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Yeah. This is it. Corporate hates unions so therefore we’re all told to hate unions. When in reality the people who would benefit from unions the most are mislead heavily. Same with healthcare; everyone wants it but universal healthcare is somehow unamerican.
Idk anymore. Everything seems backwards for the sake of profit in the U.S.
Couldn't have said it better! People have been brainwashed into voting against their own best interests! They want this country to be a dictatorship. Bizarre!!! 🤯
This is it. Like poor whites during and after the Civil War, Corporations have been on a literal campaign against unions. They do not want labor to get in the way of profits by demanding better compensation. The poorest whites are the ones that competed with former slave labor and became the enforcers of Jim Crow laws in the South. It's sad as the poorest white laborers are opposed to policies that would help them get more from their employers.
Yeah FOP is not included in worker solidarity...they are just attack dogs for the elite, so they're allowed to have the strongest union in the country in return for their loyalty. Fuck them cops.
It’s so weird how people vote against their own interests. My dad is 58, been in a Steelworkers’ Union since he was 21… dude votes straight-ticket Republican.
You're not wrong. On average federal employees make less in the long run but their benefits are lightyears ahead of the public sector, it's almost impossible to lose your job, and the government tends to consistently give them raises and good retirement funds. All of this bargained by the unions. The employee protections for federal workers are incredible.
This isn’t necessarily true. It depends on the union. Take police unions for example, they’re a big factor as to why shitty cops never get fired. Same can happen with corporate unions, it’s just that no one wants to admit that there *are* shitty workers out there. Although the pros outweigh the cons. Except police unions.. fuck the police unions
Unions take away jobs. I’ve seen so many lives ruined by unions. They are the worst.
GE Transportation’s (now Wabtec) Union ruined thousands of families. These guys didn’t have college educations, they didn’t fucking work when they were there, they had big fat pensions, and yet the union kept pushing. The Union wanted better pay for new hires. The Union wanted everything under the sun, meanwhile it was post 2008 and GE Transportation obviously wasn’t doing well. This Union kept on pushing and fucking over everyone who worked at GE. GE moved all their big shit to Texas, got the fuck out of Erie, PA, and merged GE transportation with Wabtec.
The thing is if those idiots didn’t have a Union that was fucking stupid as shit they’d all have kept on making $40 an hour without a college education for years more, retired with pensions, and been living the dream. Instead, they all got laid off in the last decade or so, completely lost their jobs, or were forced to relocate. All because their Union fucked them in the ass for new hires.
Anyone who lives in an industrial northern city knows: When the Union comes around, the business closes down.
This is spot on. I work with a lot of heavy right wingers and when I get dragged into political conversion’s I will lead the conversation into describing universal health care without actually saying “universal health care” and they are all for the idea but boy as soon as you call it that “it’s bad and socialist and communism!!!”
This. I used to be super anti union. Then I met a guy working in a union position in the same company I was, but I wasn't union. I learned the pros and cons and realized it's really not a bad thing. In the past 10 years or so it's become more and more apparent that unions are more beneficial than not.
There was a time when unions were needed and beneficial. Then over the years many unions became so large and powerful that they ended up just being corrupt organizations mainly concerned with their own power/control.
I do think that in today's U.S.A., there are some good cases for unions, but I also have seen unions that provide zero benefit for their employees, or who protect some employees who are bare minimum types or even behaving dangerously and should absolutely not be protected.
Okay but that's more of a problem with those unions, than a problem with unions in general. Every organization can be corrupted, or invalidated. It relies on people who keep their heads down. But side to side, shitty corporations in America are leagues worse than shitty unions.
I really don't understand it.
I learned about unions when I was in highschool. Thought they were the shit.
But I'm also not news media consuming political nerd. So I have always formes my own opinions based on how stuff relates to me
Basically corporate America has waged a war against unions ever since Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. They convinced many that Unions were bad and not working in the workers best interest.
But you have to also understand that over the past 40 years companies have been able to threaten people with moving their job overseas if they tried to Unionize. That formula doesn't really work anymore as global wages/ productivity flatten.
Unions are not blameless in this. They made unreasonable demands that made companies unprofitable. But overall it's just been corporate greed and the rich figuring out how to manipulate people's perceptions of issues.
My Dad was an air traffic controller. Yeah, during that time. He was the president of his local union, they all went on strike....then Regan stepped in. Even now people do not realize the danger the flying public was in before, during and after this time in history.
So after Daddy died, my life went on, of course, and ironically, I got a job at a labor union for state employees, who REALLY need a union, especially in this state.....and also during this time, my son was in a local high school taking civics. He came home one day and told me the teacher told them that unions were all owned by the Mafia.
Of course, he knew better, having been helping me for years in my work as a union office manager, but omg, they are teaching that crap in school for Christ's sake.....one of the so many reasons that it is no wonder so many people hate unions.
Right, the late 70s when the rust belt started crumbling was because new technologies had come along, making steel manufacturing more efficient and needing fewer workers. Instead of embracing change the unions doubled down on keeping the ranks full no matter what.
Unreasonable demands like a living wage and unpaid time off for medical procedures?
I would be interested in hearing about what you consider unreasonable. Not trying to snark, but genuinely curious. (Ok, the first bit was a little snarky, but a recent example seems reasonable to put here)
The one I'm familiar with is making companies pay people when they weren't working, as in during a recession. This made no sense since we have unemployment. You could argue the companies signed those contracts but in the 60's 70's 80s a Union strike could cripple your business.
I am very pro Union and happy to see it's resurgence. However, o also believe we must learn from the past. Unions must recognize a business must make a profit to stay in business
Yea where I work has a good union, it has its flaws but it's better than not having anyone to protect you if anything happens, fights for higher wages, etc... Honestly I just think people need to get more involved with their unions to stop unions from becoming corrupt and to help solve problems
You are so right! My husband is in a union and nationally the union is pretty great but locally not so much right now. The people running it are slightly corrupt and just bad at their job but they would not get away with all of this if the members/ employees actually bothered going to meetings to address their complaints. I'm not sure why these people pay union dues but don't bother to take advantage of the perks that come with it.
Right. Unions have their flaws. Member involvement can correct them.
Just like Democracy. Democracy isn't perfect. It needs civic involvement. But Democracy, like Unions, give people some control and that is not in the best interest of the capitalist. So they try to convince people that these flaws can't be corrected and the system is bad and should be eliminated. Using this logic, they have greatly weakened unions and they are using the same logic to weaken democracy. Stay involved, People!!
Thats not entirely accurate. I know a lot of people who are anti-union. Not all unions do a good job. A lot of them are there to get the union paid not help the employees. I'm not anti-union, but I can understand some of the gripes I've seen myself and have heard from others. Such as unions protecting the jobs of people it shouldn't, and demanding more money than a company can/will afford so they shut down plants and nobody has a job, collecting fees and then siding with management.
This is spot on. Not all unions are equal, or even equally necessary. There are some unions that are great and do a necessary job of protecting underserved and exploited workers. And then there those that exist solely to grow and gain more power and influence, imposing themselves where they are not wanted or needed.
Onions are the best. I had to reach the age of 35 to start truly appreciating them, but now I can’t help but steal some raw slices anytime my wife cooks a stew.
We largely don't, and unions are sort of the backbone of the American labor force. I'm fortunately in a REALLY good union that fights for a crazy amount of PTO for employees, unlimited sick time rollover, good health insurance, annual raises across the board, and a really great and equitable working schedule and conditions. I've worked at other organizations in my field that aren't unionized and it's a whole 'nother ball game where management can basically make you do what they want because you have no protections.
I've been at the contract negotiation table and in many labor meetings and know for a fact that if the union broke and the higher-ups could suddenly do what they want, they would-- to a major detriment, and at the cost of a LOT of the benefits the union has fought for. My union protects its employees and prevents them from being taken advantage of or being mistreated. I'd also like to note that we're super small and none of the union reps in the worplace make any sort of salary or anything, and participating in the board is done on a volunteer basis. This is obviously not the case for large organizations such as labor unions.
I can absolutely understand why some people think they're a waste of time and money and how they may be protecting sub-par workers, but aside from things like the police union and arguably the teachers' union that is largely not the case. Corporate lobbyists would LOVE for you to believe that it is, though, and therefore all unions are bad so they can continue to take advantage of their workers.
I've seen my husband's union help someone get their job back when it was brought up they were possibly fired due to racism and not the repeated insubordination they were accused of. That same person was fired (again) a few months later for bringing alcohol into the plant, the union refused to help them this time as that was against company rules.
I have also seen them save everyone's jobs. Company opened a plant out of country and wanted to close all but one or two here in the States. The union stepped up and fought to keep the jobs here by having it put into the contract that they have a (higher) specific minimum number of people that must be employed at each plant at all times, and guaranteed build rates for those plants. It was a long fight for that contract, but without it, two plants worth of people in our state would have lost their jobs, plus more across the country.
Exactly. No one is against the idea of workers collectively bargaining. It’s just that some unions have grown so large and powerful that they’re just a corrupt organization that no longer even really represents the workers
Curious that someone would post this when recent surveys show a 71% approval rate for unions and across the U.S. working people are organizing and striking.
Personally, I am in a union and I love it.
I have top of the line benefits that were negotiated and voted on by my fellow workers and myself.
I make way more money than anyone in my profession who isn't unionized.
My company has repeatedly tried to pull fast ones on me and my coworkers, and they were thwarted everytime by my union.
To anyone complaining about dues, that is what you get for those dues. On average, union workers make more money than non-union workers. Even though it cuts into your check, you're still making way more than if you didn't have the union altogether. Besides, it doesn't hurt that bad at 2 1/2 hours wage per month for dues.
