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Comment by smnrchrds | Hacker News Reader

So many people (even here on HN) think that unions have lost their way and should be abolished because instead of focusing on their duties, they sometimes get involved in politics, through supporting one candidate over another, donating to a campaign, or hiring lobbyists. This example shows how necessary political action is if a union wants to bring real improvement for its members.

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> they sometimes get involved in politics, through supporting one candidate over another, donating to a campaign, or hiring lobbyists.

Union political lobbying is persistent in every election, using ‘sometimes get involved’ is not an accurate description for how frequent it is.

I'll consider worrying about unions lobbying as soon as companies and their industry groups no longer lobby. Absent that, it's downright necessary.

Who would want to be a member of a union that didn't engage in political lobbying? That would indicate a very weak union.

Who would want to be forced to pay union dues to a union who's opposed to their politics?

Someone who wants to earn more money than a comparable non-union job.

Make an extra $5000 to pay $3000 in dues and $3000 in taxes you oppose that those dues lobbied for.

You could also drive an hour to save 3¢/gallon on gas.

After doing a (very) cursory search, average dues are under $500/year and unionized employees have total comp that's almost 50% higher than nonunionized employees [1]. Total comp that's largely not taxed.

This data comes to us from the BLS via an organization whose homepage lists services such as "Counter Union Campaigns", "Union Avoidance", and "THE UNION-FREE PRIVILEGE®".

[1] https://anh.com/the-cost-of-unions/

The part about dues sounds about right. doitwithoutdues.com was Amazon's anti-union propaganda, so they had every incentive (and looking at the website the shamelessness) to exaggerate union dues. Yet, the number they came up with was only $500 per year.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210329213754/https://www.doitw...

Dues tend to be about 1%. 1% of an Amazon software engineer total compensation could go to $3000.

So to break even, a union has to cause wages to be higher than the non-union situation by 1%? That seems simple enough to do. I would be very surprised if the vast majority of unions don't earn their keep tenfold.

I worked for a company with two plants, one unionized and the other one not. For the same job, the unionized plant paid approximately 20% more than the non-unionized one for the same jobs. A 1% due rate would have been a steal of a deal.

My union dues are less than $50 per month, and it's one of the bigger/more powerful unions in the US. I don't agree with everything they do, but the pay, benefits, and security (very hard to be fired) don't have a non-union comp (that I'm aware of, anyway).

Someone who's secure in the knowledge that capital massively outspends labour in lobbying and politician donations anyway

In the UK much of the benefits of Union membership is more like legal insurance. Which in this complicated world is really quite sensible if a rather more boring image.

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