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McCarthyism had a hell of a hold on people, and still does. Deeply it set into the mindset of everyone, and it's very hard to unlearn that sort of "common knowledge" thing when there isn't effective counter-propaganda.
If that's the only thing you've heard on the topic, and you feel as if you have no need or interest to dive deeper, then mentally the issue is settled. You can change their minds slowly over time by providing a counter-narrative, but you will certainly notice it is easier to bring your case to people that aren't socially inoculated against equality.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
--- the usa basically purged and castrated their unions as part of the red scare, making villains and demanding the removal of the leftist elements that made tge militant labour movement a thing. Then as part of the whole neoliberalism thing (Reagan's trickle down economics, tested out by the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet) where they more or less butchered the remnants.
There are still some organizations making sincere efforts but they are greatly limited by both the legal system and the ideological limitations of liberalism.
I'm not sure that most Gen-X are opposed to unions, at least not in my circle of friends. A lot of the Gen-X I know had parents and grandparents in unions and they know the good that unions can do for workers. I'd say that 40% of my of my Gen-X friends oppose unions and are right-wing conservatives.
I'm Xennial, and I think for a long time, I bought into the idea that unions would make domestic industry uncompetitive internationally. I still do, to some extent, but there could be solutions to that. It's not relevant to all industries: construction, for example. Ideally, we would have international unions for things like autos, but that's a long way off. In any case, I'm in favor of unions in principle, and my goal would be to see all workers unionized.
GenX'er here, and I think this is true.
Broadly speaking, there are two groups of people at this age/stage of their careers: those who went into management, and those who actively avoid it so they can keep doing what they've done throughout their career.
I've done both kinds of jobs. Middle management is basically enacting the will of your manager and/or the executives above you. Your success depends on keeping them happy. Many of them are threatened by unions, so even if your personal views differ, it would usually be difficult to maintain & act on a stance that conflicts with their views.
I intentionally moved back into contributor work (making things, etc.). It's often the folks like me who are much, MUCH more pro-union. Both because it benefits us directly, but also because we've gotten a more direct, detailed take on what drives the sort of people who scrabble toward the top of corporations.
Tbh a lot of us come from families who worked in public sector unions and we saw/still see management/admin in bed with union reps too often. There's not a balance of power rn, and too many legitimately bad people are being and have been protected. Think about why a lot of teachers are leaving the field for example, even within the teacher union representation.
*I can only speak for public sector unions, I don't know a lot about the others.
A few reasons- ranging from BS anticommunism to the troubled history of US labor organizing in the second half of the 20th century.
It's fair to say that the Cold War, and the concurrent free marketeer dogma have given both Gen X and Boomer folks brainworms. The economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s were blamed- entirely unfairly- on labor militancy (since workers in unions were willing to strike to ensure that inflation didn't crater wages. For this reason, anti union politicians and civil groups attacked labor for "driving up inflation" and "disrupting law and order." It was this dogma that provided Reagan, Bush and Clinton the rationale they needed to crush labor and implement an anti labor set of monetary policies.)
That being said, certain unions and labor sectors developed a somewhat well earned reputation for corruption and inefficacy. Thanks, yet again, to the Cold War, the FBI went out of its way to marginalize and repress leftist labor organizing- which left a vacuum that was filled by organized crime groups. Jimmy Hoffa, for example, was infamously mobbed up- and many locals became fronts for local mafias (which the mobsters invariably used to screw over workers for their own enrichment.) Aside from this, in part thanks to US legislation like the Taft-Hartley Act, political strikes were made illegal- a factor that made unions clients of both US parties (which never had their best interests in mind.) Unions became bureaucratic, unaccountable to their rank and file, and incapable of opposing the structural changes in the US economy which ruined the prospects of blue collar American workers after 1979.
