[kentrado]

In order to bring understanding to this discussion, we can separate unions into two types: vertical unions and horizontal unions.

Vertical unions are hierarchal. They have administrative staff that are not necessarily workers and they reproduce the characteristics of our electoral system in a smaller scale. This includes corrupt elected officials who have back deals with companies, etc.

The horizontal unions are non hierarchical. They are based on the practice of anarcho syndicalism. The union is just a collection of smaller unions, each has autonomy to make their own decisions. The delegates can be recalled at any time. All staff are workers and decisions are collectively being made.

For horizontal unions, the person you are responding to is correct. You and your colleagues are the ones that decide how it is going to run.

For vertical unions, you are correct. A few influential members have all the power.

You are both correct but just not talking about the same thing.

[Bratmon]

Do you have an example of a horizontal union in practice? Or is this one of those "You can't say X is bad because true X has never been tried!" situations?

[kentrado]

I don't usually respond to snide comments but this one is very easy to disprove so I will make an exception.

There are a lot of them active all over the world.

CNT is a great example https://www.cnt.es

[duxup]

That MAY be what I'm referencing. US unions in my experience don't seem very horizontal and trend towards being very vertical.