Sadly, with recent events, all I can think about with this is how Linus Sebastion would go on the WAN Show and say things like, “You don’t need a union unless you have bad management, and I never want my employees to need a union.”
The counter statement is that a union is insurance for when good management goes bad.
I mean, a union is simply a way for workers to organize independently from management. While it’s useful for countering bad management and things like that, that’s not its only purpose. And anyone saying that it is either doesn’t know as much about unions as they think or is anti-union while trying not to say as much directly.
It also gives a voice to everyone and establishes a single bargain. If you have 50 employees and you’re negotiating with each of them separately how sure are you that you’re really being fair to all of them and not having any biases impacting your treatments? How sure are you that they agree? If you agree with the union about compensation and conditions of that compensation you know it’s fairer. If every management action has a steward as a witness you know that someone else who knows the rules you agreed to will speak up if you break them. You know that you aren’t about to get hit with an accusation of misconduct behind closed doors unless the steward agrees you misbehaved.
And as you say there’s security against management changing. You get someone with a union job with a pension and it’s hard for them to willingly leave. It’s a level of security that you know you aren’t getting elsewhere even if you’d be promoted.
I do actually agree with his initial statement, which was “if my workers need a union to stay safe, I will consider it a personal failure.”
…absolutely agreed. His conclusion of that his workers shouldn’t need one though, is the problem. They should have one. However, if the union needs to step in because he’s being a dick, then he has failed indeed. Guess it was a good thing they had a union though, right? Oh wait…
We need an FOIA for employees. For example, if one employee thinks they’re getting paid less for their job than they should be, they should be able to request what somebody else is making and then be able to know she negotiate past that.
That sounds like the best idea that will never happen because it only benefits the working class…
Maybe someday, though
Surely shouldn’t he not be afraid of his employees unionizing if he treats them well?
Hell if he treats them well and compensates them fairly a union might prove beneficial to him
If a “good boss” is being an actual good boss, the worst they should have to expect from the union is having the occasional friendly meeting with them to discuss any minor workplace concerns and contract negotiations.
The fact many “good bosses” immediately start sprewing hell and brimstone at the mention of a union hints maybe they ain’t as good and benevolent as they claim to be.
This is terrible programming advice.
My C++ teacher taught me to be against unions. He made everything class based instead.
When I worked at Best Buy I attended two full paid meetings about the horrors of unions when the Obama administration made it easier to create a union.
They even cancelled all our in home jobs one day for an anti union meeting
Holy crap I don’t know who at Best Buy wrote all those presentations but the language they used was a master class in brainwashing. I probably would be a flat earther of they spent enough time crafting their wording 😄
I lot of companies have anti-union information when you do training.
Home Depot is another.
And don’t let your company fuck you without one
I read “Onions” at first and, while I didn’t disagree with the sentiment, I was somewhat confused