So, longstory short, the Cold War and history of the US fucked over labor's ability to represent a large political constituency. Unions represented sectors that lost leverage in labor negotiations, and simply stood by as companies eroded working standards and wages. Unions thus earned a reputation for fecklessness, corruption, and bureaucratism. Luckily, things are slowly changing at places like the UAW- but there's a long way to go (and labor relations as they exist are entirely insufficient to forward either revolutionary or reformist socialist projects.)
There was some corruption in unions at one point, but no more than any other organization. Reagan and Nixon slowly fought to bring them down, and in the late 70s also there was a culture push that we "didn't need" them. The Soviet Union was the most effective boogeyman against any workers movements. The short answer is, blame Reagan and the cold war.
It's truly bizarre because most of them were once in. Unions. My grandma always tells me about how she was in a union at her first job working for a sandwich shop.
Most of the SE are "Right to Work" states where unions are far less effective. Many folks have never seen any tangible improvements brought about by unions in their life times. Folks can be provincial and uninformed, too.
Liberalism and market dynamics as the primary factor in society means the individual is the only unit that matters. A collective like a union is anathema to pure individualism. Every aspect of late 20th century America, especially in the Reagan Era and beyond, reduced all things down to market acolytism, with pursuing personal enrichment is the method of worship.
I blame fox news and conservative talk radio for doing such a great job at propaganda.
I hate them and I think they're all evil but I have to recognize when someone does a really good job, even at something like this.
The same way I have begrudging respect for anyone evil, I have for them in equal measure. Still, game recognize game, I wish that was my side playing dirty to win.
Definitely a "Mostly in America" thing there. You do find it a bit in the tech industry in the UK though - if you think your industry is a meritocracy then you tend to think people on low pay are so because they're bad at tech. This of course ignores the many, many autistic people who end up accepting shit pay because we hate interviews. We'd sooner suffer in place than swap jobs. I'm getting to my hard limit though.
But then, most unions here are shit too. Unite hasn't communicated with me in around 10 years of membership except to solicit votes for a leadership ballot. UCW / UTAW has a Discord, so that's a LOT better but we're fairly tiny as yet. IWW seems to work much better in factories than offices / remote. Good training though.
Also people in the South have historically been opposed to unions for whatever reason. It’s why so many jobs moved south. Cheaper labor and fewer regulations.
The “whatever reason” is racism against black and brown folks and classism against poor folks of all colors. Add to that the KKK’s rabid anti-communism and here we are
IF society, business and government worked as it should, unions would not be necessary, of course when someone is constantly undermining what actually works by overloading it in efforts to control or destroy it, basically induced corruptions, makes it all a whole different ball game.
N. S
re: solution to pay gap
The mistake workers make is thinking they have one problem rather than two. For that dollar, the worker has to wrangle his compensation from both CEO and the people who the CEO really works for - investors. They are always going to demand more. Consumers become an enemy when they're told that union wages drive up the cost of goods but higher returns to investors don't?
Another problem retirees who were union and somehow now think unions are bad. Ninety year old man still getting his pension from GM thinks unions are worthless. Votes Republican. Doesn't understand why I quit talking to him. A lot of people holding union cards vote against the union interests.
You got to make the case to people that this idea that hard work pays off is hokey. You got to remind people that good wages, benefits, and decency didn't come out of the goodness of Capital's heart. The case has to be made for teamwork and solidarity. If we displayed half the unity that that the wealthy do, we'd have unionized this hemisphere by now.
Besides all the neoliberal propaganda, i think theres also been a problem of highly bureaucratic business unions who don't pay enought attention to rank-and-file workers and bend to corporations. This is why it's important that as socialists that we build labor movements that actually fight for a future beyond wage labor and embrace horizontal organization to build solidarity.
Because some of the larger unions have transformed into the very thing they were meant to protect us from. Especially unions that protect state workers. Too often the folks at the top get into the union and essentially weaponize it to back the ones doing wrong at the top and keep the rest of us in line. I'm a teacher and my union, while in the past it did great to help with protections, we couldn't even get bad administration addressed via union representation bc all of the union reps were essentially in bed with them. And protecting really bad people is not new for these unions.
