"Democratic practices are completely unrelated to a work environment."
Maybe to YOUR work environment, but not all.
What gains did we get? Well, for one, a voice so that we could communicate with management in an orgainzed way, just as management generally do with the labourforce. Before, each person who had a problem was isolated and dealing with it alone.
Then add in the free legal representation, negotiation advice, free training etc etc
"Then add in the free legal representation, negotiation advice, free training etc etc"
Wow. Free? Really? Where do you think the money comes from? The union has operative expenses that it pays for with the dues you pay. You PAY for those things and the overhead it takes to support them. Your employer probably pays a bit for them too, and as a result probably increases prices or decreases employee benefits to compensate.
Try owning and running a business sometime and tell me how much you think it would benefit you (and your business) to be "democratized".
In a democracy, people run things. In a corporation, the owners run things. I'm not saying that they should run things without thinking about what their employees want, I'm just saying that by definition, a corporation isn't a democracy.
What kind of issues were there that the union dealt with?
Maybe to YOUR work environment, but not all.
What gains did we get? Well, for one, a voice so that we could communicate with management in an orgainzed way, just as management generally do with the labourforce. Before, each person who had a problem was isolated and dealing with it alone.
Then add in the free legal representation, negotiation advice, free training etc etc