There is a balance that needs to be struck. Back when we were peak union in the UK in the 70s their leaders would hold the country to randsom. They’d tell politicians that they want them gone and would instigate bi-weekly blackouts until they got what they wanted. Every household was well stocked with candles and wood logs due to the number of orchestrated blackouts.
The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction in recent years. Now professions with strong unions like train drivers are among the only people who have had their wages keep up with inflation over the past 10 years.
Some jobs don’t lend themselves to having unions but they are the minority. Even software developers probably should have unions these days - if people don’t want to be part of one they can always work as a contractor instead.
My wife is a data analyst for what’s essentially a tech firm, she’s unionized and in her particular circumstances it’s amazing. Fully remote, 3 raises last year LoL, great benefits etc etc. I work with unions and many are not nearly as good for their members as others.
I’d agree with this generally. Again, my issue largely have this idea of unions as being this magical, fantasy like interpretation of collective bargaining that magically and suddenly solved almost all employment related issues.
I’ve been in several unions. Some were very good. Others I feel were genuinely bad to operations and employees. The vast majority of them simply didn’t really do anything
Unions are great in theory! But the mob of already well paid computer scientists who rush up on Lemmy and act like they’re this magical solution other workers simply didn’t think of is obnoxious.
Yeah would agree with that assessment. Every human organization is liable to dysfunction/corruption if run badly and organized labour is not immune to this.
There is a balance that needs to be struck. Back when we were peak union in the UK in the 70s their leaders would hold the country to randsom. They’d tell politicians that they want them gone and would instigate bi-weekly blackouts until they got what they wanted. Every household was well stocked with candles and wood logs due to the number of orchestrated blackouts.
The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction in recent years. Now professions with strong unions like train drivers are among the only people who have had their wages keep up with inflation over the past 10 years.
Some jobs don’t lend themselves to having unions but they are the minority. Even software developers probably should have unions these days - if people don’t want to be part of one they can always work as a contractor instead.
My wife is a data analyst for what’s essentially a tech firm, she’s unionized and in her particular circumstances it’s amazing. Fully remote, 3 raises last year LoL, great benefits etc etc. I work with unions and many are not nearly as good for their members as others.
I’d agree with this generally. Again, my issue largely have this idea of unions as being this magical, fantasy like interpretation of collective bargaining that magically and suddenly solved almost all employment related issues.
I’ve been in several unions. Some were very good. Others I feel were genuinely bad to operations and employees. The vast majority of them simply didn’t really do anything
Unions are great in theory! But the mob of already well paid computer scientists who rush up on Lemmy and act like they’re this magical solution other workers simply didn’t think of is obnoxious.
Yeah would agree with that assessment. Every human organization is liable to dysfunction/corruption if run badly and organized labour is not immune to this.