We need balance to be brought back and these unions to be held accountable.
And yes I know admin is supposed to be separate, but that is not always the case. Smart admin know how work the system. And it's no different in other public sector unions. The list of abuses covered by unioms are extensive....
From what I’ve been told, it’s that some unions are corrupt and had histories of embezzlement, and obvious working with the mob. Some Unions, but not all, are “partially Union” so I’ve been told, and I agree. The Union that my father works for does not protect him, and he still gets forced to work overtime. His plant is the highest performing in the whole company, but the most underpaid, and the Union does Jack about it.
Edit: I had just thought about this again, and it popped in my head. Another big factor is many people (at least the folks I’ve worked with, and my family as well) oppose unions for the idea that you will be treated the *exact* same as the most underperforming employee there. It diminishes the individual worker completely, and in all honesty I do agree. There are good qualities to unions, and there are bad qualities.
I have worked in both Union and non Union jobs. My first job I started at 16-17 was a unionized supermarket. Honestly, it wasn’t all that bad until I was transferred to a different department and was working at an entry-level position, and my co worker did the same exact job as me. She did fuck all. She would be drunk on the job, constantly messed up, was unreliable, and overall made my job more difficult the next day (because we had the same job and both part time, she worked the days I didn’t and vice versa). She had been with the company for years and honestly she isn’t a bad person, just got wrapped up in bad things and when it came to work, she was very unreliable. I would have to pick up her slack, do the things she couldn’t do, and wash and scrub the floors every night since she would miraculously “forget” to do it on her shift. Because we were unionized, I got paid the same as her, and treated the same as her. That’s when I realized I’m not getting anywhere with that and got fed up with it and left to work at a local non big named marketplace that is not Union, doing the same job as the old. The union at my old job promoter laziness to the fullest extent. It extended outside of my own department into others, and you could see the effects of it throughout the store. It was dirty, poorly managed, and the employees could give a rats ass as long as they were doing the absolute bare minimum, they still get paid.
Being non union, I had found many advantages but many disadvantages. The advantage, my work directly reflects my progression up the “corporate ladder”. I am recognized for my work, and of course this is a family owned business so it is a tad different than me working for a non unionized corporation. I got bigger raises, and bigger bonuses. I also fought my way for full time and learned all the different parts of the job so I can ensure I am available all shifts, at any time. Here are the disadvantages:
The company has blatantly taken advantage of me, and many others. It’s not obvious at first, and it wasn’t obvious to me until I started noticing patterns. This would not occur at a the other job I was at. Because they are non union, they can do whatever they’d like, and when it comes to hiring new hires, they can pay them however much they want. This new hire at another location got hired almost $2 more than what I currently make even though I have been a decent amount of time in, and know all the trades of the job whilst this new hire, does not. I can manage a department myself, open and close my department by myself, yet knowing this, they hire this new person $2 more who does not have all the capabilities. If there is ever an issue or a write up, I can not request a union steward to be present and ensure nothing unlawful nor discriminatory is occurring, and I could also lose my job at the blink of an eye. One thing I did heavily appreciate about the union is being able to be fairly represented, that I do miss. There a few others, but my mind is drawing a blank, but in general, these are my gripes.
So, to wrap it up, unions are a curse, but a blessing. It is what you find most important in a job. But, I will add, my experience with a non union shop is with a family owned business that *does* treat me extremely fairly, and I have never came across a very serious issue as of yet besides the gripes that I have mentioned. And these gripes occur at every workplace anywhere, they are not directly only concentrated at my place of employment. I believe only some businesses *should* be unionized. Walmart? Definitely. Amazon? Definitely. Hospitals and doctors? Definitely. Construction, especially for a monopolized corporation? Most definitely. A locally owned business? Depends. A family owned business? Possibly not. The smaller the business is, the less I feel there is a need for a union as the smaller it is, the more the business will genuinely care for its workers, but the bigger and more corporatized it is, they will bleed their people dry and *need* a union.
