> actual unions are a far cry from how they are portrayed as helping the worker.
I think it's a fairly well established industry trend that, on average, union membership is a net positive for the worker.
I think it's a fairly well established industry trend that, on average, union membership is a net positive for the worker.
Say you have 10 workers - 2 are rock stars and make $50/hr, 6 are average and make $20/hr, and 2 are bad and make $10/hr (min wage - because they are never promoted).
Average "non-union" pay is: $24/hr
Now say you unionize and the union forces you to start paying the bad employees $20/hr like all the other average ones. So now you pay the 2 bad employees $20 each. Well, you still want to incentivize good work so you bump average employees to $25/hr. But dang, that's a lot of money, time to reign in rock star budget a bit. Now rock stars make $30/hr, average make $25/hr, bad make $20/hr.
Average "union" pay is: $25/hr
So yes, the "average pay" will be higher for "the worker"... but at a cost. Your average high performers will now be paid less, and your average low performers will now be paid more... which creates perhaps undesirable incentive structures ("why work my butt off to get ahead when it really won't make that much of a difference? I'd rather switch to a non-union company where my pay is directly tied to my output").
At both of the companies I've worked at we got a yearly "merit-based" increase depending on how your manager ranks you vs. your peers. The increase is anywhere from 0-5%, and the manager can only recommend their top employees for the high (5%) merit-based increases. This is on top of other increases (such as promotion-based increases), btw. I've gotten several pretty high merit-based increases back-to-back, and those +5% really start to compound with other forms of increase (promotions, bonuses, etc) after a few years.
If you were paid by "merit", you would be paid by your contribution to the revenue of the company. That is mostly restricted to owners.
Your output determines your merit and thus your pay, subject to random inaccuracies.