[naravara]

One of the big problems in the US is that they're organized at the shop level and consituted to represent the interests of their present membership rather than the interests of the workers in the industry more broadly. This leads to some perverse, short-sighted incentives.

For example the IBEW, which organizes electrical workers, decided to come out against the Green New Deal even though most of what the GND does would create tons of new jobs for electrical workers in the fields of solar and wind power, in developing distributed smart grids, and generally overhauling all sorts of infrastructure to come in line with new energy efficiency regulations. But most of the IBEW members are from the incument energy companies rather than part of the new energy companies that would come to life if we kicked off a Green industrial policy. They have no interest in growing the field of electrical workers as a profession, they're focused specifically on protecting the interests of the people currently employed as electrical workers.

This feeds into a lot of criticisms people have about unions preferentially focusing on creating benefits for seniority and incumbency over actually protecting the rights and status of workers more broadly.

[duxup]

Yeah there very much is a preserve the status quo in US unions.

I've seen a lot of "Feel free to learn new skills" / "But no way are we going to let them be a requirement / judged for advancment because that would be bad for those with seniority who don't want to learn it...." type policies.

And if you're in a related field outside the union... you're just hosed, and unions are surprisingly not interested in growing in to closely related areas at times even if their PR says otherwise. I suspect those areas are dealt away with in the negotiations.

[jcims]

Well done, one of the more succinct and accurate explanations of the shortcomings of the unions I've experienced and have relayed to me (Teamsters, NEA, CWA) in the US.

[naravara]

Thank you. I will say though, that as a shortcoming I think this is largely a consequence of the American labor movement being so small and neutered. If they encompassed a larger share of the workforce I think the pressure from the membership would push them towards being more representative of industrial interests as a whole. But they've been on the back foot over multiple generations of retrenchment now, so the leadership has kind of been captured by insular and reflexively change-averse factions.

The unions that have actually been successful at growing their membership during this era of reaction, such as the SEIU, tend to be a lot more progressive and forward looking.

There is also an aesthetic thing at play here and the older dudes just don't like the idea of tech workers, professional workers, and "pink collar" jobs unionizing because they're not "real" workers. If we made hard-hats and tool-belts part of the standard nurse's uniform we could probably make some real strides. . .

[jcims]

Well you seem to have a good handle on some of the pain points with unions in the US. Hopefully the folks taking this up at Kickstarter will find a way to make up for the overall shortcomings of collective labor in this country and build a system that takes the long view. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, i learned a bit!

[crumpets]

>Green New Deal even though most of what the GND does would create tons of new jobs for electrical workers in the fields of solar and wind power

Very possibly at the destruction of as many jobs in established industries. That's not really a clear win for electrical workers. This is especially true if new employers living off of the GND subsidies decides not to use the senior union members or the union at all.