Unions also don't always work in the interest of everyone they represent. For instance, they tend to be protective of older and longer working members in exchange for limiting upward mobility of younger members. Or building policies that encourage the growth of the union as an organization, despite potential costs.
It’s true. My first job was as a cashier at Kroger. I remember looking at the pay tables and being shocked. You could make impressive money as a cashier at Kroger… if you worked there for 30 years. Virtually no one I worked with had even worked there for more than a few years either. Meanwhile, I earned just above the federal minimum wage and multiple hours of my weekly earnings went to little more than protecting my “right” to “no-call, no-show” for six straight days in a row before being fired. I never did this. It seemed unfair. Others did and I had to work that much harder on those days.
One day a union rep stopped by. He was very well-dressed, and he had this beaming smile. He gave me a t-shirt. That pretty much summed up the benefits I experienced.
I remain pro-union, but every time the subject comes up I think there’s a lot more nuance there than people would like to admit. My Dad, for example, has worked at a union job for over 30 years. Ironically, he’s a Republican. He makes decent money now, but the job is very labor intensive, and the healthcare sucks. He’s repeatedly turned down a promotion into management because he’d be out of the union and earning a salary that is not that much higher than what he currently earns per hour. He’s also told me repeatedly that kids just don’t want to work anymore because the turnover rate is high. Many starting out, especially those with dependents, complain that it’s not worth it for what they earn. He holds that although it’s not great it’s enough. Recently, in an attempt to persuade him to take a promotion, he learned that the healthcare plans offered to management are 2-3x cheaper for better benefits than what the union has negotiated. It’s been pretty crazy to watch his opinion slowly begin to shift.
He is staying in for protection. The extra money doesn't make up for having your experience count as added protection (they can't fire him, they can reduce those jobs and employees with more service time will keep the job first).
If a company can fire quickly and replace with cheaper options no one is going to last more than a few years. Many software shops do this (meta, Amazon, generic local company, etc.
I share your experiences working in a union environment when younger and having family have live long jobs. In one case I felt the union was against me or my class of worker (student employee) because we took away from regular union jobs. Still had to pay dues. The other union job just took a few dollars from my paycheck but gave me a wage I couldn't earn elsewhere.
When you become an older worker, and experience firsthand the vulnerability of seniority, you realize why your union was always so protective of older workers. I would think many tech workers over ~35 can relate.
The fundamental idea of most unions seems to be, that once labor recognizes that it is working for a monopoly, instead of working to break up that monopoly, they decide to form one of their own in order to gain some power of negotiation with their employer. Typically to the detriment of the consumer market and the labor market.
For new entrants into the labor market, as you've flagged, now they have to successfully negotiate between two overly large entities with predictably unfortunate results. Labor is best served as a competitive market and unions should only be used in the few limited circumstances where they are otherwise unavoidable.
