"Unions are their members" For reference this is a textbook example of an equivocation (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Equivocation https://rationalwiki.org/wik

"Unions are their members" For reference this is a textbook example of an equivocation (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Equivocation https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Equivocation). The statement has two meanings: the trivially true "A union is made up of its members" and the implicit claim "The behavior of the management of a union is what the majority of its members want". The latter statement is a very bold claim (and does not survive even a tiny amount of empirical scrutiny for those familiar with unions in practice), so the commenter tries to launder it into the discussion by conflating it with the obviously-true trivial meaning.