[yamtaddle]

> if you don’t like your manager, taking the view that if you escalate a formal complaint to HR (in doing so lose all trust you manager and HR may have in you), you’ll be vindicated and live on happily ever after… it’s a fairytale. Go work somewhere that makes you happy. Leave toxic environments - it’s not your job to fix them/right wrongs.

Know where it's not a fairytale? Unionized workplaces. Source: I know several people who work at such places—raising all sorts of issues and having them addressed reasonably-fairly is downright normal at them, and a manager trying to retaliate for that kind of thing is likely in for a bad time.

[biomcgary]

My first job was at a unionized workplace. I ended up doing more work to cover the guy that was loafing around under the protection of the union. Who protects you from the protectors? Rational or not, since that time, I am suspicious of the personal work ethic of those arguing for unions.

[theteapot]

It's true, you never have to wonder about the work ethic of the unskilled and de-unionized worker. They have so little job security these days you can practically get the whip out on the poor, desperate little plebs.

[trogdor]

I get your point, but it sounds like you forgot where you were commenting. Most of the people here work in tech and are very-high earners. Your overwhelmingly-non-unionized audience are hardly “poor, desperate little plebs.”

[chownie]

I'd rather work with lazy people than bullies, YMMV.

[lliamander]

I think the reality is that lazy people and bullies tend to end up in the same organizations (and are with some regularity the same people). The places that I've seen the least of both was in a privately owned company.

[JackFr]

It’s not either/or.

You think the parent was covering for the loafer because he was so friendly and kind?

[pretendgeneer]

Seems like you were doing more to protect that guy than the union was.

[HWR_14]

Why didn't you just not cover for him?

[puddingforears]

For real. This problem exists independent of unions.

[Spivak]

If the one guy didn't get fired you probably wouldn't have either.

[biomcgary]

I didn't know better and after experiencing the consequences of my father loafing through life, I was determined to work hard. I was 18 and working my way through college (couldn't get loans or family aid). I grew up in right-to-work states, but went to college in a union state, so I wasn't really familiar with the dynamics.

[autoexec]

Why would you cover for someone who wasn't doing their job? Unions don't make it impossible to fire a bad employee, they just require normal things like documentation and giving the employee a chance to improve.

If I started doing someone else's work making it impossible for the bad employee's boss to know there was a problem that's not really a issue with unions.

[lnxg33k1]

Lol

[busterarm]

I've been in three different unions and never saw anything like that happen.

Mostly I saw things like rampant sexual harassment and nepotism at every level. Anyone who so much as squeaked about things being wrong saw management and the union reps team up to screw the person for fucking with the status quo. Heck, at my last job like that, they were cousins/roommates.

Unionized workplaces can be just as toxic as any other workplace.

[autoexec]

> Anyone who so much as squeaked about things being wrong saw management and the union reps team up to screw the person for fucking with the status quo... Unionized workplaces can be just as toxic as any other workplace.

This is true, but unlike any other workplace, if your union is filled with corruption and nepotism you can vote to change your union leadership or even to disband it entirely and replace it with a new union under entirely different leadership, operating under new rules written to specifically address the problems with your old union.

Unions at least give you the option of improving the situation if the vast majority of union workers agree that there's a huge problem.

[busterarm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa

Face prison and death? No thank you, no job has ever been worth that.

Thinking that you're going to fix deep corruption via democratic process... You realize that this doesn't work in mainstream politics either, right? Only in the movies.

[autoexec]

I don't think most worker's unions are filled with Mafia members these days so you probably wouldn't have to worry about prison/death.

As for corruption, a strong democracy is highly effective against it which is why corrupt states try so hard to weaken or eliminate Democracy where they can. Democracy is absolutely a threat to corruption.

The US does seem to have slipped some (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index) and there's no surprise that there have been some very worrying efforts to weaken our democracy recently. Most Americans think our democracy is in danger. This would probably be a good time to fight for a stronger democracy so that we're better able to deal with corruption.

[fooster]

Good luck with that.