Oddly, one complaint workers have about unions is they keep on workers who don't work or are lazy. Interestingly OTHER WORKERS are annoyed by this.
The boss is only interested when they don't have unilateral control over who gets fired and why.
Saying the boss is not interested is totally not true. When I went to school we ALL knew (even the kids) that one teacher simply basically did not teach. It didn't matter they were totally protected. Principle would have fired them in a minute. Old white dude, massive seniority, union officer I think so he also may have gotten time off teaching for that ? Anyways, the rest of the teachers were amazing, but imagine you are a female minority teacher having to deal with extra class sizes because of this dufus. At least when I was growing up the union officers was an old boys club situation.
I can recall so many counter examples. Relatives, drinking buddies, snitches, people whom the boss was somewhat in awe of because they saw them as "rock stars", people for whom firing would have reflected badly on the boss, people who were good at pulling the wool over his eyes.
Generally the people I've seen fired were for insubordination not laziness - often they worked much harder than other workers.
If you think Amazon is hiring based on this - fantastic, they are doomed by only hiring lazy drinking buddies and relatives. Reality? Amazon has probably a very driven workforce and working culture. But maybe you are right it's all just a bunch of drinking buddies.
No different than if a union doesn't kick out shitty union members no? The same still holds true. Anything a bad union does, a bad boss can do, at least with a union you have a vote.
Unions work much better in public sector where they can't go out of business. Police unions, prison guard unions, teacher unions etc. I wouldn't say service or accountability is that great in these systems.
When you're competing with a Mexican, a Bangladeshi or a slave in Thailand all working for a pittance it doesn't necessarily matter how hard you work. Unemployment or poverty wages are your two choices.
Police unions and prison worker unions are more effective because they tend to aid rather than threaten capital. Teachers unions by contrast are not, which is why most governors declare outright war on them.
Curious if this means you are against public sector unions? I.e., where the organization can’t “go under” or, if it does, it may represent a real public risk
In terms of workers, the govt can't go "out of business" so seems pretty rational to join a union in that context?
The other issue is politicans are total idiots. I've done enough work in govt to know that the folks making policy NEVER EVER ask the folks in charge of delivering on something what small changes would make things 100x more efficient, fraud resistant and more.
For example, PPP loans.
Everyone in govt knows that employers make payroll tax payments every other week, file quarterly reports and annual W-2's and W-3's for staff. So if you are going to do a paycheck protection program - two options. One, use the data YOU ALREADY HAVE ON FILE to auto generate loans (2.5 months of payroll) using a simple signup form with very little risk of fraud - funds can only go into the same payroll accounts deposits made from etc.
Instead, we got a totally stupid system where massive fees were paid to folks who had no clue to supposedly screen folks using easily alterable documents. The fraud if they care to look is going to be high AND the pain was extreme for folks applying. All of which could have been avoided. My point - a unionized workforce would not have messed this up as badly as a bunch of whacko political appointees with no clue, so I'm not necessarily against public sector unions if it helps with retention.
Typically, in private union shops there is a check and balance between union demands and the viability of a business. Meaning, if a union gets too greedy they create a threat to their own existence by potentially driving their employer out of business. I witnessed this in the automotive sector when unions had to renegotiate their rates in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Workers brought in afterwards were often making less than half of what they would have made if brought in before renegotiation. I don’t think that same check exists (or is at the very least slower and weakened) in the public sector because the govt is a monopoly and can often raise taxes. Sure citizens can try to elect politicians that buffer this but at best it’s a process that takes years to enact and at worst is ineffectual. Because they have a captive “customer” base and a “company” that can’t go out of business, it provides a theoretical avenue for extortion. Besides all of that, civil servants are intended to serve the populace (hence the term servant) and not be strictly motivated by personal gain; they generally take an oath, meaning they are expected to answer to a higher calling. (I also have lots of reasons to believe public unions are beneficial but like I said, just wanted to potentially give a side you weren’t familiar with)
Regarding PPP, there’s been some good links in this thread that show public sector unions are quite strong despite the dwindling private sector unions. Meaning government policies are not enacted devoid of union influence. High level policies will almost always be driven by political appointees so I have doubts that an even more unionized public sector would impact on these policies
Not for everyone of course.
One model I've seen some pretty large success with is employee ownership of companies. They seem to tolerate the total disaster flake outs less than unions do. I've seen unions fight for the drunk guy who hit someone with a forklift. My exposure to employee ownership shows it is complicated and there can be problems, but for whatever reason stuff happens.
Collectives on the other hand didn't really work - too many opinions? I know berkeley's collectives all fell apart.
With the government job security, that always struck me as a reason to not need a union. Why pay dues if the largest benefit is already provided? (Of course there are other benefits, but I imagine job security is usually near the top)
This actually does not happen. A business can be profitable while keeping quite a lot of dysfunction inside.
Unions and collective bargaining at their best give the employees leverage for better pay and profit share. They do create bad incentives around making it hard to fire bad employees and making things slow.
Unionization doesn't remove this ability, you know.