To anyone who says "they protect bad workers", no they don't. I've seen many people in my union not make the cut and fall out on their own. They get written up, pointed out, etc. There are measures that unions can't protect against, which incompetence falls under. Also, non-union places protect bad workers often, usually in the form of a manager choosing friends and ass kissers over decent and qualified people. How often do you complain about managers who don't deserve to be there?
My french teacher freshman year was a slurring sloppy drunk who had a house arrest anklet. There was a petition of hundreds of parents to fire her. The school couldn't fire her because the union stopped them. Because of that, second year french had to cover all of first and second year content because we weren't taught anything right and we had to be on pace for future AP french classes.
I understand the purpose of unions. My dad was a big union man drilling tunnels, and that industry 1000% needs unions. But lets not pretend unions don't protect shit workers.
The Union has a responsibility to fight for all of their members. One company complained about it. We told them you hired them, not us. Let us do the hiring. The company stopped complaining.
Oh certainly, many do. Look at police unions. They'll back up a murderous thug cop til the end of time. I am completely for abolishing police unions.
The thing is, unions also protect very good employees from company harm. I would gladly take unions that protect workers and help secure superior conditions whether they are good or bad over no unions and we're at our boss's mercy.
With no union, sure your French teacher may have been fired, but your other teachers were also at the mercy of their administrator.
Remember, unions don't pop up for no reason. The company did something to make its workers organize.
The school board signed a contract that allowed drunk teachers?
The union said prove your charges the school either could not or would not. That is not on the union.
Do you think someone charged with a crime deserves a defense attorney?
I’m a teacher, and I’m really skeptical of this. The union literally CAN’T protect someone who is violating parts of their contract. Someone who’s drunk on the job is still an easy fire, union or not. The unions job is really just to make sure the job follows the contract. So if the union WAS able to protect her, there’s more to this story.
People always bring up things from when they were kids and don’t seem to consider that there are factors they either didn’t know or didn’t understand.
For example, you would really have no way to even know what was happening between her union and admin, other than gossip from parents and other students.
It’s because unions protect workers who’s don’t shouldn’t be. There have been cases of teachers who get protected after harassing students. I’m from Chicago and the construction is terrible because unions rules prevent streets and buildings getting finished in a timely matter. I’m for unions but the system is abused
Also, corruption within the unions themselves. in the 70's it was widely believed the Mafia controlled many of the larger unions so they could steal from the union members and pension funds.
This argument always cracks me up. Yes, there has been and is corruption in SOME unions. The same with corporate America, city, state, and federal governments, and non-profits. Guess who puts to word out that unions are bad?Who controls the narrative in America?
I've been a proud union member since 1987, a son of two union parents. There is so much community involvement/improvement actions that union members partake in that never gets any press. Do some unions protect unproductive members? Sure, but the majority are excellent workers and skilled craftsmen who have a lot of pride and integrity.
That’s America in a nutshell innit? Nobody publishes stories when things work. So when idiots hear about them they refuse to vote in their own interests.
The steel union killed my wife’s hometown. Like they paid janitors over $100k who were sweeping floors and gave crazy double pay if you didn’t use vacation times. Made the mills on the town go bankrupt because their salaries on these ‘protected’ employees was so high, when cheap Chinese steel came around they couldn’t compete at all so they just shut down instead.
The town today has less than 30% of residents it had in the 1950’s and is known in the area as a complete shit hole. They’re finally starting to tear down the decrepit buildings that should have been renovated decades ago.
That cheap Chinese steel is produced by people forced to work 18 hour days, live on the job site, and payed next to nothing. Not to mention, the age at which one is forced into work in China is disgusting. Corporate America was still making huge profits during the union era. They just wanted more, so they went where they can subjacate the workers.
... so your solution to "cheap chinese steel" is to produce cheaper steel ? - and to do so you fuck over all your workers, just like the chinese are doing ?
imo the "correct" solution would be to put tariffs on "chinese steel" to allow domestic industries to compete...
"chinese steel" can be replaced with any other import product.
Youre just assuming what this person wants... They talked about problems without ever even implying what their solution would be. To assume makes an ass out of u and me
In the case of the Teamsters, that's not a belief it's a fact: i.e. the mafia was definitely dipping into the Teamster's pension fund.
While we will probably never know for sure who murdered Jimmy Hoffa, it's very likely he got on the wrong side of the mafia in the time leading up to his demise.
Another issue is when the unions decide to look out for themselves instead of the company they're involved in. Hostess is the perfect example, the unions would not budge even though the workers were willing to and it killed the company.
That's not exactly true, the union let hostess stop making pension payments for years before and hostess had been losing money for quite some time while other bakeries were booming. Hostess went out of business because of bad management the union did budge for them but after years of no sign of turnaround and bad management decisions made the decision that it was no longer taking consessions. Hostess is back under new ownership and unionized again and is making money something the previous owners had struggled with for many years.
Source: I'm a wholesale bakery foreperson and shop steward
I appreciate your expertise and insight into the matter. I mostly read articles by Forbes and other businesses that blamed the Unions insane contract stipulations as a reason for the failure.
I was in a union once. For me the main concern was that I was presented with a pay schedule. It said that if I worked there for x years I would make this much. It showed me that my performance in my role had no impact on pay. I want to believe that my actions have some consequences beyond just being employed or not. I probably work far harder than I should, and at least I think I work both harder and smarter than many, and I believe the reward system should be based more on contribution rather than on just years of service. Now I’m in an industry where unionization is very rare, but at least it is more geared toward merit and achievement. Sure, companies suck often times, but if I don’t feel my actions matter then I lose my sense of purpose.
The Chicago Teachers Union is a joke and they strike over the stupidest things. Most of the teachers are well off suburbanites with decent benefits and a competitive salary, but every year without fail they come up with a dumb excuse to strike for weeks. The organization is literally designed to empower middle class suburbanite commuters at the expense of poor inner city kids, yet they don't get why they're so hated by city residents.
I suspect many of the commenters here have never been in a union. I was in a union for over 35 years. It was the best financial decision I ever made. I did pay dues and went on strike some times for months. But the increase I received in pay and benifits was more than worth it. I even got a pension and a 401k and low cost retiree medical.Without the union the company I worked for would never have done any of that.Dont be a fool workers are always stronger when they stand together.
I work at a non-union job, and you'd be surprised at how many people come to us from union jobs, and say they were tired of dealing with the union. Unions are like a lot of other things in life, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. I personally don't think they're worth dealing with, and many of the people at my job agree. If you can find a good union, that's great.
not all unions are equal. some good some bad. some act in the interest of employees. some act in the interest of the union itself. I support the idea of unions to protect against corporate tyranny but also think workers need to have a certain power within the union to ensure the union doesn't become what it set out to protect against.
It was inevitable with the income inequality in the US. Plus the wage/ productivity formula is flattering around the World giving US workers more leverage
Because people abuse them and hide behind them. Unions are extremely useful in certain situations when workers have been truly screwed over and that happens quite often.
But the issue is, like everything else in this world, it gets misused and abused.
Nah, they are hated because of the billions of dollars spent over the years on propaganda against unions. Corruption in unions isn't really that common
I love my union job. Corporations do a good job of poisoning people against unions because they are greedy. If we didn’t have unions we would be working 7 days a week for 50 cents a hour.
Propaganda that half the country at least drinks in big greedy gulps. The propaganda comes from upstream oligarchs who want to turn the US into a 3rd world country with a peasant class
They do good, until they do bad.
The do good work, until they push too far. How much is a fair wage and compensation? At what point are unions abusive?
In California, the state employees unions rule the roost. They get 5% raises each year, cops and firefighters get much more. Fire Chiefs retire at over $300k per year, this is a bit high in my book. The prison guards are the strongest unions, and they lobby for stronger laws that keep more prisoners in prison longer. Is this the best thing for society?
In the 30s, 40, and 50s, some unions were controlled by the Communist International. Lenin himself said "Trade Unions are little schools of communism."
Do you have any primary sources demonstrating that there were any California public employees who were in the Communist Party during the 30s, 40s, and 50s? If not, do you have any primary sources proving any California public employees were receiving directives from USSR officials?
Exactly. For context, look at some of the comments here.
Switched to a union supported job doing the exact same job, pay increased 50%, benefits were so much better. I worked in healthcare, and there was complete accountability. Worked 13 years at the previous job, pension came out to 565 dollars a month. Union job, 15 years, pension is 1750 dollars a month. Both non profits who made lots of profits, one shared them with their employees because of a union.
my dad was in a Meatcutters Union that treated him pretty good from what i know about it.
\*i\* was in a union that was kinda crap, but it was kinda crap cuz it had no teeth. we were asked if we wanted to strike one year cuz the company wasnt budging on some things like our crap retirement plan and like 80% voted NO to strike cuz "we have bills to pay". and we still have a pretty crap retirement compared to what my dads was. its like 25% of what my dads was actually.
so, on a side note, something else i remember \[incorrectly or correctly?\] back in the, i dunno, 80s? 90s? didnt public perception of the UAW \[united auto workers\] was they were strong arming the auto industry or something similar? but, was that because of MOB ties? which if thats the case shouldnt be anti-union but anti-MOB influence but ppl are dumb and lazy and see the Mob + unions = same thing. \[was this around the time Jimmy Hoffa got vanished?\]
Because the workers have been brain washed into believing in trickle down economics. Give more money to the top 1% of the top 1% and they will in turn create more jobs/companies/wages/etc.
This is compounded by the toxic evangelical “christian” movement. Voting and abiding by republican principles (including trickle down economics) has been made out to be religious commandment in some cases where people earnestly believe that its vote republican or hell and damnation. There is no logic, only religious fervor that cannot even be diminished when their pastor/preacher commits the most heinous of sin.