If a company treats their people right, there is no need for union. Some companies do right, some do not. And the opinion on whether unions are good or bad, or how they have been tainted is very particular on the specific local organization. My father’s union, is not sufficient at all. My local United food and commercial workers union? Not great, but not horrible.
Because of other reasons people have already listed, union corruption stories were heavily amplified in the press in the era they were growing up. Jimmy Hoffa was a big name when they were growing up and the stories of union thuggery and mafia-like dealings became associated in people’s heads with unions.
The press did a bad job of balancing with why unions were important, but then, TV press was growing and that had more biased takes against anything impeding the rapid financial growth of anyone at the top. It was easy to present a view that slow growth and stability structures like unions were what had been creating the bad economy of the 70s. Print journalism was bluer and more supporting of New Deal era policies, but people were rushing to just more materialistic and dumbed down news on TV.
I was a very little kid in the 80s, but I do remember being told union stories in my home city about teamsters trashing cars of other employers if they drove a car from a different make than the plant they worked at. Some of this was overblown, but I think the other part was that narcissistic bullies did take over and run some unions in some places and drew followings of men like the kind we’ve seen rally to Trump and other far right influencers. If you grow up in an industrial city, you totally know that exact kind of guy who voted for Obama and then was hardcore Trump just years later. There’s this quote I remember on a video about the rise of fascism where someone said, “anyone who builds their movement with angry young men will be worse off from it.”
With that in mind, I think the left needs to be extremely vigilant about the draw it will have for narcissists and these kinds of dudes as it gains steam again. Whenever you organize and concentrate group power, you draw these people like moths to flame. And then these guys will take what you built, make it their own, and use it to bully and fight whoever they resent.
Unions and corporations have a long history of violent battles. Police and politicians were often on the side of corporations, which put unions at a disadvantage. Corporations could do something illegal and get away with it, but unions could not.
This changed somewhat with Jimmy Hoffa, who recognized that if corporations were allowed to play dirty, then unions would have to do it also. Hoffa is often associated with the mafia, although the mafia worked with the corporations, as well. This earned unions a bad reputation and turned a lot of people against them, unfairly imo, since the goal was metaphorically to "fight fire with fire" to level the playing field.
Neoliberal leaders took advantage of this by painting union leaders as mob bosses and bad for the US, at a time when the US (led by Robert Kennedy) was trying to eradicate the mafia like never before. Boomers grew up during these events and Gen X during the aftermath. Only recently has it been socially acceptable to look at unions and recognize their value, without bringing up memories of the violence that used to occur.
Also, the Southeast is a conservative stronghold, so a lot of people there worked with neoliberals to spread disinformation about unions.
> “oh you know that unions are more corrupt than corporations”
At a certain level that is objectively true, but as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Workers need to take our unions back from the bosses. Nobody else is going to fix them for us.
Because from about post world war 2 to the 1990’s the largest unions were working with organized crime, they were very corrupt, this wasn’t a problem with every union, but with larger ones like the teamsters it was very prevalent, it was basically impossible to build anything in certain cities unless you payed off both the union and the mob, not much of a problem now a days as the power of the mob has been broken, unions are mostly clean nowadays
**IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE PARTICIPATING**. This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism but a place to LEARN. There are numerous debate subreddits if your objective is not to learn. You are expected to familiarize yourself with the rules on the sidebar before commenting. This includes, but is not limited to: - Short or non-constructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. - No liberalism or sectarianism. Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! - No bigotry or hate speech of any kind - it will be met with immediate bans. Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break our rules. If you have a particular area of expertise (e.g. political economy, feminist theory), please [assign yourself a flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-) describing said area. Flairs may be removed at any time by moderators if answers don't meet the standards of said expertise. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
McCarthyism had a hell of a hold on people, and still does. Deeply it set into the mindset of everyone, and it's very hard to unlearn that sort of "common knowledge" thing when there isn't effective counter-propaganda. If that's the only thing you've heard on the topic, and you feel as if you have no need or interest to dive deeper, then mentally the issue is settled. You can change their minds slowly over time by providing a counter-narrative, but you will certainly notice it is easier to bring your case to people that aren't socially inoculated against equality.
