But it's also ridiculous to pretend they're all rainbows and sunshine, too. Some people have valid reasons for not wanting to be part of a union, and some people have valid reasons for wanting to be part of a union. Dismissing either group is wrong.
I think the difference is in the US there is a strong history of busting up unions specifically to disempower workers.
There absolutely are legitimate reasons to not want to join a union.
However, “both sides can be right” so to speak, whitewashes (word chosen deliberately) away the historical fact and current reality of systemic suppression of and propaganda against union organizing by US workers.
"busting up unions specifically to disempower workers."
Let us review GM.
They knew they needed to cut down product, would the union let them?
They knew they needed automation as their labour costs are too high.
The union position was always the same, use the profits from some cars to subsidize the losses from others. How long can that go on for when you continue to lose marketshare?
Their pension is a mess as fewer and fewer workers are supporting it.
Or, you can review Daewoo motors (sold to GM).
The banks flat out told them to cut costs or no loans and they would go bankrupt. Did the unions agree to anything?
I feel like your point, although containin validity, kinda misses the forests for the trees w/regards to what I was trying to express.
By no means am I claiming every particular union is perfect. What I am claiming is that organized labor is, at present, an important way for people in the working class (which really does include us white-collar knowledge professionals, at the end of the day) to gather power and use it to negotiate decent pay, humane treatment, fair treatment, etc, when there's a long and very visible history of the folks in positions of management and power being very comfortable with exploiting and abusing the employees of their own companies, if they can get away with it.
Unions are a means, not an end -- like government. Like the market.