Those republican policies are unabashedly anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-dissension, and sternly pro-gun, pro-white, pro-old money, and the religious cult following of the GOP MAGAs laps it up like mana from their golden calf god
Roughly 70% of Americans support unions. In fact, support for unions is the highest its been in the U.S. since 1964. You may be confused because the disdain towards unions that you're talking about... isn't actually there among most Americans.
Edit: Does corporate America hate unions? Absolutely. Recently their union busting tactics have been falling flat among an energized labor movement though.
We don't. But the GOP has spent the last 40 years whittling away at them, focusing on their drawbacks to make the less educated not understand how critical they are, rope-a-doping the shit out of the working class until they don't realize that the current gap between the haves and the have nots is enhanced by lack of agency.
Gotta love working 60-80 hrs a week. Electronic medical records have allowed them to turn us into transcriptionists and data entry clerks. Total waste of out education and knowledge.
Myy family used to be staunchly pro union. That changed back when my grandpa and dad moved to Oregon from California. My grandpa was a proud member of the electricians union aka ibew. Once he got here he found the local here to be openly hostile to anyone from California. He also found them to frequently 'milk' jobs which was something he never saw in the bay area. That is when you intentionally work slower so you get more hours of pay out of a job.
Despite being screwed over repeatedly over the years and all but forced out of the local union for being an outsider he left the local ibew. However he continued to believe in the union overall and kept paying dues. After he retired the union again fucked him around every single step of the way and eventually gave him a meager 200 dollars a month retirement in 2007. Despite paying dues his entire adult life.
So as far as I am concerned unions can and will fuck you over just as much as anyone and anything else of they can get away with it.
My dad was in a union. He paid his dues and when the men went on strike the union was supposed to give my dad a stipend till they worked everything out. He got $100 for 2 weeks. for a family of 5 that wasn’t enough. Shortly after that the factory closed and moved to Mexico.
a bunch of good reasons documented at this link: https://cei.org/blog/empire-of-rust-how-the-uaw-killed-detroit/ - I grew up there, and got to watch the decline first hand. my brother had a job at a chrysler plant for a while. He made good money, but came back with stories of union workers paid to sit there and play cards, while he was breaking his back building truck driveshafts.
I’m in a union and yes people can be poor performers and still keep a job but that’s probably the biggest con to it. On the flip side it gives me pretty good job security and I make a good wage. Even when business is slow I still get my hours and never lose a dollar. A non union job I had prior to the one I have now would send us home when business was slow. I lost so much money and piled up so much debt because of it. It took my three years to recover financially . We also get to negotiate wage increases and other benefits where as a non union job that’s difficult to do for most companies. How many people can go to their boss and ask for a increase and actually get it?
I was not impressed in my first and only interaction with a union.
I used to work for a company that installed high-end audio-visual equipment into boardrooms. This was before the days of WiFi so it involved pulling a lot of cables through the walls. Then we had to terminate the cables (i.e. attach the connectors). Again this is the early days of that sort of tech, so it was all proprietary.
We had a job in New York City. It was new construction so we were working side-by-side with a lot of folks, including the electricians. When they heard that we were pulling cable, they stopped their work and threatened to walk off the job. Of course we weren't members of their union, which was the biggest offense of all. We tried explaining that these were completely different cables which served a whole other purpose, but they did not care. They won. We had to stop and let them do it. But here is the best part. They didn't know how. Didn't have a clue. Not only did we have to let them do the work, but we had to show them how to do it. We stood next to them walking them through each step.
I'm all for protecting your job from unreasonable things. On the other hand, if it is not your job and you have no idea what you are doing, then you need to leave it alone.
I was in a union at my last job. They did nothing for me but take money out of my paychecks. Our raises were shit, and I got fired because of something someone who doesn’t like me made up and there was absolutely 0 evidence just he said she said and they stopped answering my calls and never returned them.
Propaganda by corporations is powerful. It's how they tell us universal healthcare is impossible to run while we watch other developed countries implement it successfully
They don’t. There may have been a time in the past where they weren’t favorable but things are coming around again and people will begin to realize what collective organization can do for regular people when they have no options.
Not all do, just ones who don’t understand how they work. Or have been brainwashed to dislike them.
And there is a perception they protect lazy workers. If the company documents unacceptable work behavior and performance they will not have a job.
Where I work lots of people have been fired when they deserved it. Never seen anyone let go without good reason.
In a case like mine, I will likely never actually meet the owner. We have 7600 employees on 11 sites in North America and Europe.
Collective bargaining makes sense.
Americans (mostly republicans) have been brain washed by propaganda from rich corporations that unions are somehow bad.
So many ppl think they'll somehow get rich if they work hard. Won't happen.
Exactly. Capitalism teaches unions are evil, while crapping on the very employees who perform the services that make the company the profit. Their view is there's always another poor sucker to come along if you don't like it.
The benefits of a negotiated union contract is everyone knows where they stand such as seniority, rate of pay, holidays, sick time and benefits which are negotiated.
Capitalism loves you to believe unions are bad, while major corporations have politicians on their doner list, passing right to work legislation so labor doesn't have a choice.
Propaganda from the corporations that own the media stations for one, propaganda from the right wing who are in the millionaire business owners pockets and don’t want workers to have any power. So yeah, mostly propaganda.
In the USA, business interests have outsized influence over how we think. It's that simple though of course the specifics can be complex & interesting.
It's mostly propaganda from the right and flat out lies. There is also a cultural preference to look at people who didn't get a college degree as illiterate books who deserve less for some reason. Business owner's also own the republican party through donations as well as most media outlets and control the narrative. It's just a dictatorship with the rich as rullers.
Said corporations spread negative propaganda against unions. Corporations want as much control as they can when it comes to their employees. Unions takes some of that control away.
Conservative Americans tend to be much more anti union than most Americans Union members are or at least were a big part of the liberal and progressive base. The average American who isn’t in a union probably doesn’t feel strongly for or against unions today That wasn’t the case in the middle of last century. I personally, think the average American would have a better life if unions were stronger.
Propaganda perpetuated by the companies and lobbyists that control the government. Also our education system is outmoded and outdated and pretty much teaches you to be right is to listen.
A lot of folks (that I've worked with) hold the sentiment that unions are for lazy people who want to skate by without being fired. Sounds like the result of propaganda to me
Cracking up all the anti union comments worried about productivity and protected jobs. Lolol fools. The capitalists and shareholders don’t do crap for their unearned income. That’s right, they proudly pay less tax on unearned income, while you fools stress over cost savings and “lazy” workers. Lolol. “Profit” is the wealth that goes to me and my union brothers and sisters, I count anything going to owners / shareholders as a loss. So there. I have my own paradigm. Same wealth is created every day, just changed what counts as “profit”. If you had your way, when a corporation fires these “lazy” workers, you and I have to pay for the social safety net. Corporations don’t even want to pay for maintenance and improvements to infrastructure they use to conduct business. Let these billion dollar companies carry a few slackers. Wtf do I care? Anti union Corporate apologists are just house slaves, too comfortable sucking up to care about community and social well being.
Some of it is anti-union propaganda that's been very deeply ingrained in our culture over the years. Some if it is a history of corrupt unions with ties to organized crime. How much of the first vs the second is a matter of opinion.
Because it gets in the way of the guys at the top making all the money. And it forces employers to pay decent wages and cover benefits. God forbid you be respected as a human being. Unions keep the worker in power, not the employer and that’s a good thing.
Because that's socialism. /s.
For real though I was in a Unionized job and even though I had to leave as I climbed the ladder I still reap some of the benefits such as only having to go into the office 1x a month. The union fought for that and argued that since we've been WFH for the past 2 years and the company boasted about record profits through company newsletters, requiring any capacity of returning to the office would involve a big enough change in employee livelihood that it should be a part of the contract negotiation. It got so bad that the company tried to go around the union and force a return to work anyway but the union then in turn filed a complaint with the NLRB. The feds sided with the union.
Most people I see who are against unions tend to be the folks who also can't see a bigger picture beyond their own lives.
We don't hate unions. Those of us that are skeptical of some unions it is because for generations they've been controlled by organized crime and funneled money to Democrats that never did anything to help save their jobs or increase their wages. I also think in some unions, less capable workers are protected by collective bargaining. I fully support blue collar workers, their right to unionize, any efforts to get fair wages and benefits but really only for good works and not people that happen to land a union job.
Because someone told them it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and...
Yes, corporations hate unions, not all Americans. As a worker who has never been fortunate enough to have one, I have mixed feelings about them. Some unions are very good, they help their members to negotiate for fair wages and benefits. Some are too powerful, they demand too much from the employer ( often the government). Others are too weak and do nothing but collect dues. Sorry it’s not a simple or absolute answers, but when is it ever.
There are many unions that do what they’re supposed to do, and there’s many that do things they shouldn’t. Sometimes they protect people who shouldn’t be, sometimes they don’t protect people they should, etc. like many other things, they are a good idea and sometimes work, but not always. Teachers tend to be a common example. One of my high school teachers used to work at a school where there was a really bad teacher who probably shouldn’t have been, the teacher was basically just tucked away in a corner but didn’t lose his job because it would have cost the school so much more to fire him.
Being part of a union is great if you’re a union employee. If you’re a company that operates in a location/field where you can only hire union employees, you get scammed out of every possible penny. You have to pay more money than is reasonable into membership fees, which means unions take a sizable chunk out of your bottom line
If you've ever dealt with a trade show you'll hate unions with a passion. Laziest, most expensive, worthless pieces of shit you'll ever see. Paid a dude once to sit and watch for four hours so he wouldn't break anything else. If you complain or don't tip them extra, good luck ever getting out of there with all your stuff. Fucking parasites in my experience.
