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> Unions are necessary because your employer is richer, stronger, and has more lawyers than you do as an individual. In unity there is strength.

To me this is the key point, that often gets lost or forgotten. Companies inherently benefit from a power imbalance, proportional to the size of the company, and you represent a cost center to them most of the time. This places you at a huge, and permanent, disadvantage, and one of the only ways to combat it is unify with other workers and bargain. The only person or group who exists to maximize your well-being is you/your union, not your employer, so it makes sense not to trust the employer to look out for you. They're busy maximizing returns for shareholders.

I have seen many cases where senior union members, who often compose the leadership of the union, will strike deals that benefit older union members over younger union members.

See all the government employee pension plans with tier benefits where older employees in older tiers have higher benefits than younger employees. Or they will accept underfunding for a couple decades since the underfunding will not affect benefits paid during their lifetime.

Yes, unions can be inefficient, ineffective, and even corrupt. They are democratic control over the workplace, with all the problems that brings with it. We elect plenty of shitty politicians after all. But the alternative is no chance of any power in the employment relationship. It is like saying "yeah we elected that president and they were garbage, we should really just let richest ten people in the country get together and decide who is president moving forward."

Benevolent megacorps aren't really real. When WalMart was found to be systematically underpaying and underpromoting women in their stores through rigorous statistical analysis, the CEO did interviews saying that the company needed to do better and then turned around and argued in front of the Supreme Court that all of the underpaid women couldn't count as a class for a class action suit and had their claims dismissed.

>It is like saying "yeah we elected that president and they were garbage, we should really just let richest ten people in the country get together and decide who is president moving forward."

I did not intend to make an anti union statement, just wanted to show how a “union” might not have the best interest of all union members in mind. Similar to how older taxpayers punt costs into future taxpayers.

UAW is a large union that is, right now, trying to make their employers get rid of such a system. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-have-a-pension-they-dont...

Some unions are better than others, but all unions are democratic (at least to some degree) and engaged members can improve them.

You missed the part that in some countries, even if they don't join, depending on the union structure, they would still get the benefits from the industry agreements made between the union, government and industrial partners.

This is a key component of the Nordic model. The legislatures in the Nordics choose to not legislate a minimum salary and make a number of labor laws conditional to collective agreements.

The theory is that the threat of legislation is sufficient to prevent imbalance between the parties. The state takes on the role as antagonist, making the unions and employers (somewhat uneasy) partners in trying to self-regulate. If they fail, parliament legislates, which is generally speaking perceived as an undesired outcome by everyone (crucially including most political parties).

From my Swedish point of view the model seems to work for private local employers, but struggles with the globalized tech workforce and for some public sector employees. It also seems to complicate work visa compliance by hiding away some of the terms.

Yes, in many countries in Europe, the industry wide unions negotiate with representatives of the industry employers, and government can declare the deal binding for all companies of a certain size in the industry.

Also if workers go on strike they don't get paid by their job, the union can pay them something instead from fees they received in the past.

>Some unions can engage in secondary action

Note:

Taft-Hartley Act outlawed secondary striking as an "unfair business practice" in the United States, so if a secondary strike does happen, union organizers need to tread carefully; as claiming 're striking in support of another shop' without there being anything to strike over with their current employer is basically admitting to engaging in verboten behavior.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide for themselves whether it is a good thing, or a bad one.

Very cogent explanation, thank you. I hope very much that workers in Amazon warehouses are able to get unions happening on a large scale.

What if I’m just better than the rest? What if I can assemble 45 amplifiers a day when my coworkers can only manage 17? (This actually happened to me, long ago.) it is my impression that a union would not allow me to negotiate better terms for myself. Or am I incorrect?

In the US, you are correct. By default, it is illegal for a company to negotiate terms with any individual covered by a union, even if that individual is not a dues paying member of the union.

Technically, you are allowed negotiate, but it is illegal for the company to accept and it is not legally binding, so it is functionally equivalent to it being illegal to negotiate terms for yourself (assuming you want to negotiate, it is obviously better at preventing unilateral corporate abuse as the corporation would be on the hook for tricking you).

I believe you can negotiate if the union lets you, but by default you can not. Also, you can not unilaterally waive union representation either, even if you are not a member, so if the union does not allow it you would need to convince 50% of the covered individuals to change the rules or dissolve the union.

You are incorrect.

