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"I’ve spent 30 years in the US, many of those in red states, and I’ve heard the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” canard way more often than I’ve heard anti-union rhetoric. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti-(private sector) union rhetoric."

That's because union organizing campaigns are so rare. Usually, the organizers get fired. WalMart has closed entire stores that voted for a union.

Some anti-union resources for employers.[1][2][3] [3] advertises a "95% win rate".

[1] http://www.unionproof.com/ [2] https://lrionline.com/fighting-a-union-3/ [3] https://anh.com/

I heard anti-union rhetoric in college when people were wondering why it cost so much to set up A/V in a lecture hall. If you haven't heard any, I'm not sure whether to tell you that you've lived a sheltered life or you've so internalized the anti-union rhetoric (like your comment, right here!) that it doesn't register when you hear it.

Also, I'm very confused about your "liberal areas" comment. My impression as a regular NYC subway rider is that the subway doesn't have massive funding, and what little funding it has is being spent poorly because of decisions by politicians, not because any union has asked for anything or is getting paid too much. I've heard a lot of anger at service cuts, at our governor, at the recent fare enforcement crackdown. I've heard zero anger about the salaries paid to unionized employees.

(I have, in fairness, heard the fairly inside-baseball complaint that the unions are pushing back against extending one-person operation to more train lines, for fears of more job cuts. I don't know anyone who thinks that's the biggest problem facing the subway, and I think the vast majority of the ridership, even the politically-active ridership with opinions about the merits of unions, has very little idea that this debate even exists.)

I do agree that people in liberal areas are unhappy about police unions. I think that's its own, special thing (among other things, in NYC the Second Amendment applies more to cops and retired cops than it does to civilians), and I don't get the sense that people are unhappy about teachers' unions in the same way.

subway doesn't have massive funding

If I remember correctly, NYC Subway budget is about 10bn.

London tube is about 2bn.

It's not a money problem.

Can you cite your sources? I don't think you're comparing like to like.

These costs also need to be normalized for ridership figures (NYC has higher ridership). And don't forget that most of the figures you're going to see for NYC are for the entire MTA, which runs a lot more than just the subway.

And it's important to distinguish the cost per ride vs the subsidy per ride. Fare revenue shouldn't count "against" a transit system.

For some figures, the total budget of the London Underground is £10.3B (inclusive of fares): http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-budget-2019-20.pdf [pg 10]

The total budget of the MTA (inclusive of fares) is $16.3B: http://web.mta.info/news/pdf/MTA-2019-Prelim-Budget-July-Fin... [pg 14]

Normalize those figures to dollar amounts and account for ridership, and it appears that the MTA is cheaper per ride than TfL.

Yup, the same exact document, page 78.

10.3bn number is for TFL combined, which includes buses, DLR, overground, tram and other.

1. That doesn't seem right to me? http://web.mta.info/news/pdf/MTA-2019-Prelim-Budget-July-Fin... says the MTA budget is $16.6B, of which $8.7B is to NYCT (subway + bus + Staten Island Railroad). http://content.tfl.gov.uk/transport-for-london-budget-2018-1... says the TfL budget is £9.8B (about $12.2B), of which the Underground alone has a budget of £2.5B (about $3.1B), buses are almost as much, and then there's the Overground and a few others. I don't think the distinction in budget is anywhere near 5 to 1.

2. My argument is not so much whether it has massive funding or not, my argument is that riders have the impression that it has insufficient funding - i.e., riders do not have the impression that the problem with the subway is union salaries and benefits. I'm (obviously) happy to get into transit geekery, but this discussion is about whether people have a positive or negative view of unions.

Ever since The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track in the World, the view of NYC's unions isn't really that positive. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyre...

Trillions of dollars change hands every day in New York. How much should the infrastructure for a place like that cost?

The same as in any other major city?

I mean I think most of us are much happier with the Second Avenue Subway existing at too high a cost than not existing, and I think we primarily blame government for dragging their feet, there's no evidence they were ready to build it at a normal cost but prudently pushing back on greedy unions.

Are you aware that costs of everything can vary wildly between major cities?

Wow, just like housing, right?

The NYT, a fairly left-leaning paper in a left-leaning city, wrote about how the union is causing cost explosion building the second avenue subway. As to the funding—New York’s MTA has a significantly larger budget than London’s very similar system. London, meanwhile, covers 100% of its operating costs from fares, while New York covers just half.

However London's underground system also has unions, so if the suggestion is that it's more efficient than New York, the implication is that it's unlikely to be the presence of a union causing the issues.

You are probably correct, it’s not unions per se, it’s that particular union. I doubt that the US public would make such a distinction.

European unions in general actually work, for some reason unknown to me. I've never seen, in the modern era, a union in the US do anything but harm its members in general.

The rhetoric goes that the union is enforcing expensive outdated work to be kept to keeps their members employed. However I don’t buy that rhetoric. If that is the case, it is not the union’s fault, but the governments fault for hiring a corrupt contractor.

So if an employee steals from their employer, is it the employers fault for hiring them?

Unions always enforce expensive, outdated work. The taxi cab unions fought Uber and Lyft, a vastly superior taxi system, all to prop up an existing outdated system.

"* The taxi cab unions fought Uber and Lyft, a vastly superior taxi system...*"

Vastly superior for who?

Uber and Lyft are vastly superior than the existing taxi system and better for everyone. It got rid of the medallian system that prevented many people from driving a cab and used technology to make it very convenient to find a ride at any time.

Good things won't last forever. The taxi cab unions are already fighting these companies back in many cities.

They kind of remind me of the record industry and file sharing in the 90s: fighting technology, so they can keep their outdated and expensive system in place.

Most unions are like this. As another example, they will fight automation and force companies to hire multiple, overpaid workers, for a job that can be done by a single person. This only holds companies back and puts them at a disadvantage.

The New York Times is decidedly not left-leaning on economic issues.

> The NYT, a fairly left-leaning paper in a left-leaning city

I think American "left" and the Left everywhere else are entirely different things. As a leftie in the UK, I do not recognise the NYT as left at all.

I used to regularly see one MTA employee hosing down the platform while 3-4 others watched. I always assumed that that was the result of a union negotiation, since it was pretty consistent, but could be wrong.

Unions for employees paid by taxpayers are not comparable to unions in non taxpayer funded organizations.

There’s a serious problem with incentives in the taxpayer funded space due to every union member voting in political elections, whereas the non union public is not involved, resulting in the politicians and unions being able to strike deals and no one really representing taxpayers.

As part of a company all of whose employees were fired as a result of trying to unionize, last year, your experiences are pretty limited.

I’ve heard anti union rhetoric several times a year for 15 or so years and I don’t even watch the news.