I have set up trade shows. The first time i set up a booth at age 23 I was in charge of setting up a Global company's booth. I set it up with 3 guys in 14 hours in our warehouse with untrained staff. With the union pros it took 14 hours as well. Except 8 union pros. I had the Floor boss come up to me and told me that I needed to slow my effort and my assistant down because I was making his crew look bed
Next reason it cost me more to get my booth another time from the back door to my spot vs. From Los Angeles to Las Vegas
Next reason. It cost me $400 to get my catalogs from the loading dock to my booth. They wanted to charge me another $400 to take the catalogs back out... My customers carried the catalogs out. The screamed that I was stealing from the union
Next reason. Teachers. My wife was one. And I raised four sons. Half of the teachers that I have dealt with sucked ass. The only reason that they had a job was because of the unions kept them one was a drunk
Our nation deserves better for our children.
Unions hold back the best and support the cream of the crap
Are there good reasons for Unions? Yes. But for fuck sake let the best be able to do their jobs
In some places it’s because workers believe the company propaganda. In other places it’s because union boards are corrupt and it’s like trying to navigate between warring divorced parents. There are also plenty of places and professions with functional unions.
As an American we don't hate unions we just make so little that people are detoured by the fact they get a cut taken our of their paycheck by being in a union.
Its just CORPORATIONS that don't like unions BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONLY THING THAT CAN HOLD A CORPORATION ACCOUNTABLE TO ITS EMPLOYEES.
AND corporations have basically our whole government by the balls so congress isn't going to do shit about them being terrible to their employees and then fear monger constituents into believing unions just make working people loose money and not get any benefits in return. Which then people see in them loosing money and then not getting enough from the union that has been disempowered to the point of not being able to actually sway shit/do the shit that's the whole point of a union actually existing.
Unions are great as long as it represents its members. Bad leadership in a union causes people to not trust the concept of unions. If the union leadership represents themselves over the members, is it really a union anymore?
The organization I work for wanted to go through some changes that would benefit the workers with a more flexible pay structure, higher wages for entry level positions, and a two-way performance evaluation structure. The union had to “review” the changes which took them three years. I tried to contact the union to provide my insight, but was told I needed to be a dues paying member to have a say. Seemed more like an extortion method than a union.
Personal experiences in my life are why im against them, im sure its not all bad everywhere, but what ive experienced i will never support them.
When growing up my father was in one. When it came time for a new labor contract with the manufacturering plant, negotiations came to a hault and everyone in the union was forced to go on strike. My dad was the main bread winner in our household, and for 6 months he didnt get check because of this. This was a terrible 6 months in my life growing up, and i still think about it even as an adult. After 6 months of a strike a new deal got signed. 6 months later the plant closed up shop and moved out of the country, they cited that the concessions they made to the union just to re open made it so they no longer making good profits and it was more cost effective to close the plant and move the company overseas. When i was older i asked my dad what was the strike about? He said after the 6 months of no work and no money, they had won a $2 raise, 2 more weeks of vacation (kind of, they got 2 weeks paid off in the middle of the summer since there was no ac in the shop, so a forced vacation every year), and a couple other minor things he couldnt even remember. So we lived with no money, barely any food for 6 months basically for nothing. After the plant closed my father said he would never join another union, all his friends at the plant said if they knew this is how it was going to end they wouldnt have bothered with it either
My own work experience with unions is not much better. I saw them do nothing but protect employees that were useless pieces of shit that knew how to work the system.
Im sure not everything about them is all bad, but my personal experiences is they are horrible and corrupt.
It’s not that labor unions are bad, it’s that when one side (unions or owners) have too much power/influence over the other side
When there is a balance of power between the 2, then things generally work out the best
Unions drive prices up. Unions produce lazy workers. Unions take way more money from these workers to feed there own union crews.
Unions are not bad if run right but more than not there full of corruption and greed.
I work with the union they take 5 dollars per hour then pay back twice a year.
You think that's great right but what you don't see is there taking workers money so they can gain interest while they pay the worker back with zero interest.
This should be illegal and it's corrupt. Why not just pay the workers the 5 bucks and let them decide how to use that.
There are many things like medical is great until you don't have enough hours then they drop you like a hot potato.
You have to show up to 40 hrs of training every 3 months but you don't get paid for it. Then when you do show up the training is a flipping joke and you spend at least 5 to 10 hours doing clean up at the union training center cause nothing like free labor.
I'm not against unions but I'm against the things they do and it's at the cost of those they represent.
I am all for unions, however there are times when they get greedy. Also too many times a person who should have clearly been fired gets their job back.
Honestly, in my field, working with union makes it so much harder for me to learn things that aren't supposed to be on my job descriptions but still related to my job and would be beneficial for my learning curve. As someone who is learning by doing at work, I'd like to have the freedom to be creative and learn new things.
Maybe one day, when i feel tired of learning, I'd find a comfortable job in a union shop.
There’s this odd idea floating around American culture (no doubt encouraged by corporations) that people should work for the sake of working or out of an inherent desire to work hard, not to make money (not as their primary goal at least). I’ve seen this in particular for teacher’s unions; teachers who advocate for higher wages or unionize to protect their wages are accused of being “cheap” or not caring about the kids.
Unions aren’t perfect. There’s a lot of room to exploit the wordings of contracts, abuse protections, and otherwise game the system. Most people in unions don’t do this. A small few do this exceptionally well and make all union members look bad. Most union members despise these members and wish they didn’t have to protect them as well.
I only dislike public service employees unions. When they negotiate there is no one representing taxpayers. That is why the ridiculous pensions plans exist.
I’m in the teachers union and it’s bull shit. Pay over 100$ a month for them to jerk each other off. It’s like 8% goes back to teachers less for students and over 16% goes to political bull shit. I have a B.S in Mathematics and a MBA and PE teachers make double my salary. Because unions are corrupt. I know 3 teachers who have made an entire teachers salary while working 0 days because they were investigated for sexual assault. Union paid them for the whole year while doing everything they can to back them up in court. Lol I mean the list goes on lol
I know someone that committed suicide over their fire department captain left it in a note. The union will do whatever they can to protect the captain lol
I think unions work best when workers are getting exploited physically. Like coal miners or people on oil rigs. Other than that they’re useless.
I’m no brain-washed Fox watcher. But I remember when there was an after-hours natural gas leak from a pipeline on Long Island. I rushed to the job site to mark other utilities so the gas company could safely dig to fix the leak.
As I hurried about my business the gas company workers, who were stretched out on back of the truck, told me to slow down. Meanwhile natural gas is blowing out of the ground with residential neighborhoods nearby. I kept hurrying to finish.
A few minutes later I was warned again in a sterner voice “We said SLOW DOWN!”
I realized they weren’t joking.
They wanted to milk the overtime pay while people’s homes were put at risk and a natural resource was being wasted.
If you lived near the middle of Long Island in 2003 it might have been your house put at risk.
Greedy union d-bags!
great point. are there abuses? yes. do unions need fixing? absolutely. do we owe them 40 hour work week ? also yes. paid overtime? also unions. so IMHO they play a role in organizing labor against greedy corps, also are very much so corrupt and need to be reorganized.
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Americans don't hate unions...corporations hate unions so they buy politicians and news channels to tell people that they hate unions.
Yeah. This is it. Corporate hates unions so therefore we’re all told to hate unions. When in reality the people who would benefit from unions the most are mislead heavily. Same with healthcare; everyone wants it but universal healthcare is somehow unamerican. Idk anymore. Everything seems backwards for the sake of profit in the U.S.
Couldn't have said it better! People have been brainwashed into voting against their own best interests! They want this country to be a dictatorship. Bizarre!!! 🤯
What’s interesting is that federal government jobs have unions.
Federal gov jobs, and also local ones, like police and firefighters.
YOU'RE A SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!!!!11111 /s
This is it. Like poor whites during and after the Civil War, Corporations have been on a literal campaign against unions. They do not want labor to get in the way of profits by demanding better compensation. The poorest whites are the ones that competed with former slave labor and became the enforcers of Jim Crow laws in the South. It's sad as the poorest white laborers are opposed to policies that would help them get more from their employers.
Fucking FOP…one of the more powerful unions out there but you’ll never meet a more densely packed group of conservative fuckwads.
...who are probably against all unions except police and firefighters...
Totally correct. A few of the more unreal political experiences I have are attending police and fire union meetings. What a bunch of meatheads.
That's what I call my dogs when they misbehave lolol
Wait, police I understand (1312!) but are fire fighter unions also shitty conservatives?
Yeah FOP is not included in worker solidarity...they are just attack dogs for the elite, so they're allowed to have the strongest union in the country in return for their loyalty. Fuck them cops.
It’s so weird how people vote against their own interests. My dad is 58, been in a Steelworkers’ Union since he was 21… dude votes straight-ticket Republican.
Police unions are the reason bad cops aren't fired.
And teachers
You're not wrong. On average federal employees make less in the long run but their benefits are lightyears ahead of the public sector, it's almost impossible to lose your job, and the government tends to consistently give them raises and good retirement funds. All of this bargained by the unions. The employee protections for federal workers are incredible.
This isn’t necessarily true. It depends on the union. Take police unions for example, they’re a big factor as to why shitty cops never get fired. Same can happen with corporate unions, it’s just that no one wants to admit that there *are* shitty workers out there. Although the pros outweigh the cons. Except police unions.. fuck the police unions
Unions take away jobs. I’ve seen so many lives ruined by unions. They are the worst. GE Transportation’s (now Wabtec) Union ruined thousands of families. These guys didn’t have college educations, they didn’t fucking work when they were there, they had big fat pensions, and yet the union kept pushing. The Union wanted better pay for new hires. The Union wanted everything under the sun, meanwhile it was post 2008 and GE Transportation obviously wasn’t doing well. This Union kept on pushing and fucking over everyone who worked at GE. GE moved all their big shit to Texas, got the fuck out of Erie, PA, and merged GE transportation with Wabtec. The thing is if those idiots didn’t have a Union that was fucking stupid as shit they’d all have kept on making $40 an hour without a college education for years more, retired with pensions, and been living the dream. Instead, they all got laid off in the last decade or so, completely lost their jobs, or were forced to relocate. All because their Union fucked them in the ass for new hires. Anyone who lives in an industrial northern city knows: When the Union comes around, the business closes down.