That being said, it is dependent on two things.

Some jurisdictions may only allow for a single contract. I don't know where you live, but in my part of the world there's nothing stopping you from negotiating a personal deal. But it can't undercut the union minimum.

The second is the more important part - does the company want to negotiate with an individual? Most places don't. It costs time, money, and effort to do salary negotiations. Companies don't want to set individual contracts for 500 different workers.

In those worst cases, workers are almost always still better off with the union deal.

"Union" does not automatically mean "everyone doing job X gets $Y/hr, no matter what."

Many unions allow for performance-based pay increases. Furthermore, if you're actually doing better (in a situation like you describe, it should be trivial to prove this), it is likely that the union would help you negotiate a better performance-based pay increase than you would be able to negotiate on your own.

How many amplifier companies actually enable their factory workers to negotiate individually effectively in ways that they couldn't with a union? Why couldn't a union negotiate terms that guarantee pay for performance in the way you want? In software, people often complain about doing the work of a certain level but not being able to be paid at that level. Union contracts could mean a seat at the table on promotion decisions.

And sure, there will probably be some people who are in unusual positions where they can negotiate more effectively by themselves. Similarly, there are people who would improve their status in the United States if we had a Putin-esque autocracy. Even if someone personally benefits from this scheme, I consider it to be pretty bad for uber wealthy individuals to sabotage our democracy so that they maximally increase their wealth.

> Union contracts could mean a seat at the table on promotion decisions.

That sounds like a nightmare to me.

Some people think that, I guess. I'd rather have somebody who is explicitly advocating for me in the room rather than a faceless committee that is almost completely unaccountable.

In some countries it goes even further. There's a thing called sympathy strikes where workers in the same "federation" of unions join in. So if you as an employer screw over your employees, your business will come to a halt. Everybody working within that same "federation" will refuse to service you. So no mail, no trash pickup, no goods delivered, no maintenance work etc. You are essentially shut down until you play ball.

This is all good in theory so here is my question: since unions are essentially a power structure at its core what happens when they try to abuse their positions? What is the check/balance or counter to that?

Members can vote against those changes. They can vote in new leadership. Or they can stop paying dues and / or join a different union.

In my last workplace, there were a choice of 3 different unions I could have joined. I picked the one which aligned best with my needs, took part in how it was run, and could have stopped if I thought they weren't acting in my best interests.

No I am asking for a situation when the unions have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits out of the company while actively encouraging its members to put in the absolute bare minimum of effort. This will in a few years time will make the company's products prohibitevly expensive due to the associated cost inflation. As a result of which the company's products are no longer competitive in the free market unless heavily subsidized by tax payer dollars (think UAW and its role in gutting American car mannufacturing. These days except for states in rural US, cars made by American car companies: GM, Ford, Chrysler are mostly considered as jokes all over the world).

I mean the very simple question is: who pays? What protects the shareholders, management and the employees?

I'm not from the USA - so I don't know about that specific case.

But let's take your premise and reword it.

What happens if shareholders have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits out of the company while actively encouraging its demise?

We see that all the time with private equity groups loading up on debt so they can make a huge profit and then letting the company go bust.

What happens if senior managers have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits for minimum effort?

Again, how many CEOs get golden parachutes after wrecking a company?

Who protects the workers in those situations?

You'll find (in some cases) unions do take a long term view. They want to secure long term benefits rather than a short term bump. That's because they're working for people who need a regular pay cheque. So you'll see compromises being made in order to secure longer term employment.

So you have basically decided not to answer the relevant question but to parrot an idiotic left wing garbage narrative.

Okay! in that case, I rest my case that unions can actually be very harmful due to it being a power structure and particularly if they are not subjected to any check and balances.

Sorry, I had to reply to both…

> So you decided not to answer the relevant question but to parrot and idiotic left wing garbage narrative.

No, he had answered your first question and then you came up with an absurd hypothetical as a rebuttal, so he responded with an extension of your hypothetical which demonstrates its absurdity.

> I rest my case that unions can actually be very harmful due to it being a power structure and particularly if they are not subjected to any check and balances.

Sure, but the topic was if having unions was better than not… anything can be harmful given some abnormal premises, so you’ve made no valid point.

As a side question, is your objective to ‘win’ the argument, or be correct? To me, it sounds like the former.

> As a side question, is your objective to ‘win’ the argument, or be correct? To me, it sounds like the former.

