US unions are like US healthcare, regulatory capture makes them suck. Unions working well in other countries doesn't mean it works well in USA. And neither party wants to improve the state of unions, democrats are on the side of union leadership while republicans are just anti unions in general, none wants to support workers on this.

No, I work in a US union that I'm very happy with. I have personally seen action on the ground preventing unfair discipline by management, passing people up for raises over personal vendettas, baseline quality of life stuff. I suspect that most people in a union in the US are quite happy with it.

Right, lots of people are also happy with US healthcare, it is tied to their job (just like unions) and they didn't have any problems with it so to them it seems to work fine. For now. In most other countries unions aren't tied to your job, just like healthcare.

I'm not sure what you mean by unions being tied to your job. I certainly don't know the intricacies of every union out there, but the ones I'm aware of take care of their members when laid off. The union members in my family receive their healthcare and their pensions from the union, not the employer.

Things like the 5 day, 40 hour work week, and not having our 8 year olds injured in factory accidents are only here because unions in the USA fought, bled, and died for them.

Think about that while you’re bashing them.

Let's not bother then and just hope we're managed by some swell fellas

As opposed to what? Unbridled profit seeking? Too many people seem to believe their individual success is exclusively the outgrowth of corporate interests. Is it possible that employee compensation and corporate performance are opposed and maybe individual employees have limited capacities to affect the decisions of large corporations in their favor?

That middle-man has more power than you do in a huge number of cases. There are very few individual workers where the bosses will suffer mightily if they refuse to work. But almost every boss will suffer mightily if a huge portion of their workers refuse to work. That is the leverage unions have over the bosses that individual workers almost never have.

> I love how I’m supposed to think a middle man acting on my behalf will somehow be better than me acting on my own behalf.

Because you do not think that when employees get together as a single negotiating entity they have more negotiating power? I mean, I understand you don't like unions but I am sure you understand the principle of balance of power.

> Unions are compulsory in blue states (non-right-to-work). They are also political entities funding specific candidates, parties, and causes which means union dues is compelled political speech. It’s crazy.

In those states you can ask to only pay the part of the dues that concern bargaining activities.

Bcs as a lone expendable agent, your capacity to initiate company wide change is nonexistent.

Yeah like Hollywood actors —- why don’t they just drop their agents as they can negotiate themselves!