Thoughts on Trade Unions?

[glue eater]

What's folks opinion on trade unions? Neither me or my brothers belong to a union because they're commies, but patriotic trade unions have existed in the good old days, so they're not inherently evil. They'd have a place in a well-organized traditional society. But currently they're kinda shit.

My brother told the harbour workers union members would complain about niggers and then vote for communists. Some people cant help but to work against their own best interests. We do belong to unemployment fund independent of the union.

This is just the situation in Finland, I would be curious to hear how things are in other countries as well.

 

[User names must be unique]

Really depends on the union and your countries existing laws. I don't really see the point in joining a union in European countries where we already have pretty robust laws protecting employees.

 

[Kankichi Ryotsu]

In theory there's nothing inherently wrong with them but in reality they just become another tentacle of the social democratic elites. You know, the typical union leader tasked with defending worker rights only to parrot the government's talking points about how globohomo and immigration are actually great, the type of guy in a worker's union whose only work is to collect a fat paycheck and do nothing.
I also don't think it has to be a commie thing, fascists defend trade unions as arbiters of the economy. It's what Mussolini meant by "corporations", not the current meaning of the word.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

If a union isn't corrupt, it really means it hasn't existed tor long enough. At best it will be only petty internal politics. At worst it will actually work against either the company or the workers to support political goals.

It's the result of the heads of the union eventually becoming psychos who want more power, rather than an actual worker who's got enough shit to do as it is.

 

[glue eater]

In theory there's nothing inherently wrong with them but in reality they just become another tentacle of the social democratic elites. You know, the typical union leader tasked with defending worker rights only to parrot the government's talking points about how globohomo and immigration are actually great, the type of guy in a worker's union whose only work is to collect a fat paycheck and do nothing.
I also don't think it has to be a commie thing, fascists defend trade unions as arbiters of the economy. It's what Mussolini meant by "corporations", not the current meaning of the word.

Yep, we used to have a fascist trade union. Spanish "far right" VOX launched its own trade union as well. I think British BNP has its own trade union as well but BNP is pretty washed out. But in theory I support having patriotic trade unions as a viable alternative for globohomo trade unions. Even though I hate commies and would throw them out of helicopters, I have nothing but respect for workers who have broken their back working every day, and they deserve a fair shake. But having your union demonstrate against racism doesn't help to achieve that.

 

[Milkshake Sniffer]

Insofar as they are a counterbalance to a labour market failure on the demand (employer) side with individual employees being unable to freely and easily move from job to job they have a legitimate purpose. But even that is a market failure applied to counter another market failure. Addressing the original market failures such as proper monopolies control and contract abuses would be better but that requires gov'ts not in thrall to those who benefit from such abuses.

The real problem as others have said comes from the abuses and history has shown repeatedly that this always happens with unions using their collective power to the extent of running countries - see the UK during the 1960s to 1979. Surprise surprise that always goes badly for the country as a whole.

 

[Waifu Denier]

Robert Michels studied the mechanisms of oligarchical tendencies in organizations, and how even the organizations whose direct raison d'etre was the equality and the betterment of its individual members would succumb to these pressures once they reach a certain size and complexity.
Unions as they grow and expand become bureaucratized, and because ordinary members will necessarily have other obligations such as work, family, etc, the organization naturally develops around members who are able to spend all their time on the leadership roles and political game, and when you have formal control over the mechanisms of the organization, you again centralize power.

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

They're fucking gay and the type of person to run them is the exact same type to become a reddit janny. They do it for the power trip and the feeling like they're sticking it to the employers, while in reality they're just creating a conduit for leftist politics inside the company and also usurping the employees' right to negotiate with the employer.

 

[DumbDude43]

the idea of trade unions is noble and righteous, but in practice they end up really fucking bad and corrupt
in america this corruption apparently manifests in the form of connnections to organized crime, in europe it is more a case of political corruption where the unions become important players in the political arena and get in bed with leftists whose policies are directly opposed to the interests of the workers the union is supposed to represent

you end up with union officials who make millions while shilling for open borders, free trade, and mass immigration despite the disastrous consequences these policies have for the local working class and their employment conditions (deindustrialisation, offshoring, outsourcing)

 

[Jarl Varg]

Unions have outlived their purpose, and only cause problems in modern times.

 

[Poppy Brown]

the typical union leader tasked with defending worker rights only to parrot the government's talking points about how globohomo and immigration are actually great

Interesting, because I think immigration will only hurt unions long term. I belong to a union and the third world immigrants never want to protest because compared to the shit holes they came from they still have it good. When the union was majority white back ithe the 1980s they made the most strides.

 

[Not Really Here]

There's only two reasons for a trade union:
1) Worker safety
This function has been replaced with government agencies in most of the developed world.

2) Work protectionism, keep outsiders out, pay high, and work quality high.
If the union supports political organizations that import labor, it's supporting the decrease of pay as more labor enters the workforce.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

Idk about construction, I think there’s probably extra money in there from absurd federal grants, but I can say that most of the manufacturing sector can’t afford them. The margins are small enough that the unions’ existence will consume more resources than they could possibly procure for their members without putting a factory out of business.

