With all the layoffs and people getting noting, as well as wages not keeping up with inflation, Unions can be a powerful ally of workers. Do you think they will make a comeback in the US?

26 comments

  3. I don’t think it will happen overnight, but I think they’re definitely starting to gain ground in certain job sectors. Some Amazon drivers in Southern California just unionized under the Teamsters, that’s pretty big news. The service sector is definitely going to unionize faster than the tech/white collar sector since they have more ground to make up.

  5. I worked in a closed shop grocery store in my 20s. The union wasn’t worth dues we paid.

    Senior shop steward told women that if they wanted his help filing a grievance they’d have to service him before he’d help them.

    Jr shop steward (27m) beat a cashier (17f) and she got a protective order against him. The union pressured the store into transferring the victim to another store.

    Management could not do anything to long term employees that were tight with the shop stewards and other union officials. 2 hour lunch breaks on the clock, and 45 minute “15” minute breaks were the norm for these employees. These employees often didn’t do their job duties when they could be found and the union protected them.

    During election year the union’s get out the vote drive consisted of bringing all the employees into a meeting room at the store, telling us that it was important that we vote the way the union wanted us to and that we needed to register to vote. They handed each of us a voter registration form already filled out with our names, addresses, social security numbers, and a party affiliation marked with the union’s chosen party and told us to sign the forms. I was already registered so I pocketed this form they gave me and refused to give it back to the shop steward.

    There was also a small local grocery chain in the area who’s employees repeatedly voted against unionizing. So the union paid union members to picket the stores and drove them out of business.

    All in all based on my personal direct experience with unions I hope they don’t make a comeback.

  7. I think you are seeing a minor comeback from people in service based industries who are unionizing because of political inaction, but the types of unions being formed are generally unpopular in the general population outside of social media and those in that very industry.

    I do not see unions making any comebacks without major reforms within unions themselves and how they fight for their employees, especially with service based unions.

  8. Definitely not in the form they currently exist in. The unions as they have been created today have by-laws that specifically protect the middle age and near retirement age employees at the expense of the early career employees. What incentive do young professionals have to keep unions going?

  9. Not in a globalized economy, they have to compete with non-union employees in cheaper countries. I definitely don’t think they’ll disappear but they don’t have the leverage they had in the 50s and 60s

  12. I would like them to come back but as it stands most of their protections have been stripped away, outside of a select few(police unions to name one) and big business has too much sway in our political circles. Major things need to happen before unions can get the power to defend workers.

  14. I hope so, but US government has effectively neutered unions from making real change. Workers have to unite with middle management against the top 0.1% of executives if there’s any chance of fixing our economy. Most unions blame some guy making 5 bucks more an hour for the decisions made by some guy making 100$ an hour more than the average worker.

  15. Hopefully. Especially with wealth being increasingly concentrated at the top.

    Unfortunately, AM radio and a certain beleaguered TV “news” station has convinced a lot of Americans that this is somehow a good thing.

    I’m not in a union, nor am I in a profession that is unionized (doctor), but my dad is IBEW. The benefits he got from that union were multifold. He was able to provide a comfortable, secure middle class lifestyle for a family of four, with great insurance and protections through the recession. We are fortunate he wasn’t at the mercy of the mega-wealthy.

  16. The problem is that a lot of people have had really bad experiences with unions in the past. Many trade unions are exploitative and full of corruption. Unions for labor like retail and food service are basically pyramid schemes where new members pay high dues with little benefit for years.

    I’m not saying all unions are bad, but many are and few people do enough research before joining them. Maybe if there is a new take on how unions are organized, I could see them maybe gaining traction, but no, as they stand now I see them continuing to diminish.

  17. Yes, but I don’t expect a huge increase.

    I worked two union jobs. First one, I hated.

    Current one, I won’t ever leave. Pay is decent, medical is great, retirement is even better, and enough time off to make a European envious.. all thanks to the union.

  18. Anything is possible I suppose, but I think that the industries and enterprises that employed the unions will need to make a comeback first.

    The majority of them have long since been shipped offshore, so who knows. If the industries themselves can come back, though, then I think the unions very likely could as well.

  19. I hope not.

    Workers rights should be upheld by our government, not by collections of mobs throughout the country.

    And we don’t need any more reasons right now for companies to do away with American labor, or human labor for that matter. AI is already making us mere mortals all seem a lot more worthless in the labor market lol…

  20. Unions don’t necessarily make things better for workers. One company I worked for became unionized and immediately everyone’s wages dropped. It took about 20 years, I kid you not, for wages to return to pre-Union level.

  21. I often think I should quit my white collar office job and get one union construction job. Then I could get one lifted Tacoma, be a hammah, and drink Trulys.

  22. I work for a city with a great municipal union. They’ve done amazing things for getting many positions industry standard rates or higher, getting us health insurance options that are tailorable to your family situation/needs, and negotiating hours and breaks. I went from living in a state where my boss might get snippy if I took a 15 minute break after 5 hours to one where the union requires I be given 2 15 minute breaks in the same period. (Not to be taken concurrently. Fair trade-off.) They instated rules in our contract that grant us holiday pay and guarantee partial pay if you would have normally been scheduled to work on a holiday. Back at my old workplace, they just made me make up the hours on a different day. So if I “missed” 3 days due to us being closed for Thanksgiving, for example, I’d be squeezing in extra hours in the two weeks prior.

    I’m very pro-union. All that said, unions have a hard time in states that don’t like worker’s rights. Certain professions have strong unions that survived teeth being pulled, but those can be far and in-between. Add in the president shutting down organized action even as he touts being a union supporter and it doesn’t look great.

    Any union development will have to come from people voting pro-union officials into office and then organizing and supporting pro-union policies. That means not getting mad at teachers when they protest for higher wages, even when it means Timmy has to stay home from school. That means checking yourself before thinking a coworker is lazy because they want a break after 4 hours when you haven’t had one in six. From someone who was there, in that environment—It’s so much better on the other side y’all. I’m both more productive and happier getting my breaks, my better pay, my benefits (part time!), my raises, my holidays, and other assistance.

    *Edit: I realize for some my spouting off so positively as a TX>CA transplant will come off to some as a “lazy liberal fleeing TX” comment. SO is in the Navy, didn’t move for kicks. I get treated way better here for almost the exact same position I had back home, that I’d been working in for 8 years. I hadn’t realized how shit it was.

  23. Not really. 120 years ago unions were needed as the average worker was treated very badly. Now, not so much and many see the unions as too corrupt at the higher levels.

  24. Unions did not provide workers with what workers wanted. And that is why unions are not popular with US workers, unfortunately.

    Also, the whole corruption thing.

  25. Maybe in some industries, but I don’t think so sadly. I feel that there is always going to be a place such companies can go to get cheap labor. Heck, by the time they are building plants in the Congo, they’ll probably discover extraterrestrial life, and get them to be cheap labor. That or we’ll just have robots do everything if the cost goes down.

  26. Unions are great at moving jobs to other countries.

    Unless you are willing to impose tariffs to keep your unionized industrial base competitive, they only will create stagnation and decline.

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