[tptacek]

As an employee, you're already implicitly a member of an unofficial union whether you "join" it or not. Your employer will routinely treat you collectively, mandating extended hours during crunch periods, or changing the equipment they issue your team, or altering your health benefits package.

The only question is, does the employee collective you belong to have any collective bargaining ability or not?

[prepend]

You’re right,but you are a member of one or more implicit unions, not a single.

For example, the dev group could be treated differently than ops than sales than content than mechanical. And you can have different groups even within devs for example. So being able to choose as an employee before joining or through career is important to me.

I have never looked at a union’s value proposition for me and chose to join. Either through not joining a firm, or through not joining an optional union. But I’m a programmer-type and likely others will feel differently based on their conditions and principles.

[stnmtn]

If the majority of your co-workers join the union, at what point do you feel that you would be scabbing by not joining the union that is fighting for better standards for you?

[chrisseaton]

> at what point do you feel that you would be scabbing by not joining the union that is fighting for better standards for you?

But what if I don't like the union's goals or the way it tries to achieve those goals? Not joining them isn't 'scabbing' it's standing up for my own principles.

People talk about unions as if they're some kind of benign force for unquestioned good. In your mind they're simply 'fighting for better standards' without any qualification of what they think those better standards are, how they're fighting to get them, what their end-state is, what other political campaigns unrelated to the job they support, and so on.

The the UK most unions aggressively support one of our main political parties. If you don't want to support that political party then don't join any union because your money will be going to them!

It's not 'scabbing' to stand up to not join a union.

[MangezBien]

> It's not 'scabbing' to stand up to not join a union.

Literally the definition of a scab.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scab definition 3b.

[chrisseaton]

I don't think it's the literal definition that's being debated. The question was about 'do you think you're doing the wrong thing', because saying someone is a scab is a moral judgement, not just a factual one.

[vidarh]

Most unions support Labour because like in most of Europe the Labour party was literally founded by and for the labour movement and the unions. Hence the unions are also represented in the governing organs of Labour as well, as is the case in most Labour parties in Europe.

Of course there certainly are people in unions who do not support Labour, but the historical connection is there because the Labour parties were largely formed as an extension of the work started in and around the unions.

[chrisseaton]

I get the historical connections, but when you present it to a person today and tell them 'and some of your money will go to the Labour Party' and they say 'well why on earth would I want to fund those people?' it all starts to seem like a bad idea.

All arguments seem to circle back to a vague idea of 'but they represent you', for both unions and Labour. I'm sure that's what they think they're doing, but the Conservatives and the Greens also offer to 'represent' me. It's not convincing.

[vidarh]

With the Greens that might be an issue, but I'd argue that most people who consider themselves represented by the Conservatives will be just as uncomfortable being represented by most unions - the very concept of a union is firmly left wing, and many of the large unions in the UK are politically left wing enough that they're a key support base for Corbyn. They're not supporting Labour for fun - they're supporting it because Labour is he closest to the unions goals. If members don't like the goals of the union then they should find another union that represents them better.

[prepend]

I would evaluate the union and choose to stay and join, stay and not join, or leave. There are lots of factors so it’s hard to say.

I think I wouldn’t feel too bad if I was in a position and co-workers joined a union, but I didn’t. But I would feel kind of scabish if I joined a majority union org and didn’t join the union.

Kind of like if you live in a house and your neighbors form an HOA and you choose not to join. I wouldn’t feel bad at all, as I bought the house with the expectation of no HOA.

[idiot900]

At what point does the union feel bad for mandating that I join it, even if I don't want to?

[colejohnson66]

What if your coworkers join the union simply because they have to? At my last job, everyone seemed to resent the union.

[bobwaycott]

Roughly at the moment you elect to—or believe you ought to—enjoy the better standards negotiated by the union members.

[GauntletWizard]

I feel like I would be scabbing if I ever joined a union. The minimal Workers rights are something that society should collectively bargain for; anything beyond that is selling out the rest of humanity for the in-group. You should collaborate with your coworkers, sure, and make sure accurate (if aggregated) salary information is available, but getting a union to represent you basically screws you - the union has leverage on you more than it gives you on your employer. A union is a corporation that you've given a monopoly on your time - Do you expect that to work out well in even a slightly employer-favoring market?

[bobwaycott]

The labor market always favors employers. Ideally, one would love for market conditions to also be favorable to wage-earners, but the market is never not favoring employers because it is laborers who must sell their labor time or starve/die. There is no labor market in which laborers are even mostly favored, or happily surviving and living without selling their labor time. Unions exist as a means to ensure the labor market is not entirely employer-favoring because laborers must sell their labor time or starve—which places them at an automatic disadvantage and maintains employer power in the market. Employers want to pay as little as possible for labor, while maintaining their power over laborers—which is why they’re either openly hostile to unions or (if they’re smarter like, say, tech companies) act in their own best interest by treating employees in ways they believe will prevent unions from being seen as necessary.

[IanDrake]

No, the other questions are:

1) Does your union represent you as talent or just by your seniority?

2) How much more (or less if you're talented) do you make now because you're unionized?

3) How much are you forced to PAY to the union for the privilege of having your job?

[tptacek]

How much are you forced to PAY your employer when they choose to pay you $120,000/yr instead of $130,000/yr? Those kinds of decisions get made collectively (and often arbitrarily) by employers all the time, and you have no recourse other than to the market for a better job.

The right way to think of a union is as a force with similar (but radically reduced) power over your work conditions, but one with different incentives and for which you have some (depending on how healthy the union is) representation.

Unions can obviously be a bad thing! But the idea that they're intrinsically coercive is a little overwrought. All of employment is coercive; the median union simply peels off some of the coercive forces that apply to your job and hands them to the employees as a collective to manage.

[IanDrake]

Just curious if you’ve ever worked in a union job?

I have and my experience was that you will never get paid what you’re worth - if you’re talented.

So if you want to argue that people with less talent can make more money with unions, I would agree... in the short run.

Eventually talent will seek other means and leave the unionized industries. The brain drain will have two negative results, reduced overall productivity and a union demanding more and more for its members who produce less and less.

Ultimately, the company produces worse product and recieves less revenue. Less money to pay the hungry union members who demand even more.

Finally the company says fuck this and moves its production to another country where people will work harder for less.

The whole thing will be blamed on corporate greed and will be used as a rallying call to socialism. ‘Cause that’ll fix it.

[tptacek]

Just curious, have you ever worked in a non-union job?

I have and my experience was that you will never get paid what you're worth --- unless you're ruthless and prioritize gaming review systems over working with your team.

So if you want to argue that people who work exclusively to maximize their short-term outcomes without developing skills or, for that matter, any actual software can make more money without unions, I would agree... in the short run.

Am I fairly characterizing corporate jobs? About as fairly as you're characterizing collective bargaining, is what I think.

[IanDrake]

I take it that’s a no for you.

I’ve only ever had one union job (at a young age) and that told me everything I need to know about unions.

Ultimately if you’re not getting paid what you’re worth, that’s on you. Or you’re wrong about what you’re worth.

I guess our difference is that I’d rather myself to blame for poor negotiating than some union boss, making twice what I make, telling me what I’ll be getting with no ability to negotiate.

[tptacek]

"I’ve only ever had one union job (at a young age) and that told me everything I need to know about unions" pretty nicely sums this unproductive subthread up, doesn't it?