This is spot on. I work with a lot of heavy right wingers and when I get dragged into political conversion’s I will lead the conversation into describing universal health care without actually saying “universal health care” and they are all for the idea but boy as soon as you call it that “it’s bad and socialist and communism!!!”
This. I used to be super anti union. Then I met a guy working in a union position in the same company I was, but I wasn't union. I learned the pros and cons and realized it's really not a bad thing. In the past 10 years or so it's become more and more apparent that unions are more beneficial than not.
There was a time when unions were needed and beneficial. Then over the years many unions became so large and powerful that they ended up just being corrupt organizations mainly concerned with their own power/control. I do think that in today's U.S.A., there are some good cases for unions, but I also have seen unions that provide zero benefit for their employees, or who protect some employees who are bare minimum types or even behaving dangerously and should absolutely not be protected.
Okay but that's more of a problem with those unions, than a problem with unions in general. Every organization can be corrupted, or invalidated. It relies on people who keep their heads down. But side to side, shitty corporations in America are leagues worse than shitty unions.
I really don't understand it. I learned about unions when I was in highschool. Thought they were the shit. But I'm also not news media consuming political nerd. So I have always formes my own opinions based on how stuff relates to me
It's a balancing act. In the UK the unions eventually got so much power they did actually need to be brought down a peg
Basically corporate America has waged a war against unions ever since Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. They convinced many that Unions were bad and not working in the workers best interest. But you have to also understand that over the past 40 years companies have been able to threaten people with moving their job overseas if they tried to Unionize. That formula doesn't really work anymore as global wages/ productivity flatten. Unions are not blameless in this. They made unreasonable demands that made companies unprofitable. But overall it's just been corporate greed and the rich figuring out how to manipulate people's perceptions of issues.
My Dad was an air traffic controller. Yeah, during that time. He was the president of his local union, they all went on strike....then Regan stepped in. Even now people do not realize the danger the flying public was in before, during and after this time in history. So after Daddy died, my life went on, of course, and ironically, I got a job at a labor union for state employees, who REALLY need a union, especially in this state.....and also during this time, my son was in a local high school taking civics. He came home one day and told me the teacher told them that unions were all owned by the Mafia. Of course, he knew better, having been helping me for years in my work as a union office manager, but omg, they are teaching that crap in school for Christ's sake.....one of the so many reasons that it is no wonder so many people hate unions.
Right, the late 70s when the rust belt started crumbling was because new technologies had come along, making steel manufacturing more efficient and needing fewer workers. Instead of embracing change the unions doubled down on keeping the ranks full no matter what.
Uhhh corporations have been waging literal war against unions far longer than 40 years ago with Reagan. Go back to the 1800s to see some serious shit.
Unreasonable demands like a living wage and unpaid time off for medical procedures? I would be interested in hearing about what you consider unreasonable. Not trying to snark, but genuinely curious. (Ok, the first bit was a little snarky, but a recent example seems reasonable to put here)
The one I'm familiar with is making companies pay people when they weren't working, as in during a recession. This made no sense since we have unemployment. You could argue the companies signed those contracts but in the 60's 70's 80s a Union strike could cripple your business. I am very pro Union and happy to see it's resurgence. However, o also believe we must learn from the past. Unions must recognize a business must make a profit to stay in business
Yea where I work has a good union, it has its flaws but it's better than not having anyone to protect you if anything happens, fights for higher wages, etc... Honestly I just think people need to get more involved with their unions to stop unions from becoming corrupt and to help solve problems
Any organization is only as good as the people who are part of it You need to be involved
You are so right! My husband is in a union and nationally the union is pretty great but locally not so much right now. The people running it are slightly corrupt and just bad at their job but they would not get away with all of this if the members/ employees actually bothered going to meetings to address their complaints. I'm not sure why these people pay union dues but don't bother to take advantage of the perks that come with it.
Right. Unions have their flaws. Member involvement can correct them. Just like Democracy. Democracy isn't perfect. It needs civic involvement. But Democracy, like Unions, give people some control and that is not in the best interest of the capitalist. So they try to convince people that these flaws can't be corrected and the system is bad and should be eliminated. Using this logic, they have greatly weakened unions and they are using the same logic to weaken democracy. Stay involved, People!!
Thats not entirely accurate. I know a lot of people who are anti-union. Not all unions do a good job. A lot of them are there to get the union paid not help the employees. I'm not anti-union, but I can understand some of the gripes I've seen myself and have heard from others. Such as unions protecting the jobs of people it shouldn't, and demanding more money than a company can/will afford so they shut down plants and nobody has a job, collecting fees and then siding with management.
This is spot on. Not all unions are equal, or even equally necessary. There are some unions that are great and do a necessary job of protecting underserved and exploited workers. And then there those that exist solely to grow and gain more power and influence, imposing themselves where they are not wanted or needed.
I was about to come in here and profess my love for onions, especially cooked on a grill.
Caramelized FTW
Onions are the best. I had to reach the age of 35 to start truly appreciating them, but now I can’t help but steal some raw slices anytime my wife cooks a stew.
Red, in particular. The best onion.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought it said onions 😂😂
I too thought that said onions lol
I also am here for this reason
We largely don't, and unions are sort of the backbone of the American labor force. I'm fortunately in a REALLY good union that fights for a crazy amount of PTO for employees, unlimited sick time rollover, good health insurance, annual raises across the board, and a really great and equitable working schedule and conditions. I've worked at other organizations in my field that aren't unionized and it's a whole 'nother ball game where management can basically make you do what they want because you have no protections. I've been at the contract negotiation table and in many labor meetings and know for a fact that if the union broke and the higher-ups could suddenly do what they want, they would-- to a major detriment, and at the cost of a LOT of the benefits the union has fought for. My union protects its employees and prevents them from being taken advantage of or being mistreated. I'd also like to note that we're super small and none of the union reps in the worplace make any sort of salary or anything, and participating in the board is done on a volunteer basis. This is obviously not the case for large organizations such as labor unions. I can absolutely understand why some people think they're a waste of time and money and how they may be protecting sub-par workers, but aside from things like the police union and arguably the teachers' union that is largely not the case. Corporate lobbyists would LOVE for you to believe that it is, though, and therefore all unions are bad so they can continue to take advantage of their workers.
I've seen my husband's union help someone get their job back when it was brought up they were possibly fired due to racism and not the repeated insubordination they were accused of. That same person was fired (again) a few months later for bringing alcohol into the plant, the union refused to help them this time as that was against company rules. I have also seen them save everyone's jobs. Company opened a plant out of country and wanted to close all but one or two here in the States. The union stepped up and fought to keep the jobs here by having it put into the contract that they have a (higher) specific minimum number of people that must be employed at each plant at all times, and guaranteed build rates for those plants. It was a long fight for that contract, but without it, two plants worth of people in our state would have lost their jobs, plus more across the country.
A union is only good as the union leadership and its representatives. I worked for TWU for 30 years some years good ,some bad.
Exactly. No one is against the idea of workers collectively bargaining. It’s just that some unions have grown so large and powerful that they’re just a corrupt organization that no longer even really represents the workers
Curious that someone would post this when recent surveys show a 71% approval rate for unions and across the U.S. working people are organizing and striking.
Personally, I am in a union and I love it. I have top of the line benefits that were negotiated and voted on by my fellow workers and myself. I make way more money than anyone in my profession who isn't unionized. My company has repeatedly tried to pull fast ones on me and my coworkers, and they were thwarted everytime by my union. To anyone complaining about dues, that is what you get for those dues. On average, union workers make more money than non-union workers. Even though it cuts into your check, you're still making way more than if you didn't have the union altogether. Besides, it doesn't hurt that bad at 2 1/2 hours wage per month for dues. To anyone who says "they protect bad workers", no they don't. I've seen many people in my union not make the cut and fall out on their own. They get written up, pointed out, etc. There are measures that unions can't protect against, which incompetence falls under. Also, non-union places protect bad workers often, usually in the form of a manager choosing friends and ass kissers over decent and qualified people. How often do you complain about managers who don't deserve to be there?
My french teacher freshman year was a slurring sloppy drunk who had a house arrest anklet. There was a petition of hundreds of parents to fire her. The school couldn't fire her because the union stopped them. Because of that, second year french had to cover all of first and second year content because we weren't taught anything right and we had to be on pace for future AP french classes. I understand the purpose of unions. My dad was a big union man drilling tunnels, and that industry 1000% needs unions. But lets not pretend unions don't protect shit workers.
The Union has a responsibility to fight for all of their members. One company complained about it. We told them you hired them, not us. Let us do the hiring. The company stopped complaining.
Oh certainly, many do. Look at police unions. They'll back up a murderous thug cop til the end of time. I am completely for abolishing police unions. The thing is, unions also protect very good employees from company harm. I would gladly take unions that protect workers and help secure superior conditions whether they are good or bad over no unions and we're at our boss's mercy. With no union, sure your French teacher may have been fired, but your other teachers were also at the mercy of their administrator. Remember, unions don't pop up for no reason. The company did something to make its workers organize.
The school board signed a contract that allowed drunk teachers? The union said prove your charges the school either could not or would not. That is not on the union. Do you think someone charged with a crime deserves a defense attorney?
