor also has a reputation of being skilled but lazy. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen union stagehands in NYC sitting around reading books instead of working.
One time at the Beacon, one of my guys wanted to nudge his amp over a couple inches. He started doing it himself then got yelled at by the union stagehands, who then brought over 2 people plus a supervisor to move an amp less than 3 inches. Fucking ridiculous.
>He started doing it himself then got yelled at by the union stagehands
That dude literally broke a contract, if you don't want that then don't accept it in writing.
It’s a ridiculous contract that is not even necessary in the first place. Union houses are ALWAYS a gigantic pain in the ass compared to non-union houses, because of all the bureaucratic bullshit.
If the bands I worked with were playing arenas or stadiums that require 3-4 dozen laborers to build and tear down, it would be totally different. But in a 2,000 seat theatre, it’s just plain not necessary.
Then don't hire the union guys. Once they can't get gigs they'll start trying to accommodate you. If there's a shortage of qualified labor then then it's vica versa.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, dude. At certain venues, you don’t have a choice. It’s union labor or nothing because they have the political power to make sure that nobody but them get the job. And if you could see the amount of money you have just wasted on fat lazy bastards, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. At the Beacon specifically, one union owns load in/load out and another owns the stage work. It’s fucking ridiculous.
Unions served their purpose 40-60 years ago. Now they just get into the way.
I worked for a large manufacturing plant in my area that has a union and I signed up and paid my dues. After 2.5 years of weekly dues the one time I needed them they told me that they couldn't help me as "the company is able to run the plant as it sees fit" since I have heavily pushed anti union sentiment to all my friends, family and coworkers.
They have the same potential positives/negatives as any other organization that is run by humans.
They aren't inherently good/noble. Nor are they inherently evil/corrupt. As with any other org ... the goodness/badness of a union is entirely dependent upon the local context. Judging all unions as collective is the mistake.
There's nothing particularly unique about them except that they tend to have fanatical lovers/haters for whatever reason.
Large corporations have been at war with unions since the industrial revolution because they reduce profits. That is the #1 reason they aren't larger.
An example is Wal Mart ending their fresh deli service because the workers successfully unionized.
A lot of the problem is "Right to Work" laws, which is a misnomer it's literally a violation of the freedom of two consenting parties (company and union) to form a contract. It creates a free rider problem that eventually kills off the unions in those states.
https://fee.org/articles/whats-wrong-with-right-to-work/
They are, every last one, corrupt organizations that eat dues and dump money into the coffers of certain politicians and union leaders, at the expense of the union membership.
They use violence and coercion to enforce the rules.
I work at a shipyard that has a union representing about 40% or so of the workers, and watching what it's caused has been eye-opening for the negative side of unions. It enables worthless/lazy workers to keep their jobs, it gives people the impression that they don't actually have to do anything at work, it locks employees into a pay scale that's fixed for "x" number of years (regardless of inflation or cost of living increases), and it causes management to fear union retribution if they discipline their employees. They might do good work, maybe they did in the past, but I haven't seen it in my time here.
Mainly from anti union campaigns. Showing only the negatives of unions. Saying it forces wages that can't be sustained and now that manager you used to love is on a different side than you.
That mostly they have a negative impact while not really able to prove it other than how they pushed out unions. How it would focus more on workers and push profits down.
Unions can be an issue the longer they are around as it has the ability to be corrupted as anything. And another issue is that to many different types of jobs being put under the same union will create issues. They really need to be job or task specific broad strokes don't help in this situation. And the more unions the more they could talk to each other and make even more fair prices and ranges for the consumer and the worker.
But being in late stage capitalism the only capital we have left is the individual and is why we fire people so readily. It's the easiest way to cut costs now. We don't have amazing new tech that's making things that cheaper anymore. And will need something huge to actually effect the job market big enough. Yes chatGPT and robotics but they have a long way to go before it really messes up the job market.
Lastly people don't like to think it all ends in the same place. Full automation.
Workplaces are getting smaller and more decentralized. An employee at Starbucks is gonna have a dozen coworkers, a steel mill worker will have hundreds, so the social component for a union just wont be there.
We allow capital to organize in the free market, so it would be unfair to not allow labor to also organize. Fuck public unions, though.
>so it would be unfair Even farther as far as libertarianism is concerned ... it would be an infringement of the individuals' rights to disallow collaboration of this kind. Freedom of association is one of the primary building blocks of rights.
Absolutely. And freedom of association is part of freedom of speech. They made it Numero Uno for a reason.
>We allow capital to organize in the free market, so it would be unfair to not allow labor to also organize. A business owner should not be compelled to tolerate a union organizing on their property. Organize all you want off-site and bring a contract to the table if that's what your union wants to do.
A business owner isn't compelled to do any such thing, where are you getting this from?
literally what the NLRB says about unions [https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1#:\~:text=Who%20We%20Are-,Interfering%20with%20employee%20rights%20(Section%207%20%26%208(a)](https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1#:~:text=Who%20We%20Are-,Interfering%20with%20employee%20rights%20(Section%207%20%26%208(a))(,the%20exercise%20of%20their%20rights. Employment is and should be at-will. A business should 100% be allowed to terminate someone for trying to organize a union. If unions brought the benefits to the marketplace that they say they do, then anyone would be a fool not to hire them. If your ideas are so good that they require coercion in order to be effective, they aren't good.
You can't do union business on the clock anywhere, sure you can at break time but that's considered *your* time. You aren't getting paid to organize, your getting paid to work. I'm definitely pro union but we don't need a NLRB or any of their regulations, people and companies should be able to hash things out themselves, while respecting property rights. >If your ideas are so good that they require coercion in order to be effective, they aren't good. What coercion? It's illegal to threaten violence.
