Unions that are run like a business eventually become a business. Unions need to be democratically-controlled, where regular workers can propose new contract terms and vote on them, as well as voting to call a strike.

Right. It’s completely unsurprising that to see corruption in groups that were forced to elect leadership that holds views contrary to the foundations of unionization (i.e. they were all but required to elect capitalists because of the communist control act and the internal security act).

I don't think it's valid to write off all unions based on anecdotal evidence. For every example of bad unionisation one can probably provide one or more counter-examples of good unionisation (e.g. the Scandinavian countries).

Weren't the Teamsters also super corrupt?

(My only knowledge comes from watching The Irishman)

Philly roofers union firebombed my grandfathers truck beacuse he was non-union.

Oh yeah big time. The entire east coast got it's strings pulled by the unions.

There was corruption at the height of organized crime. The average Teamster is doing a lot better than than average non-unionized trucker

Well, yes, but if there's a one-to-one correspondence between good unions and bad unions,that pretty much implies that the expected value of a union vote is zero. It's just the same as not unionizing.

In my personal anecdotal experience, the unions at the places I've worked have been mired in factions. They supported some workers but not others because they picked sides. They weren't just neutral, they undermined some workers to benefit others. It really soured me on them.

This is not a law of nature, many unions just do their job. Many companies also treat their workers unfairly, so there's that. Workers need a way to organise.

What's worse, a company churning through employee after employee or a company captured by its union? Both can happen.

So just like lobbying, just from the other side?

Many companies also do things that are a lot worse, like taking massive profits and then laying off the people that gave up time with their families and other opportunities to create those profits. I heard they also do things like give executives that don't do a great job millions while stiffing the individual contributors. Unions can help companies run better by forcing them to take a "longer than 2 year" view on decisions.

Unions can also (and quite often do) capture as much value as they can, while producing none.

> while producing none

increasing wages, workplace safety, and benefits for workers is something productive.

IF they do that.

Lower tax on paychecks would increase wages, but our union was against that. What kind of a union does that?

Unions or union managers are sometimes paid by the company to provide a business-friendly outcome.

Voting against a tax decrease could still be in the workers’ best interest, no? I think some context is needed

>Here in slovenia, many worker unions were against the lowering the taxes on paychecks (higher net with same gross pay), because their political parties were against those, even if the workers themselves would benefit from those.

You can't lower taxes without some sort of tradeoff, which is usually a cut to services. I don't know the context here but it stands to reason that you are not giving the whole situation.

>We also have some areas (eg. a government rail company), where you cannot even get a job, if you don't get approved by one of the two unions, which mostly means that you have to pay off someone in the union to get an approval (for a very cozy job).

Corruption is going to exist without strict governance regardless of unions. I'm a unionized worker in the USA and no one needs to bribe their way into a job here. We have robust oversight and documentation of the hiring process.

They certainly can raise taxes without improving services, so why not the opposite?

Yep, we still have a """temporary""" increase of VAT in action (19->22%) from the 2008 financial crisis... and we got nothing new (neither new or better services) from this.

> You can't lower taxes without some sort of tradeoff, which is usually a cut to services. I don't know the context here but it stands to reason that you are not giving the whole situation.

You cannot increase wages without loss of profits or increase in prices.

The union should fight for the wages, the profits and prices are someone elses problem (owners, customers).

> any worker unions were against the lowering the taxes on paychecks (higher net with same gross pay),

Seems to be quite a lot of context missing. I think nearly everyone agrees they want to pay less taxes and take home more money. Now if lowering taxes does not result in more money then you don't need politicians and unions to make that case.

I'm guessing lowering taxes would result in more expensive, privatized services and voters figured that wouldn't work.

Problematically, it was made exceptionally difficult—-potentially illegal, depending on the circumstances—-to hold a representative position in a union, and also hold the sociopolitical ideologies that led to the creation of unions in the first place: i.e. communism/socialism/Marxism (Communist Control Act of 1954, and the Internal Control Act of 1950).

That isn’t to say it’s impossible for an ideologue to corrupt and seek out power for themselves (it happens often enough). It’s just to say that a capitalist is not driven to act by a deeply seeded belief. They’re only interested in winning the competition. You’re all but inviting corruption.