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im more or less indifferent towards unions. however, i am opposed to public sector unions. they use their political power to abuse taxpayers as the government officials do not properly represent the taxpayers as "owners" when it comes to negotiating wages and benefits.
All I see unions do is to be destructive to their workers/ members.
A very long time ago, unions did a lot of good, before there were laws protecting workers. That is no longer necessary because of the huge number of laws now in effect protecting health, safety, over time, benefits.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I have been a union member, and have been management of people in two different unions. Most union member that I have known including several family members currently in unions resent having to pay dues that seem to serve only to provide funding for lobbying and political advertising. When one union went on strike I had to pick up my people at an offsite location and bring them in a company car across the picket lines, and go get them lunches. They didn't want to strike, but were outvoted.
Because we often have to pay more for using union labor, and with Public Sector Unions or tax dollars are used to promote, and elect only Democrat candidates who them give the union sweetheart deals in which we must pay more, and more in taxes. Check the current union pension crisis nationally.
I have limited experience with unions and realize my experience doesn't speak for all unions.
I was a non-union electrician, and then my company went union in order to bid on certain jobs.
Main differences on going union? Well my tools no longer ended up in the dumpster at jobsites, but I lost my vacation time, the health insurance choices were worse, and I made the same money, but now I had to pay dues and such, so I made less overall.
So from my perspective, it didn't really improve things for me too much. Your experience may differ
I worked for state government for six years and although I didn't dislike my actual union, I hated what it did to the work environment both in terms of work ethic and productivity.
I'd say 80%+ of workers were lazy. If you were in the same job for five years your manager literally could not tell you to do anything. If you were given a task that was outside of your normal scope (government work never changes so you literally do the same assignments week in and out) they would cry that it wasn't in their duty statement.
I found that as a young employee and others like myself, I went into the jobs wanting to do the very best that I could. I was young and full of ideas to get it done better, faster, and cheaper. Every idea I ever brought to management I was told we can't do that. Mostly due to union bureaucracy. God forbid I could do my job faster.
One manager that was simply there to retire but worked as a manager in private sector for 30 years told me that "the government can take a young person full of ideas and turn them into a robot with no motivation to do anything within a year". I agree completely.
after six years and four jobs in 3 different departments I left the government late last year. I feel so alive in my job now and not only am I given the green light on any cost savings tactics, it's expected of me in day to day operations to seek out cost saving opportunities.
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