You're talking about a resolution to conflict, not the lack of conflict. Voting with your feet is a great option if you have it. Not everyone thinks they do. Ei

You're talking about a resolution to conflict, not the lack of conflict. Voting with your feet is a great option if you have it. Not everyone thinks they do. Either way, the fact is that employers want the cheapest labor cost they can get while meeting their labor needs (rational decision) and labor wants the greatest salary they can negotiate (rational decision) and this puts them in adversarial positions. This doesn't mean street fights or even curse words get said, it's just a way of describing the situation accurately. When someone wants the opposite of you, you're adversaries. Unions, like any general collection of people, will have good and bad actors leading to good or bad hierarchies. Your anecdote sounds like a shitty situation. Not every union is the same, and there are plenty of times when a union seems like more stress than it's worth for the people involved, and that's all fine. To your anecdote about going to the store: Yes, I go to every store with the assumption that they will, through active or passive means, attempt to take as much money from me as they can. It's why I check sold prices vs advertised price, it's why I confirm I wasn't accidentally overcharged on my receipt. The company wants to make as much money as possible and I want to spend as little as possible, and those are both pretty rational positions.