Like which jobs? Amazon, McDonalds, Walmart all are non-union. Major union professions are nurses, teachers, plumbers, steel workers, automotive workers, none of which are exactly low paid
I think a prerequisite for union to be successful is that it's members have leverage by withholding their collective labor, otherwise how to they negotiate?
> Professional certifications, tests, dues, stupid rules about who can do what job when? No thanks.
That can be part of a union, but then they are democratic, so it depends on who you elect to run things. A bad union is just like a bad employer.
> I'll gladly collectively bargain for higher compensation and better conditions though.
I mean that's literally the point of a union. they are there to bring the money to take the employer to court. (ideally the threat is enough to get changes.)
I do think its cute that you think that a democratic union is akin to communism. There is nothing stopping a workplace from having more than one union, its quite common in the UK.
> There is nothing stopping a workplace from having more than one union, its quite common in the UK.
I really hope I’m misinformed here, but I don’t think that’s the case in the US and I think it might even be illegal to do it that way here :( It does sound a lot better that way.
> That can be part of a union, but then they are democratic, so it depends on who you elect to run things. A bad union is just like a bad employer
I think a bad union is more common than a bad company, since collectives run democratically produce less agile and less productive outcomes than collectives run executively. Unfortunately a union has to run democratically, because they seek to produce equitable outcomes, not productive outcomes.
To rephrase what I'm saying, I would prefer a single manager deciding how my job functions over a democratically elected committee deciding how my job functions, except when it comes to negotiating higher wages, compensation, obvious safety concerns, hours, etc.
> I do think its cute that you think that a democratic union is akin to communism. There is nothing stopping a workplace from having more than one union, its quite common in the UK
I don't think it is akin to communism, I just think the same failings that enable people to blindly prefer communism also lead them to blindly prefer unions. In my experience in the US, unions typically negotiate an exclusive and mandatory contract with the company. All employees have to join the union.
Reading the wiki on US unions, it seems the things I complain about are actually caused by the US federal union laws themselves. The worst part being:
> Once the union won the support of a majority of the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment
[edit]: Too add, it seems clear that unions, as they currently are in the US, are useful for lower paid, low skill jobs. For higher skill, higher pay jobs, which this Tesla job may be, I don't think unions are an obvious good.
