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The impact of unionization on the customers/consumers should be considered, too. My experiences dealing with unionized workforces in Canada as a customer/consu

The impact of unionization on the customers/consumers should be considered, too. My experiences dealing with unionized workforces in Canada as a customer/consumer have generally not been good at all. Such workers often exhibit tremendous inefficiency, a lack of care, and disinterest. This results in low-quality service/work, and a bad experience for the customers/consumers involved. This is particularly noticeable when dealing with government employees who are unionized, such as public school teachers, some public hospital staff, the police, public transit system staff, and bureaucrats. Unionization in such cases creates an environment where there's no incentive to perform well, as there's pretty much no downside to the unionized worker for providing terrible service. While private sector unionization can result in a similarly-bad customer/consumer experience, at least there's often some degree of competition involved, which can give customers/consumers an alternative when service is remarkably awful. The bad service isn't as unavoidable as it is in the case of the public sector. The content out of Hollywood matches this pattern, too. I've found it to be among the least-entertaining, least-interesting, and lowest-quality content around. I've had much better results with content from small, non-unionized, independent creators.

specialist 3y ago
In what ways would non-union government employees be better?
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Presumably the idea is they would be motivated to do a good job or else be fired. Whereas now they are immune from firing unless doing something egregious. I don’t really agree with that though as the real reason is the government has no competition. If McDonalds does a bad job at service you will go to Burger King. But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden?
  - simfree 3y ago
    Even with unions King County already does 3 year "temporary" contract positions for all new hires in some departments, and the City of Seattle is driving a hard line of only a 2% COLA increase in contract negotiations. Outside of the SPD Guild, unions don't have much leverage to retain underperforming employees. Document the failure to perform a handful of times and that employee will be gone, with at most a grievance filed where you get to reiterate how they repeatedly failed to deliver at work.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    > But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden? You engage in the democratic processes to effect change, versus the "choice" between what other non-democratic entities are willing to give you.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Im not OP but when I think of bad government employees, I think of this jerk at my local post office that has been there for at least 10+ years(I am in the US). Always unhelpful, always making a simple task of sending a package as hard as possible by yelling, complaining about alignment of address labels, providing improper advice on the best way to ship different items causing me to spend a lot more money than I needed to or preventing me from using certain services to ship specific packages that others workers would allow because of his misunderstanding of my package description. My only recourse to alert anybody of this issue is to fill out a survey. I've been filling out that survey for years. There is no feedback loop to enact change. There is no other "manager" there. How would I even find a manager? I could go to a competitor but that would not affect them and there are some services that other competitors are not allowed to perform (USPS is the only one that can perform letter mail service by law and others will just take your letter and put it in a larger parcel). This situation sucks so much that I am reduced to trying to visit the post office at hours that I think he is not there or take a long trip to another town's post office.
  - specialist 3y ago
    Agreed, we need flexibility to fire people. And, honestly, I've never been real clear why civil servants, eg admin and staff, are unionized. Unions are not uniquely impotent wrt their "bad apples". Every organization is afflicted. This phenomenon seems to be holding all of society back. Ideas? (FWIW, my main motivation for being pro-union & pro-labor is profit sharing. Corporate welfare and record high profits while most people struggle really pisses me off.)
Keegs 3y ago
The things you attribute to unionization are, I think, a bit of a stretch. Hollywood especially. Actors and writers have been organized for a long time. Smaller studios like A24 with a reputation for making good movies when larger studios milk existing franchises still use organized labor.
supertimor 3y ago
I mean, Hollywood unions have been a thing since the 1930’s, pretty much since the inception of the “Talkies.” So any loss in quality that you claim will have not been due to the unions. In fact, the most likely culprit of any loss in quality is likely do to the studios and producers who have cut down on budgets, prep time, filming time frames and staffing which makes the existing workers have to constantly scramble to make a good product. And because of the staffing shortages, workers don’t have the same opportunities to learn the ropes from more experienced workers, so the ladder has effectively been broken. The unions are actively fighting the studios on these points because they care about the future of the industry. Without the union backing up these workers, the loss in quality would have likely been even worse than it is now. Not every union is the same. Hollywood union members are incredibly hardworking, regularly working 60-90 hours a week in very physical and stressful jobs. Many of these workers are highly skilled and take their job very seriously. And they would be much worse off without the union advocating for them. Bad customer experiences happen in all type of businesses regardless of union status. That shouldn’t distract us from the fact that many people that would otherwise be exploited would be far worse off if they didn’t have a union to represent them.

specialist 3y ago

In what ways would non-union government employees be better?

