No, I don't care about being in a unicorn and I'm not a embarrassed billionaire. But I don't idolize unions either.
I don't want to be paid the same as all other workers with the same title, I like getting personal bonuses based on performance. I don't want to be in a union.
I mean you're just here repeating the lazy old anti-union talking points with 0 thought. I offered some examples that contradict them. The burden of proof is on you at this point.
If not having unions leads to high wages and good working conditions, why aren't retail and fast food workers making bank? Why do they get treated like shit? Please tell us.
It's so wild. So many HN commenters have this exaggerated caricature in their heads about what a Union must be:
"Unions mean every worker gets paid the same!"
"Unions mean I will make less money!"
"Unions make it impossible to fire underperformers!"
"Unions are run by bosses whose incentives are different than workers!"
"Unions mean I can't plug in my own workstation!"
"Unions reward seniority over everything else!"
Like they've taken every spook story they've been told about unions, gathered up the worst parts, and then simply declare that unions, by law, must necessarily be all those bad things.
Is there anything that annoys you about your current workplace? Not just compensation, but really anything at all. Does it also annoy others in your workplace? If so, you found something that forming a union may be able to help with. Your ability to negotiate away that annoyance might not be strong, but with 20 other fellow employees, you might be able to do something about it.
That's really all there is to it. A "union" doesn't necessarily have to look like the Teamsters.
>Is there anything that annoys you about your current workplace? Not just compensation, but really anything at all.
Yes, of course, I'm human! But the things that mostly annoy me are the other 20 employees, not "the system".
And the little things that bother me, if it were too bad I would try and fix it or move on. I don't see how a Union helps, I suppose you assume that we all have the same annoyances and we band together.
The problem is we are all smart enough to realize how good we have it actually, and nobody wants to rock that boat.
I can't tell you that because I don't know where you work or what you do. I can only tell you the reasons you gave us that make you believe unions are bad are all bullshit.
There may be reasons union membership is wrong for you personally. That's a valid position to have.
Companies have spent a fortune paying companies just to spread lies and misrepresentations about unions to workers. I guess their money is being well spent. All their big talking points are here, being regurgitated just like they wanted.
If companies are spreading lies/misrepresentations about unions, they're leaving a lot of good material on the table! I have a lifetime of union abuse stories from family and neighbors in the trades, service work, factories, and even elementary education.
A close female relative declined to cooperate with a unionization effort at her job -- she made good tips and didn't want to pay dues. She started receiving threatening calls at night describing her indoor pets and other details of her home that heavily implied that the caller had physically surveilled it, or was perhaps currently nearby. While the unionization effort ultimately failed, the harassment she endured left psychological scars.
My best friend's brother lost his union job after refusing to work unpaid overtime for them. When he showed up at his second job (with another union) he found out he was also fired there -- the union bosses in town had collaborated to blacklist him. So he took a non-union job framing houses. Months later, some union goons caught him alone on a job site and assaulted him for being a scab. They struck him several times with a 2x4 and kicked him. He nearly died.
Other friends in town have had their tires slashed, windows broken, or had out-of-state union members show up at their house on the weekend after trying to step down as union steward.
Even when I don't know the people involved, I can see the union machinery at work around me. When my local children's hospital awarded a parking garage contract to the lowest bidder, the local carpenter's union wanted a cut of the action. So the union brought in ruffians from out of state to protest the job site, causing delays. Someone covered the downtown with defamatory posters with pictures of the man who owned the construction company, so that his family, friends, and people he'd never met would see him made out to be the devil. The hospital and construction company could have made all the sabotage and harassment go away if they paid their protection money.
All the unions my family has experienced this century are just organized crime.
LOL what. I am in a union and nobody has ever threatened my cat or beat me with a 2x4 and I've never even heard of such a thing. Unions get you double time overtime and good healthcare. It's wild how deep in the owne class propaganda some people will get. Really get in there and take a good whiff.
I could say the same about pro-union comments. They are repeated every week here and reddit. The only thing I see is that it works in Sweden, or it works here but in a very niche industry. I haven't ever seen one plan where it could work for Software Engineers, that is my point.
Because it does work for software engineers. The PNW is full of places that hire software engineers that are unionized. It turns out software engineers are regular humans selling their labor to survive just like the rest of the peasants.
I never worked at a union workplace. However, I’ve worked with underperforming colleagues who were could not be fired for whatever reason. It was miserable.
So...there's nothing about unions specifically that makes underperforming colleagues un-fireable right? Because you've seen that in non-union workplaces.
Union membership won't save Kylian Mbappe from being dropped to the bench if he doesn't score enough goals. His endorsement deals or his agent's influence might do it.
I don't know where it stems from, but I think it's harder to fire people in union shops. In a non-union shop, you have to work with the person, their manager, and HR to see if you can correct someone's performance, and if that does not work, let them go. At a union shop, I imagine someone from the union will also be involved in this process, and it's hard to imagine how this process would be made easier through the involvement of another person, who happens to hold a bias.
You'll forgive me for saying that you sound wildly underqualified to comment on the subject. I have worked in non-union shops and union shops. The union shops have a way better quality of life.
You're forgiven, but not correct re: me being under-qualified to comment. I have interacted with union shops and non-union shops and have 25 years of professional experience, so please don't be dismissive.
I've worked with union shops as clients and I've hit a surprising amount of friction due to things which seemed union related. Things like "that's not my job and we need XYZ to do it" and what seemed like people slacking at their job from the outside. I once needed a desk moved a few feet which required a power strip to be plugged into a different wall outlet, and was told we need to wait for the electricians. Risking the wrath and fallout, I did it myself.
I've also seen this kind of behavior at non-union shops, but it was less explicitly stated and it was relatively easy to do something about it.
I'm sure you're correct about the quality of life at union shops.