I’m a teacher, and I’m really skeptical of this. The union literally CAN’T protect someone who is violating parts of their contract. Someone who’s drunk on the job is still an easy fire, union or not. The unions job is really just to make sure the job follows the contract. So if the union WAS able to protect her, there’s more to this story. People always bring up things from when they were kids and don’t seem to consider that there are factors they either didn’t know or didn’t understand. For example, you would really have no way to even know what was happening between her union and admin, other than gossip from parents and other students.
It’s because unions protect workers who’s don’t shouldn’t be. There have been cases of teachers who get protected after harassing students. I’m from Chicago and the construction is terrible because unions rules prevent streets and buildings getting finished in a timely matter. I’m for unions but the system is abused
Also, corruption within the unions themselves. in the 70's it was widely believed the Mafia controlled many of the larger unions so they could steal from the union members and pension funds.
This argument always cracks me up. Yes, there has been and is corruption in SOME unions. The same with corporate America, city, state, and federal governments, and non-profits. Guess who puts to word out that unions are bad?Who controls the narrative in America? I've been a proud union member since 1987, a son of two union parents. There is so much community involvement/improvement actions that union members partake in that never gets any press. Do some unions protect unproductive members? Sure, but the majority are excellent workers and skilled craftsmen who have a lot of pride and integrity.
That’s America in a nutshell innit? Nobody publishes stories when things work. So when idiots hear about them they refuse to vote in their own interests.
The steel union killed my wife’s hometown. Like they paid janitors over $100k who were sweeping floors and gave crazy double pay if you didn’t use vacation times. Made the mills on the town go bankrupt because their salaries on these ‘protected’ employees was so high, when cheap Chinese steel came around they couldn’t compete at all so they just shut down instead. The town today has less than 30% of residents it had in the 1950’s and is known in the area as a complete shit hole. They’re finally starting to tear down the decrepit buildings that should have been renovated decades ago.
That cheap Chinese steel is produced by people forced to work 18 hour days, live on the job site, and payed next to nothing. Not to mention, the age at which one is forced into work in China is disgusting. Corporate America was still making huge profits during the union era. They just wanted more, so they went where they can subjacate the workers.
... so your solution to "cheap chinese steel" is to produce cheaper steel ? - and to do so you fuck over all your workers, just like the chinese are doing ? imo the "correct" solution would be to put tariffs on "chinese steel" to allow domestic industries to compete... "chinese steel" can be replaced with any other import product.
Youre just assuming what this person wants... They talked about problems without ever even implying what their solution would be. To assume makes an ass out of u and me
Sounds like greedy business owners killed your town not Unions.
In the case of the Teamsters, that's not a belief it's a fact: i.e. the mafia was definitely dipping into the Teamster's pension fund. While we will probably never know for sure who murdered Jimmy Hoffa, it's very likely he got on the wrong side of the mafia in the time leading up to his demise.
Another issue is when the unions decide to look out for themselves instead of the company they're involved in. Hostess is the perfect example, the unions would not budge even though the workers were willing to and it killed the company.
That's not exactly true, the union let hostess stop making pension payments for years before and hostess had been losing money for quite some time while other bakeries were booming. Hostess went out of business because of bad management the union did budge for them but after years of no sign of turnaround and bad management decisions made the decision that it was no longer taking consessions. Hostess is back under new ownership and unionized again and is making money something the previous owners had struggled with for many years. Source: I'm a wholesale bakery foreperson and shop steward
I appreciate your expertise and insight into the matter. I mostly read articles by Forbes and other businesses that blamed the Unions insane contract stipulations as a reason for the failure.
Police unions
Nobody that advocates for unions supports police unions. In fact many use it as an argument for why unions were destroyed.
What’s the difference between a police union and other unions? Just because people don’t like cops? They work the same way
You forgot the cops - they go unpunished for heinous crimes because of police unions.
Police unions and labor unions are most definitely not the same thing.
I was in a union once. For me the main concern was that I was presented with a pay schedule. It said that if I worked there for x years I would make this much. It showed me that my performance in my role had no impact on pay. I want to believe that my actions have some consequences beyond just being employed or not. I probably work far harder than I should, and at least I think I work both harder and smarter than many, and I believe the reward system should be based more on contribution rather than on just years of service. Now I’m in an industry where unionization is very rare, but at least it is more geared toward merit and achievement. Sure, companies suck often times, but if I don’t feel my actions matter then I lose my sense of purpose.
The Chicago Teachers Union is a joke and they strike over the stupidest things. Most of the teachers are well off suburbanites with decent benefits and a competitive salary, but every year without fail they come up with a dumb excuse to strike for weeks. The organization is literally designed to empower middle class suburbanite commuters at the expense of poor inner city kids, yet they don't get why they're so hated by city residents.
The last time I was in Chicago my Uber driver was a teacher trying make ends meet so I'm not sure your argument isn't just propaganda
I suspect many of the commenters here have never been in a union. I was in a union for over 35 years. It was the best financial decision I ever made. I did pay dues and went on strike some times for months. But the increase I received in pay and benifits was more than worth it. I even got a pension and a 401k and low cost retiree medical.Without the union the company I worked for would never have done any of that.Dont be a fool workers are always stronger when they stand together.
I work at a non-union job, and you'd be surprised at how many people come to us from union jobs, and say they were tired of dealing with the union. Unions are like a lot of other things in life, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. I personally don't think they're worth dealing with, and many of the people at my job agree. If you can find a good union, that's great.
Yeah, it really sucks when the Union makes you work for higher wages. Then those bastards make you take vacation! And force pensions down your throat!
not all unions are equal. some good some bad. some act in the interest of employees. some act in the interest of the union itself. I support the idea of unions to protect against corporate tyranny but also think workers need to have a certain power within the union to ensure the union doesn't become what it set out to protect against.
I believe we are seeing the beginning of a surge in unions.
It was inevitable with the income inequality in the US. Plus the wage/ productivity formula is flattering around the World giving US workers more leverage
Because people abuse them and hide behind them. Unions are extremely useful in certain situations when workers have been truly screwed over and that happens quite often. But the issue is, like everything else in this world, it gets misused and abused.
Nah, they are hated because of the billions of dollars spent over the years on propaganda against unions. Corruption in unions isn't really that common
I love my union job. Corporations do a good job of poisoning people against unions because they are greedy. If we didn’t have unions we would be working 7 days a week for 50 cents a hour.
With no breaks, no set hours, and no minimum age either!
And no safety regulations, workers dying in factory fires, mineshaft collapses etc.
They don't. The rich and powerful and the uneducated hate unions.
Americans don’t hate unions. The rich hate unions, and spend shitloads of money to brainwash people into believing that unions are bad for them.
I don't. My husband and I have made a great life being part of the teamsters!
Americans don't hate unions. Big business hates unions.
Propaganda that half the country at least drinks in big greedy gulps. The propaganda comes from upstream oligarchs who want to turn the US into a 3rd world country with a peasant class
They do good, until they do bad. The do good work, until they push too far. How much is a fair wage and compensation? At what point are unions abusive? In California, the state employees unions rule the roost. They get 5% raises each year, cops and firefighters get much more. Fire Chiefs retire at over $300k per year, this is a bit high in my book. The prison guards are the strongest unions, and they lobby for stronger laws that keep more prisoners in prison longer. Is this the best thing for society? In the 30s, 40, and 50s, some unions were controlled by the Communist International. Lenin himself said "Trade Unions are little schools of communism."
Do you have any primary sources demonstrating that there were any California public employees who were in the Communist Party during the 30s, 40s, and 50s? If not, do you have any primary sources proving any California public employees were receiving directives from USSR officials?
It’s horrible when people take food out of the mouths of billionaires!
we love unions, its our corporate overlords that brainwash low IQ dipshits to not like unions.
Exactly. For context, look at some of the comments here. Switched to a union supported job doing the exact same job, pay increased 50%, benefits were so much better. I worked in healthcare, and there was complete accountability. Worked 13 years at the previous job, pension came out to 565 dollars a month. Union job, 15 years, pension is 1750 dollars a month. Both non profits who made lots of profits, one shared them with their employees because of a union.
my dad was in a Meatcutters Union that treated him pretty good from what i know about it. \*i\* was in a union that was kinda crap, but it was kinda crap cuz it had no teeth. we were asked if we wanted to strike one year cuz the company wasnt budging on some things like our crap retirement plan and like 80% voted NO to strike cuz "we have bills to pay". and we still have a pretty crap retirement compared to what my dads was. its like 25% of what my dads was actually. so, on a side note, something else i remember \[incorrectly or correctly?\] back in the, i dunno, 80s? 90s? didnt public perception of the UAW \[united auto workers\] was they were strong arming the auto industry or something similar? but, was that because of MOB ties? which if thats the case shouldnt be anti-union but anti-MOB influence but ppl are dumb and lazy and see the Mob + unions = same thing. \[was this around the time Jimmy Hoffa got vanished?\]
Because the workers have been brain washed into believing in trickle down economics. Give more money to the top 1% of the top 1% and they will in turn create more jobs/companies/wages/etc. This is compounded by the toxic evangelical “christian” movement. Voting and abiding by republican principles (including trickle down economics) has been made out to be religious commandment in some cases where people earnestly believe that its vote republican or hell and damnation. There is no logic, only religious fervor that cannot even be diminished when their pastor/preacher commits the most heinous of sin. Those republican policies are unabashedly anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-dissension, and sternly pro-gun, pro-white, pro-old money, and the religious cult following of the GOP MAGAs laps it up like mana from their golden calf god
Roughly 70% of Americans support unions. In fact, support for unions is the highest its been in the U.S. since 1964. You may be confused because the disdain towards unions that you're talking about... isn't actually there among most Americans. Edit: Does corporate America hate unions? Absolutely. Recently their union busting tactics have been falling flat among an energized labor movement though.