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Presumably the idea is they would be motivated to do a good job or else be fired. Whereas now they are immune from firing unless doing something egregious. I don’t really agree with that though as the real reason is the government has no competition. If McDonalds does a bad job at service you will go to Burger King. But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden?
- simfree 3y ago
  Even with unions King County already does 3 year "temporary" contract positions for all new hires in some departments, and the City of Seattle is driving a hard line of only a 2% COLA increase in contract negotiations. Outside of the SPD Guild, unions don't have much leverage to retain underperforming employees. Document the failure to perform a handful of times and that employee will be gone, with at most a grievance filed where you get to reiterate how they repeatedly failed to deliver at work.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  > But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden? You engage in the democratic processes to effect change, versus the "choice" between what other non-democratic entities are willing to give you.
nebula8804 3y ago
Im not OP but when I think of bad government employees, I think of this jerk at my local post office that has been there for at least 10+ years(I am in the US). Always unhelpful, always making a simple task of sending a package as hard as possible by yelling, complaining about alignment of address labels, providing improper advice on the best way to ship different items causing me to spend a lot more money than I needed to or preventing me from using certain services to ship specific packages that others workers would allow because of his misunderstanding of my package description. My only recourse to alert anybody of this issue is to fill out a survey. I've been filling out that survey for years. There is no feedback loop to enact change. There is no other "manager" there. How would I even find a manager? I could go to a competitor but that would not affect them and there are some services that other competitors are not allowed to perform (USPS is the only one that can perform letter mail service by law and others will just take your letter and put it in a larger parcel). This situation sucks so much that I am reduced to trying to visit the post office at hours that I think he is not there or take a long trip to another town's post office.
- specialist 3y ago
  Agreed, we need flexibility to fire people. And, honestly, I've never been real clear why civil servants, eg admin and staff, are unionized. Unions are not uniquely impotent wrt their "bad apples". Every organization is afflicted. This phenomenon seems to be holding all of society back. Ideas? (FWIW, my main motivation for being pro-union & pro-labor is profit sharing. Corporate welfare and record high profits while most people struggle really pisses me off.)

Keegs 3y ago

The things you attribute to unionization are, I think, a bit of a stretch. Hollywood especially. Actors and writers have been organized for a long time. Smaller studios like A24 with a reputation for making good movies when larger studios milk existing franchises still use organized labor.

supertimor 3y ago

I mean, Hollywood unions have been a thing since the 1930’s, pretty much since the inception of the “Talkies.” So any loss in quality that you claim will have not been due to the unions. In fact, the most likely culprit of any loss in quality is likely do to the studios and producers who have cut down on budgets, prep time, filming time frames and staffing which makes the existing workers have to constantly scramble to make a good product. And because of the staffing shortages, workers don’t have the same opportunities to learn the ropes from more experienced workers, so the ladder has effectively been broken. The unions are actively fighting the studios on these points because they care about the future of the industry. Without the union backing up these workers, the loss in quality would have likely been even worse than it is now. Not every union is the same. Hollywood union members are incredibly hardworking, regularly working 60-90 hours a week in very physical and stressful jobs. Many of these workers are highly skilled and take their job very seriously. And they would be much worse off without the union advocating for them. Bad customer experiences happen in all type of businesses regardless of union status. That shouldn’t distract us from the fact that many people that would otherwise be exploited would be far worse off if they didn’t have a union to represent them.