13 pointsby chobeat4 hours ago6 comments
  • exabrialan hour ago
    Personally, after working for multiple blue collar unions (commercial roofing, machinist) I don't. But I won't oppose anyone that does.

    The problem is that the people that DO want them, want to force it on those that don't, usually by labor law.

  • garciasn2 hours ago
    68% of Americans supposedly support unions: https://news.gallup.com/poll/694472/labor-union-approval-rel...

    Yet, ~50% of Americans voted for the party that is diametrically opposed to them; a paradox.

    That said, with only about ~10% of Americans being employed in a union role, it's more like the grass is greener on the other side than an actual understanding of the pros and cons of union membership.

    • browsingonly40 minutes ago
      > actual understanding of the pros and cons of union membership

      Many of us have worked in $MEGACORPS with substantial union representation among the employees, have seen what it does and how it works in practice, and as a result want nothing to do with it. I wasn't represented due to my job classification, but now due to my firsthand exposure to unions I absolutely never will be by choice.

      No way, no how, not ever.

    • Whoppertime8 minutes ago
      I don't think it's so obvious The International Brotherhood of Teamsters didn't officially endorse any candidate for president in 2024. This was because internal polling said that their members overwhelmingly supported Trump over Harris, while it seems like the union leadership supported Harris over Trump This is not the only Union who had a difference of opinion between leadership and membership in 2024
    • cweagansan hour ago
      > ~50% of Americans voted for the party that is diametrically opposed to them

      Less than half of the US population voted in the last election. ~50% of Americans _who voted_ voted for the party that is diametrically opposed to unions, but that group is only ~23% of _Americans_.

    • chung812341 minutes ago
      This is why one issue wedge voting works. You may vote against something you want to vote for something you want more.
  • chung8123an hour ago
    How do unions work? Can a place just not hire union workers and it takes a whole profession to unionize to make them effective?
    • hung10brah7 minutes ago
      > How do unions work?

      About as unevenly as every other human social tribe.

      Was part of SEIU at one point. At least where I worked SEIU reps were fucking useless. My team was stuck in a basement with mold growing in the corners. There are so many other layers of by-laws, local, state, federal laws the union was essentially useless.

      But people in SEIU elsewhere said they were great. So as always YMMV

      Grocers union members where I live, while on strike, tried to block people going in a grocery store to use the pharmacy which was technically on a different labor contract; the grocers union members were to leave pharmacy customers alone. They hassled them anyway. In the end neighbors and community at large ended up being against the grocers union due to a handful of cringe, edgelord members in utilikits over-stepping with their "uh ackshully" shit.

      Unions are just more social tribe bullshit for people to leverage as magical words of power.

      Google it; there's union success story's and union members suing unions/reps after members claim they were forced into just acquiescing to the rich ownership class anyway.

      So much of the western way of life is just the same old rhetorical tribal bullshit, social darwinism no different than how it works among some random clusters of nomadic groups in Africa. Any sort of differentiation is merely semantics and rhetoric.

      Bird song and banner logo, whether they bleed for prophet or prophecy are the only things humans can claim to make them different. Roughly same old human meat suits end of the day.

      I am 100% all in on letting the robots, monitored by subject matter experts, make sure shit gets made and ending this forced obligation to kowtow and prostrate ourselves to other clearly normal and ultimately forgettable meat suits like most middle managers and union leaders, etc etc

  • momentmakeran hour ago
    The problem with union is that it also centralizes the power to the top which also then attracts sociopaths and/or psychopaths who are better are playing the political game.
    • 1shooner14 minutes ago
      In principle I support the idea of organized labor, but I hate to admit that every real-world experience of unions I've witnessed (second hand), the union has just been another layer of rent-seeking administration.

      I don't know enough about the history and structure to understand if the current tech union movement is more of the same or if there is some reform included.

  • cyanydeez2 hours ago
    that industry: capitalism
  • nahgonan hour ago
    [dead]