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IMO, some unions are bad for everyone. Worker and company alike. Most (maybe all?) unions are meant to oppose the company. Their stated goal is get more for

IMO, some unions are bad for everyone. Worker and company alike. Most (maybe all?) unions are meant to oppose the company. Their stated goal is get more for the workers, which means less for the company. But to be fair, some unions actually end up helping companies that can't understand that treating your workers well actually has benefits for the company, too, and if you treat them too poorly, there will be a net detriment to the company. These unions actually help everyone, but it requires that the company really have their head up their ass. So it's not surprising to me that every single company fights the union. The whole point of the union is to fight the company on behalf of the workers.

gibspaulding 5y ago
> But to be fair, some unions actually end up helping companies... When I was in college I worked for a roofing company where there actually seemed to be a pretty healthy relationship between the local unions and the companies employing their members. The unions ran a great apprenticeship program, were super strict on safety, and seemed to have a reputation in the area for doing good work. This meant that companies had a good idea what they were getting when they paid the premium for a journeyman. My impression was that being a "union shop" was a differentiator for businesses and that there were plenty of customers that were willing to pay more for the confidence that things would be done right. Of course the common complaint for a situation like this is that you end up with journeymen who abuse their position and don't meet the standards they are supposed to, but I didn't seem much of this. I got the impression that the union did a pretty good job of keeping their members in line, especially when it came to safety infractions. It's a shame that this doesn't seem to be more common. It was an amazing program since if you could land an apprenticeship (and they were desperate for people) you could theoretically climb the ladder from poverty to the middle class in 5 years.

gibspaulding 5y ago

> But to be fair, some unions actually end up helping companies... When I was in college I worked for a roofing company where there actually seemed to be a pretty healthy relationship between the local unions and the companies employing their members. The unions ran a great apprenticeship program, were super strict on safety, and seemed to have a reputation in the area for doing good work. This meant that companies had a good idea what they were getting when they paid the premium for a journeyman. My impression was that being a "union shop" was a differentiator for businesses and that there were plenty of customers that were willing to pay more for the confidence that things would be done right. Of course the common complaint for a situation like this is that you end up with journeymen who abuse their position and don't meet the standards they are supposed to, but I didn't seem much of this. I got the impression that the union did a pretty good job of keeping their members in line, especially when it came to safety infractions. It's a shame that this doesn't seem to be more common. It was an amazing program since if you could land an apprenticeship (and they were desperate for people) you could theoretically climb the ladder from poverty to the middle class in 5 years.