I'm not really sure it's quite that simple. The union is out to strengthen the position of their members. They want you to join because it strengthens them, not because they're just nice people in general and want to help you. The deal they make to you might be best for them, but not best for you.
What you are suggesting is akin to suggesting that fascism and democracy are both the same because democratically elected representatives do not at all times represent all of the interests of all of their constituents. Which is often true, and can be a serious concern -- one that you should bring up at your local union meeting. Where you vote on the behavior of the union. And discuss with your fellow workers. Where you can advocate for yourself without being immediately fired/denied promotion/punished for it.
Or I suppose you could talk to management yourself and ask to be treated better. Better have that resume ready to go though. I hope you live in a town where work is plentiful and you don't need your job.
Both the company and the union have an incentive to present me propaganda to do things their way, even when actually what they want to do could be against what I want or damage me.
I don't see how the democratic process of the union makes a different. A group of people not including me democratically decided they wanted to do something, and they're trying to get me to join to help them do that. I don't see how that's different to a board of a company voting and deciding that the want to do something and trying to get me to get on board with that to help them do it.
The critical point here is that of course, in democracies decisions are not made that always align with your views. This does not mean democracy is bad considering the other options available, it just means that democracy is imperfect. If something is being considered as an option, I would prefer to have a vote over not having one.
When you are not in the union you have no vote. When you are in the union you have one. If you don't want one and are content to provide complete and blind obedience towards every directive given by management, are comfortable with a possible firing without cause or dangerous working conditions with no compensation or reduction in salary/benefits or forced unpaid overtime, and want to abandon your fellow workers who need the cooperation of the full workforce in order to do collective bargaining which almost always happens partially on your behalf whether you want it or not (enjoy salary bumps? benefits? weekends? vacation days? not being fired for being sick? these are things that exist only because of unions)... well that's certainly your choice as well. Just as in a democracy you can choose not to vote, you just don't get to complain about the outcome which you've chosen to have no say in.
That is not to say there hauven't been corrupt unions. But generally speaking, as the OP said, a union is better than no union for employees.
The union has an incentive to get me to join, as it helps them get their pay by seniority, but it doesn't help me so they would want to hide that from me. I would be cautious of what they tell me, just like I would be cautious of what Uber tells me.
A vote does nothing to help me if I'm down-voted. I'd be better off outside the union so it doesn't have more power to force pay by seniority, but they don't want me to know that. Hence the risk of propaganda.
There's actually no corruption there, just their interests not being mine.
If you don't like the seniority pay structure a union is pushing, you can go and try and talk to people to change the vote. Presumably there are a lot more younger workers than old (the way it tends to go everywhere), and you younguns could arrange the union in a way to benefit you now AND in the future.
No union? Well, you're on your own, negotiating with people who see you as disposable and expendable (and they do--they'd be fools not to).
Remember, in a democracy, a vote isn't a ticket to instantly get what you want, it's a way to ensure that you have some say even if it doesn't go your way every time.
Or I could not join the union! Vote with my feet! Why would I want to give more power to a group of people trying to do something I don't want? You're saying join them, vote on it, and then when I lose the vote stick with it anyway because that's democracy. No, if I don't like something then I'm better off not affording them the right to say they're representing me.
The union knows that, so they have an incentive to give me disinformation to get me to join.
That's my original point - the union does potentially have incentives to give disinformation. Just like the company has. So I treat both with skepticism.
You would join the union because the organization of labor gives you more power than individually. This is all pretty basic democratic theory here. Why would an independent state join a federation of states? Why not vote with it's feet by seceding when they don't get what they want out of the federation? Perhaps because the benefits outweigh the loss?
Don't like seniority pay, but what about the four weeks base vacation and the negotiated pay scale that benefits younger workers? The point here is that companies are by design dictatorships (or at best oligarchies) and unionization is not the evil that 20th century robber barons told you they are.
