[RHSeeger]

It's hard to even have a reasonable discussion about unions with most people, because (it seems like) the vast majority of people either fall into

1. Unions are great and everyone should be part of one. Anyone who points out the bad parts of unions is an evil conservative and hates the middle/lower class.

2. Unions are evil and cause nothing but problems. Anyone who supports unions is a fool who doesn't see the horrors they cause.

Any discussion that includes the viewpoint that unions have both good points and bad points (as you allude to above) has a high likelihood of being attacked by _both_ sides.

It also doesn't help that it appears to very hard to actually set things up so that you get the good sides of a union without also getting the bad sides.

[froh]

some European countries, the Netherlands, Germany and France for sure, have not two but three pillars of employee company relationship: unions, works council and individual contracts.

the works council (aka 'company codetermination') involves employee elected colleagues in company leadership decisions like during, hiring, reorgs, raise distribution, working hours, shift planning guidelines, ... while the unions focus on salary and compensation negotiations

[zdragnar]

So long as the SEIU is around, I'll probably be in the second bucket. I get the theory of why unions can be beneficial, but the reality of the way they are structured in the US is fundamentally flawed.

Frankly, anyone who raids PCA funds the way they do is evil, plain and simple.

[koheripbal]

It's not random that people who have had to collaborate with union workers in their company all fall into that second bucket.