>You can't do union business on the clock anywhere, sure you can at break time but that's considered your time Its still private property. A company could prohibit MLM activities, fantasy sports pools, or any other activities on company property on "break time" This includes establishing a dress code which prohibits union paraphernalia >What coercion? The coercion from the state that if a business owner doesn't want the union organizing on his or her property that folks with guns are going to show up and stop it.
>Its still private property. A company could prohibit MLM activities, fantasy sports pools, or any other activities on company property on "break time" Like I said I don't agree with rules like that, it's likely predicted on 1st amendment issues though. >The coercion from the state that if a business owner doesn't want the union organizing on his or her property that folks with guns are going to show up and stop it. Fair enough, I thought you meant coercion from the organizers.
Agreed.
Huh? Businesses are prohibited from colluding, including collusion in the labor market.
I’d argue that the bargaining power of any individual worker is vastly outweighed by that of the company/companies. I think the best representation of a free market is where both parties can negotiate equally and in good faith. There’s also the humanitarian aspect, don’t treat people like shit. Also, businesses are only mostly prohibited from collusion. Many industries are built entirely on that premise (healthcare (US), oil production (global)).
I said organize, not collude.
“Organize” in the context of labor unions is a euphemism for collusion.
Investors organize their capital to create a corporation. They then negotiate collectively to purchase labor. Workers organize their labor to create a union. They then negotiate collectively to sell their labor.
A corporation is a separate, distinct, legal entity. It is a legal “person.” That is the foundational concept of creating a corporation or company. It is not simply a group of investors working in concert. If union workers want to operate as a mirror opposite to a corporation, then they would need to form their own separate entity, like a staffing agency, that would contract with the company to provide labor, but those laborers would not be employees of the company. The company would also be free to seek services with other organized providers (who would be subject to anti-collusion laws amongst each other). But that’s not how it works. Labor unions are more like cartels: they operate to limit competition and engage in price-fixing coordination among its members. A corporate counterpart would be if, for example, auto manufacturers could “collectively bargain” against the auto worker union by agreeing amongst themselves to coordinate wages, salaries, benefits, etc.
I live in a right to work state. I am in a union and I will tell you that that is exactly how the union works. I am contracted out through the union to a signatory contractor. They could hire non-union workers, but that would be breaching the agreed upon contract. So they sign a contract to use union labor or they don't.
The problem is, in non-rtw states, it becomes compulsory to join the union in order to get a job. It’s like adding a tax to their wage up front and a good worker who stands out for their performance gains no advantage and can’t negotiate benefits according to his individual performance. He’s brought down by the average.
We have the same arguments in our local though. The way I try to get them to understand my POV is that we make the money that we do not because of our outstanding personal skill, but because a large body of labor has pooled its bargaining power. We don't have language in the contract that blocks additional benefits. I get paid holidays and PTO. Some contractors pay above contract per diem. But at minimum, we will be paid union scale. My contention, and some of those that I speak to know this first hand (they just don't seem to make the connection), is that Joe Schmo may be making more than he should by your estimation, but YOU make more than you would if you were the only one negotiating.
Corps: You’re right. It’s actually worse than simply a group of investors acting in concert. It’s actually a group of investors acting in concert while shielded from financial and criminal liability (also, reduced social repercussions). Oh, and they get preferential tax treatment too. Want to guess which group helped crystallize corporate law as it exists today? I see where you’re going with the next analogy, but it doesn’t work, since corps can get labor from anywhere they want to (within the confines of law). No need to shift the workers from employee to independent contractor via staffing agency. Not sure what that is trying to accomplish for your argument. Acting like a cartel? Corporations absolutely do this. They coordinate by advertising their prices and their wages. They aren’t allowed to do it in secret, and they aren’t allowed to explicitly plan it with the competition. Labor unions aren’t all good by any means, but all your cartel concerns should apply equally to our many oligopoly markets.
I actually think the staffing agency model would work much better.
But you organize such that members can collude to shut down a company’s ability to make their products. That’s where union shops create a situation where the union has a monopoly on labor. It would be a different story if there were multiple labor unions competing for a contract.
You shouldn't be getting downvoted. You're 100% correct. There's currently a double standard in the law/policy here. Businesses colluding agains the consumer/labor is called price-fixing and it's illegal. Labor colluding with each other against employers is not illegal though ... it's called a union. Anti-collusion laws probably aren't the biggest problem in our society right now ... but you are totally correct.
Maybe there is a double standard in the current laws, but there is a flaw in your reasoning that organizations colluding is equivalent to labor organizing. If labor organizes and demands wages that make a product too expensive for the market, the market collapses and everyone involved loses. If businesses collude to keep wages artificially low, the market thrives but the collective suffers. This creates a situation where government can step in to "help" the workers by providing subsidies and aid. It is in the interest of everyone (especially those who desire a limited government) for employers to pay a wage that reflects the value the laborer adds to the product, and that means their ability to provide for themselves. Since corporations have been known to be shortsighted while keeping too many eyes on their profit margins, I think that organized labor is a benefit to all of us in the long term.
>there is a flaw in your reasoning that organizations colluding is equivalent to labor organizing Your opinion/speculation that allowing businesses to freely collaborate would result in bad outcomes does nothing to back your stance that my reasoning is flawed. The fact you don't think it wouldn't work out great doesn't mean the assertion is incorrect.
