this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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I feel like people idealize unions. Most people I know aren't in one because of the massive membership fees. I've also heard of weird shady shit like a teachers' union forbidding the teachers at my local school from discussing the election of a principal. Unions should help workers not limit them.
Principals aren’t elected. Where ever you heard any of that is completely false as that’s fundamentally not how that position works
Linking the relevant legislature for my area, article 53.a details the appointment process for a principal, basically they're elected by the school board.
nothing dumber or weaker than the power of one.
also: lmao at "massive fees".
imagine thinking the pay and compensation improvements from collective bargaining for each individual worker would ever be less than the union fees. go buy a PlayStation about it
management and shareholders must work so hard to make people think like you in captive audience meetings and retaliation harassment campaigns because the bosses have your interests at heart.
swear to god, if I've noticed anything about people in places with strong unions and functioning social democratic infrastructure is that they can be naive as fuck about how everything good they take for granted would vanish like a fart in the wind if the bosses had slightly more power than they do.
Please never take a "I heard X about this union" at face value. Obviously sometimes unions will on occasion do bad things, but I cannot stress how extremely common it is for employers to deliberately spread lies about unions. I have personally seen full-page ads in newspapers with bald-faced lies about the stance or actions of unions.
If unions were bad, the rich would never form unions of their own: they call them “their networks”.
Rich people almost instinctively come together to collaborate on how to minimize competition and just drive up prices to make sure the poor are the ones that pay for everything in the end. Monopolization, cartelization, and the classic good ol’ boy club are perfect examples.
.ee
Spoken like someone who's never been in a union before.
Personal anecdotes are not gospel. There are people who consider a single dollar as a union fee to be too much money, and hate unions on ideological grounds.
They are, generally speaking, net positives for a worker.
You're literally idealizing unions. You just have an uninformed idea of what they are.
Well, I was just responding to the original post
It isn't if the membership is 30€ per month and the union isn't going to do jack shit for you because they're corrupt
A lot of American unions are bad and just work as an extension of HR to subdue unrest on behalf of the business.
I've been in teachers unions, and, from my experience, they really go to bat for you if you're having an issue.
It's important to note, though, that the reason American unions are so bad is not a coincidence or cultural quirk. It's a direct result of policies that are meant to strangle unions.
Regardless of whether or not the unions have been neutered or captured, they are still the best type of organization to fight for worker rights. There's really no other option to stand up to wide-scaled exploitation.
Unions aren’t supposed to do things "for you", you ARE the union
This times a million. Your union is not a third party, it's you and your coworkers. Union dues are the collective resources you and your coworkers put together to fight the boss and protect your rights. Its so the boss cant say "I changed my mind, here's what's happening now" because they will do that shit all the time even when you have a contract. You need a strike fund, a lawyer, a staff organizer to support and train you and no dues means none of these exist. Then your boss can do whatever cause "what are you gonna do about it"
Fucking treat brained Americans man. Someone else has to do all the work
It is if it costs 30 a month but you make 300 a month more than your non union peers. Find me a better investment opportunity than that. If I could turn 30 bucks into 300 bucks why wouldn't I? That's the biggest no brainer ever.
Folks who talk like this have literally never interacted with a union. If your union is taking your money and doing nothing in return, get rid of them. It's your union. You and your co workers can vote to decertify or find a new rep. Unions aren't chosen by the company they're chosen by the workers.
The stats are against you anyway. Around the world Union workers make more than non union workers. That's just facts even after dues.
This is obviously correct but it's also like saying "eating is bad for you because I heard someone spent 30 bucks on rotten food and died." It's intellectually dishonest and I don't think you're dumb.
You're seriously complaining about 30€ a month?
What kind of industry are these people in? Me and everyone I know have benefitted from unions, and the fees have been completely negligable compared to wages and the benefits gained.
American unions frequently do fucked up shit. I can't speak to the rest of the world but here most of them are quite bad. They do occasionally help working people so it's not for nothing but there's a reason they continue to bleed membership despite being quite popular.
Edit: to be clear I do support workers organizing. The big unions in the US just suck and oftentimes impede good organizing more than they help it
Unionized workers make more than non-unionized workers almost as a rule, wages gains typically overshadow dues.
We should be careful with this sort of partial truth. In my area, there is an industry where the non-union workers do make more than the union workers. This, of course, is because the company has to compete against the union wage and adds some more on top as a "pls don't unionize and make this worse" sort of counter-propaganda. It's worth it to them.
It is also because the local union for this industry is strangled by liberal leadership, which is elected by its disengaged membership.
I want to present this anecdote because I don't think this situation is uncommon, so when we simplify the situation down to somebody with anti-union brainworms we may end up looking foolish or just wrong to them.
That is why I used the words almost and typically.
fair. I guess I didn't read closely my b
No problem, your point is well made. There are always going to be outliers to almost any narrative no matter how truthful, and they should be acknowledged and even explained.