[sneeze-slayer]

I am a software engineer who used to work in a "unionized" workplace. It was quite nice, and the union would negotiate increases in time off and fight against policy changes that were worse for us. The union leaders were elected every few years (very important IMO) and the union was only within the (rather large) company; there was no affiliation with a larger union.

[Nifty3929]

Which country were you in at the time? Union laws vary substantially by country so I think this is relevant to understanding different unions and people's experiences with them.

[tonfreed]

Yeah, I have the choice of about 3 unions where I work, all of which are big unions because there can only be one per industry in Australia. All three have wasted way too much time and members' money on vanity projects that I don't want to join.

[keep_reading]

> there can only be one per industry in Australia

That seems hostile and designed to enable corruption

[illiac786]

Don't know about "designed to" but corruption and abuse of power is absolutely a consequence of this, indeed. Almost feel that this was designed to decredibilise unions (which are essential to democracy in my view) because they ended up strongly reassembling mafias: pretending to protect the people while actually only looking out for your own interests...

[sneeze-slayer]

It was Germany. I put the union in quotes because the direct translation is Works Council.

I think that some software engineers in Germany are covered by the larger unions like IG Metall and Verdi, but my understanding is mostly for those that work in companies that make physical goods like Mercedes, Siemens, etc.

[mrich]

Notably a workers' council does not have power to negotiate compensation/raises. That's a major difference to a union.

[illiac786]

Well ours does, so I wonder how they do it. It's a German workers council (Betriebsrat). Maybe they can negotiate but less in detail than a union?