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Once the workers organize as a union, the company is forced to treat everything as a negotiation with the union instead of the employees. The union views their

Once the workers organize as a union, the company is forced to treat everything as a negotiation with the union instead of the employees. The union views their job as to always ask for more and push back on the employer, so the employer is incentivized to hold back raises, benefits, and concessions until it's time for negotiations. Giving away all of your bargaining chips before negotiations start is not a good strategy. When you see headlines about unions negotiating certain benefits or raises from employers, it's often framed as a victory that wouldn't have happened without the union. The reality is more nuanced, as the union's existence forces the company to play hardball during negotiations so they have something to negotiate when it comes time to do the negotiations.

hwbehrens 6y ago
> the employer is incentivized to hold back raises, benefits, and concessions until it's time for negotiations The employer is incentivized to hold these back in any case, absent some countervailing pressure (e.g. retention against competing offers, if they exist, etc.). This is why the largest raises (in tech, at least) typically come when jumping companies.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > The employer is incentivized to hold these back in any case, absent some countervailing pressure The countervailing pressure is that non-unionized employees are more likely to leave. Most unions in the US place a high value on seniority. The more seniority you have, the more benefits you get from a union. Good for people who have been there for 10 years, bad for new employees looking to get jobs. This makes unionized employees less incentivized to leave and more incentivized to stay and strike. Leaving (even if for higher pay) would sacrifice that union seniority that many members value. It's a very different negotiating dynamic.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    The problem with Boeing is that there are not many aerospace employers to got to. An aerospace engineer can probably only work for 2 or 3 aerospace companies in their career. Not to mention they may have to completely uproot their life on each change of employer.
    - 0xB31B1B 6y ago
      this isn't really true. To change companies you might need to move cities, but there are a ton of different companies that require aerospace engineers: SpaceX Blue Origin Space Systems Loral JPL Boeing Embraer Airbus Cessna Northrup Grumman Lockheed Martin General Electric Raytheon Boom Rolls Royce, Honeywell Eurocopter Bombardier not to mention the adjacent fields of Green tech (wind turbines) Drones/UAVs There are a lot of options out there
      - spectramax 6y ago
        And all the vendors and suppliers that supply to these companies. The number of suppliers very well would exceed into thousands of small and midsized companies scattered around US.
ashtonkem 6y ago
> Once the workers organize as a union, the company is forced to treat everything as a negotiation with the union instead of the employees That’s literally the point of unions. To turn the employees into a monolithic block for the purposes of negotiation.

hwbehrens 6y ago

> the employer is incentivized to hold back raises, benefits, and concessions until it's time for negotiations The employer is incentivized to hold these back in any case, absent some countervailing pressure (e.g. retention against competing offers, if they exist, etc.). This is why the largest raises (in tech, at least) typically come when jumping companies.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> The employer is incentivized to hold these back in any case, absent some countervailing pressure The countervailing pressure is that non-unionized employees are more likely to leave. Most unions in the US place a high value on seniority. The more seniority you have, the more benefits you get from a union. Good for people who have been there for 10 years, bad for new employees looking to get jobs. This makes unionized employees less incentivized to leave and more incentivized to stay and strike. Leaving (even if for higher pay) would sacrifice that union seniority that many members value. It's a very different negotiating dynamic.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  The problem with Boeing is that there are not many aerospace employers to got to. An aerospace engineer can probably only work for 2 or 3 aerospace companies in their career. Not to mention they may have to completely uproot their life on each change of employer.
  - 0xB31B1B 6y ago
    this isn't really true. To change companies you might need to move cities, but there are a ton of different companies that require aerospace engineers: SpaceX Blue Origin Space Systems Loral JPL Boeing Embraer Airbus Cessna Northrup Grumman Lockheed Martin General Electric Raytheon Boom Rolls Royce, Honeywell Eurocopter Bombardier not to mention the adjacent fields of Green tech (wind turbines) Drones/UAVs There are a lot of options out there
    - spectramax 6y ago
      And all the vendors and suppliers that supply to these companies. The number of suppliers very well would exceed into thousands of small and midsized companies scattered around US.

ashtonkem 6y ago

> Once the workers organize as a union, the company is forced to treat everything as a negotiation with the union instead of the employees That’s literally the point of unions. To turn the employees into a monolithic block for the purposes of negotiation.