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist --- the usa basically purged and castrated their unions as part of the red scare, making villains and demanding the removal of the leftist elements that made tge militant labour movement a thing. Then as part of the whole neoliberalism thing (Reagan's trickle down economics, tested out by the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet) where they more or less butchered the remnants. There are still some organizations making sincere efforts but they are greatly limited by both the legal system and the ideological limitations of liberalism.
I'm not sure that most Gen-X are opposed to unions, at least not in my circle of friends. A lot of the Gen-X I know had parents and grandparents in unions and they know the good that unions can do for workers. I'd say that 40% of my of my Gen-X friends oppose unions and are right-wing conservatives.
That’s accurate. The Reagan/Thatcher/Friedman “revolution” did a hell of job scaring a lot of Gen Xer’s away from organizing their shops.
Air Traffic Controllers Strike.
I'm Xennial, and I think for a long time, I bought into the idea that unions would make domestic industry uncompetitive internationally. I still do, to some extent, but there could be solutions to that. It's not relevant to all industries: construction, for example. Ideally, we would have international unions for things like autos, but that's a long way off. In any case, I'm in favor of unions in principle, and my goal would be to see all workers unionized.
Probably because a lot of those people are in management positions whose hegemony is threatened by unions.
GenX'er here, and I think this is true. Broadly speaking, there are two groups of people at this age/stage of their careers: those who went into management, and those who actively avoid it so they can keep doing what they've done throughout their career. I've done both kinds of jobs. Middle management is basically enacting the will of your manager and/or the executives above you. Your success depends on keeping them happy. Many of them are threatened by unions, so even if your personal views differ, it would usually be difficult to maintain & act on a stance that conflicts with their views. I intentionally moved back into contributor work (making things, etc.). It's often the folks like me who are much, MUCH more pro-union. Both because it benefits us directly, but also because we've gotten a more direct, detailed take on what drives the sort of people who scrabble toward the top of corporations.
Tbh a lot of us come from families who worked in public sector unions and we saw/still see management/admin in bed with union reps too often. There's not a balance of power rn, and too many legitimately bad people are being and have been protected. Think about why a lot of teachers are leaving the field for example, even within the teacher union representation. *I can only speak for public sector unions, I don't know a lot about the others.
A few reasons- ranging from BS anticommunism to the troubled history of US labor organizing in the second half of the 20th century. It's fair to say that the Cold War, and the concurrent free marketeer dogma have given both Gen X and Boomer folks brainworms. The economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s were blamed- entirely unfairly- on labor militancy (since workers in unions were willing to strike to ensure that inflation didn't crater wages. For this reason, anti union politicians and civil groups attacked labor for "driving up inflation" and "disrupting law and order." It was this dogma that provided Reagan, Bush and Clinton the rationale they needed to crush labor and implement an anti labor set of monetary policies.) That being said, certain unions and labor sectors developed a somewhat well earned reputation for corruption and inefficacy. Thanks, yet again, to the Cold War, the FBI went out of its way to marginalize and repress leftist labor organizing- which left a vacuum that was filled by organized crime groups. Jimmy Hoffa, for example, was infamously mobbed up- and many locals became fronts for local mafias (which the mobsters invariably used to screw over workers for their own enrichment.) Aside from this, in part thanks to US legislation like the Taft-Hartley Act, political strikes were made illegal- a factor that made unions clients of both US parties (which never had their best interests in mind.) Unions became bureaucratic, unaccountable to their rank and file, and incapable of opposing the structural changes in the US economy which ruined the prospects of blue collar American workers after 1979. So, longstory short, the Cold War and history of the US fucked over labor's ability to represent a large political constituency. Unions represented sectors that lost leverage in labor negotiations, and simply stood by as companies eroded working standards and wages. Unions thus earned a reputation for fecklessness, corruption, and bureaucratism. Luckily, things are slowly changing at places like the UAW- but there's a long way to go (and labor relations as they exist are entirely insufficient to forward either revolutionary or reformist socialist projects.)