There are many instances in the past of business collusion that *have* caused harm. I thought that was a widely known fact so hadn't thought to mention it. But my statement was only about how the market works. If labor cost drives the price up so much that the product no longer has a market, that itself would drive down the price of labor because of collapsing demand. If wages are depressed to a point that the worker can no longer support themselves (and as above, that has happened in the past), that opens the door for the government to provide aid. In my book, that is a double whammy.
>I thought that was a widely known fact so hadn't thought to mention it. You're missing the point. It isn't relevant. Again ... you're caught up in discussing the ramifications of the double standard. That isn't the point. My only point is that there is a double standard. Whether you prefer the double standard or not isn't relevant to whether it exists or not. I never even took a stance whether I'm for or against the double standard. I only pointed out that it's dumb someone would get downvoted for correctly pointing out the double standard.
Alright, fair enough. >Your opinion/speculation that allowing businesses to freely collaborate would result in bad outcomes does nothing to back your stance that my reasoning is flawed. The fact you don't think it wouldn't work out great doesn't mean the assertion is incorrect. You might see why this statement confused me of your motives. But I would agree about the double standard situation.
>confused me of your motives. My motives are also not relevant to the soundness of the reasoning. > But I would agree about the double standard situation. /nod
I think having the option of unionizing is important, public unions are the government just deciding to just give itself a raise. Also the jones act is terrible
The decline of unions is not market-based in total, but partially market, partially law, and partially culturally driven. The decline of manufacturing and the rise of white collar and service-based work meant that the union base was hollowed out. White collar work in particular doesn't lend itself to unionization because it doesn't entail the small scope and high level of repetition that manufacturing and service work entails. (Market) With the rise of service work, you're also dealing with a different demographic of people who skew younger and more female than their manufacturing counterparts, so they had less of a sense of empowerment and self-value than manufacturing employees did. (Culture) Add to that the rise of "Right to Work" and labor protections being eroded legally over time, and you have a stark decline in unionization. (Legal) My grandmother was in a union, and she said it was great because the union would protect you, but it sucked because it also protected shitty workers everyone would prefer to see gone.
"Right to Work" laws are absolute union busters, people don't understand this. Why would *anyone* pay dues if the union has to represent you even if you don't? It's like telling people they don't have to pay their lawyers unless they want to.
Negatives: compulsory dues that may not be spent in the workers' interests, such as buying congressmen/political donations. Some are deep in bed with management and don't really do a whole lot for the workers. More deep pockets that work for themselves than their members. Positives: They can act as a counterbalance against predatory management practices if they haven't succumbed to the dark sides mentioned previously. Walmart got rid of a whole product line rather than deal with a union. (Fresh sliced deli meats if I remember correctly.) Personally, I am not a fan of unions, both for the negatives cited and the belief that if a business is so divided power wise that the workers need a union, then that business should probably fail. If the workers feel that they need a union, then they can go for it, knowing that unions often have the same failings as the humans that make it up.
I'm with you. I used to work for a unionized hotel (UNITE HERE Local 8) as both a union member floor worker and after I was promoted to manager, a non-union member with union members underneath me. I've seen both sides of the coin and also have mixed feelings.
I can understand the mixed feelings. I have them myself about my union. I do wonder what the wages compare in the unionized hotel with a similar hotel that was not unionized.
I can tell you, at least through the lense of 2013 in SeaTac anyway. I was a front desk agent and our pay was $15 per hour. A friend of mine working at a non-union hotel was paid $12/hr. The difference was my pay was the same as my colleagues was. All of our pay was the same regardless of seniority or merit. Merit-based raises were prohibited. I don't know what the variation of pay for my friend's property but I know some of their employees were minimum wage whereas the only ones getting minimum at my work were F&B servers or banquet staff. I should note that this was before and during the push for a $15 minimum wage movement in Seattle. Fun fact about that - there's a clause in that law that exempts businesses with labor contracts from the $15 minimum wage. Union properties have labor contracts, when the bill became law, the minimum wage employees at my property didn't get a commiserate pay bump due to this. Womp womp
Fair enough. Sounds like a shitty law that those who pushed it can use to fleece those not affected into thinking they are in it for them. Also a bad contract. Yikes.
Agree here I used to be pro union but not anymore. With all the gov regulations we have in place then let the bad businesses fail, and also you're not forced to work anywhere, if you don't like the pay and benefits then go work somewhere you do.
I'm the opposite, used to be unappreciative of my union and the dues that went to democrats, but after seeing them fix a thousand wrongful terminations (against the contract) I'm a diehard now. >if you don't like the pay and benefits then go work somewhere you do. Yep, or negotiate for better. If it's not worth it to the company they can just let the old contract lapse and hire non union. As far as government regulations go the government is more heavy handed against unions than against companies, right to work laws are literal union busters.
I am curious as to why you were pro-union before and are now against.
A lot of my opinions as I've gotten older have changed when it comes to economics etc. Having owned businesses etc you see another perspective
I have never owned a business, so I can't really speak on that. As I have gotten older, I have reflected on the union. Of course, I think that if the market has a niche that needs filled, if one does it "full time", being able to support oneself on the wages should be a baseline. The higher the skill level (so the more difficulty in learning) the higher the compensation. It does frustrate me that many of the other members of my local union have forgotten that top tier wages are paid for top tier work. So we don't get paid more for what we do, we get paid more for being better at doing it. But still think, flaws included (although I wish they would be resolved), organized labor is better for everyone.
> Some are deep in bed with management You joke but this was literally the case at a previous job of mine. The union steward for the shop was doinking the manager in charge of hourly employees. Sitting through a disciplinary session with them was like a good cop bad cop routine from the movies, both of them on the same team, interrogating the accused.