Obvious exception for beneficiaries of subsidies for electric vehicles and solar panels

 

[Lei Wulong's Left Leg]

I work in a union position for a major railroad, and I can say with absolute certainty that unions are still incredibly useful in our field. The company is especially quick to find people in direct trouble for negligible offenses, or just because the manager didn't like you. The amount of times that a trainmaster or a general manager has gotten a worker in trouble at my terminal just because they didn't like the worker is staggering, and for the most part, our union reps put in the work to get them off the hook.
More importantly, our union members also ensure we get paid for actions the company takes to screw us over - On more than one occasion in recent memory, crew have been given their government 48-hour rest period away from their home terminal in shitty little bunkhouses in the middle of nowhere as a means of punishing us for not taking new collective agreement deals that would screw us out of our rest and good wages, and the union has ensured we actually got paid for our trouble.
It's not a perfect situation, but there are still some jobs where unions benefit the worker.

 

[No. 7 cat]

Depends on the Union I suppose. For lower paid workers, Unions can be parasitic activists on six figure salaries living off the lowest paid who pay not really affordable Union dues. I've heard of effective ones, but more often than not they seem to be parastatal politicians and cronies with vast salaries and a 'Man Of The People' act.

 

[Fathomless Eminence]

In theory there's nothing inherently wrong with them but in reality they just become another tentacle of the social democratic elites. You know, the typical union leader tasked with defending worker rights only to parrot the government's talking points about how globohomo and immigration are actually great

At best it will be only petty internal politics. At worst it will actually work against either the company or the workers to support political goals.

Unions as they grow and expand become bureaucratized, and because ordinary members will necessarily have other obligations such as work, family, etc, the organization naturally develops around members who are able to spend all their time on the leadership roles and political game, and when you have formal control over the mechanisms of the organization, you again centralize power.

Unions have outlived their purpose, and only cause problems in modern times.

/thread tbh. The union I was involved in had a president who actually cared about supporting the members, but he was relentlessly harassed both by individuals and through constant no confidence votes because he wanted to fulfill his fucking mandate instead of pushing faggot buttsex & BUH-LACK peepo' shit. They literally just exist so talentless niggerfaggots can get a fatter paycheck without improving their skillset.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Pretty gay. Brother is in an electrical union. Union says to vote Biden. He proceeds to vote for Biden.

"Oh man, the union says hey for this and that, he's gonna be great to vote for".

Absolute faggotry.

 

[Ravier Xavenblood]

Necessary but they need to stay the fuck out of culture war shit. People love to forget that everything we take for granted that's slowly being taken away by Reagan's legacy (benefits, limits to how many hours you can work, paid time off) was paid for in blood. I don't know about you, but I don't want to return to an age where corpos hire mercenaries to shoot at us because we want weekends off.

 

[WickyWickyWoW]

My father was a union man, he was born into poverty in a city that was in severe decay at the time, he lucked out and got a union factory job and from there was able to escape the shit ass neighborhood he was born into and make a good life for himself and his family with that job. It should be noted there was a strong mob presence in the union at the time and the union bosses got implicated in corruption from time to time. When I was a child I would periodically hear my dad rant about the bitch running into the union into the ground, at this point the mob had been purged from the union for years at this point.

Despite what I said that union protected job gave my father and by extension me an excellent economic situation, had it not been for the union my father easily may have been laid off years ago or suffered a horrible pay cut. The point of this is even a corrupt or incompetent union benefitted it's members in my experience (your milage may vary)

People say the unions are just whores to the democratic party which is true, and in decades long past wasn't a problem because the Democrats would make an effort to actually help blue collar before the new left and neo-liberalism infested the parties ideals which got us the abomination we have today.

The neoconservative Republicans are clear cut union busters who proceeded to roll back any worker protections wherever possible. But a universal trait of uniparty politics of the last few generations has been free trade to outsource industry, mass migration to serve as scabs and wage suppression. I can understand why a lot of blue collar guys (union and non union) would flock to the Republican party 2016 and onward but the section of that which would actually benefit blue collar is minuscule and is regularly suppressed by the neoconservative mainstream. The truth is any pro labour attitudes in politics have melted away decades ago. We were left behind and were left to rot. The modern "left" is more concerned with darkies, the right is still neoconservative for the most part, and the unions have become weak and toothless to the point it feels like the mob ran it better than the retards they have now (it should be noted my dad almost got affirmative actioned out at the aforementioned union job, some strings had to be pulled). We have been reduced to niggercattle.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

It might be worth to bring back this thread from the dead with that article.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/01/are_unions_for_workers_or_just_for_elites.html

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/tRA7R

January 15, 2025

Are unions for workers or just for elites?​

By Rich Tucker


All eras come to an end. “The Simpsons” dominated Sunday night television for decades, for example. Now, the show is moving to Wednesday, and it may soon be off the air.

In one ancient episode of that show, a young worker from the early 20th century predicts the future of labor. “One day, we’ll form a union and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve. Then we’ll go too far and get corrupt and shiftless, and the Japanese will eat us alive!” If the episode were updated for our times, that worker could have kept going: “Then the American economy will rebound, and the Japanese will be eager to invest in our bright future, even as their rising sun sets!”
This cartoon episode overlaps with a cartoonish episode led by another man whose sun is setting: outgoing President Joe Biden.

On his way out the door, Biden quashed an offer by Nippon Steel (of Japan) to purchase U.S. Steel for almost $15 billion. Biden claimed he did so because he is in favor of organized labor. “I promised to be the most pro-union president in history,” he told the AFL-CIO.
But if Biden wants to help workers, he missed an opportunity. The Nippon deal would be good for unionized American workers.