Why are so many Republicans and Neoliberals anti-union?

[Cherry Eyed Hamster]

I don’t understand where this vehement anti-union stance comes from in the right and neoliberal circles, considering unions are what brought an entire generation into the middle class. Is it a sentiment that became more popular during the Reagan years?

 

[Breadbassket]

To my understanding the reason Republicans are generally anti-union is because historically unions have sometimes aligned themselves with far-left types and also got involved with organized crime. Another reason is that unions tend to be on the opposite side of the proponents of pro-business policy and deregulation which traditionally are big allies of the GOP and typically provide a lot of donation money for political campaigns. As for Neoliberals, they are probably more anti-union due to the latter and not the former.

 

[Harvey Danger]

Because I've worked in places requiring union labor. Anyone would be against them after that.

Spoiler: politics

If you mean the US political sides, the GOP adopted the pro-business, pro-creative destruction, fast moving economic theories of the latter 20th century. Unions move too slow and don't innovate fast enough, and threaten their business supporters. Neo-liberals liked unions when they were a source of collective voting power, but once the actual union members started voting against their social and tax-heavy agendas, they fell out of favor.

Now Republicans are the populists under Trump, and neo-liberals are the party of Big Tech, rich business owning donors. Neither needs the unions as institutions, they're splitting up what remains of their voting bloc along narrower interests. There's also the problem that the most powerful unions tend to be of government or school workers, things which never should have been created and objectively make those areas worse.

Spoiler: muh middle class

As for your other assertion, nobody believes unions created the surge in the middle class. That was a factor of post-WW2 prosperity, rapid technological innovation, urbanization/sub-urbanization, and generally available wealth. US unions were around for 50-60 years without seeing that surge; It happened despite the unions, not because of them.

They did get the early 20th century labor laws going, which relieved the exploitation of the working class. But unions are inherently restrictive institutions; they can't grow a middle class, only centralize wealth long enough for its members to attain it. You probably heard some version of "the middle class was strong when the unions were strong", which ignores a lot of time when unions were strong yet the middle class was being weakened.

If you want a strong middle class today, the quickest way to get back there is affordable housing and deporting all illegal immigrants plus work visa holders. Wages will shoot up and affordability will return without anybody organizing a thing.

Whatever good they did in the past, modern unions suck. Anyone today who wants more unions or more labor organizing is completely out of touch. They want the perceived benefits of the mythic past unions, without realizing unions are actually a bad way to get it.

 

[Magicicada_septendecula]

Some of them are genuine psychopaths only concerned about having the most docile, least demanding workforce they can squeeze the most out of. That said, there are good reasons to be against unions, even from the perspective of the worker. Collective bargaining, without some union that you pay dues to that makes some guy other than your boss filthy rich, is possible. Unions also have connections to unsavory characters like the mafia and actual communists, and people have ended up dead for crossing them. Even when they give campaign funds to your average milquetoast centrist, your dues support things that will erode your rights and wages faster than the union itself disappearing, because union leaders still support Democrats who have gone all in on cheap third world labor.

Unions also kind of screwed themselves when they got extremely lazy in the mid-70s through the 80s. Some of my family comes from a former union, now rust belt town with a lot of factories making parts for all of the major American auto makers. They often bragged about how they would strategically place a bolt or something in two sheets of metal that were to be welded together in such a way that it would become dislodged at some point after the buyer drove off the lot and there would be an inexplicable rattle for the life of the car. There were other (mostly) non-dangerous acts of sabotage, but that's the one I remember most. They did it because they thought it was funny. You never bought an American car built on a Friday because they were getting drunk by lunch. You never bought an American car built on a Monday because they were hung over. They couldn't be fired when caught. When my parents had their first kid in the early 1980s. my dad bought a Honda because with all the other things 80s parents had to worry about like daycare centers run by satanic pedophiles, they wanted to make sure there was one less way for the kids to die.

 

[Male Idiot]

Unions had a lot of commies and maffia members who would firebomb the competitor's shop. It is left over resentment.

 

[Named User]

The old-fashioned American Republicans, like Ann Coulter, would say that they are specifically against public-sector labor unions because when government employees organize, they are essentially organizing to get more money out of the taxpayer.

The need for a union comes down to this question: Do you have a boss who wants you to work harder for less money? In the private sector, the answer is yes. In the public sector, the answer is a big, fat NO.

