When I talk to people they seem most upset that unions don't work for them. They feel a part of something so large that it doesn't care about them.
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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People aren’t opposed to unions because they think unions aren’t powerful, they’re opposed to unions because they’re powerful.
It is the rich and powerful who are opposed, the public is just afraid and brainwashed out of their own power.
That’s not true though. I’ve talked to plenty of working class people who hate unions and hate dealing with union workers due to perceived laziness, bad work ethic, and the inability to fire bad workers.
Also plenty of unions are full of rich and powerful people: pilots unions, doctors unions, actors unions, sports athletes unions.
i dont think police unions count, they are gang/mafia that can browbeat a city to giving what it wants(they can refuse to actual do anything about specific crimes if they so chose), its fully supported by the gop and dnc, because they can use to keep the general population at arms length. it was discussed many times on subs, how they arnt like voted on or have grassroots upbringing.
This can be countered by having non local cops in the mix, having frequent transfers of cops.
Yes these can be seen as union busting.
Unions are good and they work. But just as any good things in excess it becomes poison.
Wow. That's insane.
When workers unions are in arms, they are very effective too
The countries I know of where employers have decent vacation etc and don't hate the employers, all have strong unions.
If unions doesn't work, then maybe you are doing it wrong.
AFAICT not really true for Austria (where I live), we get 5 weeks of vacation, yet I don't hear very much about unions and am not myself a member of one
Honestly Austria is probably one of the exceptions to the rule. You've got a weird history with labor and economic systems post WW2 and even before that causes you guys to just kinda be doing your own thing. Hell I'm pretty sure Austria is the only occupied territories the Soviets just kinda allowed to leave their bloc.
These things are subject to cycles. Things are shit, people unionize, things become a bit less shitty, people stop unionizing, things start getting shitty again, rinse and repeat. Most of Europe is ending the part of the cycle where people thought they didn't a union anymore.
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HMMMM, I wonder why police unions were allowed to exist, but all the others were decimated and neutered?
interesting. In some place and time, they won't. And cops were not allow to vote too.
What other unions protect their members from murder charges?
People parroting this are falling for the capitalist propaganda. Unions work so well that the ruling class has employed a mass campaign against unions. That isn't weakness.
We the working class keep our society running, we can shut our society down, and this scares the shit out of the ruling classes who while wealthy in assets, are weak in number.
The only issue with Unions is a corporate system that has spent decades on a campaign of misinformation and vilification.
Never forget that its unions that gave you a five day work week, 8 hour days, and child labour laws.
Nothing is given by a corporation out of the kindness of their heart. And nothing makes them more gleeful than listening to people repeat their anti-union screed.
Unions aren't possible at my company.
1/3 speaks Spanish, 1/3 speaks some African dialect only they understand, and the other 1/3 speak english, and the entire culture aims eachother's hate at eachother.
This is America.
Ashley Furniture btw. Full on bodyslam under the bus.
This is how immigration is used to divide the workers.
Wish you the best.
As for Ashley furniture.... garbage and overpriced furniture. Never again.
Aren't they the new wayfair?
Wayfair is based in my city and notorious for treating their employees like absolute crap and doing the 'up or out' business model that only rewards people who work 80hour weeks
Unions work depending on how 'in it together' you feel.
If you resent the people standing around doing nothing they start to fail. If you resent the people who do worse work than you for the same pay they start to fail. note that on an assembly line the above isn't possible in the first place - which is why they work great there. (Bus drivers and police are also not really measureable like that)
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In a capitalist world unions will always exist because there will never be any laws to protect the producer of capital (the worker). Imagine how much union dues could go back into the worker's pocket if they were protected by their government?
In a capitalist world unions will always exist because there will never be any laws to protect the producer of capital
so we're living in the real world here
Especially the police unions in Massachusetts, where they have a stranglehold on public works. Need to dig up a sidewalk to repair a water main? That’ll require a 2 person police detail for a minimum of 6 hours, and it’s all overtime pay.
Bet you can’t find civilian flagged anywhere in the state.
This is true, though police unions typically leverage the "fuck you all" nature of being a union, that Dems won't touch, and being police, that the GOP won't touch. So no one stops policies that give wacky amounts of leave.
police
they are used to enforce the status quo of both parties.
In some cities, typically heavily Democrat ones like Chicago and LA, they're the monopoly holders, and push their own politics up and force the City Council to take it or accept the political costs of fucking with a union or of fucking with the perception of security and crime. Police unions flip everything you think you know about unions on its head. Unlike normal worker unions, the city can't close up shop and move if the labor costs get too high. And yet in many large cities police are incredibly ineffectual at everything short of harassing the general public over smalltime BS because it's easy for them.
Ironically, another Chicago union, the Teacher's Union, treats themselves with the same level of monopolistic power occasionally, and then asks for a raise and gets smacked down quickly because no one actually cares about schools or learning. Even though most residents support the Teacher's Union, they are nothing close to holding the same power as the Police Union.
That should be the attitude of all unions
police unions arent organized against an abusive management though they're organized against the public they supposedly serve and protect, which they also have the monopoly of violence over.
if you really wanted to reign in police unions...just make em pay all their abuse of force lawsuits out of their pensions. they'd create a national database tracking/banning cereal shitbags real quick
My argument is unions are not the monster they are made out to be. They can be good.
well that's obvious to anyone whose not been indoctrinated from birth by US propaganda.
police unions though are not unions in the traditional sense, they're closer to protection rackets.
Honestly, not really. Someone that worked with Chicago PD was telling me that a lot of the more senior officers (this was also 10 years ago) leverage accruing enough leave to cover half the year. So they collect a salary 6 months of the year, and a lot end up getting second jobs because they want more money. These are taxpayer-funded services, so I'd rather not give ample avenues to abuse the system because politicians have no spine.
This breaks the morale but why to sacrifice collective good because a few game the good to get better.
Contracts can be drawn to have consequences for gaming the system.
What commander wants to go against senior guys? What Union wants to throw members under the bus?
And now it means it's time to hire more officers! /s
That's the problem with making anyone or any group untouchable, is that you lose the ability to weed out corruption, or even make small changes that affect a few bad actors because the group sees any action against one as an action against all. Which is the point of unions in the first place.
Unions are double-edged swords, and when set in a monopolistic situation like this, you can't just close the Police Department like you can a coal mine in WV if costs get too high. In Chicago the Police Union IS the monopoly holder - and the same happens in many other cities, like LA. Police reforms become a suicide pact. It's one of a few situations where everything is flipped from the usual company owner vs. union scenario, and then instantly becomes a national-level "Ah, but we're a UNION!" when bothered in the slightest.
And they only got there by striking and work actions because the nature of their positions gave them the leverage needed to be effective. The NYPD can't ship the factory to another country or bring in immigrant labour to do policing. If they aren't policing, property rights won't be enforced for businesses. Leverage. The police are the mechanism that break labour strikes and protests on behalf of capital. There is no such mechanism to break a police strike or protest, except the feds or the military which won't be used.
Most labour jobs do not have this kind of leverage because technology shrank the world and business has negotiated trade deal that give them the freedom to undermine worker leverage. Workers have no leverage to force capitulation. Labour has long lost any control they had to influence business practices and fight for themselves. Labour actions would have to be across the entire company to effectively force capitulation and that is next to impossible because labour ain't a community anymore thanks to anti-commie fear mongering. Every union is isolated, every location is separated, every company the corporate owns is independent from each other. Labour is too divided to stand united and united is the only way it effectively works. A group can't fight individual power with individual power, it must fight with collective power and for that, it needs to be united first.
BINGO!
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