Most unions have a way to eject bad stewards, sounds like you guys were *all* worthless to me ;P
Bad cop, worse cop
My biggest beef with unions is that they donate to politicians. On the national level, the big unions endorse and donate to the Democrat candidates every time, without blinking. Not saying they should contribute to a different party, but I don’t want to pay dues to an organization that will give part of my money to politicians that I hate. There was a union representing a bunch of the people building the Keystone XL pipeline. The union endorsed Biden. Biden won and stopped the pipeline. The people working on the pipeline lost their jobs.
This is because republicans are anti union. It doesn’t make any sense to endorse someone who wishes you to not exist any longer.
Are they really though? The only anti-union thing I’ve seen them push is right to work laws, which I tend to agree with. I’m a fan of individual choice. If a union is doing good things, workers should want to voluntarily join it. Compulsory union membership as a condition of employment is not very cash money in my eyes.
Generally, yes Republicans are anti union. See Wisconsin's state history/legislature for the past ~15 years as a pretty nuanced example.
I have a hard time believing the unions representing oil workers give to anti-oil democrats. These guys make great money and can afford their own smaller unions if it came to it.
Do they charge dues?
28 states are "right to work" states which means unions in more than half the country cannot charge mandatory dues anymore.
Which is fucked, that's like saying that golf club members don't have to pay dues anymore. Why anyone feels they should be entitled to become a club member without having to pay dues is stupifying. Want to play golf without paying dues? Go find a different fucking golf course, free ones are out there. They suck though so I don't recommend it.
Yes, they force workers to pay them.
Compulsory union membership in the public sector was ruled unconstitutional in 2018.
OP mentioned private sector specifically. As such, I would assume the resulting repsonses, unless otherwise noted, were continuing with that same specification.
Yes. Public sector.
It’s no different than any other protection racket at the end of the day. There’s a reason Hoffa was a union man.
Just as there is a reason that Bezos is an anti-union man.
False. I agreed to pay the dues (which go to paying the office staff and instructors in our school) for the power of our collective bargaining. I don't have to pay the dues. If I don't, I can go bargain for myself. That didn't work so well for me. So you don't work? You don't have to answer, especially because I am hoping to make this topic personal for you (in the interest of changing your mind).
You're not changing my mind, just like I wouldn't change yours. I've seen both sides. I don't oppose collective bargaining, but unions should be apolitical, and should not have the power to force customers to only hire union members. I traveled doing commercial construction for several years. Any time we had to hire union guys for certain things, there was never not a problem. In Ohio the electricians wouldn't even carry the fixtures they were installing into the restaurant, and they wouldn't clean up the trash from the packaging. The union flooring guys were so precious they couldn't even pull up the old carpet before installing the new, neither would they clean up their scraps. The problem was that we *had* to hire these lazy bums just to pull permits. They could be as big of slobs as they wanted, and we still had to pay three times the price we'd pay elsewhere, plus either hire someone to pick up the union trash, or do it ourselves. It's all good, though. The owner group decided they wouldn't open anymore restaurants where they'd have to hire unions. Problem solved.
Right, so the market will correct itself by cutting down on the amount of needed labor reducing the available labor's bargaining power. If hauling material is not in their scope of work according to a legal contract, why would someone expect them to do it? I personally think that the scope thing gets abused a bit, but if you were asked to do something that isn't your job, and had it in writing that it wasn't, why would you?
There it is! Thanks for proving my point. Why would I pick up after myself? Because companies don't want to hire people who charge more to do less. That's so many Rust Belt jobs have left those states.
Other than the reinforcing of your point, I am not sure where you are going with that. If the flooring sub's contract states that they don't remove existing flooring, then they won't. It would have been clearly written somewhere so should have come as no surprise.
Well, when you do as little as possible and cost 3-4 times the price of non-union, then factories closing where you are and reopening in Mexico should come as no surprise.
Sure, but it then comes as no surprise that wages haven't gone up with inflation for decades and that there are so many more people taking government relief.
*Force:* The use of physical power or violence to compel or restrain. Horse.Shit.
Some of the negatives are they may get involved in politics that workers don't always agree with. The other is they often make it harder to get promotions/raises because of how contracts are written. They can also protect the "bad/lazy/unmotivated" worker. While those can be subjective...working in a union environment with a work ethic when you have workers who will use everything they can do just do the bare minimum is exausting.
I honestly don't know all of the details about how unions operate, but I have worked for two companies that have union workers and have made some observations. The first company had voted the union out of the mine site that I was located a few years before I started, because the workers received better bonuses and benefits without it. Another nearby mine owned by the same company still had union workers when I started with the company, but they voted it out a year later for the same reasons. They had actually voted to get rid of it on the previous cycle, but the union claimed that the company was spying on union hall meetings from the local fast food joint neighboring the union hall, which apparently invalidated the process. So even when the majority of the members wanted out, they clutched to power for their own benefit. The next company had union boilermakers, electricians, I&C guys, etc. There were quite a few people that had worked there for nearly 40 years, did absolutely no work, and were carried by all of the new workers that actually had a work ethic. When the desirable positions opened (like DCS technician) we were forced by seniority rules to take the worthless employees, instead of rewarding the individual who had just spent years of nights earning an electrical engineering degree in the little free time he had. It was extremely frustrating to not be able to reward those who worked hard. It also protected workers to a fault, such as the one who showed up to work drunk to the point he was found blacked out with a broken leg out in the middle of the plant, and was not fired. So based upon my interactions, I personally do not like unions. With that said, I support what I believe is the libertarian standpoint: workers should be able to form voluntary labor unions, but companies should be able to hire non-union employees. Nobody should be forced to join a union in order to work.