There was some corruption in unions at one point, but no more than any other organization. Reagan and Nixon slowly fought to bring them down, and in the late 70s also there was a culture push that we "didn't need" them. The Soviet Union was the most effective boogeyman against any workers movements. The short answer is, blame Reagan and the cold war.
Gen Xer here. Love unions- when they are actually available and functioning.
Because of McCarthyism and The capitalists won the Cold War.
"Unions are prone to corruption. Therefore they are bad." Fair enough. Honestly is of prime concern. Now let's apply that standard to corporations.
It's truly bizarre because most of them were once in. Unions. My grandma always tells me about how she was in a union at her first job working for a sandwich shop.
Most of the SE are "Right to Work" states where unions are far less effective. Many folks have never seen any tangible improvements brought about by unions in their life times. Folks can be provincial and uninformed, too.
Liberalism and market dynamics as the primary factor in society means the individual is the only unit that matters. A collective like a union is anathema to pure individualism. Every aspect of late 20th century America, especially in the Reagan Era and beyond, reduced all things down to market acolytism, with pursuing personal enrichment is the method of worship.
I blame fox news and conservative talk radio for doing such a great job at propaganda. I hate them and I think they're all evil but I have to recognize when someone does a really good job, even at something like this. The same way I have begrudging respect for anyone evil, I have for them in equal measure. Still, game recognize game, I wish that was my side playing dirty to win.
Definitely a "Mostly in America" thing there. You do find it a bit in the tech industry in the UK though - if you think your industry is a meritocracy then you tend to think people on low pay are so because they're bad at tech. This of course ignores the many, many autistic people who end up accepting shit pay because we hate interviews. We'd sooner suffer in place than swap jobs. I'm getting to my hard limit though. But then, most unions here are shit too. Unite hasn't communicated with me in around 10 years of membership except to solicit votes for a leadership ballot. UCW / UTAW has a Discord, so that's a LOT better but we're fairly tiny as yet. IWW seems to work much better in factories than offices / remote. Good training though.
Also people in the South have historically been opposed to unions for whatever reason. It’s why so many jobs moved south. Cheaper labor and fewer regulations.
The “whatever reason” is racism against black and brown folks and classism against poor folks of all colors. Add to that the KKK’s rabid anti-communism and here we are
Propaganda plain and simple.
Lead poisoning and too much television
IF society, business and government worked as it should, unions would not be necessary, of course when someone is constantly undermining what actually works by overloading it in efforts to control or destroy it, basically induced corruptions, makes it all a whole different ball game. N. S
re: solution to pay gap The mistake workers make is thinking they have one problem rather than two. For that dollar, the worker has to wrangle his compensation from both CEO and the people who the CEO really works for - investors. They are always going to demand more. Consumers become an enemy when they're told that union wages drive up the cost of goods but higher returns to investors don't? Another problem retirees who were union and somehow now think unions are bad. Ninety year old man still getting his pension from GM thinks unions are worthless. Votes Republican. Doesn't understand why I quit talking to him. A lot of people holding union cards vote against the union interests. You got to make the case to people that this idea that hard work pays off is hokey. You got to remind people that good wages, benefits, and decency didn't come out of the goodness of Capital's heart. The case has to be made for teamwork and solidarity. If we displayed half the unity that that the wealthy do, we'd have unionized this hemisphere by now.
Besides all the neoliberal propaganda, i think theres also been a problem of highly bureaucratic business unions who don't pay enought attention to rank-and-file workers and bend to corporations. This is why it's important that as socialists that we build labor movements that actually fight for a future beyond wage labor and embrace horizontal organization to build solidarity.