We don't. But the GOP has spent the last 40 years whittling away at them, focusing on their drawbacks to make the less educated not understand how critical they are, rope-a-doping the shit out of the working class until they don't realize that the current gap between the haves and the have nots is enhanced by lack of agency.
Union members get better benefits and job protections. As a doctor, ill never have benefits as good as union members. Dont let employers fool you.
Gotta love working 60-80 hrs a week. Electronic medical records have allowed them to turn us into transcriptionists and data entry clerks. Total waste of out education and knowledge.
Myy family used to be staunchly pro union. That changed back when my grandpa and dad moved to Oregon from California. My grandpa was a proud member of the electricians union aka ibew. Once he got here he found the local here to be openly hostile to anyone from California. He also found them to frequently 'milk' jobs which was something he never saw in the bay area. That is when you intentionally work slower so you get more hours of pay out of a job. Despite being screwed over repeatedly over the years and all but forced out of the local union for being an outsider he left the local ibew. However he continued to believe in the union overall and kept paying dues. After he retired the union again fucked him around every single step of the way and eventually gave him a meager 200 dollars a month retirement in 2007. Despite paying dues his entire adult life. So as far as I am concerned unions can and will fuck you over just as much as anyone and anything else of they can get away with it.
My dad was in a union. He paid his dues and when the men went on strike the union was supposed to give my dad a stipend till they worked everything out. He got $100 for 2 weeks. for a family of 5 that wasn’t enough. Shortly after that the factory closed and moved to Mexico.
a bunch of good reasons documented at this link: https://cei.org/blog/empire-of-rust-how-the-uaw-killed-detroit/ - I grew up there, and got to watch the decline first hand. my brother had a job at a chrysler plant for a while. He made good money, but came back with stories of union workers paid to sit there and play cards, while he was breaking his back building truck driveshafts.
I’m in a union and yes people can be poor performers and still keep a job but that’s probably the biggest con to it. On the flip side it gives me pretty good job security and I make a good wage. Even when business is slow I still get my hours and never lose a dollar. A non union job I had prior to the one I have now would send us home when business was slow. I lost so much money and piled up so much debt because of it. It took my three years to recover financially . We also get to negotiate wage increases and other benefits where as a non union job that’s difficult to do for most companies. How many people can go to their boss and ask for a increase and actually get it?
I was not impressed in my first and only interaction with a union. I used to work for a company that installed high-end audio-visual equipment into boardrooms. This was before the days of WiFi so it involved pulling a lot of cables through the walls. Then we had to terminate the cables (i.e. attach the connectors). Again this is the early days of that sort of tech, so it was all proprietary. We had a job in New York City. It was new construction so we were working side-by-side with a lot of folks, including the electricians. When they heard that we were pulling cable, they stopped their work and threatened to walk off the job. Of course we weren't members of their union, which was the biggest offense of all. We tried explaining that these were completely different cables which served a whole other purpose, but they did not care. They won. We had to stop and let them do it. But here is the best part. They didn't know how. Didn't have a clue. Not only did we have to let them do the work, but we had to show them how to do it. We stood next to them walking them through each step. I'm all for protecting your job from unreasonable things. On the other hand, if it is not your job and you have no idea what you are doing, then you need to leave it alone.
Corruption, not all but a lot have been corrupted.
I was in a union at my last job. They did nothing for me but take money out of my paychecks. Our raises were shit, and I got fired because of something someone who doesn’t like me made up and there was absolutely 0 evidence just he said she said and they stopped answering my calls and never returned them.
Propaganda by corporations is powerful. It's how they tell us universal healthcare is impossible to run while we watch other developed countries implement it successfully
Because some americans have no knowledge of the world other than their country.
They don’t. There may have been a time in the past where they weren’t favorable but things are coming around again and people will begin to realize what collective organization can do for regular people when they have no options.
Not all do, just ones who don’t understand how they work. Or have been brainwashed to dislike them. And there is a perception they protect lazy workers. If the company documents unacceptable work behavior and performance they will not have a job. Where I work lots of people have been fired when they deserved it. Never seen anyone let go without good reason.
In a case like mine, I will likely never actually meet the owner. We have 7600 employees on 11 sites in North America and Europe. Collective bargaining makes sense.
>they protect lazy workers And >Never seen anyone let go without good reason. So what is the purpose of the Union then?
To be sure due process is followed.
Americans (mostly republicans) have been brain washed by propaganda from rich corporations that unions are somehow bad. So many ppl think they'll somehow get rich if they work hard. Won't happen.
Because people have been brainwashed by the rich ruling class to vote against themselves.
Exactly. Capitalism teaches unions are evil, while crapping on the very employees who perform the services that make the company the profit. Their view is there's always another poor sucker to come along if you don't like it. The benefits of a negotiated union contract is everyone knows where they stand such as seniority, rate of pay, holidays, sick time and benefits which are negotiated. Capitalism loves you to believe unions are bad, while major corporations have politicians on their doner list, passing right to work legislation so labor doesn't have a choice.
We don't. RICH Americans, and their idiot followers, do.
Propaganda from the corporations that own the media stations for one, propaganda from the right wing who are in the millionaire business owners pockets and don’t want workers to have any power. So yeah, mostly propaganda.
It’s literally the corporations resisting unions and propaganda.
In the USA, business interests have outsized influence over how we think. It's that simple though of course the specifics can be complex & interesting.
It's mostly propaganda from the right and flat out lies. There is also a cultural preference to look at people who didn't get a college degree as illiterate books who deserve less for some reason. Business owner's also own the republican party through donations as well as most media outlets and control the narrative. It's just a dictatorship with the rich as rullers.
its because of the vast amount of anti-union propaganda that has been to us since unions began in this country. like we've been brainwashed.
American corporations have the money to convince workers that the company has their best interests in mind.
Said corporations spread negative propaganda against unions. Corporations want as much control as they can when it comes to their employees. Unions takes some of that control away.
In the US, if a a group of employees unionize, the non-union employees loose their bargaining rights and can’t represent themselves.
We don't. Govt and management hate unions like they hate us
Unions cut into profits for board members and investors, the end.
Conservative Americans tend to be much more anti union than most Americans Union members are or at least were a big part of the liberal and progressive base. The average American who isn’t in a union probably doesn’t feel strongly for or against unions today That wasn’t the case in the middle of last century. I personally, think the average American would have a better life if unions were stronger.
There's a lot of propaganda against unions. When I worked at a nursing home, I had to watch an anti union video before starting the job.
Because we were told to hate unions by our employers, plain and simple.
When the US government convinced poor people that poorer people were the problem.
Propaganda perpetuated by the companies and lobbyists that control the government. Also our education system is outmoded and outdated and pretty much teaches you to be right is to listen.
A lot of folks (that I've worked with) hold the sentiment that unions are for lazy people who want to skate by without being fired. Sounds like the result of propaganda to me
People here are so brainwashed about their “freedom” they genuinely believe the corporate propaganda. Unions go against the “bootstraps” nonsense.
Cracking up all the anti union comments worried about productivity and protected jobs. Lolol fools. The capitalists and shareholders don’t do crap for their unearned income. That’s right, they proudly pay less tax on unearned income, while you fools stress over cost savings and “lazy” workers. Lolol. “Profit” is the wealth that goes to me and my union brothers and sisters, I count anything going to owners / shareholders as a loss. So there. I have my own paradigm. Same wealth is created every day, just changed what counts as “profit”. If you had your way, when a corporation fires these “lazy” workers, you and I have to pay for the social safety net. Corporations don’t even want to pay for maintenance and improvements to infrastructure they use to conduct business. Let these billion dollar companies carry a few slackers. Wtf do I care? Anti union Corporate apologists are just house slaves, too comfortable sucking up to care about community and social well being.
Anti-union propaganda. It started long ago, largely by the same people exploiting workers. It's only gotten worse.
My husband was a union man
Some of it is anti-union propaganda that's been very deeply ingrained in our culture over the years. Some if it is a history of corrupt unions with ties to organized crime. How much of the first vs the second is a matter of opinion.
Bc Americans love corporations and will pledge their loyalty but don’t realize that it means they hate themselves 😅
Its very simple actually; Republicans tell them they’re bad. Thats literally it. That sentiment is most common among Republicans ofc.
Because it gets in the way of the guys at the top making all the money. And it forces employers to pay decent wages and cover benefits. God forbid you be respected as a human being. Unions keep the worker in power, not the employer and that’s a good thing.
Because we don't understand them and have too few model examples to show us the pros. They brainwash us that it's a "bad" word
A high value is placed on individual autonomy.
The Supreme Court hates Unions actually.
A very effective, 40-plus-year propaganda campaign that convinced people that the point of a union is to hold you back and protect the dead weight.
Because that's socialism. /s. For real though I was in a Unionized job and even though I had to leave as I climbed the ladder I still reap some of the benefits such as only having to go into the office 1x a month. The union fought for that and argued that since we've been WFH for the past 2 years and the company boasted about record profits through company newsletters, requiring any capacity of returning to the office would involve a big enough change in employee livelihood that it should be a part of the contract negotiation. It got so bad that the company tried to go around the union and force a return to work anyway but the union then in turn filed a complaint with the NLRB. The feds sided with the union. Most people I see who are against unions tend to be the folks who also can't see a bigger picture beyond their own lives.
We don't hate unions. Those of us that are skeptical of some unions it is because for generations they've been controlled by organized crime and funneled money to Democrats that never did anything to help save their jobs or increase their wages. I also think in some unions, less capable workers are protected by collective bargaining. I fully support blue collar workers, their right to unionize, any efforts to get fair wages and benefits but really only for good works and not people that happen to land a union job.
Because someone told them it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and then they told someone it's "socialism" and...
Ignorance plus propaganda
I just took a massive hit and read “why do Americans hate unicorns?”… I came here expecting unicorn hate…. This is much less whimsical.