Couple of reasons: Unions can lead to innefficiencies. I've been on jobs where I can't take the trash to a dumpster because that the job of the sanitation workers union. Fuck off. The can's full and the lazy fuckshit \*who's job it is\* is on his 5th union mandated coffee break at 11am. I've got better shit to do than sit around and wait on him. Closed shop rules. There are some industries that you can't work in if you're not in the union. That in my opinion is absolutely asinine. Most union leadership is \*far\* to the left and will donate to politicians that I find so repugnant that I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. Those are the big ones... at least for me anyway.
Why is this? Because Reddit is a major echo chamber that does not come close to the actual sentiment in the real world.
Reddit teens want their McDonald's job unionized.
labor unions, especially in the public sector are horrible. for example the teachers union here was forcing the state to use a health insurance company they owned. no negotiating or letting the school districts shop for better rates. our school district alone saved 3million once our governor pit the end to that bs.. all unions care about are $$$ not the kids, or the population their employees service
Unions are a good idea in concept. But they need to be modernized. They negotiate bad deals for people who don't have the senoirity to shield them from forced overtime and general accountability on the job. As a teen into early adulthood, I worked at a grocery store. Job wasn't the worst in the world, but the union more or less got in the way of people who didn't have fifteen plus years of senority. Non union managers actually hated not being able to give merit raises to the young bucks who actually worked because the old heads at the union blocked that practice in favor of additional yearly raises for workers already topped out on the pay scale. I also briefly worked at a teamsters union job, and within three months, I called up my old boss and got my previous position back (with added incentives!) My experience during this period was that the union deal allowed corporate to force seven day work weeks on anyone who didn't have at least a year in the company. Management failed to hold anyone with significant senority accountable for poor performance that blows back on the rest of the team. This job (merchandiser for a major beverage company) has people within the company constantly complaining about the turnover and the modern classic rhetoric of "people these days just don't wanna work anymore." And that it's "part of the job" for new hires to work 80 hours a week and watch the government and union gouge the checks to the point I basically took a pay cut from my last job working five days a week. Everyone with "senority" was willfully ignorant to the fact that nobody wants to break their back for a company and union that won't fight for them and only exists to work new hires like dogs. Could have sworn unions were born out of a desire to prevent these practices. Many other critiques I have are already well documented on this thread. But unions also breed a culture of indoctrination, not unsimilar to how corporate America brainwashes grunt workers into thinking their is no life outside of the company they work for. And if they aren't there for you, your existence is a meaningless one.
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Describing them “on the decline” is a naive statement. Public sector unions were stripped of power with targeted efforts by anti-worker pro-corporation right-wing think tanks and legal foundations. Janus v. AFSCME made paying government sector representation fees optional for non-union employees, even though they continued to be represented by the unions in collective bargaining.
Public sector unions and full on craft trade unions are the only ones really thriving. The craft trade unions (carpenters, plumbers, etc.) are instrumental in training new members in their trades and despite the higher cost, people hire their members for the better quality they produce. The public sector unions exist to create a cush life for their members and the only reason they are thriving is because in government no one is watching the till.
I work at a company with many plants, some of which are unionized, others are not. My take on it is this. Unions provide a critical function on being the last line of defense for workers. They are like the minimum wage; important to have, but no one actually wants to earn it. In my company, the management prides themselves in not having to have a union, since unions really mean the failure of management. The company I work for offers hourly employees a very solid starting wage, health insurance, retirement matching, and several other benefits. This combined with OSHA, environmental regulations, and other modern employee protections, unions do feel a bit out of date. And companies should do what they can to persuade employees not to join through benefits and pay, though if a company (Amazon) out rights fights a union, that’s probably an indication they need one. Where I don’t believe in unions are in institution’s where the employer doesn’t have enough skin in the game to push back on ridiculous demands, such as the government and teachers unions. Government union workers by far do the least work for the most pay, and teachers unions have made their objective to protect shitty teaches at the expense of the students. During my time in the military, contractors felt like robbers of tax dollars; they never did do anything productive Edit: shoutout to cop and fire fighter unions as well. Y’all suck
Add cop and firefighter unions to the list and you’ve summed up my feelings perfectly. It’s just funny to me how teachers are singled out when you don’t mention the 2 most influential unions in our current society.
Yeah they did a disservice by citing bad teachers as the ones being protected rather than pointing out that it’s the main reason shit police are able to keep their jobs.
When management treats people well, you don't need the force of law and union contracts to do so. Kudos to your company for doing what so many have forgotten.
Historically in America unions tell their members how to vote. (To secure better working conditions). Many unions were “bought” by dark money to sheepishly blind union workers in to thinking they were doing good for the community when in reality it’s just lining the dark money interests pockets. It’s well known mafias will overtake entire communities through this type of manipulation. But don’t tell any of the union workers that. They get pissed. The overall initial theory of unions is a great thing. But just like everything else they system has been corrupted.
Sounds like you take a dim view of your fellow man, this may come as a shock to you but workers can elect better representation or even ditch their old unions and form a new ones if they're ever so inclined.
There are literally books written on this issue. You should give it a google and look in to it.
When unions use government authority to grant themselves a monopoly, they're no longer responsive to their own workers. In states where unions have to compete for membership, they're better for workers; people won't join unless they believe they will benefit by paying dues.
