[Frondo]

You're being downvoted because this isn't true.

No one is ever legally obligated to join a union in the U.S. You may be required to pay dues, since the union affords you protections even if you're not a member, but you'll never be required to join it.

It's also not true that "don't like what your union is doing, tough luck". Unions are democratic organizations. Don't like what it's doing? Take your case to your fellow union members, persuade them, and steer the ship to what you do want the union to do.

You seem to have a view of unions that is tinged with much of the anti-union lies that have been propagated for decades in this country. (I won't dignify those lies by calling them propaganda.)

I doubt a handful of forum posts would convince you to reexamine the things you say that aren't true, but I hope you'll consider the fact that you've been mislead for a long time by very wealthy, powerful, media-savvy people.

(Unions are none of these, by the way--not particularly wealthy, nor powerful, and not media-savvy in the slightest.)

[JoshTriplett]

> No one is ever legally obligated to join a union in the U.S. You may be required to pay dues, since the union affords you protections even if you're not a member, but you'll never be required to join it.

So you can instead choose to pay money yet have no voice, or choose to not have a job at that company, or in some cases a job in an entire profession when the union has bought legislation to that effect. Great choice.

> Take your case to your fellow union members, persuade them, and steer the ship to what you do want the union to do.

Sure. And if you can't, then you should be able to stop giving them money if they're going to use it for purposes you oppose.

(For clarity: I have no problems with unions; in some cases they've achieved extraordinary things. I do have problems with mandatory union dues/membership, and mandatory unions for entire professions. Voluntary associations are a great thing; involuntary associations are not.)

[DrScump]

  No one is ever legally obligated to join a union in the U.S.

To "join": not officially. There have been cases of workers not having applications forwarded without including signed provisional cards (known as "card check" organizing[0]).

There is agency shop organizing in which workers have to pay full dues but do not have to join the union. It can be seen as a distinction without a difference to those who have to pay the dues.

Then there's full right-to-work situations, where unions cannot compel workers to join the union or pay dues as a prerequisite to work in that shop.

[0] http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/how-union-card...

[Edit]: closed shop definitional error

[Frondo]

The Taft–Hartley Act outlawed the closed shop in the United States in 1947.

[enknamel]

Actually you are wrong. You can be legally obligated to join a union in any non Right to Work state. Unions almost always have a union security clause forcing employers to only accept their members who are in good standing.

Unions are also not very democratic. They are democratic in principle but once again fall to the tyranny of the majority. If you are a minority in a union you are completely screwed unless you can trump their demands by using a protected class.

Unions have already served their purpose, well their original purpose was racism pure and simple, but their purpose of protecting workers is no longer necessary. Now they exist to only protect themselves.

[vacri]

> well their original purpose was racism pure and simple

Exactly how much work-oriented racism was there in 14th century England, when trade unions were first outlawed? Or in industrial age Britain?

Stop spreading your crazy FUD.

[DrScump]

  since the union affords you protections

I rarely see this mentioned in the media, but another occasional downside of being a union worker is that a collective bargaining agreement can supersede worker-protection regulations -- in other words, your union leaders can leave its members with inferior conditions.

Here's one example I experienced directly. Normal California law at the time mandated minimum break periods and frequencies based on hours worked (e.g. 4+ hour shift = 1 rest break, 5.5+ hours mandated a meal break, 6?+ hours mandated a second rest break).

The union negotiated away all rest and meal breaks in our unit in return for either a shorter shift or slight shift premium depending on which shift one worked.