Government unions have nothing in common with private sector unions because they don't have hostile management on the other side of the bargaining table. To the contrary, the "bosses" of government employees are co-conspirators with them in bilking the taxpayers.

Source

On the other hand, neoliberals are considered right-wing because they are anti-socialism and Marxism. Collective bargaining denounces the individual power a man has to change one’s circumstances, being made in the image and likeness of the Creator. Unions, on the other hand, assume that the employer/employee dichotomy is a true power dynamic of Reality — one’s own entrepreneurship not being an option.

 

[mrt6732]

Even with government employees union membership it's probably at 10 percent total. The heyday of organized labor was 30 percent in the early 70's. People who despise unions have nothing to worry about, and I agree organized labor has needed an overhaul for sometime. Illegal and legal immigration being a constant flow will keep things in the current state of decline.

 

[One Winged Pear Farmer]

Because people in power don’t like it when regular people start organizing. They can’t keep the wages stagnant for decades at a time if people start forming unions

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

I like the concept of unions.

I do not like what many of the largest, most powerful unions have become: bloated, political bureaucracies.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

 

[Meat Target]

Because I've worked in places requiring union labor. Anyone would be against them after that.

I babysat Teamsters in another lifetime. The lazy, surly union stereotype absolutely real.

Whatever good they did in the past, modern unions suck. Anyone today who wants more unions or more labor organizing is completely out of touch. They want the perceived benefits of the mythic past unions, without realizing unions are actually a bad way to get it.

They served their purpose by getting safer working conditions and labor laws. Now, the unions exist to serve the union bigwigs and protect the incompetent. Their leaders are leftist Wayne LaPierres.

Saw one guy just straight-up go AWOL for a week or two; the union prevented him from being fired.

Now you have Starbucks baristas and bloggernalists unionizing, as if there is any comparison to those jobs with the risk of being maimed, crushed, or electrocuted.

 

[Vindeo]

1. Unions traditionally align themselves with left wing types
2. they can become corrupt
3. they become so big they eventually become political bodies.

just google the term "general strike" the concept is destroying a country's economy for a political goal.

i am a Union man myself, but i sure as shit dont like that unions call for biden to stop giving aid to israel. how about you send someone down here to negotiate a better contract for us so we dont have to strike. i dont give a fuck about israel or Palestine.

faggots.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

The problem with Unions is much like the problem with every human institution. Shit floats to the top.

 

[PaleTay]

Because the union won't protect you if you genuinely need it.

 

[OutInTheRain]

Unions have outlived their usefulness. The good ones are very few and far between, and the bad ones are everywhere. They have grown massively corrupt, and do very little for their members except eat wages.

A union is a company that you purchase labour from. If they started to act like that, then maybe they would see a revival. Instead it's mostly smooth brains trying to unionize a Starbucks.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Because the union won't protect you if you genuinely need it.

This. They'll never protect "the little guy" like they claim, they'll just benefit the top. They'll cry about the company about paying them better, but then when a new pay structure at the bottom people end get paid sub-minimum wages.

In the end, you're just getting TWO bosses screwing you over, not just one.

 

[Str8Bustah]

Because the union won't protect you if you genuinely need it.

 

[Staticness]

Unions are pointless with infinite cheap labor flooding in from the rest of the world. They drive wages down and prices up because Uncle Sam will pay for their living expenses. So long as illegals are available to do work on the sly, wages will be depressed forever.

 

[Suel Forrester]

because unions are slavery propped up by corporations

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Because none of these people have actually worked in the blue collar field unions are 100% a good thing when they are done correctly Denmark is a great example of how union should be done they're concerned with the wages of the members.
Capital and labor should work together to find a mutually beneficial agreement treating your employees like decent human beings is something you should strive for because then they would be incentivized to work harder for you.

 

[biglurker]

Besides what has already been mentioned, there are a ton of pointless unions in the united states which exist as nothing more than a parasite on the paycheck of the union members.
I have never seen a unionized grocery store work force strike, get better wages, or ague for any kind of better benefits for example. Generally speaking, any union outside of construction and sometimes warehouse work is one of these scam unions. Leftists fetishize them because they often work in sheltered industries where they don't exist. Right-wingers nowadays are often working class that experienced their wages getting docked for literally nothing in return.