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Unions can vary considerably, and depend strongly on local culture. I'm fairly familiar with the UK, but unions here famously had a very antagonistic relationsh

Unions can vary considerably, and depend strongly on local culture. I'm fairly familiar with the UK, but unions here famously had a very antagonistic relationship with the business, in contrast to unions in, say, Germany. There was a famous case, where Toyota (or some company like that) set up two identical car factories, one in Northern England and one in Germany. The one in Germany had vastly higher output per worker than the one in England, and a lot of the reason was down to the wildly different attitudes of the workers and the union - the one in England tended to put "tools down" for all kinds of silly bureaucratic reasons. And certainly in other parts of the country and other industries - Clydeside ship building, say - unions were not blameless in helping along their decline - although the incompetence of management and the business helped there as well.

_delirium 10y ago
Some of this varies on both sides as well; employers in Germany are also more consensus-oriented than those in the UK, willing to consult unions ahead of time on important decisions, have joint labor-management committees to oversee things, etc. The employers in Scandinavia even moreso, where running the workplace is almost seen as a complete partnership between the employer and the unions, who both approach it in a consensus-oriented way and don't like to make changes without the other side's buy-in. I suspect Amazon's quite antagonistic relationship with its German unions is in part because it doesn't take a very "German" approach to them as an employer, and tries to run things in a more American-style way instead. Although German employers are not quite as consensus-oriented nowadays than they were in the 1950s-1990s period either.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- coredog64 10y ago
  You're also missing out on the legal landscape. I can't recall the case, but back in the 50s (or maybe the 60s, I'm too lazy to go look it up), there was a supreme court decision that said that American unions have to support with full vigor the claims of every member. Before that point, management and unions could agree that certain people were just knuckleheads without any chance of redemption. After that point, management and unions had a decidedly more antagonistic relationship. IIRC (and again, too lazy to look this up), it was a PoC that brought the suit because many unions were automatically inclined to agree with management that a PoC was a knucklehead.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > After [the 60s] management and unions had a decidedly more antagonistic relationship. Union antagonism is very much cultural[0], and the US didn't wait until the 60s for that to happen, late 19th/early 20th century US management didn't shy from violently repressing strikes and busting unions, Pinkerton was often hired in that capacity and industrialists with enough clout could get the police or even the army involved (as in Blair Mountain or Ludlow) According to "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome", as of 1969 the US had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of the first world. [0] the UK and France both have very antagonistic labor relationships for instance
jtbigwoo 10y ago
I took a couple labor management courses in college. One of the things the professor said has always stuck with me: "Management gets the union it asks for." Almost every union in the US and the UK was formed in the face of withering hostility from management. It's not surprising that the union would be antagonistic in response. EDIT: typo
- JetSetWilly 10y ago
  I suppose the UK industrialised early. It industrialised first, with workers often in appalling conditions, and unions formed in response to awful conditions and in opposition to the businesses trying to keep them down. And this was absolutely necessary, but it set the culture for a long time. Other countries didn't necessarily have that history, and other factors - like the need to rebuild the country after a devastating war with everybody starting from nothing - might have fostered cooperation in ways not possible in the UK.
- mattmcknight 10y ago
  The teachers and firefighters formed unions in the face of withering hostility from management? About half of US union members are local, state, or federal government employees.
  - jtbigwoo 10y ago
    They absolutely did. Look up the origins of the Chicago Teachers' Union or the fire fighter's union in Pittsburgh. Even today, government employee unions face serious challenges to their existence. If Scott Walker doesn't count as management, who does?

_delirium 10y ago

Some of this varies on both sides as well; employers in Germany are also more consensus-oriented than those in the UK, willing to consult unions ahead of time on important decisions, have joint labor-management committees to oversee things, etc. The employers in Scandinavia even moreso, where running the workplace is almost seen as a complete partnership between the employer and the unions, who both approach it in a consensus-oriented way and don't like to make changes without the other side's buy-in. I suspect Amazon's quite antagonistic relationship with its German unions is in part because it doesn't take a very "German" approach to them as an employer, and tries to run things in a more American-style way instead. Although German employers are not quite as consensus-oriented nowadays than they were in the 1950s-1990s period either.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
coredog64 10y ago
You're also missing out on the legal landscape. I can't recall the case, but back in the 50s (or maybe the 60s, I'm too lazy to go look it up), there was a supreme court decision that said that American unions have to support with full vigor the claims of every member. Before that point, management and unions could agree that certain people were just knuckleheads without any chance of redemption. After that point, management and unions had a decidedly more antagonistic relationship. IIRC (and again, too lazy to look this up), it was a PoC that brought the suit because many unions were automatically inclined to agree with management that a PoC was a knucklehead.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > After [the 60s] management and unions had a decidedly more antagonistic relationship. Union antagonism is very much cultural[0], and the US didn't wait until the 60s for that to happen, late 19th/early 20th century US management didn't shy from violently repressing strikes and busting unions, Pinkerton was often hired in that capacity and industrialists with enough clout could get the police or even the army involved (as in Blair Mountain or Ludlow) According to "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome", as of 1969 the US had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of the first world. [0] the UK and France both have very antagonistic labor relationships for instance

jtbigwoo 10y ago

I took a couple labor management courses in college. One of the things the professor said has always stuck with me: "Management gets the union it asks for." Almost every union in the US and the UK was formed in the face of withering hostility from management. It's not surprising that the union would be antagonistic in response. EDIT: typo

JetSetWilly 10y ago
I suppose the UK industrialised early. It industrialised first, with workers often in appalling conditions, and unions formed in response to awful conditions and in opposition to the businesses trying to keep them down. And this was absolutely necessary, but it set the culture for a long time. Other countries didn't necessarily have that history, and other factors - like the need to rebuild the country after a devastating war with everybody starting from nothing - might have fostered cooperation in ways not possible in the UK.
mattmcknight 10y ago
The teachers and firefighters formed unions in the face of withering hostility from management? About half of US union members are local, state, or federal government employees.
- jtbigwoo 10y ago
  They absolutely did. Look up the origins of the Chicago Teachers' Union or the fire fighter's union in Pittsburgh. Even today, government employee unions face serious challenges to their existence. If Scott Walker doesn't count as management, who does?