this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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I've been in two, and both of them were this way. Tossed most of us under the bus to protect a small group of older employees. We definitely need more unionization, but we also need to weed out the unions that are counterproductive.
Start with the police union
Public employee unions are a bit different though because unlike labor unions there is a third interested party in addition to management and labor, namely the public.
My first union had that reputation. I became a steward and was known as a reformer. Honestly, they weren't particularly corrupt or self dealing, they were just really bad at messaging for the employees. Over time, it just became "common knowledge" that the leadership was secretive and self dealing.
I don't mean that to say that yours wasn't self dealing. Those existed and continue to exist. But I have also never been in a union where the labor body was involved and took it seriously and also had those kinds of problems. If there's one takeaway I learned from unions, it's that we get the union we deserve. When we're in it and active as a body, those were always the best unions. When we have an apathetic labor body, we have an apathetic union.
There will always be factions like every other human activity. People will often be tribal to the detriment of the whole. But at the same time, in my experience, those most against "unions" were almost always the people least involved or not involved at all.