[lucumo]

> Your union blocked this because your employer was trying to break your unions negotiating power by separating your interests from the collective workforce.

Be that as it may, for this specific employee the union was a negative. In effect, he is asked to sacrifice for the collective. It's understandable that that's acceptable to the collective, but it's also not hard to see why the sacrifice wouldn't like that.

> The rising tide lifts all boats.

Apparently not ALL boats.

[shit_game]

Representation under a union is voluntary, and if an employee doesn't wish to be represented by that union, they may quit. I'm sure there are some other means of avoiding union representation in unionized workplaces in the US, but I don't know the speciics of them. This is generally called strikebreaking, though the act of working with a company outside of its unionized workforce isn't strongly defined outside the terms of a labor strike. Similarly to agreeing to the employment contract, agreeing to the union contract is binding and one ought to agree to its terms, which may be vague enough to state things such as "advancement in career title and duties may be subject to discretion of the union", or other similar terms. If you don't want to be represented by a union, you should choose not to be.

The tide is a local water level; every boat on the water is lifted by the tide. A swell or wave may lift one boat, regardless of tide.