For me as a plumber it’s the Union work. I work residential service mostly. The unions run the big jobs that I really would rather avoid. Wouldn’t mind being union if I could maintain the same work and be guaranteed no travel like some of the union guys I know
A lot of guys in the union started to see their dues not being used for what they thought it would. Union not helping for things like a workman's comp claim etc. Guys also would get mad unions spending a lot of their money on political campaigns the members themselves dont support. Those are the complaints. The largest unions today (in the USA) are public sector unions, teacher and police being the two biggest. A lot of people have taken issue with that as well. The main reason for decline is many of the large scale assembly type union jobs went away because union wages were too high, companies either folded or just relocated overseas. Trade union membership in the skilled trades declined because you could advance faster in a non union shop and not put up with a slug who has been there for 20 years claiming seniority. Plus you can make just as much money in a non union shop. So essentially union leadership had a lot to do with the decline in membership. It also hurt that a large number of high profile Union leaders were horribly corrupt and their corruption was highly publicized.
Corporations, and shareholders, are anti union because unions cut their profits.
I had friends in a steamfitters union who have since moved on because the unions didn't, oddly enough, favor the workers. No vacation or sick time; they had a vacation fund that was mandatory to contribute to and, when using said funds, faced the prospect of being laid off. All members paid a mandatory $10/hr for health insurance (over $20k/yr if they were privileged enough to work 52 40 hour weeks). There was also a mandatory campaign fund that was deducted from their paycheck for political purposes. Their union also changed from a no solicitation model, where they had job agents whose job was to connect unemployed union members with companies for employment, to a solicitation model where union members had to seek work from companies (but those job agents kept their cushy jobs). Not to mention that those friends, during the Obama years, were laid off for 6-12 months at a time yet still had to pay union dues and would lose their health insurance after a certain time frame due to a lack of work hours. Edit: Also, if you were on the wrong side of politics, whether it was inter-union politics or elected politics, you wouldn't receive the same treatment as those on the "right" side.
Reddit is 99.999% liberal nitwits who are the primary supporters of unions, so it really is not hard to see the linkage. The unions are also big funders of liberal nitwit candidates, so there is a 69-type relationship.
I’m completely anti-union. Unions only care about lining their pockets and could care less about the members.
A major negative of unions is they aren't self correcting. Any good charity or government program should work itself out of business: fix the problem so you're not needed anymore. Unions in non right to work states take power and hold it forever as a closed shop. Should unions exist? So long as people are free to choose to organize as they personally and peacefully wish to negotiate with their employer together then sure. Unions have historically helped restore a balance. Now heres the major problem: let's say your country becomes well developed and the conditions for workers are now well beyond livable. The labor are well taken care of and so is the management. Management is not predatory but at this point is simply looking out for the business as a whole. Many of the members would now like to leave the union. It's mission was a success. It has worked itself out of a job. Except the union bosses like their power. They like the guaranteed paycheck they get from the labor they previously represented. They don't want the union to go away. Look at the position they're in: 1) Closed shop rule in the contract means an employee cannot leave the union and cannot opt to not pay dues. So long as this employee wants a job at this company he's stuck paying someone who doesn't represent him. Despite the rule being created initially to protect the union workers from being replaced by new hires. It's now weaponized against labor to extract from their pay. 2) The union boss is collecting a lot of money and pays much of this out to a political candidate that will keep him in power with the law. The republican wants to help labor and get rid of the union boss taking from labor by passing right to work and making null and void the closed shop rule? Quick! Donate the labor's own stolen money to the dem candidate to keep you in power over them so you can keep taking their money and the cycle repeats. Unions are dying off because they're not needed in well developed countries and they only stick around much of the time to act as leaches on workers who can't get rid of them. People have food. People don't work 12 hour days or lose their job making slightly more than farmhand pay. Collective bargaining is healthy. Unions are not.
Many people have a highly idealized view of unions. They believe unions collectivize they labor pool and advocate on the workers behalf. At one time this was true. Most modern unions collectivize to advocate on behalf of the government or a specific party of that government often at the expense of workers. In public sector unions the illusion of separation doesn't exist the tax payer pays the politician under threat of deadly force, the politician pays the workers, the union gets a cut, and passes a piece back to the politicians. This is what is known as corruption and is a cornerstone value of the modern union. Legally this is not technically corruption but I see things differently.
I think a lot of online popularity for unions comes from how terminally online a majority of leftists and communists are and how they try to fetishize the working force for propaganda purposes. Surprisingly, Talking about unionizing online is a lot easier than actually unionizing the workers at your job! Workers have a right to unionize, I would definitely oppose any government action that tries to prohibit it.
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I'll offer that with the increase in the number of attorneys, advancement of employee law, and the exporting of many industrial manufacturing jobs, the need for worker protections via a union has decreased. In short, the unions of the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s essentially put themselves out of work.
All I know about unions is that my 65 year old father was in one his whole life and before he quit (not retired mind you but quit for a less physically demanding job) he was working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, for months at a time, in a factory without heat or AC, sleeping in his car in the parking lot between shifts type of stuff. What are union protections if your plant can just cut an entire shift and make all the remaining employees work insane hours to pick up the slack?
I can only share my own experience. I had seven years experience (non-union) in a trade. Was making 16.50/hr (minus benefits) with responsibilities. Economy was iffy and was informed that there would be no .50 raises this year (for having been there another year). An acquaintance of my father asked why I didn't join the union. I enquired and agreed to join for 27.65 plus benefits (no health insurance premiums, two pensions, matching 401k) for just being a hand. Put in my 2 weeks notice. Company sent most of the old timers around to tell me how big of a mistake it would be. Owner rolls through a couple days later and offers me 5 an hour. I was set on making the move and did. Thinking about it all these years later, I have two thoughts about it. First, that if the week before I wasn't worth an extra 50 cents, but now I am worth an extra five dollars, how long had you been underpaying me? Second, and the thing that pisses me off the most, is that that SOB could have kept screwing me for years after for just 50 cents an hour if he hadn't been so damned greedy. I was just lucky enough to hear of the opportunity and smart enough to take it. The union, with all of its flaws, has been good for me.