My objective here is to get to the truth - nothing more and nothing less. Unions can be "every bit harmful" since they are a power structure and power corrupts. Unrestrained, unfettered, corrupt unions can do more harm than good. They are not a cure all remedy for all problems a modern "evil" corporation might have [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBudiVNsW2E

> What protects the shareholders, management, and the employees?

When you say protect these entities, what risk does each of these entities endure by being part of the company?

The employees usually put their entire livelihood with the company, and, at least in the US, an employee is dependent upon the employer for pretty much all sources of income and healthcare.

The managers could be classified into two groups: one who is also beholden to their employer, much like an employee and has little to no agency in their job (low/mid level management), and the other who has an ownership-stake or large compensation which prevents a loss-of-livelihood style coercion from their employer.

Often, the second class of management blends into the shareholder group, and their will dictates the policies and objectives of the company. A rapid change in this group (e.g., through a buyout, key member dying), results in rapid changes to the livelihoods of its employees.

The shareholders risk one thing: capital. While capital is important, and can affect one’s life significantly, the shareholder has no other risk.

Personally, I’d rather protect the employees at the risk of the shareholders.

> No I am asking for a situation when the unions have an agenda of extracting maximum benefits out of the company while actively encouraging its members to put in the absolute bare minimum of effort.

Sure, in this is specific situation a company would fail. Something to note, however, is that the objective of a union is never to stop its members from making money. Doing things which would harm the company into not being competitive would necessarily harm the union’s members.

Two key differences here between a union and the owners of a company doing this (which you scoffed at in your other reply), are:

1) if performed by the owners, the profits from this maximum-extraction would go to the owners, but if performed by the union it would be self-destructive, and

2) the decision to do so would’ve been done by an elected group and never potentially at the whims of an owner (for instance, an activist investor with a desire to strip it down for parts and make more than the purchase price).

> This will in a few years time will make the company's products prohibitevly expensive due to the associated cost inflation.

There is no evidence that this would be the case, because no union has ever acted like your hypothetical union.

> think the UAW and how in gutting American car manufacturing

This isn’t true, and you’ll need to provide some evidence for me to take this claim seriously; it is much more time consuming for me to clear up B.S. than it is for someone to make it up.

> Personally, I’d rather protect the employees at the risk of the shareholders.

Sorry, but thats not how capitalism operates. Modern corporations are created for the benefit of share holders and they operate for only one reason and one reason only i.e. "to maximize" shareholder value [1].

Honestly, you seem to be living in some alternative "la la la la" land where you perceive reality in a very different way or at least want reality to be what you want it to be than what currently it is. I am not quite sure how to argue with people who hold beliefs similar to yours. Please note, we are not arguing here as to what is fair or not (read my response carefully) as per some definition of fairness.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr...

> Sorry, but thats not how capitalism operates. Modern corporations are created for the benefit of share holders and they operate for only one reason and one reason only i.e. "to maximize" shareholder value [1].

Sure, but we should quote Friedman a bit more completely… “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

The key caveats to maximizing shareholder value are that this maximization happens ‘within the rules of the game’ and when the business ‘engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.’ A market’s ‘rules of the game,’ so to speak, are set by the government which has the power to enforce those rules.

Part of those rules include what can and cannot be made into a contract, and, in particular, what types of contracts wouldn’t be enforceable because of coercion. If an employee would lose their house because of a business’s decision (and the business has no objective incentive to warn the employee of this potential), I’d argue that most parts of the employer/employee relationship are coercive. A union can mitigate that somewhat by providing a real cost the business for not negotiating in good faith.

In addition, the ‘rules of the game’ are changed by the government, which itself is affected by large market players.

Outside of that: this is a rather one-sided discussion. I’ve given rather full responses and you’ve provided nothing other than ‘no you’re wrong, here’s a partial quote,’ and ‘what about this ridiculous hypothetical?’ Do you have any rebuttal to what I said, or is the ‘personally, I’d rather protect the employees at the risk of shareholders,’ the extent of what you can argue against?

> pay us a better wage or we'll stop working for you

unfortunately it's illegal to fire a group of people who strike, so if you're wondering why companies don't just say "sure, stop working then", that's why.

Good explanation. But it should be noted that though democratic, unions have had and some still have issues with corruption. This is one reason why workers may be against a union.