The majority of people that benefit most under a union are those inclined to be lazy, those that are not qualified as it's very difficult to fire them. It's the ideal position for them.
Those that are neither are forced to carry their weight as a result. My union was okay in overall negotiating but supporting workers individually? Difficult to get their attention. The bigger problem was that they bled the company dry, a company with questionable leadership anyway, between the two factors the workers suffered with lost hours and lowered benefits because of the lost hours.
The place I'm with now has competitive pension and insurance, direct access to the boss to negotiate terms, and is able to undercut the competition in prices. If you do not do the job, you are fired. I prefer this environment. In its way it's far more secure than a store slowly dying due to the grip of a union.
The majority of people that benefit most under a union are those inclined to be lazy, those that are not qualified as it's very difficult to fire them. It's the ideal position for them.
***
That has been my beef about unions today -- they do little more than protecting the slackers...or negotiating ridiculous terms that bankrupt the employer.
Yes, unions did good things at one time. They are credited with the 40-hour work week, elimination of child labor and generally a decent wage. But then most of the unions became greedy or incompetent. You had the steelworkers and auto makers earning $20 per hour, and that was 30 or so years ago. Then you had some, like my dad's union, which couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper sack.
My favorite union perk: the steelworkers' 13-week vacation. I had an uncle who worked for the late Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. He qualified on a couple of occasions for that 13-week vacation. But he could not take the vacation piecemeal throughout the year -- he had to take it all at once. He and his family did not travel, so he spent maybe the first couple of weeks performing the tasks on his "honey-do" list. But when those jobs were completed, he had maybe another 10 or 11 weeks of vacation to go. He wound up being bored out of his skull...he couldn't wait to go back to work. And the company, during those 13-week stints, had to essentially pay him not to work. Multiply that by the number of workers qualified to receive that vacation and how many take that vacation at any given time period, and already, you have a rather good idea of why J&L and other steelmakers are no longer in business.
Generally speaking, in most of the places I have worked, if I did my job, I have always had a decent wage, a good pension plan (that I can direct myself, instead of relying on my employer or (yuk) Social Security), reasonably good health insurance, and more than enough vacation. But if I screwed up, I was fired. Seems to me that it is a more than fair relationship any employer. What else can a union really do for me? Nothing. But they can, and have, done considerable harm.
My union was okay in overall negotiating but supporting workers individually?
***
Happened in my Dad's union -- one of his co-workers had a massive heart attack and was denied disability, even though his doctors said if he went back to work, he'd be dead in a few months, maybe even weeks. Did the union fight for him? Nope.
***
The other thing you mentioned...about direct negotiation with the boss...that is also a good thing. I work for a small outfit, but if I needed, say, a day off to do something, I can ask and receive. I don't have to go through a union.