Unions are Bad

[Zhong Lu + 845]

The reason is because over time it develops an entitled "us vs them" mentality.  You can see this reflected in police behavior in America.  Personally I think police unions should be banned in any cities that undergo rioting.  Obviously they're not doing their jobs.  Why do they deserve taxpayer funded job protections? 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Zhong Lu

[Boat + 1,325]

Yet when police respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes we don’t worry about unions. There is an obvious training and violent culture that has not been fixed for decades that comes from the top. Non reporting by partners or fellow officers should be published and shown to citizens. Not stopping an offending officer can’t exist. Unions have little to do with the entrenched violent behavior. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Boat

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

Unions are bad for employers who would prefer unpaid slave labor without rights to maximize their profits. This short-sighted attitude of course overlooks the fact that if no workers are properly paid anywhere, than there would be no customers for the industry's product with sufficient purchasing power to keep the economy afloat. 

Unions are good for workers and employees who would otherwise work for minimum wage in inhuman conditions. There was also the fear of a global communist revolution during the 20th century that caused western governments and employers to treat their workforce humanly. But once the eastern block lost the cold war, the screws began immediately tightening again. 

"Whoever is forced to compete with slaves will eventually become a slave himself." - Kurt Vonnegut, Mechanical Piano

Edited June 12, 2020 by Yoshiro Kamamura

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Interesting. I'm getting flak from both sides.  

[SUZNV + 1,197]

Why should we have any kind of union if we have minimum wages and employee rights for the public and HR for the private? 

[ChrisK Shaw + 11]

The issue seems to be that Union workers must keep their lucrative position by continuously working on projects.  Once the basics are in place they start to work on "nice to have" projects... and many of these projects are counter-productive or have unintended consequences.  Not being able to impose a meaningful retribution on a cop for a misdeed is one thing, and negotiating unaffordable liabilities on the tax payer is another.  When you wrap this in a culture of secrecy within the brotherhood where ratting on your colleague can lead to days of hospital food (or worse) you end up with a mess.  So, reform the union and reform the culture... and compensate them for the danger they face each and every day (if they are street cops)... and give them their due (aka respect normally afforded service personnel) once these changes are in place.

[El Nikko + 2,145]

Can US police go on strike?

I don't think it's possible in the UK

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:25 PM, El Nikko said:

Can US police go on strike?

I don't think it's possible in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jan/23/ukcrime.politics3

[NickW + 2,714]

On 6/11/2020 at 11:26 PM, Zhong Lu said:

The reason is because over time it develops an entitled "us vs them" mentality.  You can see this reflected in police behavior in America.  Personally I think police unions should be banned in any cities that undergo rioting.  Obviously they're not doing their jobs.  Why do they deserve taxpayer funded job protections? 

The German economy is highly unisoned. 

Rather than a blunt statement of Unions are bad its more a case of Unions can be good and bad depending on their attitude to working with employers. Corresponding the employers need to be flexible too. 

[SUZNV + 1,197]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

The German economy is highly unisoned. 

Rather than a blunt statement of Unions are bad its more a case of Unions can be good and bad depending on their attitude to working with employers. Corresponding the employers need to be flexible too. 

I don't have any idea about union in public sector, personal I think it may be helpful to have them there as most of their employer are politician themselves.

In private sector it is hard to work harder because if you are too productive, you make you company need less employees given the same revenue and union wants to keep jobs. And you make the company harder to change blood for productivity and make them less likely to hire more because it is harder to lay off--> less jobs and less room for management. Union may be useful if  jobs couldn't run elsewhere and/or no minimum wage policy or less competition needed. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

The problem with unions, as practiced here in the US (plus as I've observed in Britain and France) is that they make it impossible to get rid of the bad apples. Case in point, there was a famous episode in 1990 where the entire flight crew on a Northwest Airlines flight were stinking drunk, and missed their city because of it. That's bad, but what's worse is ALPA, the airline pilots union fought Northwest and demanded that these alcoholics get their jobs back, which they did. Northwest became such a laughingstock that eventually in their weakened position they were consumed by a competitor.