The UAW has done infinitely better things for labor in the US than most people could ever understand, even if their power led to a certain amount of corruption. Corruption of a democracy is at least marginally better than a dictatorship where you just hope the dictator is benevolent.
You've taken dictatorship and equated it with fascism. I'll assume you didn't intend the bait and switch there, but it's not necessarily the case.
It's worth remembering that not all democracy is good, and not all authoritarianism is bad[1]. California's proposition 8 banning homosexual marriage was a democratic decision, while supporting the arts through encouraging the establishment of People's Houses[2] was an authoritarian one.
The point that I believe the grand-parent was making is that a lie in support of a goal that you like is not better than a lie in support of a goal that you don't. Both are lies, and shame on whomever proffers them as fact. If your position is indeed the superior one, then you shouldn't need to result to lies to bolster your position.
That said, it's been well established that unions, democratic or not, are not always acting in the best interests of their members. We've seen this time and again with kickback cooperation, compelled membership, disallowance of disassociation, corruption, etc.
I'm not necessarily invested in the debate here, so please don't take my position as arguing for or against either side, but as I recently mentioned elsewhere, if your position is that "unions are good and companies are bad", then you've fallen prey to ideological confirmation bias, and are disinviting nuance from the conversation, which limits the effectiveness of said discourse.
It is indeed "not that simple".
And certainly in isolated cases dictatorships can be better than democracies. But I think there's plenty of evidence throughout history to suggest that over time democracies perform better for the people in them.
There are certainly companies that operate like benevolent dictatorships; many high end tech firms come to mind. Small businesses I've worked at come to mind. These are companies which don't require unions and for which unions are mostly counterproductive -- I agree. You generally do not see unions where workers don't need them and a great many companies fall into that category. But we are discussing the case where a union is being formed/already exists. So a huge number of workers have already decided that trusting the dictator's benevolence has not been working out.
And indeed, unions can act opposed to the interest of some of its members. That's why unions have meetings and discussion and voting. States can act against the interest of their members as well. We don't throw away the idea of voting at all and give a person absolute and complete power because this happens.
Did you mean people in the union? AKA workers? Sure they want a strong position when bargaining for worker rights. This seems like it's good for workers still.
Going another step further one could, more truly, state CEO's and the board are just out for their own interest. They could (and do) attempt to skate by caring as little for their own workers as possible. In which case, it'd be nice if someone had enough power to stand up and get better working conditions through some sort of organized union perhaps?
I don't know if that kind of thing happens a lot in practice, but can you see how their interests aren't always going to be yours?
The issue is that, in a union shop--and this varies state by state--you might have to pay union dues whether or not you're a member.
That issue of being compelled to pay union dues whether or not you're a member is the crux of the "right to work" debate (a bullshit term, because everyone always has the right to work, these laws are just about weakening unions and setting laws in favor of the owners).
But being compelled to join a union? In the U.S.? Nope, never.
On the other hand, if you _still_ think that's somehow unfair, you can go to one of those "right to work" states....
But, unions don't seem to want that, because they benefit greatly both from the power dynamic in closed shops and from this very argument (that anti-union workers are free-riders at best or scabs out for themselves at worst).
Off the top of my head, I could see entrenched businesses that already have union workers (ie. big auto manufacturers, ISP's, etc) want to make sure their competitors have to work with the union, too.
If I run a workplace where the union has marginal support, I might see an underfunded, unpopular union as more vulnerable than a smaller union with stronger support.
If the union has strong support, I'm probably better off with it representing everyone. A union that represents 80% of my workers would have almost as much leverage but less flexibility to make concessions.
On the other hand, the employer wants none of that because they want as much power over employees as they can muster.
How does that make them as worse as each other?
It's somewhat ironic that it seems like a lot of people in this thread are basing their talking points on unions off the anti-union propaganda at hand rather than personal experience or evidence.
Here is some evidence that helps explain Teamsters. It's a lot different to have Teamsters come in than this utopian view of a few workers banning together to protect their interests.