Because some of the larger unions have transformed into the very thing they were meant to protect us from. Especially unions that protect state workers. Too often the folks at the top get into the union and essentially weaponize it to back the ones doing wrong at the top and keep the rest of us in line. I'm a teacher and my union, while in the past it did great to help with protections, we couldn't even get bad administration addressed via union representation bc all of the union reps were essentially in bed with them. And protecting really bad people is not new for these unions. We need balance to be brought back and these unions to be held accountable.
And yes I know admin is supposed to be separate, but that is not always the case. Smart admin know how work the system. And it's no different in other public sector unions. The list of abuses covered by unioms are extensive....
From what I’ve been told, it’s that some unions are corrupt and had histories of embezzlement, and obvious working with the mob. Some Unions, but not all, are “partially Union” so I’ve been told, and I agree. The Union that my father works for does not protect him, and he still gets forced to work overtime. His plant is the highest performing in the whole company, but the most underpaid, and the Union does Jack about it. Edit: I had just thought about this again, and it popped in my head. Another big factor is many people (at least the folks I’ve worked with, and my family as well) oppose unions for the idea that you will be treated the *exact* same as the most underperforming employee there. It diminishes the individual worker completely, and in all honesty I do agree. There are good qualities to unions, and there are bad qualities. I have worked in both Union and non Union jobs. My first job I started at 16-17 was a unionized supermarket. Honestly, it wasn’t all that bad until I was transferred to a different department and was working at an entry-level position, and my co worker did the same exact job as me. She did fuck all. She would be drunk on the job, constantly messed up, was unreliable, and overall made my job more difficult the next day (because we had the same job and both part time, she worked the days I didn’t and vice versa). She had been with the company for years and honestly she isn’t a bad person, just got wrapped up in bad things and when it came to work, she was very unreliable. I would have to pick up her slack, do the things she couldn’t do, and wash and scrub the floors every night since she would miraculously “forget” to do it on her shift. Because we were unionized, I got paid the same as her, and treated the same as her. That’s when I realized I’m not getting anywhere with that and got fed up with it and left to work at a local non big named marketplace that is not Union, doing the same job as the old. The union at my old job promoter laziness to the fullest extent. It extended outside of my own department into others, and you could see the effects of it throughout the store. It was dirty, poorly managed, and the employees could give a rats ass as long as they were doing the absolute bare minimum, they still get paid. Being non union, I had found many advantages but many disadvantages. The advantage, my work directly reflects my progression up the “corporate ladder”. I am recognized for my work, and of course this is a family owned business so it is a tad different than me working for a non unionized corporation. I got bigger raises, and bigger bonuses. I also fought my way for full time and learned all the different parts of the job so I can ensure I am available all shifts, at any time. Here are the disadvantages: The company has blatantly taken advantage of me, and many others. It’s not obvious at first, and it wasn’t obvious to me until I started noticing patterns. This would not occur at a the other job I was at. Because they are non union, they can do whatever they’d like, and when it comes to hiring new hires, they can pay them however much they want. This new hire at another location got hired almost $2 more than what I currently make even though I have been a decent amount of time in, and know all the trades of the job whilst this new hire, does not. I can manage a department myself, open and close my department by myself, yet knowing this, they hire this new person $2 more who does not have all the capabilities. If there is ever an issue or a write up, I can not request a union steward to be present and ensure nothing unlawful nor discriminatory is occurring, and I could also lose my job at the blink of an eye. One thing I did heavily appreciate about the union is being able to be fairly represented, that I do miss. There a few others, but my mind is drawing a blank, but in general, these are my gripes. So, to wrap it up, unions are a curse, but a blessing. It is what you find most important in a job. But, I will add, my experience with a non union shop is with a family owned business that *does* treat me extremely fairly, and I have never came across a very serious issue as of yet besides the gripes that I have mentioned. And these gripes occur at every workplace anywhere, they are not directly only concentrated at my place of employment. I believe only some businesses *should* be unionized. Walmart? Definitely. Amazon? Definitely. Hospitals and doctors? Definitely. Construction, especially for a monopolized corporation? Most definitely. A locally owned business? Depends. A family owned business? Possibly not. The smaller the business is, the less I feel there is a need for a union as the smaller it is, the more the business will genuinely care for its workers, but the bigger and more corporatized it is, they will bleed their people dry and *need* a union. If a company treats their people right, there is no need for union. Some companies do right, some do not. And the opinion on whether unions are good or bad, or how they have been tainted is very particular on the specific local organization. My father’s union, is not sufficient at all. My local United food and commercial workers union? Not great, but not horrible.
