Unionization is a great way of solving disputes. Many big corporations need to be counter-weight with some other big organization.
To put violence and unions at the same level seems uncalled for.
Wage theft is illegal. It should be treated as a legal issue where the state gets involved and uses its monopoly on force to enforce the law. That's what the state is there for.
[Aside, putting violence at the same level as unions: I've been around a union, while working in a factory in the midwest US, that had "kneebreakers" that "encouraged" members to vote a certain way by threat-of-force, support certain candidates for union leadership, and used the Union to blatantly extort local businesses and politicians. Not every union is like this, but blue-collar unions in the US have a history of going this way. Which, even tho I like unionization in theory and cheer a bit inside when I see union action at e.g Starbucks or Amazon, I have seen a very terrible union and so they scare me.]
In this case, the union was a giant ball of mud whose only existence was to hold the government hostage.
As much as I dislike Thune power corporations can hold, unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords.
"Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles" is fraud. If you do not like unions because ONE did something that you do not like , how much do you hate companies were you have thousands of examples of bad behavior?
> As much as I dislike Thune power corporations can hold, unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords.
I do not know what concept do you have about unions, but it seems come from anti-union propaganda and not from any reasonable definition of what a union is. Unions gave us the eight hour work week, vacations and many more rights. That is not "overlord" behavior but being able to negotiate with powerful corporations.
Not the person you are replying to, but I think discounting the behavior of unions as one-off is not helping. The examples I have are from outside US though - there are entire states where union presence is strong. Those states had a good industrial sector but over several decades the unions made it so problematic for the industries there that majority of businesses moved to states where there were no unions. Public calls for "strikes" and other work-stopping behavior and violence is common occurence in those states. So the risk of a union becoming mafia-like is more than just propaganda - it has plenty of examples worldwide in several countries.
My experience with unions was they were shady, jobs were given out based on nepotism, work was given out solely based on seniority and most work you did for them involved kickbacks.
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal-union-wants-4...
Because it is not going anywhere, they had an independent body get involved, their commentary says it all:
"The union’s proposals “do not appear realistic for what should be a fairly advanced stage of negotiations. The numerous proposals are not focused and they would result in an increase to compensation far beyond what is reasonable,” reads the unanimous report signed by three commissioners."
These same union employees are also fighting "unilateral contract changes" that mandates they return to the office, but did not fight the unilateral contract changes that allowed them to WFH in the first place?
The contract they signed was for "IN_PERSON" work, so they are simply being asked to do what they signed up for prior to COVID.
Huh? They fight against contract changes they don't like, and don't fight against contract changes they do like? Sounds pretty crazy to me.
Its a negotiation. The union asking for the highest number it can get is what its supposed to do.
There is however a third choice, which is government regulation. Unfortunately government regulations can't adapt as quickly as a union can to changes.
Maybe the relatively inflexibility of regulation is what is needed to maintain a minimum necessary commitment to living wages and reasonable benefits though.
Just like planes which survived battles only had bullet marks on their wings.
Such as labor boards, or rather the government that gives them power.