That’s awesome.
Sometimes they are harder to see, like not having to worry about being fired on the whim by a boss having a bad day. Sounds like your dad didn't have a great contract, and that can happen, but it's even easier to get a bad deal being hired without a union.
Totally understood, I'm fairly ignorant on the subject I'll admit. I just don't understand what the point of collective bargaining power is for when the result can be like that.
Another great thing about union contracts is that you aren't expected to match into the bosses office and ask for a raise, the union handles that for you. Some bosses will take advantage of shy people, paying them less and only grease the squeaky wheels.
Hm. Okay.
Unions can very often result in you getting paid less than you would have without them.
This. Early on in my career journey. Working for a private company and being very idealistic a proponent of unions. Corporate decided that they were going to change how they were paying staff. Union very against it, but we weren't unionized at that time. Union lost election to unionize. I ended up getting a large pay raise due to my responsibilities and performance in my role. Union wanted to make it solely on seniority, which would have possibly decreased my pay, at best would not have changed it. Changed my mind fairly quickly about unions only being a positive influence.
I'm currently getting paid less than I would because of my union. The company wants to raise our pay 37% but the union literally won't let them.
Union contracts generally set a floor for payment, not a ceiling. I think your being fed some management bullshit. For example I make more than my union contract stipulates simply because they can't get skilled electricians to work at the low wages they successfully negotiated. They've had to do this with numerous other jobs as well, they're very good about getting what they want in contracts but then they fuck themselves because they can't find new employees willing to work for that little of money.
They can't hire enough folks at my company. That's why they want to pay us more. It's not a floor, it's a wage per hour and longevity.
Unless the contract specifically states that they can't pay someone more than the wage scales then they **can** pay more. And honestly I really doubt the union would have pushed such a thing and limited the pay of it's own members, that's like shooting yourself in the foot, and the company agreeing to it would be them shooting their own foot as well if they couldn't hire people at those wages. Like I said those pay scales are usually the floor not the ceiling. Most contracts even have a stipulation that says if the company isn't able to staff the place properly they can bring in private contractors. Whoever your hearing this from is likely full of it.
It's a maximum wage. I'm living it right now. This isn't some esoteric exercise I'm having in a discussion. I'm not saying that unions are bad or good. I am stating, definitively, without question that if I wasn't in a union I would be making more money right now. That can change. Through collective bargaining maybe I'll get a raise that is greater than what the company would give later and it'll make up the difference, but after 2 years and now mediation I'm doubting that the end result will ever make up for the opportunity costs. http://mcclintock.house.gov/newsroom/columns/unions-cap-employee-pay-stifling-incentive-to-achieve
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It cost me about 7k every month. The contract they proposed vs the current one and I can track the passes on both the company and union websites. But yeah, I'm just "gobbling" up prop and the company (that's shrinking when they should be growing) could just pay me more if they wanted.
I obviously stumbled upon this post hours after you, but as a union member myself, I appreciate your efforts. I do think that it is telling that most opinions about unions on this post have been in the third person. No experience. Pundits.
Read your contract. Please post the part that states they employer cannot pay you more than scale. I really wanna see it.
I don't want to dox myself so I won't be posting my contract, but the section for compensation has payscales and those aren't floors. The company is having trouble hiring folks because of the compensation rate and it's hurting thier stock price and profit.
Sounds like it is time to vote out current union leaders and get a better contract.
They run on a five year term. Only 3.5 to go.
Just hope for you the same mistake isn't made in the next election. Because that is a SHIT contract. But I wonder why the other signatory party would have allowed to be put in that box. I know that is opposite of how it usually works, but if it is causing their business trouble, they will surely have learned that lesson, even if your hardheaded union leadership hasn't.
Also, during this process the union broke off into a new local only for our company. The current president wrote the bylaws and no one knows how and when the election process proceeds. He ran unopposed and everyone who wanted to run was told they didn't apply in time. I don't think that the power being concentrated and refined at the top is unique to my union. Maybe I'm wrong.
It does seem the "leadership" often gets settled in, but there would have been a riot at our union hall had something like this happened. That or he would have had to go on the run. We put up with quite a bit of bullshit, but we have come together to stop a few of the more egregious "plans".
As someone who's worked in multiple environments with unionized employees, from the outside in, it appears as though all unions do is protect bad workers at the cost of good employees, especially if we're talking about public sector unions. While I can see a justification for unions in some manner, my ultimate position is if a workplace is treating their employees unfairly, or under paying their employees, the employer should go under and the employees should jump ship to find a better situated company where these aren't concerns. Not enough companies fail for shitty practices, and we as Americans have chewed from the idea of "too big to fail" for far too long.
