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Comment by annexrichmond | Hacker News Reader

Are you aware of any resources for how to combat colleagues aiming to start a union? I am personally opposed to being part of a union.

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Support for unions in the US is at record highs, so pick carefully where you work I suppose or work as a consultant with no labor protections.

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/03/gen-z-is-the-most-pro...

https://thehill.com/business/4854173-union-approval-surges-p...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/12751/labor-unions.aspx

https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.asp...

I have a simple solution for you: don't join a union if you don't want to be part of one.

That option isn't always available, at least in the US. Unless you live in a right-to-work state, you may be forced to join the union as a condition of employment.

Somehow this is seen as "more progressive."

There is a conflicting tension.

Freeriding

If a union negotiates better conditions at a workplace, who should be subject to them? Everybody, of course IMO

But what of people who never paid union dues?

There is no nice tidy solution to that tension, only messy ones that impinge on a freedom somewhere

It is worth unionising, voluntarily

If you don't like the people you're working with, you could quit.

You could also vote no on a unionization vote, or just not join. I'm sure your loyalty will get a special consideration when the next round of arbitrary layoffs (coupled with record-breaking profits) happens.

Just don't join. Closed shops are already illegal in the US so nobody can make you.

> Closed shops are already illegal in the US

I do wonder what country American Airlines operates in then…

https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-fired-two-flig...

I don’t know about this case specifically, but airlines frequently have different labor laws. They’ll be the exception to all sorts of unqualified statements.

Per AA's 10-K, in 2024 87% of American Airlines employees were represented by a union[1]. So according to that source it sounds like the people who were fired were union members that didn't pay their dues.

They could surely have paid their dues and left the union and kept their jobs (or could have never joined the union to begin with).

[1] https://americanairlines.gcs-web.com/node/42651/html#:~:text...

100% of flight attendants are union members and it is a closed shop as per AA's FA union and per AA.

So looks like you're right but there's also some weird language technicality for "closed shop" where it's really a "union shop".

Per the APFA contract[1] employees are forced to join the union within 60 days of assignment as a flight attendant. This is technically considered a union shop (not a closed shop) because it doesn't require people to be union members before being hired.

Under the Taft-Hartley Act a lot of states (and in some situations, court decisions) have made this illegal[2] via right-to-work laws but airlines are covered under the Railway Labor Act (45 U.S.C. § 152)[3] which allows it (upheld by the US Supreme Court in Railway Employes' Department v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225)[4] .

So, I was wrong and the employees had no choice but continue to be union members and pay dues or be fired because of airline-specific labor law.

[1] https://www.apfa.org/contract/ [page 237, 35-10]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

[3] https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:45%20section:...

[4] https://www.loc.gov/resource/usrep.usrep351225/?pdfPage=1

I inferred they didn't want to be represented by a union. US law requires a union to represent non members.

Only about half of US states have right-to-work laws.

Are you required to be part of this union, if it forms?

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