Unless you live in a "Right to Work" state, then you get to benefit from the work of unions without contributing any money to their efforts, much like a leech benefits from the blood production of the animal it attaches itself to.
I think the comparison to a leech is accurate, as the leech does not know or understand it is a bloodsucking parasite, but continues to steal blood and nutrients, those ignorant of the work unions perform will benefit from them regardless of their contribution.
Rarely do you find someone who both genuinely understands what a union is for and declines to join when offered the opportunity.
Some countries are like that. There are pros and cons to it though.
The unions are stronger when people bother joining.
Also, being covered by an agreement at your work is only part of what unions offer. They have other services for members, like getting your salary checked, legal support, salary insurance, various discounts for stuff, etc.
It might be tempting to save the membership fee, but don't be a leech. Someone worked hard to get the benefits for everyone. Join the union.
i was a part of the union for several years, went to meetings and voted and everything. unfortunately i became disabled and the amount of medical bills etc became so overwhelming i had to cut everything i could. since i was still covered by the union, i had to make that choice for me, even tho it bothers me. I'm not a leech, just in an unfortunate financial position currently. $40 is a lot for some people, especially if they have mouths to feed :(
If Amazon paid someone/company to do this, then it definitely is illegal. But likely no jail for anyone, just minor fines chocked up to the "cost of doing business"
This whole election is nuts. RFK Jr. is gonna gut the FDA and NIH so they have to outsource more and draw more lawsuits which will feed his own stupid advocacy firm, or he'll switch his company over to consulting and score millions more by outsourcing the FDA to his own workers. And Elon is obviously going to benefit himself. And Trump is gonna wreak havoc on the economy in the long run with his tariffs if he's being serious, and his border policies are a disaster... this isn't going to go well.
As a Single Mother With Two Children I am afraid that the Union will be bad, aktuly. Are you disagreeing with me? You simply don't understand what its like to be a Single Mother With Two Children. Why are you attacking me? I am a simple Single Mother With Two Children who is too weak and tired to argue with you.
As a Single Mother With Two Children I am just asking questions about why the Union is bad and now you, a big Pro-Union Thug, are hurting me and my Two Children who are very small and vulnerable.
Stop! Please! Help! The Union is Hurting Me! It's just as I anticipated!
That's such a laughably bad "unions bad" take. If there was such a thing as a kind of insurance where they fight to keep you employed, people would probably sign up and pay the fees.
When I was a union rep there would be people that would bitch about the $70 bucks a month or whatever the dues were. I would explain that without the union their pay would be far, far less (not even bringing up the benefits of work hours, vacation days and whatnot). Like the "all taxes are theft" morons, the words often fell on deaf and willfully ignorant ears.
It's not even just about money, and anyone who's worked a union job will tell you that. Many of the benefits of unions aren't completely measurable (e.g. correcting the balance of power in favor of workers, even if just a tiny bit).
Because these people don't see the bigger picture. They see they could get $35 if they didn't have to pay the union. What they don't see is that the union is the reason they're "getting" $35 and without the union they're definitely not going to get $35. And obviously any non-monetary benefit (such as more days off) goes way over their heads.
could have been real because of some "ambassador" scheme they had where they'd hook a select few warehouse workers with social media handles to spread the propaganda
Union payments in Iceland are like $20 per month. I'm pretty sure union workers get at least 20 cents more per hour than non union workers to break even.
union busting tactics in the us are basically on toddler level. remember the pamphlet that was sent out to united airlines workers when they were unionising? "union dues are $600 a year. why not spend that money on a new videogame system instead?"
In the US standard is 2.5 hrs/month. I can't say for certain I made that back cash, but by the time benefits and job security were added i more than made it up
What bothers me most about unions is the increased bargaining power labour gets when they work together. As a manager, my employer expects me to use every trick possible to pay those actually making the company run as little as possible and unions make it much harder to get my bonuses.
But I use one neat trick and pay the employees the money that then gets directed to running the union as a deduction from their paycheck and many of them don't even notice that the difference in overall take-home because of that increased bargaining power is higher than the union dues. They focus on the nickels and dimes and don't even notice the dollars!
And the fact that I need to meet certain criteria before I can fire them due to the union contact doesn't even show up on the paycheck--they often don't even think about it until it's too late!
that’s why education in the topic matters. So the roomtemp mf have the info before the business gets to feed them desinfo (or before they try to think for themselves and come to wrong conclusions)
I do know plenty of people who think this way, and I find the post quite plausible. There’s been so much disinformation about unions in the US, for the last couple generations, that people don’t know any better.
However as an edge case, I do believe it was true for my brother working part time minimum wage. As far as we could tell there were no benefits for the part timers, no extra pay, no protections, no perks, just extra dues to pay. It’s too bad too, this could have been the unions chance to re-educate, show them benefits when someone is starting out so they support unions the rest of their lives. Instead it reinforced his prior attitude and he remains anti-union to this day
This person may be a higher up at Amazon, knowing that unions will diminish her bonuses (salary) because the workers underneath her are making more and no quotas are being met.
I've always wondered, what prevents creating a corporation to hire every worker possible, makes them proportional owners, and then negotiates wages and benefits on their behalf?
One enormous corporation that has all of the benefits of a union.
I think a major issue is that if the corporation cannot find work for all of its employees, how will it pay them? And since, presumably, there will be admin staff required who also need to be paid, the amount this corporation will charge the employers of the workers will have to be more than is paid to the workers. If this amount is significant, employers can poach employees from the "union corp" by offering more money, while still saving themselves money.
But that's not true. It depends if you live in a "right-to-work" state. Currently there are 26 of them, mostly red states. I would assume that, by population, the majority of Americans do not live in "right-to-work" states.
Yeah I live in a populous red state and was forced to join a union for a job. It was as bad as how they forced me to wear hearing protection and steel toe shoes on the factory floor. Watch out or you may be forced to do such things as well
While I don't agree with her sentiment, I can absolutely believe some human union employees would say this. I don't know if this applies to Amazon jobs, but in the union I know (caregivers) one problem is workers with very few hours have to pay the same monthly dues. Still not really a valid point for most people, but for those few that get caught in it, definitely bittersweet and they will grumble.
I used to consider myself libertarian. Now I understand how basic that is.
Think of it this way, when you're way ahead in a video game (one without anti-snowball mechanics), how hard is it to maintain and grow that lead? First, when it's a team game, you're likely to have opponents just leave, or start fighting each other.
Some people will say the world isn't zero sum, which is true. But when they take the whole sum, it sure feels that way.
Besides just what is right, the economy works better for everyone when people have money to spend. People who have something to lose commit less crime. If all the money does collect in very few hands, the economy grinds to a halt.
Unions can be useful.... I have a friend who after 30 years would clearly be fired and replaced by three new employees with no experience because, to a director it looks like he or she saved money and so can be guaranteed a promotion.....
Where I disagree with Unions is that they have no accountability.
If they negociate a scrappy deal or employees get no salary increase, they should give back to the employee as a padding or a rainy day situation considering union members do continue to pay the ever increasing fee of union membership.
I see unions here in Quebec(Canada) becoming fabulously rich while their scrape by...
Just look at companies that have seamstresses, they will offer full suits for the higher strata of society and yet the working conditions are like sweat shops.... And they are unionized which makes you wonder how bad it could get....
It feels, from my perspective that unions are useful so long as people can opt out and vote anonymously which is not always the case....
Unions also fund legal fees for individual employees problems, with the goal of challenging future unfair decisions by employers against isolated individuals.