US unions are usually per company and forces everyone working in a specific area in that company to join or quit, meaning that anyone performing a specific job function needs to join said union. This leads to the "You can't plug a computer into a socket if you aren't in the electrician union" problem, the reason they say that is they think the company could oust the union by hiring people to do that work without properly labeling them.
EU unions are bigger and more general but aren't allowed to force workers to join, ie EU is a "right to work" area. This avoids most of the problems with US style unions and also gives workers more political power since EU style unions are bigger and can therefore more easily influence national politics.
The general term for everyone having to join the union is "closed shop". It was apparently outlawed in the US in 1947: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop so I'm not clear how that's still happening.
There is no difference between between being forced to join and being forced to pay the same dues and follow same rules. That is why right-to-work laws is important, the law in 1947 did nothing to stop it.
Yeah, the union agreement gives the union money whether or not you're a member.
This was recently ruled illegal in the public sector (Janus v. AFSCME), because of first amendment concerns (the state is forcing you to pay money for union lobbying).
This hasn't resulted in a drop in membership, in no small part due to many unions adopting freakishly Byzantine opt-out measures, e.g. the ones where there's a certain window of 10 days a year that you can leave (computed relative to when you signed your union card, never advertised by the union — and if the employer even mentions these rights the union might attempt legal action under California law which forbids their employer from doing anything to "deter or discourage public employees from becoming or remaining members").
As French taxpayer I am forced to (indirectly) pay for all French political parties, including extreme right. This money gives political parties some freedom to act, to nourish the political debate... seen as a way to straighten the political debate and the democracy ; good for the general interest.
Still the number of members of a given political movement and the share of people voting for it is giving it the real power. And as someone only forced to give (indirectly) some money to a given movement is then entirely different than being force to join such a movement. And that is the same here for union.
Please note that as a worker, you are forced to "pay" for the stockholder. If you are not happy with it you can pick another oragnisation. Same goes for union, you are always free to join a union free company...
Interesting that it's so common in the US despite having been illegal for so long, whereas it hardly ever happens in the EU despite it having been legal until recently.
"Congratulations you're hired. We can either hire you with an official job title of an X at wage V or a Y and wage W, Y is a union position, here's the paperwork"
It's not a "closed shop" but in practice if you want to get paid at a level befitting the work you're doing it is. Since unions are
About that political power, in some European countries, and maybe most famously in Netherland, a lot of big labour-related economic decisions are made in a committee with representatives of the government, representatives of employer organisations, and representatives of the major unions. They discuss and agree on salary structures, pay increases, labour conditions, and I think they can even make suggestions for changes in the tax system. If all three agree that something is better for the country, the companies and the workers, then it's very likely to happen. Note that these agreements hold for everybody, and not just union members. So non-members do benefit from some things the union does.
But the important part is: they need to balance the needs of all three parties: the country, the companies, and the workers. It would be stupid to sacrifice one of these for the benefit of one of the other stakeholders, as that would ultimately hurt everybody.
Yeah, I think strong worker representation in governments is very important for a capitalist democracy to work well. USA doesn't have that for some reason, basically all their politicians comes from a 1% or at least 10% home. Could be due to these strange union practices they have.
Not even back then was this tied to being in an union in Poland, but to having right certification which anyone can get provided they document having passed training and exam.
And indeed, the force people to join bit was outlawed in EU in 2006, but it was never particularly popular outside UK anyway.
In my understanding unions that can "forces everyone working in a specific area in that company to join or quit" are exceptions not the rules in 2020 USA (and clearly not what the article was talking about).
Perhaps am I ill informed (never been in USA, and my friend living there are not in unions), could you give us some sources saying that what you say is the main form of union in USA today ?
Kickstarter is such a union. Many of the union members didn't want it. I'd bet even most of the software engineers didn't want it, but were forced to since they were bundled up with a lot of unrelated professions.
> In the end, employees voted 46-to-37 in favor of unionizing
> As of February 2020, the union was made up of 85 engineers, directors, analysts, designers, coordinators, and customer support specialists
The union "represented about 60 percent of the company’s 140 employees prior to the layoffs". From the article you mentioned.
If 40% of the workers are not part of the union, seems that you are free to be part or not of the union. And that the union makes sense to the worker, as more than half of the workforce choose to join.
The union doesn't include every employee group at kickstarter. For example no managers or supervisors are included. Also the fact that they have to even vote is evidence that they want to force people to join, or at least force them to pay union dues. Otherwise why not create a union without a vote instead?
So far I seen no indication (and you provided none) that people are forced to join the union, and seen indication that people can "freely" chose to join or not. And that most people "freely" chose to join the union - while some could be part of the union and chose not to be.
What is you point ?
Look, they voted about it meaning they forced people to pay dues. Paying dues is the same thing as joining. In Europe we don't do that, you just go to a site and say you want to join and then you are in a union and you don't pay to any union if you don't. no need to vote or talk to colleagues about anything, that is just stupid. I can join and leave a union whenever I want, if USA had such unions then they would already have huge union participation among software engineers and we wouldn't need these stupid discussions since you could join a union if you want and I could ignore it if I want, you don't have to convince your colleagues to join just because you want one.
"meaning they forced people to pay dues" ; there are nothing about this specific point in what I read.
Money helps, but union main strength comes from number of member and support. So paying for it or being member is in all case 2 very different things. And it seems workers are free to join or not, and most of them decided to join.
I don't know the situation of all European countries, but in France, unions gets some money from their member, but they also get some money from the state (ie taxppayers), and some elected union/worker representatives have some work time paid by the company to work on workers representation and union stuff
EU unions are bigger and more general but aren't allowed to force workers to join, ie EU is a "right to work" area. This avoids most of the problems with US style unions and also gives workers more political power since EU style unions are bigger and can therefore more easily influence national politics.