Larger unions sometimes hire staff to represent their interests who are do not work in the profession represented: negotiators, lawyers, etc. It sets up a bit of a principle/agent problem, but it also makes a lot of sense: a professional lawyer may be much better at negotiating on your behalf than the people from your profession who win the union elections.

At least in theory unions have the correct incentive structure, as they get a fixed percentage of their member's incomes, so to get more money from their members, they need to negotiate better salaries for them.

It's slightly more complicated in practice. The US has this weird system where you can opt out of full union membership and become what's called an "objector". You opt out of union membership but still pay a portion of dues (those directly around contract negotiation and the like), and you're still covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The downside being that, as you're not a union member, you generally don't get voting rights.

To quote the NLRB's website directly:

> Federal law allows unions and employers to enter into "union-security" agreements which require all employees in a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired. Employees may choose not to become union members and pay dues, or opt to pay only that share of dues used directly for representation, such as collective bargaining and contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no longer union members, but are still protected by the contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme Court ruling and is known as the Beck right.

This usually works well enough, but in certain circumstances, you can have a small minority control the entire operation and the vast majority are "represented" by an institution they have no voice in. This seems to be the case in lower paid unions (e.g. grocery baggers) because the majority can't afford the extra dues.

Unions are compensated proportional to N*S where N is number of workers and S is average salary. Workers care about increasing S, but unions sometimes focus on increasing N because it is easier. But then the individual worker doesn't see their life improve.

N is also the power to negotiate in that equation in order to improve S. Increasing N makes total sense in that scenario.

Except unions aren't for-profit, so it's unclear where those extra money is going to. Senior leadership perhaps? But unions beholden to members, which means there's no "fixed percentage", because that's decided by the members themselves. We can see a parallel in public sector compensation: democratically controlled organizations are very reluctant to spend extra money on compensating leadership (or any other high paying staff, for that matter).

The extra money goes to more union staff and union facilities; lobbying; and grants - overwhelming the former. Also, it's not like non-profits have to balance their budgets every year; the UAW added $60M to its net assets in 2021.

> Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?

Professional bureaucrats.

Teachers unions in public schools are the worst. They hold our childrens’ futures hostage and get paid out by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.

My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years. You should try talking with the people you are making claims about. I bet they're very different from what you think.

>>Professional bureaucrats.

>My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years.

Nothing you said really contradicts the parent post's claim that the people working in unions are "Professional bureaucrats". If your mom was working with disabled students for 20 years, then switched to being a bureaucrat for the next 10 years, she's still arguably a "Professional bureaucrat".

That's not how it worked. The union role took a few hours a month, in addition to her para job. A handful of meetings, usually in evenings after a normal workday. It would never have been considered her primary job, more like a task within her job at the school.

I suspect your Mom is an extra-ordinary super-hero sort, and more power to her. However, here in the Western USA, urban public schools are a disaster -- the bigger the district, the bigger the disaster -- and the union is not innocent in continuing that. no easy answers

100 percent agreed there are no easy answers. I was arguing against the pointless emotional rhetorical garbage like "professional bureaucrats" and "holding children hostage". No, not everything is perfect, but the solution to that is to find and address real problems, not scream stupid insults until everything falls apart.

> They hold our childrens’ futures hostage and get paid out by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.

Are you confusing the school board with the teachers union? One sets curriculum, class size, and budget. The later really only influences salary, benefits, and working hours.

States where teacher's unions are allowed to collectively bargain have better teacher pay, less teacher shortages, and better average outcomes. To me this sounds like a lot of privilege from someone that doesn't understand how bad schools can get in areas with very little funding or oversight.

Not to mention that most state/local teachers unions are branches of the NEA/AFT, two of the largest unions in the country. Also, two of the largest political contributors, to strictly left-leaning politicians. Neither are shy about admitting that they support Democrat policies exclusively.

To be fair have you seen republican policies towards teachers and education in general. Of course nobody would ever intentionally pick that for themselves and their profession.

> Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?

well, union higher-ups are basically politicians, they're not usually working in the job by that point