Unions are not perfect. But they are the only protection individual laborers have left against the unstoppable power of modern corporations. Don't ever fall for the endless slandering laid against them by capitalists.
And so are corporations. Unions at least have the interest of employees as their central (espoused) tenant. There is and always has been a concerted effort between capital and the media to undermine that fact in the mind of the public. This is a huge contributing factor to the falling bargaining power of labor over the last 50 years. Don't fall for it.
For an average worker, the path to higher wages is through seniority and institutional knowledge that makes them more valuable. When they change jobs, they are often right back at the bottom, union or no union. They are also competing against young, fresh workers.
If you haven't read it, you've probably been taught it is about the bad practices of food producers in that era. Nevermind that part is ancillary to the central story.
Just pointing out that this warping of views to suit the wealthy has been going on a long time.
I'm not arguing it is a bad book, but it isn't real.
You know, if they actually lived that out, there would be a lot less union-bashing. It's not just a capitalist conspiracy to slander unions. It's also (and primarily) that, within my lifetime, unions have been better at protecting union bureaucracy than at protecting rank-and-file workers.
They still have a role to play. I just wish they actually did what they're supposed to do. The workers need someone who's trying to help them instead of to exploit them. And unions are trying to help workers not be exploited by companies... while exploiting workers themselves.
Skilled employees, sure. But the vast majority of unskilled labor is completely at the whims of their employer without the protections afforded by unions. People fought and died for the right to create these organizations in the past, and we should be reticent to give that up just because the system isn't perfect.
Also, as someone in tech, I constantly hear people talking about downleveling when they change jobs, I hear people talking about unclear promotion criteria, etc.
If you want to start an industry wide programmer union, by all means, start one and then try and get people to join it. I'd love to hear what benefits you think I would get by joining an industry wide programmer union.
For example, Netflix hasn't (currently) entered into any agreements with the unions, though rumors are that Netflix will become sometime before the end of 2020.
2) Healthcare benefits
3) Negotiating better IP control. Side projects, open source, etc. are locked down at various companies. There was a front page story about this today.
4) Better treatment for oncall. I know folks who have had to work for 17 consecutive hours for an incident and got nothing.
5) Better treatment for crunch -- tech workers in games have this particularly bad, but it's not limited to just that industry.
6) More control over how the company outsources/contracts with workers
7) All sorts of other side benefits that could be collectively funded -- union libraries, training, networks, publications, resources for new professionals, discounts on union developed software, etc.
8) Parental leave, sick time, and other basic benefits
9) Ensure and oversee processes to protect people who end up on the public stage. If you believe cancel culture is a thing, maybe having a union rep on hand and an established process for managing firings would be in your best interest.
10) Forced arbitration is another thing I'd consider talking with a union about.
11) Having a union rep on hand for HR proceedings
Yes there is. It is the fact that many unions do indeed do this.
For whatever reason, people will often democratically choose to have stupid rules, such as seniority rules.
The problem with a union is that if people democratically choose the dumb decision, then I am screwed. No thank you!
This is objectively false. I agree that some unions are structured this way. Maybe even most. But all is incorrect.
In my observation (going by reports from both my own teachers back in the day and from friends and family members who are teachers), teachers' unions are squarely in the former category. Tenured teachers get raises, competent teachers get pink slips.
And you aren't addressing what I'm saying. I acknowledge unions that promote/pay based on seniority. Those exist, 100%. They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates.
While it may be in the best interest for a union to reward people for how long they've been a working member of the union, it isn't the only structure that exists.
My middle/high school teachers certainly seemed to have an inverse relationship between tenure and effectiveness, with maybe two exceptions.
> They do not necessarily need to be the way a union operates.
And you aren't addressing what I'm saying: sure, meritocratic unions might exist, but given that this is about teachers' unions specifically, and given that (at least in my observation, as anecdotal and therefore flawed as it may be) teachers' unions seem to very rarely (if ever) be meritocratic, any mention of "oh but unions can be meritocratic" without even so much as providing an example seems off-topic and irrelevant.
Realistically, merit is much harder to measure than tenure. No surprise that tenure is consequently the more common metric by which teachers' unions measure the teachers thereof.
What do you think society is? We live in a giant union of citizens.
The point of the union is to protect labor from capital; and protect the rest of us from selfish attitudes.
In Hollywood, for example, the unions are not an impediment to job-switching. In fact, they've enabled a sort of frictionless job switching that even tech is decades behind.
I have friends in Hollywood unions that have worked for multiple studios in the past month. No need to interview, or prove their chops. They just showed up for the job, worked, got paid, and moved on to the next shoot. And because of their union membership, they didn't have to worry about health insurance, or whether the checks would clear.
And I'm not even talking about SAG or the other guilds. I'm referring to the actual unions of all the people who work behind the camera, from the camera operators to the makeup artists.