[gsnedders]

> In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the years.

I’m unaware of this ever being the case in the UK — the lack of closed shop units means that even when collective agreements cover promotion they cannot meaningfully set this based on dues paid, both because they don’t necessarily know how long each employee has been a member of the union, and regardless that would be illegal discrimination based on union membership vs not.

In the common case for private-sector white-collar collective agreements in the UK, promotion is mostly just required to be transparent, rather than setting out procedural rules for promotion.

Your focus on union dues also makes me suspect you’re commenting from the US, expecting a union environment much more like the US — and US unions are outliers in many ways.

Per https://iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game-worker/ union dues max out at £35/month for those earning £80k and more — this is vastly less than unions require as dues in the US, and that almost certainly reduces the impact that union dues have, even beyond the illegality of closed shop units.