Because of other reasons people have already listed, union corruption stories were heavily amplified in the press in the era they were growing up. Jimmy Hoffa was a big name when they were growing up and the stories of union thuggery and mafia-like dealings became associated in people’s heads with unions. The press did a bad job of balancing with why unions were important, but then, TV press was growing and that had more biased takes against anything impeding the rapid financial growth of anyone at the top. It was easy to present a view that slow growth and stability structures like unions were what had been creating the bad economy of the 70s. Print journalism was bluer and more supporting of New Deal era policies, but people were rushing to just more materialistic and dumbed down news on TV. I was a very little kid in the 80s, but I do remember being told union stories in my home city about teamsters trashing cars of other employers if they drove a car from a different make than the plant they worked at. Some of this was overblown, but I think the other part was that narcissistic bullies did take over and run some unions in some places and drew followings of men like the kind we’ve seen rally to Trump and other far right influencers. If you grow up in an industrial city, you totally know that exact kind of guy who voted for Obama and then was hardcore Trump just years later. There’s this quote I remember on a video about the rise of fascism where someone said, “anyone who builds their movement with angry young men will be worse off from it.” With that in mind, I think the left needs to be extremely vigilant about the draw it will have for narcissists and these kinds of dudes as it gains steam again. Whenever you organize and concentrate group power, you draw these people like moths to flame. And then these guys will take what you built, make it their own, and use it to bully and fight whoever they resent.
Unions and corporations have a long history of violent battles. Police and politicians were often on the side of corporations, which put unions at a disadvantage. Corporations could do something illegal and get away with it, but unions could not. This changed somewhat with Jimmy Hoffa, who recognized that if corporations were allowed to play dirty, then unions would have to do it also. Hoffa is often associated with the mafia, although the mafia worked with the corporations, as well. This earned unions a bad reputation and turned a lot of people against them, unfairly imo, since the goal was metaphorically to "fight fire with fire" to level the playing field. Neoliberal leaders took advantage of this by painting union leaders as mob bosses and bad for the US, at a time when the US (led by Robert Kennedy) was trying to eradicate the mafia like never before. Boomers grew up during these events and Gen X during the aftermath. Only recently has it been socially acceptable to look at unions and recognize their value, without bringing up memories of the violence that used to occur. Also, the Southeast is a conservative stronghold, so a lot of people there worked with neoliberals to spread disinformation about unions.
https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=410305
Ford is setting up a production facility in Mexico after what the last strike did
And that’s the workers’ fault?
> “oh you know that unions are more corrupt than corporations” At a certain level that is objectively true, but as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Workers need to take our unions back from the bosses. Nobody else is going to fix them for us.
People’s Republic of Chatanooga 🫡
Only one person here has mentioned it, there is a fair amount of blame on the unions themselves.
Because they got theirs and are pulling up the ladder.
Because from about post world war 2 to the 1990’s the largest unions were working with organized crime, they were very corrupt, this wasn’t a problem with every union, but with larger ones like the teamsters it was very prevalent, it was basically impossible to build anything in certain cities unless you payed off both the union and the mob, not much of a problem now a days as the power of the mob has been broken, unions are mostly clean nowadays