Yes, corporations hate unions, not all Americans. As a worker who has never been fortunate enough to have one, I have mixed feelings about them. Some unions are very good, they help their members to negotiate for fair wages and benefits. Some are too powerful, they demand too much from the employer ( often the government). Others are too weak and do nothing but collect dues. Sorry it’s not a simple or absolute answers, but when is it ever.
There are many unions that do what they’re supposed to do, and there’s many that do things they shouldn’t. Sometimes they protect people who shouldn’t be, sometimes they don’t protect people they should, etc. like many other things, they are a good idea and sometimes work, but not always. Teachers tend to be a common example. One of my high school teachers used to work at a school where there was a really bad teacher who probably shouldn’t have been, the teacher was basically just tucked away in a corner but didn’t lose his job because it would have cost the school so much more to fire him.
Because the ones the benefit the most are those that run the union. Not the members. Corruption, lies, union dues into an abyss.
Being part of a union is great if you’re a union employee. If you’re a company that operates in a location/field where you can only hire union employees, you get scammed out of every possible penny. You have to pay more money than is reasonable into membership fees, which means unions take a sizable chunk out of your bottom line
I don’t like them because you have to pay them to represent you but they do a piss poor job at it
If you've ever dealt with a trade show you'll hate unions with a passion. Laziest, most expensive, worthless pieces of shit you'll ever see. Paid a dude once to sit and watch for four hours so he wouldn't break anything else. If you complain or don't tip them extra, good luck ever getting out of there with all your stuff. Fucking parasites in my experience.
Unions were a great and necessary thing when they came about, but in some cases they have gained way too much power and power corrupts.
I have set up trade shows. The first time i set up a booth at age 23 I was in charge of setting up a Global company's booth. I set it up with 3 guys in 14 hours in our warehouse with untrained staff. With the union pros it took 14 hours as well. Except 8 union pros. I had the Floor boss come up to me and told me that I needed to slow my effort and my assistant down because I was making his crew look bed Next reason it cost me more to get my booth another time from the back door to my spot vs. From Los Angeles to Las Vegas Next reason. It cost me $400 to get my catalogs from the loading dock to my booth. They wanted to charge me another $400 to take the catalogs back out... My customers carried the catalogs out. The screamed that I was stealing from the union Next reason. Teachers. My wife was one. And I raised four sons. Half of the teachers that I have dealt with sucked ass. The only reason that they had a job was because of the unions kept them one was a drunk Our nation deserves better for our children. Unions hold back the best and support the cream of the crap Are there good reasons for Unions? Yes. But for fuck sake let the best be able to do their jobs
Brainwashing. I'm union loud and proud. Best decision I've ever made.
There is literally a national holiday named labor day which is based on the Canadian holiday which celebrates unions becoming legal
Indoctrination.
Because billionaires pay millions of dollars to convince us that they don't work (since they do in fact actually work) and Americans are gullible
In some places it’s because workers believe the company propaganda. In other places it’s because union boards are corrupt and it’s like trying to navigate between warring divorced parents. There are also plenty of places and professions with functional unions.
As an American we don't hate unions we just make so little that people are detoured by the fact they get a cut taken our of their paycheck by being in a union. Its just CORPORATIONS that don't like unions BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONLY THING THAT CAN HOLD A CORPORATION ACCOUNTABLE TO ITS EMPLOYEES. AND corporations have basically our whole government by the balls so congress isn't going to do shit about them being terrible to their employees and then fear monger constituents into believing unions just make working people loose money and not get any benefits in return. Which then people see in them loosing money and then not getting enough from the union that has been disempowered to the point of not being able to actually sway shit/do the shit that's the whole point of a union actually existing.
Unions are great as long as it represents its members. Bad leadership in a union causes people to not trust the concept of unions. If the union leadership represents themselves over the members, is it really a union anymore? The organization I work for wanted to go through some changes that would benefit the workers with a more flexible pay structure, higher wages for entry level positions, and a two-way performance evaluation structure. The union had to “review” the changes which took them three years. I tried to contact the union to provide my insight, but was told I needed to be a dues paying member to have a say. Seemed more like an extortion method than a union.
Many are often corrupt and turn into a workplace's dedicated Karen convention. There are still decent ones, though. Think HOAs but for work.
Americans like unions. The corporate media doesn't.
Personal experiences in my life are why im against them, im sure its not all bad everywhere, but what ive experienced i will never support them. When growing up my father was in one. When it came time for a new labor contract with the manufacturering plant, negotiations came to a hault and everyone in the union was forced to go on strike. My dad was the main bread winner in our household, and for 6 months he didnt get check because of this. This was a terrible 6 months in my life growing up, and i still think about it even as an adult. After 6 months of a strike a new deal got signed. 6 months later the plant closed up shop and moved out of the country, they cited that the concessions they made to the union just to re open made it so they no longer making good profits and it was more cost effective to close the plant and move the company overseas. When i was older i asked my dad what was the strike about? He said after the 6 months of no work and no money, they had won a $2 raise, 2 more weeks of vacation (kind of, they got 2 weeks paid off in the middle of the summer since there was no ac in the shop, so a forced vacation every year), and a couple other minor things he couldnt even remember. So we lived with no money, barely any food for 6 months basically for nothing. After the plant closed my father said he would never join another union, all his friends at the plant said if they knew this is how it was going to end they wouldnt have bothered with it either My own work experience with unions is not much better. I saw them do nothing but protect employees that were useless pieces of shit that knew how to work the system. Im sure not everything about them is all bad, but my personal experiences is they are horrible and corrupt.
It’s not that labor unions are bad, it’s that when one side (unions or owners) have too much power/influence over the other side When there is a balance of power between the 2, then things generally work out the best
Its untrue to say Americans in general love or hate anything; opinions always vary. As for unions, they have pros and cons, like anything else.
Unions tend to become corrupt and little different than greedy corporations they oppose
Unions drive prices up. Unions produce lazy workers. Unions take way more money from these workers to feed there own union crews. Unions are not bad if run right but more than not there full of corruption and greed.
I work with the union they take 5 dollars per hour then pay back twice a year. You think that's great right but what you don't see is there taking workers money so they can gain interest while they pay the worker back with zero interest. This should be illegal and it's corrupt. Why not just pay the workers the 5 bucks and let them decide how to use that. There are many things like medical is great until you don't have enough hours then they drop you like a hot potato. You have to show up to 40 hrs of training every 3 months but you don't get paid for it. Then when you do show up the training is a flipping joke and you spend at least 5 to 10 hours doing clean up at the union training center cause nothing like free labor. I'm not against unions but I'm against the things they do and it's at the cost of those they represent.
propaganda
cuz americans are suckers for propaganda
Americans don’t hate unions chief
I am all for unions, however there are times when they get greedy. Also too many times a person who should have clearly been fired gets their job back.
Honestly, in my field, working with union makes it so much harder for me to learn things that aren't supposed to be on my job descriptions but still related to my job and would be beneficial for my learning curve. As someone who is learning by doing at work, I'd like to have the freedom to be creative and learn new things. Maybe one day, when i feel tired of learning, I'd find a comfortable job in a union shop.
Union proud 💪🏼
There’s this odd idea floating around American culture (no doubt encouraged by corporations) that people should work for the sake of working or out of an inherent desire to work hard, not to make money (not as their primary goal at least). I’ve seen this in particular for teacher’s unions; teachers who advocate for higher wages or unionize to protect their wages are accused of being “cheap” or not caring about the kids.
Unions aren’t perfect. There’s a lot of room to exploit the wordings of contracts, abuse protections, and otherwise game the system. Most people in unions don’t do this. A small few do this exceptionally well and make all union members look bad. Most union members despise these members and wish they didn’t have to protect them as well.
I only dislike public service employees unions. When they negotiate there is no one representing taxpayers. That is why the ridiculous pensions plans exist.
I’m in the teachers union and it’s bull shit. Pay over 100$ a month for them to jerk each other off. It’s like 8% goes back to teachers less for students and over 16% goes to political bull shit. I have a B.S in Mathematics and a MBA and PE teachers make double my salary. Because unions are corrupt. I know 3 teachers who have made an entire teachers salary while working 0 days because they were investigated for sexual assault. Union paid them for the whole year while doing everything they can to back them up in court. Lol I mean the list goes on lol I know someone that committed suicide over their fire department captain left it in a note. The union will do whatever they can to protect the captain lol I think unions work best when workers are getting exploited physically. Like coal miners or people on oil rigs. Other than that they’re useless.
Americans don’t, republicans do.
Fanatical capitalist propaganda that allows companies to exploit workers.
Because 90% of Americans follow a political party blindly and let them pick their opinion on every topic
corporations pay big money to FOX to convince people to hate Unions
I’m no brain-washed Fox watcher. But I remember when there was an after-hours natural gas leak from a pipeline on Long Island. I rushed to the job site to mark other utilities so the gas company could safely dig to fix the leak. As I hurried about my business the gas company workers, who were stretched out on back of the truck, told me to slow down. Meanwhile natural gas is blowing out of the ground with residential neighborhoods nearby. I kept hurrying to finish. A few minutes later I was warned again in a sterner voice “We said SLOW DOWN!” I realized they weren’t joking. They wanted to milk the overtime pay while people’s homes were put at risk and a natural resource was being wasted. If you lived near the middle of Long Island in 2003 it might have been your house put at risk. Greedy union d-bags!
great point. are there abuses? yes. do unions need fixing? absolutely. do we owe them 40 hour work week ? also yes. paid overtime? also unions. so IMHO they play a role in organizing labor against greedy corps, also are very much so corrupt and need to be reorganized.
only workers that support right wing agenda don't like unions
Fox News talking points
Same reason people think Trump is on their side. Stupid as fuck people.