US employers spend more than $1.5B a year to fight labor unions, report finds

I have pretty mixed feelings on unions. I spent most of my early career as a non-union blue collar worker embedded into mixed teams (union + non-union members). The general experience I walked away with was that unions seemed to attract the worst employees. I remember one individual in particular who, having worked with him for two years, never once actually did any work. He was actually one of my first mentors and I vividly recall riding in the truck with him as he explained "the game" to me about how to make good money while basically doing no work, and how it was "unfortunate" I couldn't play because I was "working for the man."

This might not seem so annoying, but in the Bay Area where I worked, the unions had lobbied to secure work that could _only_ be done by union members. For example, I was a controls technician, and I legally couldn't wire a 12v controller because it was considered protected work. Which means I had to try to convince the same people who were not incentivized to be productive to help me.

So yeah, after a few years of that, I left with a pretty sour taste in my mouth. That being said, philosophically I like the idea of unions. I've had my own share of experiences being abused by "the man." The retirement plans offered in particular were always alluring. But, despite being invited to join, I never felt compelled because I just couldn't find myself enjoying working with the people they attracted.

Because its ultimately cheaper to suppress unions than it is to pay the workers the fair salary.

Recently the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road workers) went on strike. The NYT has covered it, including this interesting fact:

> For instance, if an engineer drives a diesel train at the start of a shift but is asked to switch to an electric train in the same day, the M.T.A. must compensate that worker with two days’ pay. If, on the same day, the engineer is also asked to switch from driving passengers to driving a train back to a yard for maintenance or storage, that worker is entitled to a third day’s pay.

Take from that what you will.

My view is that -- with some exceptions -- unions today are mostly bad, and worth fighting.

This is an adversarial process. Unions exist to fight employers. Unions spend about 23 billion a year in total. Only spending 1.5B to defend against 23B looks like a bargain.

Considering the annual revenue of Fortune 500 companies is near 20 Trillion, that is a much smaller amount than expected.

Not sure if that is a bad thing - labor unions can have too much power. Its not as if the employers agree to everything that they will go away.

The word "fight" is doing way too much work in this Guardian headline, because that money includes labor relations work employers do to try to stave off the incentives to start unions. You can feel any way you like about it, but logically if you're going to argue that you have to argue that every dollar above median a non-unionized shop pays is also an effort to fight unions.

Think about the recent tech layoffs - we spend a lot of time comparing one set of severance concessions to another. Wouldn't it be better if this were a matter of contract instead of your great corporate overlords deciding how much they deign to give you as they take away your job?

This may be the moment to start thinking about unions seriously in tech. The large employers have, themselves, acted to suppress worker power in the past: https://journals.law.unc.edu/ncjolt/blogs/wage-fixing-scheme...

Wow, what are they so afraid of? Treating people with dignity?

1.5B seems kinda low, no?

This will not work until unions deal with the reality of globalization, and push to form a worldwide union, which ensures compensation has no more than 2x difference based on one's country. This is the multiplier where people will not want to transfer work for cost vs skill level.

This is unpalatable to HCOL engineers, because their pay will significantly compress in this union to support the growth of compensation of similarly skilled LCOL regions/countries.

QED: Unions will not happen.

Unions only exist because there is a huge power imbalance between employer and employee. They attempt to balance the field.

In doing so, companies may lose their leverage and are forced to actually negotiate. This is often painted as blackmailing, but it's the same thing they do to employees. Bosses often go with "we're doing you a favor. If you don't want this job, I have a replacement for you".

When their power and leverage vanishes, they see it as being blackmailed, when in reality they are just being forced to play a fair game.

This thread has several stories of unions "keeping lazy workers", etc. I can't deny your experiences. But what about the thousands of companies that violate Labor Laws? Why are we not talking about these stories? e.g. https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition...

When you push people hard enough, they will fight back. In fighting back, the corporations that had the leverage will feel attacked by losing their power.

While 68% of workers approve unions (https://news.gallup.com/poll/694472/labor-union-approval-rel...) there are only 9% of them that actually belong to a union. That's a huge discrepancy. It can be explained by the immense difficulty in forming one due to illegal corporation practices and laws that make it difficult.

I live in a Right-to-Work (for less) state:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

Loosely that just means that if you work somewhere with a lot of employees, you'll hear that the same job in a neighboring state pays 1.5-2 times as much. And that they have a harder time firing you. And that you'll be more likely to get compensated if you get hurt or whatever. Etc etc etc because unions.

It was pitched as a way to avoid paying union dues and possibly make it easier to move around the job market. And especially avoid working with "those" people.

If you sensed the ick factor there, that's why I think it's hard to have a rational debate around unions. It's become a divisive word like liberal due to deep-rooted disagreements going back to the founding of the (cough) union.

I prefer to use a term like representation. Do we want an advocate between us and the bosses when the next round of layoffs comes? Of course. Do we want our own form of human resources (HR) that has real teeth when something violent or inappropriate happens to a coworker? Of course. Do we want to have our voices heard when it comes to the quality of our work environment? Of course.

When people agree on principles but not on the umbrella term that covers them, it makes them vulnerable to political manipulation so that they can be divided and convinced to vote against their own interests.

I understand that a free market where people can switch jobs easily might be seen as more ideal than unions. But do we live in that market really? How many cities in America have a handful of large companies propping up the local economy? How many of those companies would take us in if we got fired from the other companies? How often do we hear about people moving to another city because they can't find a job?

There seems to be quite a discrepancy between the ideal and the actual. Another way to make people vulnerable to political manipulation.

I think maybe it comes down to how we see ourselves as blue collar or white collar. I understand how unions might be against the interests of white collar workers who tell blue collar workers what to do. What I can't understand is why blue collar workers would be against unions. What is the rationale there, really?

Without logic, we're left with bad faith arguments. Unions don't exist much these days for the same reasons that people on food stamps vote for billionaires. There's an irony there that their hope for opportunity gets used against them in a negative reinforcement loop. It's plain to see, and yet no help is coming.

If companies decide who gets hired instead of the people doing the work, that would seem to open the door to corruption and prejudice. So it's interesting that we might associate unions with mob activity, but not the existing corporate status quo. Why is that?

They're just spending all they money they saved from the wage theft.