How do unions work? How did they get in power and give us rights?
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If your employer wanted to lower your pay you can accept or you can quit. If you’re an average worker there you quitting will have minimal impact.
If your employer wanted to lower your pay, but that would make you *and all of the other workers* quit, that would be very disruptive and lead to losses in sales, productivity, customer satisfaction, etc.
In the first example you are on your own. In the second example the work force united behind you. You are benefiting from their union.
Unions give leverage to regular workers against the company. This situation leads to companies trying to stop unions from forming and regular workers voting for politicians who strengthen these rights.
Unions can form when more than half of a work force agrees to unionize and there are firms that specialize in creating unions out of work forces.
There are some tricks to breaking/making unions. Anti Union efforts that had success are “right to work” labor laws. People read the title and assume it expands their rights when it doesn’t. It makes Union dues voluntary which has the effect of financially crippling a Union. They have less resources, they perform worse, more people opt out and repeate. This law also allows you the “freedom” to quit on the spot (you will not be rehired if you do this but you can). This also allows an employer to terminate *you* on the spot for any non protected reason (race=no, don’t like you = yes). Pro-union efforts have been changes to expand what a legal Union is. Instead of 50% of all employees a sub group (like maintenance) can unionize with 50% of that group agreeing.
So a union has the leverage to *ask* for better wages, healthcare or working conditions. They also pool resources to know *what* to ask for, *how much* to ask for and *how to respond* in these negotiations.
All of this doesn’t mean all unions are good. They are as susceptible to incompitance and corruption as anything else.
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