Hacker News Reader

Comment by MattGaiser | Hacker News Reader

Eh, the top complaint I have heard from people who are union members is that they take money for very little.

What do you think they are basing that on? Maybe they should talk to their union.

There are bad unions out there, but I don't think they're a majority.

These people are government workers who are angry if the union doesn't win them a raise every year (and they won't as I live in a province which is very suspicious of government and nobody cares if they get a raise). So they instead just want their dues back.

Regular raises are not guaranteed for nonunion workers.

Yes, but their thinking is that if they don’t get a raise, they should pay what non-union workers pay.

I think there’s an argument that public unions are a very different animal for a variety of reasons that may not make for an appropriate comparison.

For example, it may be illegal for public servants to strike. The government may not go out of “business”. Civil servants tend to skew towards white collar professions. Point being, there are a different set of incentives and tactics in pubic vs private unions

I always remembered how I hated unions for taking all those dues, but then I actually joined one and it was like 30 bucks a paycheck on a 3k paycheck, so like 1 percent. In exchange, my boss never asked me to stay late, work on weekends, or do several other categories of things that I routinely get asked now when I have no union. Additionally, I never had any issues with my job or boss doing anything illegal, but if I had, there were lawyers and reps waiting around to help me get my problems solved.

I wish I was in a union now.

I think the complaint comes from lower wage positions. The concrete example I recall is someone who worked part time in a grocery store. All the benefits of the union only accrued to full time workers. And hours went by seniority, so unless the older workers didn’t want the work, you were stuck with the short end of the stick.

Example of what, because I think that's probably the idea: protect the full time employees' hours to ensure the company doesn't try to make everyone go below full time and lose benefits (see: Walmart). If you're already part time, you would have to accept your hours get cut first in that situation, by design. There's really no other way to do that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com