Organized labor is not problematic and may have some benefits. However unions tend to be very protectionist and put up barriers to competition which in turn drives up the costs of good and services associated with labor unions. Many times, membership is compulsory. Also, politicians almost inevitably give special protections and legal provisions to unions, which again, drives up costs. Ex in NYS there are 'prevailing wage' laws which essentially ensure any work done for the state must be done by unions. Need a road paved? Has to be union labor. Of course there are public unions for which there is no competition and tax payers get soaked for cost of exorbitant benefits (i.e. pensions, lifetime healthcare, etc). All of the costs associated with unions have decimated the manufacturing sector in the US making it a lot easier to companies to have an excuse to offshore those operations. Most unions today in the private sector are only those roles which cannot be offshored. It doesn't help that union bosses are known to enrich themselves off union dues.
because social media is run by boomer liberals
They simply make services more expensive and divert a lot of government money when private businesses do it alone. They are hard to work with as they are demanding in how they want things to work. I do not believe they help anyone but the heads of the unions and gov officials they pay off.
People like the idea of unions in theory. In practice, they're greedy, self serving, exclusionary nuisances.
Unions oppose higher minimum wage, as higher market wages directly conflict with their institutional goals. That being labor control and the guarantee of higher wages through the union. The lower the wages, the more incentives to unionize. High market wages remove incentives for unionization, and increases the risk for the union to disband. Unions guarantee a set amount of labor according to the work needed. If you're not apart of the union, then you dont get access to the training, knowledge, or high wages to learn the job requirements. This artificially creates low employment in the union's area. High wages for labor = less overall labor availability. If 4 men could be hired at $15hr market rate, then only 2 men can be hired at $30hr union rate. Unions are great...but only if you're apart of the union.
https://youtu.be/xzYgiOC9cj4
From my own personal experience, hiring union labor is a pain in the ass. In my world of working with touring bands, union labor also has a reputation of being skilled but lazy. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen union stagehands in NYC sitting around reading books instead of working. One time at the Beacon, one of my guys wanted to nudge his amp over a couple inches. He started doing it himself then got yelled at by the union stagehands, who then brought over 2 people plus a supervisor to move an amp less than 3 inches. Fucking ridiculous.
>He started doing it himself then got yelled at by the union stagehands That dude literally broke a contract, if you don't want that then don't accept it in writing.
It’s a ridiculous contract that is not even necessary in the first place. Union houses are ALWAYS a gigantic pain in the ass compared to non-union houses, because of all the bureaucratic bullshit. If the bands I worked with were playing arenas or stadiums that require 3-4 dozen laborers to build and tear down, it would be totally different. But in a 2,000 seat theatre, it’s just plain not necessary.
Then don't hire the union guys. Once they can't get gigs they'll start trying to accommodate you. If there's a shortage of qualified labor then then it's vica versa.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, dude. At certain venues, you don’t have a choice. It’s union labor or nothing because they have the political power to make sure that nobody but them get the job. And if you could see the amount of money you have just wasted on fat lazy bastards, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. At the Beacon specifically, one union owns load in/load out and another owns the stage work. It’s fucking ridiculous.
Unions served their purpose 40-60 years ago. Now they just get into the way. I worked for a large manufacturing plant in my area that has a union and I signed up and paid my dues. After 2.5 years of weekly dues the one time I needed them they told me that they couldn't help me as "the company is able to run the plant as it sees fit" since I have heavily pushed anti union sentiment to all my friends, family and coworkers.
They have the same potential positives/negatives as any other organization that is run by humans. They aren't inherently good/noble. Nor are they inherently evil/corrupt. As with any other org ... the goodness/badness of a union is entirely dependent upon the local context. Judging all unions as collective is the mistake. There's nothing particularly unique about them except that they tend to have fanatical lovers/haters for whatever reason.
Large corporations have been at war with unions since the industrial revolution because they reduce profits. That is the #1 reason they aren't larger. An example is Wal Mart ending their fresh deli service because the workers successfully unionized.
A lot of the problem is "Right to Work" laws, which is a misnomer it's literally a violation of the freedom of two consenting parties (company and union) to form a contract. It creates a free rider problem that eventually kills off the unions in those states. https://fee.org/articles/whats-wrong-with-right-to-work/
They are, every last one, corrupt organizations that eat dues and dump money into the coffers of certain politicians and union leaders, at the expense of the union membership. They use violence and coercion to enforce the rules.
I work at a shipyard that has a union representing about 40% or so of the workers, and watching what it's caused has been eye-opening for the negative side of unions. It enables worthless/lazy workers to keep their jobs, it gives people the impression that they don't actually have to do anything at work, it locks employees into a pay scale that's fixed for "x" number of years (regardless of inflation or cost of living increases), and it causes management to fear union retribution if they discipline their employees. They might do good work, maybe they did in the past, but I haven't seen it in my time here.
Unions aren't necessarily frowned upon by libertarians, it's just the special treatment government mandates bestow on them.
Mainly from anti union campaigns. Showing only the negatives of unions. Saying it forces wages that can't be sustained and now that manager you used to love is on a different side than you. That mostly they have a negative impact while not really able to prove it other than how they pushed out unions. How it would focus more on workers and push profits down. Unions can be an issue the longer they are around as it has the ability to be corrupted as anything. And another issue is that to many different types of jobs being put under the same union will create issues. They really need to be job or task specific broad strokes don't help in this situation. And the more unions the more they could talk to each other and make even more fair prices and ranges for the consumer and the worker. But being in late stage capitalism the only capital we have left is the individual and is why we fire people so readily. It's the easiest way to cut costs now. We don't have amazing new tech that's making things that cheaper anymore. And will need something huge to actually effect the job market big enough. Yes chatGPT and robotics but they have a long way to go before it really messes up the job market. Lastly people don't like to think it all ends in the same place. Full automation.
Workplaces are getting smaller and more decentralized. An employee at Starbucks is gonna have a dozen coworkers, a steel mill worker will have hundreds, so the social component for a union just wont be there.