9 ms·
Unionization isn’t for everybody. I’ve been a member of a union. My family members are union members. I have to assume most of the people behind this tech union
by lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Unionization isn’t for everybody. I’ve been a member of a union. My family members are union members. I have to assume most of the people behind this tech union idea have not had much exposure to unions.
Unions are terrible, and only appropriate when your employer or industry is even more terrible than a union. That does apply to many industries unfortunately, but not Google employees. Not even close. It’s also a safe bet that tech workers will earn less under a union.
A family member works in an industry that has only a single employer within about a 500 mile radius. He has absolutely no leverage and he needs a union. Even under the net-beneficial union, he’s had many negative effects, including losing his job and requiring his family to move, because of the seniority rules that many unions have. Too many older union members moved to his (more prosperous) city, and they get scheduling precedence, so he was reduced to an on-call who was never called. He eventually got “permission” to transfer and was able to move to a remote town where his lower seniority would still allow him to get work.
I constantly hear of stories where senior union members are not doing their jobs and taking the spot of someone who really wants to be there, but it’s nearly impossible to fire them due to union rules and their proficiency in gaming the system.
Don’t get me started on teachers unions. If you have kids, that one should really piss you off.
- zbyte64 7y agoSays unions are only needed when there are monopolies. Proceeds to say teachers unions are bad yet it operates under geographic monopolies.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoI don’t know which post you read, because mine didn’t say that.
- gamblor956 7y agoSomething is missing from your family member's story. Seniority rules in unions are chapter-based, and chapters themselves are city- or business-based. If someone is moving in from a different chapter, that seniority generally doesn't carry over to their new chapter, and even when seniority does carry over it can't result in the transferring member displacing another union member's job.
- einpoklum 7y agoThe problem is, that the large unions in the US are terrible. They keep selling out their members instead of organizing struggle! And very often their leadership is corrupt; and their structure is centralized; and they bargain over your head etc. Just look at what Fiat-Chrysler workers are saying about the UAW these days: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/10/fiat-d10.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/10/fiat-d10.html but nobody said it has to be _those_ unions. It's a bit like saying that since the Republican and Democratic party are, on the whole, corrupt and subservient to corporate interests (which they are), then political organizations are a bad idea. It isn't - you just need independent, uncorrupted, accountable, distributed-power organizations. And it's the same with unions.