During a summer of my college years a buddy and I had a factory job via a temp firm. The employees were union. It was clear we weren’t liked. We worked harder. You could see them looking at us with a stare, at break time they avoided us like the plague. We’d done nothing to them, it was only later that I learned they were union and hated us because we were making them look bad.
Once I graduated and had a good job, I was scolded by my boss for moving my PC from one desk area to another because I had to unplug & plugin to another outlet - that was union electrician’s job.
In another instance I was writing the technical manuals for custom machinery, the union (within the customer) couldn’t agree if certain tasks were ‘electrical or mechanical’ in nature, so the documentation couldn’t be finished and the machine sat on our floor for months (no delivery until the documentation was complete), while we charged them for it taking floor space. Unreal.
I can appreciate unions having their place. I see it like minimum wage though, I don’t see anyone making that...the market demands more. Would ‘evil’ employers take advantage of employees without unions? Sure, but there’s a lot of jobs out there and people won’t put up with much crap. My only experiences with unions have shown they slow everything down and make everything cost a lot more - to the point where the company is no longer competitive.
I’d argue the threat of employees forming a union provides enough of a motivation to keep employers honest. Once unionized though, the primary goal of the union is to protect the union - not what is best for all.
The US government basically chose to allow the mob to run the unions instead of the Communists, as was the case in most of Europe.
If we are doing u ion stories I’ve got one. In 1970, I sat out year to make money for college. I got a job at a local auto parts plant my dad and uncle worked at in management. After my 60-day probationary period the shop steward came to sign me up for the union. During our discussion he let it be known I would be voting no on the upcoming contract proposal. I casually mentioned I would want to read it first then decide how to vote. He informed that wasn’t how it was done. I told him I wouldn’t vote for anything I hadn’t read, for or against. He took the union sign up form back and informed me they didn’t people like me in the union.