The literal purpose of a corporation in all its varieties, for profit, non-profit, co-op, S Corp, C Corp etc. is to pool the resources of its owners and serve their interests.

Unions are just another type of corporation.

Their interests may align to mine even if they're doing it for their own benefit. And if the union's interests don't align to mine, then I'm better off without the union and with the employer.

I don't think that's a hypothetical scenario, either.

For example if the union wants to pay by seniority and the employer wants to pay by results, and I have low seniority but good results, who am I better aligned with?

For example you morally support allowing new people to enter your field but the union is mostly comprised of more established people and they vote for credentialism to restrict supply.

Probably I'm very aligned with my employer on wanting to lower barriers to entry for the field!

Well... until you start looking at advancing into upper management and realize that seniority-based hiring decisions and credentialism are very often in the best interest of the established managers and higher-ups.

In most large companies, the people making hiring decisions in upper management probably don't want to lower barriers of entry for their fields. They want to hire people who look like them, who have gone to the same schools as them and worked the same jobs as them, and they want to set up a performance system that makes it hard for them to get fired or demoted.

It's easy to make the mistake of thinking of corporations like they're some kind of impartial oiled machine, but the reality is that they're made of people who are just as biologically prone as anyone else is to forming cliques and gatekeeping their own jobs.

Consensus-building and making of viable compromises has always been part of governance, any institution comprises people with diverse, sometimes competing interests.

That said, the usual workplace conflict between employee and management is about working conditions and promotion. And for that it's useful to have a paid witness on your side, because HR is always working for the employer.

Codes of conduct are fashionable these days, but at the end of the day they are upheld by HR, which will always work in favour of the company.

But I'm not sure the union is going to be on my side. I know that's their pitch, but lots of people claim they want to act on my behalf - I'd be a fool to trust most of them!

This just isn't true.

If I'm a junior worker in a union with a pay-by-seniority agreement because the majority of workers are senior, then they aren't on my side are they? They're on the side of the majority senior workers. They're on the side against me and my aspirations to get paid more.

If you aren't, check the agreements the union has with you and your employer. These are contracts with enforceable terms and are upheld.

Stop and think this through for just a second.

Try this thought experiment:

If I want dogs in the office and my colleague wants dogs banned, you’re telling me you think the union will simultaneously negotiate for both our positions with our employer?

Does not compute. It is not possible for them to be on everyone's side.

Why the rudeness?

I'd also note that you appear to demand 100% alignment with your ethics from unions in return for your support ("think of any situation"), but are fine with being somewhat aligned with your employer.

You seem to already have chosen a tribal affiliation.

You said I since I didn't agree with you I must not be politically astute so I returned the favour!

> I'd also note that you appear to demand 100% alignment with your ethics from unions in return for your support ("think of any situation"), but are fine with being somewhat aligned with your employer.

But my employer pays me. And they're an essential part of the agreement. The union wants me to pay them, and they're optional, so yes I expect them to do a better job aligning to me otherwise why bother with them? What is the point joining a union, lending them what little power you have, as well as actually giving them money, if they aren't very aligned?

My current work negotiation is me and my employer. I have what I want and my employer has what they want. Why involve a third party, who may want something completely different, possibly morally offensive to me? Why do that?

I guess you're going to say 'because the union acts in your interest'. Well, let me tell you - there's a whole world of people out there offering to 'act in my interest' in return for something. Most of them are charlatans. Beware.

No, I did not. If you can't be bothered to keep track of whom you're talking to, I'm done with you.

The person I was replying to said it. You asked why I was rude to them.

Unions complicate an otherwise cut and dry relationship of your employer trying to extract value from you and you trying to extract value from your employer until you reach an equilibrium.

What would an organisation that serves your interests look like?

Why don't you try to start one - and see how corporate management responds?

Why should I? You can start an organisation if you want, but you'd need to argue why it's in my interest if you want me to lend what little individual power I have. And the employer can present their arguments as well, which is fine. But if you think I'm going to trust you've got my interests at heart just because you're not my employer, then you're delusional. Why should I trust you more than them?

No, unions are not just another type of corporation. They are a very special type of corporation: One which is exempt from anti-trust laws.

What you’re failing to understand is that while there are different types if corporations as legal constructs, with differing advantages and disadvantages mostly related to their overall tax liability, a corporation in the general sense is just a group of people come together for a common goal. Usually that goal is profits. You join up with 5 people putting in 20% of the money, you are entitled to 20% of the future proceeds.

So if you take a distribution of $1000, all other shareholders holding equal shares, they must also take a distribution of $1000, or equal to their share of equity in the company.

A union has a different structure, different legal privileges and burdens, and different goals, but fundamentally it is a group of people with a common goal. I think where they tend to fall down is that unions can grow so large that the power is so diffused amongst individual members that even people in unions may come to resent the union more than their employer, particularly if they are always in the minority on union issues. In which case they might find they are actually more in alignment with their employers rather than their union leaders.

That does not violate anti-trust law in the US. It is not a special exemption the union has, it doesn't violate anti-trust law in the US even if there isn't a union involved, for employees to "collude" to get higher wages.

Or if there are such laws I'm not aware of, feel free to share. But I gather you think it ought to be illegal? Why?

Serve the interests of the majority... and even like a corporation sometimes they don't even manage to do that.

Human organizations kinda stink sometimes, although I wouldn't really endorse another kind...

This becomes more complex as you go from small business to startup with investors to a larger business, but the principles remain the same.

Nobody starts a business to have others dictate to them what to do with their business, and to be told whose interests they should really be serving. I’m not sure why you would expect that to change just because the company in question is valued at over a trillion.

Should employers be able to make an anti-union case? I'd have to say yes on free speech grounds, but I'd also say that they really should be subject to more restrictions on what kind of anti-union organizing they can do than the union should be on what kind of pro-union organizing they can do. Yes, that's deliberately giving the union an advantage -- but, again, management has the advantage of being the side that literally writes the checks.

> unions once established have their own balance of power, and that's not in favor of the individual.

I mean, that's kind of the point, in a way, isn't it? The employee/employer power balance is almost always weighted toward the employer, because the employee alone is one individual and the employer is a corporation. Employees acting as a collective are theoretically on more equal footing. That doesn't guarantee every single individual employee will support every collective action the union makes.